About Us

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. — Rumi

That field is Hillside Yoga and Wellness.

No perfect pose. No perfect bodies. No yoga checklist you're secretly failing. Just you, your practice, and a community that shows up alongside you.

I didn't set out to run a yoga studio. I just kept showing up to class.

I wasn't good at yoga when I started. What kept me coming back was a teacher who never made me feel like I was doing it wrong, and a pace where I could actually settle into one pose before moving on to the next one. I always felt good after class, even the hard ones. It took me years to learn why.

So I trained to teach yoga — partly to understand what was actually happening under all that "feeling good," and partly because I was curious. It turns out there's a lot of research about why yoga works so well. It’s a very practical approach to integrating our entire self–physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. I started teaching wherever people would have me — a senior center, a community center, a friend's gym. I partnered with a local therapist Susan Marshall and The Center for Mindful Exploration to bring yoga and mindfulness to the community, and that grew into workshops and retreats we built together.

For years I kept my day job in training and development, because I didn't think I could make a living teaching yoga. At the end of 2021, with my husband's support, some savings, and the glimmer of a plan, I left my job. We opened the studio, and it’s been going strong ever since.

Why "Hillside"

Hillside isn't just where the studio happens to sit — it's the whole idea behind it. I lived in the Hillside neighborhood for over 30 years, in a house that always had extra people in it: students, neighbors, family, and friends. It was never a showplace. It was always welcoming. 

When I finally opened a studio of my own in April 2022, I found a place right here in Hillside. That sense of a place that welcomes you in exactly as you are is what I wanted to build here. [Read the full neighborhood story →]

For the first four years, the studio grew hand-in-hand with The Center for Mindful Exploration — we even shared a name. In January 2026, Susan and I both felt it was time to grow in our own directions, and I gave the studio a name of its own: Hillside Yoga and Wellness. We still work with The Center for Mindful Exploration regularly to share mindfulness practices in the community. 

What we believe

Yoga isn't about touching your toes. It isn’t just about flexibility. Instead yoga gives us a way to come back to ourselves over and over again. We can connect to our bodies and enjoy movement (most of the time). We can breathe deeply. We can watch our thoughts and feelings come and go for a few moments instead of being driven by them. And we can also take some time to rest. We can do something for ourselves that feels good. 

We think your practice should be shaped by your intention, not a universal standard. Two people in the same class might be doing completely different work that day — one finding stillness, one working through something hard. Both are right. That's not a lower bar. It's the actual point.

We ground what we teach in yoga tradition and science, so you can trust yourself to make informed choices about your own practice — not because we told you to, but because you understand why. We stay curious about new ideas and skeptical of anything that smells like a fad. And we treat community as part of the practice itself, not an add-on to it.

As yoga teacher Ram Dass said, “We are all just walking each other home.” Home is our True Self, and we hope that Hillside can walk beside you on your journey there. 

Joanne Johnson Rogers, Hillside Yoga owner and teacher