For owner and founder of Feel Better Yoga Shelley Roupas-Cantrell, the practice of yoga can be a life changing experience. When Roupas-Cantrell was in the midst of her divorce she said knew she needed to do something to make herself happy — yoga did exactly this. The hot yoga studio located on St. Mark’s Church Road was voted “Best Yoga Studio” by the Elon community.
“In yoga, I found that I could take a breath and that I was going to be okay,” Roupas-Cantrell said. “I discovered that if I could be okay then everything else was going to be okay, but it all began with me.”
The Burlington location was the first studio Roupas-Cantrell opened over the past four years. Today, there are two additional studios in High Point and Chapel Hill.
“Our mission is to share yoga with busy college students who need a chance to breathe,” Roupas-Cantrell said.
When you enter the studio you may notice that there aren't bright lights or mirrors that surround you. Roupas-Cantrell feels that watching yourself practice and the habit of staring at yourself in the mirror takes away from your experience on the inside. For her, yoga is not about what you look like on the outside, but rather your growth on the inside.
The FBY teacher team consists of 22 members who travel throughout all three locations. Classes are filled with young adults to people in their late 70s.
Sophomore Madi Keller started practicing at FBY in the summer of 2021 and said she continues to go because of the mindfulness shared by the instructors, and of course, the workouts.
“FBY makes me feel like the best version of myself,” Keller said. “The wise words of the instructor with the mix of getting to sweat all the stress of the day away has positively changed my attitude this semester.”