Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Jane.
Hi Sara, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was fortunate to have an outdoor childhood that supported my natural athleticism. I played on sports teams year-round and earned a soccer scholarship to college, where I was a four-year starter on a young but growing team. By the time I graduated, I was burned out and had lost my passion for the sport.
After college, I spent time bouncing around the country, from the Hamptons to Alaska, and eventually landed on the Gulf Coast, working the night shift at a hospital. I was in my early twenties, disconnected from my friends’ schedules and without a real sense of direction.
They say people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. The person who introduced me to yoga was a “reason” friend, and I’ll always be grateful to her. My first class was a Level 2 Jivamukti class, a style that combines intense physical practice with spiritual and ethical teachings. I had no idea what I was walking into, but by the end of class, during final relaxation, I knew I would be a yoga teacher one day. I felt a peace in my body I’d never experienced and a kind of mental quiet I didn’t know was possible. I wasn’t ready to teach yet, but I knew one day I would.
What followed was a tumultuous time. I lost several close friends in unrelated tragedies, including my childhood best friend, who was killed in action in Afghanistan. I ended a long-term relationship and, for the first time, found myself truly alone. Grief took over, and yoga became my lifeline.
Over the next several years, I changed jobs, moved states, and got married, but yoga stayed with me. It kept me anchored during a time of aimlessness and uncertainty. At one point, I joined a running club where people kept talking about how yoga might help their recovery. That was the moment I knew it was time. I started teaching yoga to the group, and the response was immediate and positive.
Not long after, I started graduate school and completed a certification to teach yoga. I was living in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and began teaching classes on Fort Bragg, as well as at local gyms and studios. At one point, I was teaching around 30 classes a week. By the time I moved to Tennessee, I was exhausted, not just physically, but mentally and creatively. I loved teaching, but it had started to feel like something I had to survive instead of something I got to share.
I knew I needed a reset, not just a new location. That’s why I spent the summer on a cross-country road trip and enrolled in a yoga teacher training at an ashram in Colorado, hoping to reconnect physically and spiritually before stepping into a new community. When I arrived in Clarksville, the yoga scene was just getting started. There was one studio in town, and I taught several classes a week there. Over time, the local community grew, more studios opened, and I began driving to Nashville regularly to teach in a space where I felt creatively energized. I’ve been teaching at NBalance Hot Yoga & Fitness in Clarksville since 2018. It’s a solid studio with a loyal community, and I’m glad to be part of it.
Over the years, I’ve completed thousands of hours of teacher training and have taught an estimated 11,000 classes and private sessions. I also spent a decade in the partner acrobatics community, with over 1,000 hours of acro-specific training. That experience expanded how I think about movement, communication, and what’s possible in the body. In addition to teaching classes, I’ve helped train new yoga teachers through two different certification programs.
By the time March 2020 rolled around, I had been teaching for over a decade and had no interest in offering Zoom yoga. I decided to take a year off, focus my own practice, and explore a new path. I ran social media for a small business, and the work naturally expanded to include content, design, and branding.
Today, I’m back to teaching yoga to group classes and private clients. I also offer Reiki sessions as part of my one-on-one work. I work in marketing for a local consulting firm, which balances the other side of my brain. Teaching keeps me centered. Creative work keeps me engaged. I’ll never take for granted what it means to help people feel a little more at home in their bodies.
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?
It hasn’t been a smooth road, but I wouldn’t want it to be. Most of the big transitions in my life didn’t come from a five-year plan; they came from loss, burnout, or moments where I realized I was no longer willing to keep doing something that wasn’t working. That kind of shift is never simple, even when you know it’s time.
One of the harder lessons has been learning how to step away from things I’m good at, even things I enjoy, when they’re no longer aligned. There was a brief time where I worked as a real estate agent. The profession didn’t fit my values or lifestyle, and in hindsight I stayed longer than I should have, but it clarified what I didn’t want, which was a valuable lesson to learn. I’ve also left jobs, teaching positions, and communities that were stable but stagnant. I’ve had to rebuild after deep personal losses, including the death of my best friend. I was also a bystander during a public shooting, an experience that made my life fall apart and left me shaken for months. In both cases, yoga and meditation were the tools that helped me process the shock and fear, and stay grounded when my mind wanted to spiral. There were times I felt completely lost. Yoga helped, but so did learning how to sit with discomfort and not rush to fix everything all at once.
I’ve also had to learn how to balance what I love with what I can realistically sustain. Teaching 30+ classes a week wore me down. Working in wellness can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also be physically and emotionally draining if you don’t have clear boundaries. I’ve had to learn to say no without guilt, to let my body and mind rest, and to trust that stepping back or changing direction doesn’t mean I’ve failed.
On a broader level, the yoga world itself has changed a lot. I have happy memories of traveling to yoga classes and workshops with my girlfriends, then hanging out after class talking about yoga, just for the fun of it. Social media changed the landscape. While it brought more visibility and accessibility, it also shifted the tone. Some of the magic got lost. It’s rare now to do something simply because it matters to you, without performance or promotion layered on top.
The road hasn’t been smooth, but it’s been real. These days, I trust not just where it’s taken me, but where it’s heading next. When things feel messy, I come back to one reminder: trust the process.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work has always been about helping people feel more connected: to their bodies, their ideas, their voice, or their message. Over the last 20 years, I’ve taught yoga to a wide range of people, including beginners, elite military, older adults, students, and those with physical challenges. I focus on making movement feel clear, accessible, and intelligent without watering it down. I care about precision, but I’m not rigid. My teaching style is grounded and practical.
I’m especially passionate about smart prop use. A prop is only a prop until it becomes a crutch, and that line is different for everyone. I use props to bring more awareness to a movement or shape, as tools for support and exploration. The point is to help people build trust in their own structure.
Partner acrobatics was a big part of my movement practice for years. It taught me about timing, trust, and communication, especially the nonverbal kind. It sharpened my eye for technique and changed how I think about both individual and partner-based movement.
Outside the studio, I work in brand messaging and content creation. I help people clarify what they do, who it’s for, and how to communicate it in a way that feels honest and clear. Whether I’m building a sequence or writing copy, I approach it the same way: keep it real, make it make sense, and don’t waste people’s time.
I also offer Reiki as part of my one-on-one work. It’s not always about movement. Sometimes people just need a quiet place to land, and Reiki gives them that space.
I’m proud to have built a career that’s creative and useful without losing myself in it. I’ve done this work through personal losses, multiple moves, and major shifts in both wellness and branding. What sets me apart is that I like refining things. Whether it’s a class, a piece of writing, or a business idea, I like working with raw material and seeing what it turns into.
Even after all this time, I still love teaching yoga.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
When I was shifting my career from full-time yoga into marketing, I joined Toastmasters to network. I didn’t have a corporate background, and I wanted to get more comfortable in professional settings where people communicated differently than in a yoga studio. What kept me there was the quality of people in the room. It’s one thing to make small talk at an event. It’s another to watch someone deliver a prepared speech, take feedback, and show up stronger the next week. Off-the-cuff speaking shows you how someone’s mind works in real time. That mix helped me sharpen how I communicate and how I listen. I’ve made real connections in the process.
As for networking, I think curiosity gets you further than strategy. If I’m genuinely interested in what someone’s building or how they think, I’ll ask questions. I’m not trying to pitch anything. I just want to understand what they care about. People want to be heard, and that kind of conversation sticks with people more than a rehearsed elevator pitch ever will.
My advice: stay curious, be direct, and learn people’s names. Acknowledge everyone. Some of the most steady, helpful people aren’t front and center, but they’re usually the ones holding things together. Pay attention to who’s doing work behind the scenes. That’s where you’ll find the people worth knowing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.woodvaleyoga.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woodvale_yoga/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodvale
