Sarah Fishman is bringing her yoga journey, small business and Jewish life full circle.
The longtime instructor has owned the yoga studio Happy Yogi Cooperative, located on the second floor of Tikvat Israel Congregation, since fall 2022, and has been teaching yoga since 2007.
She and her family became members of present-day Tikvat Israel when Fishman was a young child. The Rockville synagogue is where she attended preschool and had her bat mitzvah — and where she now sends her daughter to Sunday school.
If that wasn’t enough familial connection, Fishman’s mother was the president of Tikvat Israel in the late 1990s when the new synagogue expanded to house a larger early childhood center, including the Hebrew Day Institute, where Fishman attended school.
“Basically my mom was in charge of the renovation project that added this education wing to host my alma mater and now I own a yoga studio in these rooms,” Fishman said from the room she imagines is the former principal’s office.
The Wheaton mom of two discussed her discovery of yoga in college, the origins of her Rockville yoga studio and her goals as a business owner and parent.
When did you realize you wanted to do yoga full time?
My first exposure to yoga was when I was a freshman in college studying musical theater. What we all observed in our freshman class was how it bonded us. We did it three mornings a week for half an hour. Some of the professors even commented, “You’re in a competitive field; why are you all so nice to each other?” We credited yoga for bringing us together and bonding us. I always had this association of [yoga as] this heartfelt thing. Also as a dancer, I was like, “We’re going to do yoga; so easy. I’m so flexible; this is going to be nothing.” And even in that half-hour practice as a young 17- or 18-year-old, I was immediately humbled by the challenge of it because it was asking me to align my body in different positions than I did as a dancer [and] use muscles I had only really ever stretched as a dancer. Physically and emotionally and spiritually, even at that age, I recognized this is pretty special.
Post-college and living in Florida, I was dancing with a couple dance companies and had an on-and-off knee injury, so one of the dancers in the company recommended I try a yoga class. And once again, not only was it physically healing and helping my knees, but in my mid-20s, having the emotional journey that we have at that age, [yoga] brought out so much more than just physical alignment. I was like, “OK, I need to do more of this.” I moved back to the [Montgomery County] area. [In] 2006, I started working at a yoga studio as [the] front desk [receptionist]. I was practicing three, four times a week and really falling in love with it. I was involved in a couple of different studios and both of the owners were like, “Sarah, we need to get you on the sub roster. When are you going to start teaching?” My employers urged me to get trained: “You’re going to be an amazing teacher.” I don’t know if they saw something in me or just, as luck would have it, it worked out really well. I taught my very first yoga class in August of 2007.
How did you settle on Tikvat Israel as the location for your yoga studio?
When I first took over, [Happy Yogi Cooperative] didn’t have a home anymore. I was looking for some physical, in-person venues to offer some classes. If there was going to be any growth for the studio, we needed to have some in-person programming. We rented space at our local pool. We rented space at a Unitarian congregation. We are still renting space at the fire station in Wheaton. Rabbi [Marc] Israel goes to the pool at Manor Woods Swim Club and he signed up for the outdoor yoga class that I taught. After Rabbi Israel took my class at the pool, he helped grease the wheels for me and make sure I could get [studio space at Tikvat Israel].
What are some of your upcoming goals?
As with probably all small business owners who are parents, I am constantly seeking that elusive work/life balance. I’m hopeful that I can take a step back and still be very involved in the direction and the mission of the [yoga] studio but hopefully work a little less.
I feel when you inherit a business, it’s got its own culture, it’s got its own history. I’m the fifth owner, so each owner has put a piece of themselves into it and contributed to [it]. I adore my community. They’re so, so welcoming and warm. The atmosphere is always so joyful and we’re all there to heal. It’s a very therapeutic-minded community, so I definitely have a better sense of my vision moving forward for the community, which is nice. A lot of people [who] decide to open a yoga studio, there was a reason they want[ed] to. I just wanted to keep on teaching; I didn’t want to herd cats.
In the past six months or so, I’ve felt that I’m really embracing it and stepping into this role as a leader that I’ve been a little cautious about before. I’ve been teaching yoga for 18 years. I’ve helped lead teacher trainings. I finally feel like I know what I’m doing and can take a step back, and, first of all, spend a little more time with my kids while they’re still young, but also have the bigger picture, visionary type of role that I should have, now that things are more stable from a business end.
