Herndon's Down Dog Yoga Chosen as Best of NoVa

For the second time in just a few short years Northern Virginia Magazine has named Herndon’s Down Dog Yoga studio the Best of Northern Virginia.

Co-owner Terri Wood says the studio is entirely about focusing on the community. Yoga has made big differences in peoples lives, including Wood’s.

While in college Wood battled Hodgkin’s disease and her lung capacity was diminished while she was going through treatment. Doctors gave her a device to practice her breathing but when she found a book on yoga that included information on breathing she had to try it out.

During her treatment, her prognosis was not well and when a doctor expressed that his hopes for her were slim she fired him. “I overheard him talking to the team and he said ‘She’s in a later stage than the girl we lost last week,’” she said. She said if he didn’t think she was going to live, she wouldn’t.

Originally a premed student, Wood decided to pursue computers instead because it was difficult going back to her medical studies after treatment. She graduated and worked at KPMG before going to AOL, where she worked for a number of years.

In her 30s Wood was going through yet another transition and remembered yoga and how it helped in her life. She began going back, became certified to teach and ended up at Down Dog Yoga in 2004. A few years later she left the corporate world and became part owner of the studio.

Wood said the studio started in Georgetown and then Bethesda before opening its Herndon studio. Down Dog aims to be a health and wellness company that provides multiple ways for people to keep themselves healthy, Wood said.

While Wood enjoyed working in corporate America and helping others reach their full potential in the workplace, yoga is something she loves doing and loves sharing, she said.

“We’re so honored for the second year to be recognized,” Wood said. She said the Herndon location has a great staff that helps them be community focused. “Their baby is Down Dog Yoga Herndon,” she said. “It’s a wonderful environment where everyone wants to see each other succeed.”

The Herndon studio supervisor, Allison Keppel, said the Best of NoVa honor is really exciting for them. She said the Georgetown and Bethesda studios have been around much longer and it took a while to build up those communities. She said while Herndon started slowly, when the community did grow it happened quickly and they embraced it.

Yoga instructor Preston Scott said he has been doing yoga for about five years and has taught for about three. He said the Herndon studio, from the staff to the teachers to the students, is truly a community that cares. “They care about each other, they care about the way people practice and if they’re enjoying their practice,” he said.

Kamaya Thompson said she started coming to Down Dog Yoga because of the community feel three years ago and enjoyed it so much she started working at the studio. She said she loves how happy, nice and inviting everyone is.

Instructor Laura Zimmitti said she was a stressed out, hyper lawyer who used to spend her free time in gyms until she discovered yoga. “From the moment I started the practice I knew it had an importance.” She followed a teacher to Down Dog Yoga and eventually left law to teach yoga.

After practicing yoga in places all over the country, Melissa Johnson chose to go to Down Dog Yoga when she moved to the area a year and a half ago. She is now an assistant at the studio, helping students by correcting their posture during class to help them succeed. “I live in a house here, but this is my home and my family and it’s really a wonderful place,” she said.

In January and February the studio held a 40-day program called Commit to It where they committed to taking yoga classes four times a week and taking 15 minutes out of every day to simply be quiet and meditate.

Participant and Down Dog Yoga student Heidi Brennan said she has been taking classes there since January 2009 and became hooked, even though she had never done yoga before. She said early on a teacher there told a class about how life-changing yoga it is to do yoga for 30 consecutive days.

Brennan said she couldn’t imagine that level of practice, but after doing yoga for a while she became physically and emotionally stronger and began to understand. “I felt better able to manage my very busy family life and work as a psychotherapist,” she said.

When the Commit to It program was offered Brennan said she knew she had to do it. “The results were amazing,” she said. “The physical changes in my body were nice but not a surprise. However, my awareness of being fully engaged in my life was different. I feel happier and better able to live life without expectations.”

Brennan said the instructors at Down Dog Yoga each have their own positive style of teaching and positive views on life in general. “They are all consistently supportive as are the members of the Down Dog community,” she said. “So I think back to my earlier days of yoga and can easily say that being part of the Down Dog community has significantly changed my life in so many unexpected ways.”