go w ith th e
W O FL
Heart work and hustle come together for an inspired yoga instructor
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he sound of a Beyoncé beat bumps powerfully in the background as fifty students flow, jump, and sweat on their yoga mats. The mirrored walls fog as 85-degree heat fills the room. A neon sign emblazoned with the word “grace” casts a soft pink glow over the class as we all chase an endorphin rush with Sarah Frick as our guide. Frick is the founder of The Works, a newly-opened boutique fitness studio located on upper Meeting Street. I recently took her signature class by the same name, an invigorating 60-minute method she developed that blends vinyasa yoga, cardio, strength work and mindfulness, all set to a musical beat. With its sold out classes, hundreds of positive online reviews and nearly 5,000 Instagram followers, it’s hard to believe that The Works has only been in its current home for a couple of
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months. But, as Frick shared over coffee on Sullivan’s Island, her new “sweat studio” has been a long time coming, slowly manifesting after years of loss, risk and hustle. Frick first discovered yoga at age 21 when a friend invited her to take an intense Hot 26-style class. “I was blown away,” she remembers. “It was the hardest thing I’d ever done but I immediately went back the next day.” A year later, she completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training and was quickly hired to manage a new studio in Charlotte. But after going through a divorce, her exciting new career (and her life) shifted. Friends encouraged her to move to Charleston for a fresh start. “A lot of the fitness studios felt like I was young and inexperienced, so I just kept auditioning and teaching anywhere I could,” she recalls. “I was
also hostessing, delivering flowers, babysitting… hustling to make it work.” She eventually got a gig managing a Lululemon pop-up on Market Street. Frick recruited Beth Plant as her assistant manager, a friend she’d met while subbing classes at Eco Fitness. When the recession hit and the pop-up shuttered eight months later, Plant suggested they start a yoga studio together. The duo opened Charleston Power Yoga on Upper King Street in 2009; Frick remarried, and a second location in Mount Pleasant followed suit. As the business grew, so too did Frick’s soulful approach to teaching. Just a few years after opening CPY, she and her husband John lost their first child, a little girl named Grace. “That changed everything for me. The heart work became really important,” she shares. “The fitness is the obvious piece. But ultimately, what
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By Allyson Sutton
