There are a wide variety of reasons to step into practicing yoga. Perhaps you need a way to destress, grow your spirituality, discover a new cardiovascular exercise or find a gentle way to increase your body’s flexibility and strength. Hot or Not Yoga and Massage Studio, located in the Hidenwood Shopping Center, has been helping clients meet their health and fitness goals since it opened in 2007. After recently celebrating its 12th year of serving the community, the studio is excited to continue implementing new and unique ways to help others develop a passion for the practice.
Edie Fischer, the studio’s president and owner, fell in love with hot yoga when she was on a business trip in San Francisco. Fischer quickly cultivated a passion for the practice and sought out her teaching license from Jimmy Barkan’s Yoga, a teacher-training program in Fort Lauderdale. After a few years of teaching, Fischer decided to blend her love of business with her zeal for hot yoga, opening Hot or Not Yoga and Massage Studio.
With 34 different classes offered throughout the week, the studio provides a body and mind experience for its clients. All classes introduce variations in moves so that beginners and experts alike can feel comfortable exercising and stretching together.
“While we offer a variety of services, hot yoga is truly the heartbeat of this studio,” Fischer says. Hot yoga has a variety of health benefits, which include establishing a balance among one’s physical, mental and spiritual health. While hot yoga is the most frequently offered class at the studio, other services include private massage sessions and gentle yoga classes in the studio’s new Himalayan salt room.
The Himalayan salt room is the latest addition to what the studio offers, and the rest of the team could not be more excited about it. “The healing we have seen from this room already is amazing,” Fischer says. Himalayan salt, partnered with halotherapy, allows for the assisted treatment of allergies, asthma, sleep apnea, acne, dermatitis and more. Inside the Himalayan salt room, Fischer offers gentle yoga and seated chair yoga classes so healing is accessible for all.
In addition to utilizing halotherapy, a therapy that disburses microparticles of salt into the air to encourage better breathing and healthy skin, the Himalayan salt room implements elements of color therapy. Colored lights from behind the salt-paneled walls promote changes in mood. With the next closest Himalayan salt room positioned in Williamsburg, using salt therapy in Newport News is unique to Hot or Not Yoga and Massage Studio.
While the studio focuses on serving the community through yoga, Fischer is hoping to use her platform to serve in different capacities throughout the region. The studio offers a variety of products for sale, including Fischer’s own handmade soothing salve. Proceeds from sales go directly to Fischer’s other passion, the L.A.F.F. Foundation, a llama and alpaca rescue nonprofit dedicated to ensuring the rehabilitation of these majestic animals. While Fischer gives back to animals in need, she also finds ways to donate to the homeless. All yoga mats that are accidentally abandoned by yogis remain in the lost and found area for a certain amount of time. If not claimed after a set amount of time, these mats are donated to homeless individuals in need.
When Fischer is not at the studio, she and her husband enjoy being with the llamas and alpacas at her Franklin farm.
TO THE POINT:
Hot or Not Yoga & Massage Studio
Address: 33 Hidenwood Shopping Center, Newport News, VA 23606
Contact: Edie Fischer, owner
Phone: 757-223-9642
Business: Yoga and massage
Website: hotyogamassage.com
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