Why I Finally Said Yes to a Second Studio
Rooted in over a decade of practice, Khrys Baltodano is the founder of Hola Yoga and a teacher devoted to the deeper, more enduring layers of yoga.
In this piece, she reflects on Nashville’s evolving wellness scene and the intentional choice to expand—offering a grounded perspective on growth, community, and staying true to the practice in a trend-driven industry.
Is it just me, or is Nashville bursting with new boutique fitness studios, luxury gyms, and sauna/cold plunge spaces? Don’t get me wrong, I love all things fitness and wellness. In my early days as a corporate professional, when I could barely afford rent, you can bet I was still spending an ungodly amount of money to cycle at Equinox and practice at the fancy yoga studio. What can I say, I love a bougie experience! I’m intrigued by many of these new spaces and there are a few I’m excited to check out. I understand that not everyone feels that way. Nashville is changing quickly, and I’m not immune to the complexity of that, but I was once a newcomer, too. So I generally lead with curiosity because I remember what it felt like to step into an industry and not feel welcomed.
All that said, I’m still a little surprised by how much the wellness and fitness landscape—like everything else in Nashville—is expanding, and curious how much of it the market can actually sustain. All these new gyms and studios, for all intents and purposes, are my peers. So… did I open a second location to keep up? To stay competitive? No, not really.
For many years, I firmly said “no” and “never” to a second location to anyone who asked. Why not? Because we have a good thing going in East! And if you know me, you know I never want to mess with a good thing. The team is truly dreamy. The students are delightful. We’ve worked really hard to build something that feels like a unicorn; something that not only offers a great service, but actually operates like a real, sustainable business. And that part? It’s not as simple as it sounds. I’ve heard too many stories of studio owners delaying payroll, asking teachers/staff to work for free, or doing generally shady things just to stay afloat. So the fact that we’re able to offer top-notch yoga and pay our bills is something I don’t take lightly. I’m really proud of what we’ve built. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been able to offer PTO, medical insurance, and most recently, parental leave to our full-time employees. That matters to me. And while I love what we’ve built, it’s also been a grind. I’m a mother of one (soon to be two), a wife, a yoga therapist with a private practice, and a studio teacher. It’s a full life. I lean on my own practices and support like meditation, therapy, and community, because the truth is, running a studio of this caliber is not as serene as it looks. And if I’m honest, I probably spend more time working than I’d like. So the idea of opening a second location, and everything that comes with it, was something I was initially pretty reluctant about. So then why do it?
One of my long-term goals with Hola (and there are many) is to create a workplace where yoga professionals can access the same benefits as any other professional. A living wage, benefits, PTO. Stability. And in order to do that we have to grow. More classes. More opportunities. More leadership. More full-time roles. But I was still unsure. While I was sitting with these doubts, I shared them with another small business owner. She told me: if you don’t grow, your people will eventually find a place that is growing.
And she was right. The talent at Hola is real. If you’ve been with us a while, then you know. Which meant growth wasn’t just about the business but it was also about creating space for the people in it to grow too. They want to be challenged and to build something meaningful for themselves here.
So now I found myself asking a bigger question: if we’re going to grow, what are we actually growing into?
There’s a version of wellness right now that I think a lot about which I’ve started calling “pop wellness.”
It’s aesthetic. It’s buzzy. It knows how to market itself. Its fitness served with a side of “community.” It’s nervous system regulation on demand! And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I’ve never wanted Hola to exist in that space. If anything, I want us to stand out within it.
Not by throwing around the word “community” as a tagline but by actually fostering it. And the truth is, that’s really hard to describe. Because it’s more than putting people in the same room doing the same activity. As someone who has felt like an outsider for much of my life, I don’t take community lightly. A true sense of belonging is something you feel and something that’s built over time.
While I, too, use the language of nervous system regulation (and believe it can be helpful) it’s not the foundation of what we’re doing at Hola. Because we are doing yoga and yoga, at its core, is a spiritual practice. Nervous system regulation is a modern, Western framework that helps us understand some of the effects of the practice, but it’s not the purpose of it. It’s not why yoga was created. What we’re practicing is older, deeper, and far more layered than any single outcome or benefit we can neatly define. In simplest of terms, there is no regulation or optimization. Its movement. Its breath. It’s the mind. And it’s you noticing those things. Sometimes you stop noticing. When you wander, come back. You start to notice again. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. It takes a quality of attention most of us aren’t used to giving ourselves. Most of the time it feels like nothing is happening. It’s called a practice for a reason. It requires time. And discipline. It will not appeal to you if what you seek is surface level transformation. The problem is when wellness starts to feel like another performance; another metric, another way to fix yourself. Yoga won’t necessarily solve anything. But it will bring into a closer relationship with yourself. And that is more liberating than anything.
That understanding shapes how Hola shows up. And not just in the practice, but in how we talk about it, how we share it, and how we build around it. As someone who isn’t particularly drawn to social media, I sometimes feel out of step with how wellness is marketed today. I’ve never felt called to center myself or my personal life as a way to sell yoga classes. That’s part of why you don’t see much of me on Hola’s page. One, it’s just not my thing. And two, it’s not what Hola is about. Hola isn’t about me. Its about you all. It’s about the yoga itself.
In a world where wellness messaging is becoming less about lasting, transformative care and more about quick fixes, hot takes, and everything somehow “regulating your nervous system,” I find myself asking: How do we stay relevant? Not by chasing trends. Not by getting louder. Not by trying to keep up. But by doing what we do best and doing it exceptionally well. With sophistication. With intention. With a true north star of bettering our communities, starting from the inside out. Some of my proudest accomplishments as a founder are things that never make it to social media. Because they’re not marketing strategies. They are deeply personal choices that I hope will shape culture over time. Ultimately, I’m just trying to build a studio where I personally want to practice in and work at.
Not because it’s trendy or because it isn’t. But because I don’t really know how else to do it. And that clarity is what made the decision to expand feel different.
This expansion has been one of the most intentional decisions of my life. Maybe because I am a parent now or because I’m no longer in my 20s, but I am unable to contribute my time or my energy to things that do not genuinely interest me. That does not somehow make a positive contribution to an already joyful existence. And so a second location also needed to be located in a neighborhood I want to put roots down in. Germantown has always been one of my favorite neighborhoods in Nashville—second only to East. I love that it’s walkable. I love the mix of historic and industrial. It reminds me of my city-living days in Boston. Rolf & Daughters has been a long-time favorite, and I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of money at Spread. And maybe most importantly, it’s a neighborhood that didn’t have a yoga studio like ours. Not one that offers the kind of variety we do, in a space that feels both elevated and grounded at the same time. But when the opportunity came along, it still wasn’t a quick “yes.” It was a slow one. It took nearly ten months of conversations with my strategist, my husband, the landlord, a lawyer, my realtor, and my Hola team, to make sure it was a financially and emotionally sound decision. To make sure it aligned with our values. To make sure we weren’t building something just because we could.
At this point in my life, I’m doing things that feel authentic. Things that feel aligned. Things that feel personally fulfilling, fun, and joyful. And Hola Germantown feels like that. We didn’t need to open a second studio. But when I saw the excitement in everyone’s eyes when I mentioned the possibility, I realized something I couldn’t ignore: I have a team that wants to grow. And that excited me most of all. Because working with people who value the practice and our community just as much as I do is something I feel incredibly grateful for.
So to close, I’ll say this: I think Hola is an acquired taste. When we opened in East, hot 26 and power yoga were all people wanted. They still might be. And sure, I could have built Hola that way. It would have been more of a sure thing. After all, the defunct yoga studio highway is littered with vinyasa studios and restorative classes. But I didn’t. Instead, we leaned into slow flow, restorative, yin—the practices that, at the time, weren’t necessarily considered “cool” and were difficult to find. And somehow… they became cool. At least by our standards. Now they have waitlists. Not because we invented anything new.
This is the yoga I learned.
This is the yoga I know.
And to be clear, I also love hot yoga. It’s why I still teach it. It’s probably my most popular class. But I’m a complex, layered human. I can meditate, read the sutras, and appreciate a physically demanding, sweaty class. Those things are not mutually exclusive and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. In fact, it takes real skill to hold both. To teach classes that are physically challenging and deeply accessible. To weave in philosophy without losing people. To meet students where they are, while still honoring the depth of the practice. I’ve been teaching for over a decade now, and as a yoga therapist, I feel confident in my ability to do that well. And ultimately, that’s what Hola is built on. We aren’t about a specific style per se. You won’t hear us talk about who we aren’t, but you will hear us be clear about who we are. So when I think about Germantown, it feels like the right home for us. Because I believe there’s an appetite there for something deeper. For devotion. For discipline. For a meaningful, lifelong practice. It’s a neighborhood with depth, character, and sophistication. And I’d like to think…that’s us, too.
