Today we’d like to introduce you to Ally McElroy
Hi Ally, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My husband, Andrew, & I are both Tennessee natives (Andrew’s from Johnson City, I’m from Knoxville) and we’re both graduates of ETSU. After moving away after college, we realized that East Tennessee was calling us back the whole time. From building a custom camper van for traveling across the country with our dogs after COVID to working in Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC. We kept finding ourselves back in Johnson City wanting to plant some roots.
I was a school teacher and taught through the pandemic but got very burnt out so I resigned and started traveling in our van. While we were traveling, I was able to pursue my yoga teaching certification and started Ally Lauren Yoga to teach yoga online no matter where we found ourselves in the country. I taught everywhere from truck stops to the Grand Canyon and created a really cool community in my classes that served people all around the world.
I had no intention of starting a studio until I visited a yoga studio in Ojai, California called Light and Space. This studio was in a remodeled gas station and from the moment I stepped out of class, I knew I wanted to create a yoga studio in an historical building somewhere.
Andrew and I started dreaming and came up with Soluna Sage Wellness and Yoga Studio a unique Online and In-Person model that would bring local yoga offerings no matter where you are practicing in the world. One lesson we learned during COVID is no matter where you live for work or travel, so many people yearn for the small hometown vibe that living in a city like Johnson City can provide.
In early 2024, we launched the online studio at solunasage.com and had our eyes on several buildings in Downtown Johnson City. As we waited patiently for a historical building to open up, we started sharing our vision for an inclusive community-focused yoga studio that brings people to downtown Johnson City and supports local small businesses across East Tennessee and Appalachia.
In February, our opportunity came when a 105 year old building at 221 Cherry Street opened up. Being the perfect location to connect the Downtown community with a newly revitalized historical area, we jumped at the opportunity. We’re also right across from the Johnson City Visitor Center which was perfect since we have a worldwide audience that wants to travel to the studio to join our in-person classes and see all the amazing things East Tennessee has to offer.
We love showing off the beauty of East Tennessee and wellness and yoga practices to locals, visitors, and our online community. Soluna Sage Wellness and Yoga Studio is open online at www.solunasage.com and in-person at 221 Cherry Street, Johnson City, TN 37604.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Yes and no! A lot of things fell in place rather quickly but we definitely had our challenges along the way! One of our biggest challenges we had to overcome was the quick turn around time from the moment we got the keys to our building to our opening date. We had 4 weeks to turn a hundred year old bakery – whose most recent tenant was a farm store – into a yoga studio and get everything ready by the time our opening week came around. We did everything from minor cosmetic building improvements to planting wildflowers in our garden boxes for curb appeal to hiring our team of teachers and so much cleaning. It was a very stressful 4 weeks but our grand opening weekend celebration felt so rewarding since we had a huge turn out and community support!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Soluna Sage Wellness & Yoga Studio?
Soluna Sage offers inclusive Yoga and Wellness classes on-demand, livestream, and in-person! You can also enjoy our local makers and artists and limited edition classes monthly. We offer a variety of class styles like yoga sculpt, vinyasa, hatha, slow flow, yin, prenatal, chair yoga, yoga for beginners and qigong. Whether you’re looking to start a new fitness ritual, want to feel better in your body, or release your stress, we have a class for you.
In my experience, most people assume they have to look a certain way or be flexible in order to practice yoga but that’s not the case at Soluna Sage. Our teachers are excellent about meeting you exactly where you are and making you feel comfortable whether you’re practicing with us in our beautiful studio or practicing at home.
In addition to group classes, we also offer off-site classes for businesses, organizations, and private groups. One of our most recent exciting offerings is our Corporate Benefits Program! We saw how companies were wanting to provide health and wellness benefits for their staff so we created a program that allows businesses and organizations to purchase unlimited access to our on-demand and livestream classes for their employees as an extra benefit!
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
We love community support! If you’d like to support us here are a couple of ways to do so:
Try a class! Whether you want to practice with us online or in-person, we’d love to invite you to join us for a class at Soluna Sage. If you need help finding the right class for you, send us a DM on Instagram and we’ll help you out! Also, tell your friends about Soluna Sage! Spreading the word about what we’re doing and our studio is such an easy and free way to support our studio.
Pricing:
- For locals, we recommend the unlimited membership — you can take as many classes as you’d like (on-demand, livestream, & in-person) as often as you’d like for $100/month!
- For non-locals, we recommend the online studio membership! With this membership you can take as many on-demand and livestream classes as often as you’d like for $50/month!
- We also have a single class pass, 5-class pass, and 10-class pass but all of our classes break down to being $20 or less!
- If you’d like to know about our Corporate Benefits Program, please inquire at studio@solunasage.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.solunasage.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solunasagestudio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/solunasagestudio
