WESTFORD — What began as outdoor yoga classes during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic has grown into a multi-location community.
VIBE Hot Yoga & Pilates opened in July 2020, at a time when starting any in-person business came with tackling the challenges of social distancing. However, owner Elisa Simeone, a longtime yogi and healthcare worker at the time, said she was looking for a way to disconnect from the outside world and “find movement in a time when people seemed stuck.”
“I was seeking out a space or a place to disconnect from outside life, being a healthcare worker myself in the heart of the pandemic,” Simeone said, “So, I was trying to find a place where I could come and disconnect from the world and find breath and movement and be out of my own headspace.”
Simeone, who has practiced yoga for 23 years, said she found limited options for yoga in the Chelmsford and Westford communities at the time. That is when she decided to offer her own classes.
Simeone began teaching classes outside at Friendship Park from May to June in 2020. As she continued through the spring months, she noticed that attendance quickly grew. What started as 10 people turned into 50. Seeing that there was a demand, she started thinking about getting her own studio.
“I decided I needed to find a space to bring this inside because there definitely was a need,” Simeone said, “A local studio was looking to sell, and she reached out to me.”
Simeone bought the space and adapted it to meet COVID-19 safety regulations, and even in the heart of the pandemic, her community flourished.
“I stuck to what I believed in, and we flourished, we made it through the pandemic as a community, we built a solid community here during the pandemic,” Simeone said, “We brought people together, it was actually really amazing to see it come together.”
Today, VIBE offers over 50 classes a week across the two locations in Chelmsford and Westford. They offer sessions in hot yoga, pilates, strength training, lagree and restorative yoga.
Simeone considers her space a sanctuary. She said the hot aspect of the classes brings a level of intensity and focus, but above everything else, the studio is a place where people can come together and build relationships.
“This is the wonderful thing about the studio, it’s like coffee hour, everybody is talking in the lobby,” VIBE Studio Manager and instructor Melissa Griffin said, “There’s a lot of member talk going on.”
Simeone said that they are not building their community on yoga, but rather on community.
“I can’t say enough about our community, it is just something I have never seen in my life, the way these people build relationships as they start as complete strangers and I’m just so proud of them, I am so proud of the community,” Simeone said.
Griffin agreed, saying that she enjoys making connections but also watching the members find those connections themselves.
“It’s the friendships, whether it’s my friendships that I build or seeing other people’s friendships build is like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my life,” Griffin said.
Simeone said the most fulfilling part of running the studio has been seeing the personal growth of its members.
“The members,” Simeone said, “The best part is truly the stories and the feedback we get from our members and our community, and just watching it all take place and the success stories,” Simeone said, “It’s really coming in and just seeing the experience that everyone is happy and the environment where shaping just watching it all in full the most beautiful thing I have ever been a part of in my life.”
