By Hilary Dartt
After 2020, it’s clearer than ever that health and wellness should be a staple in everybody’s life. Sarah Rainwater is on a mission to create spaces where locals can reap the benefits of exercise as they strengthen the mind-body connection.
The owner of BEND Hot Yoga and BPedal Spin Studio, Sarah said during a recent interview that both yoga and spin class provide people with time to disconnect from daily life, set aside mental chatter, and just be.
While doing so, they’re also active, building their immune system, strengthening their muscles, and delivering oxygen to the brain.
These days, Sarah recognizes the value of yoga as a practice that can be both restorative and challenging, that can be someone’s sole practice or an addition to a different workout routine.
Ten years ago, though, she didn’t think of it that way.
A self-proclaimed “gym rat,” she loved heavy weightlifting and running, and spin classes nicely complemented those activities.
“It was all I knew,” she said. “It’s what I thought working out should be. Exercising should seem hard, involve heavy weights or running miles on end.”
One day when she was under the weather and couldn’t imagine taking a day off to rest (a thought process that has since shifted), she decided she’d try a yoga class.
“I thought it was going to be easy,” she said with a laugh. It turned out she was wrong. “It was so challenging, I thought, ‘I need more of this.’”
Sarah, a Cornville native, and her husband Travis, who was raised in Prescott, opened their first yoga studio in Prescott Valley In 2012. Four years later, they purchased BEND Hot Yoga from the previous owners. The Rainwaters opened BPedal studio in 2019, closed it temporarily during 2020. In October 2020, they reopened in a new location (on Montezuma St.), along with their new BPedal partner and co-owner, spin expert Iveth Tamayo.
When considering health and wellness, Sarah said, it’s important to think in terms of your physical body and your mental body. She and her team have developed both BEND and BPedal to be beautiful, distraction-free places where people can truly set aside—and enjoy—time for themselves.
“Time is valuable,” she said. “I have argued for 10 years now that time is the new commodity. It’s not necessarily about where people want to spend their money, it’s about where they want to spend their time.”
A strong sense of community makes time at BEND and BPedal special, too.
“After this last year, what’s so important is the people connection,” Sarah said. “Both studios have an amazing community. We’re there to lift each other up.”
At BEND, people can experience a variety of classes, including hot (and nonheated) yoga, Pilates, antigravity, and more (see the full schedule on the BEND website). Recently, Sarah added Studio B, an area for high-intensity classes that are married with hand weights, “party lights,” and fun music.
BPedal’s signature class, Party Pedal, is a 45-minute class incorporating music and lights. The studio also offers workshops where people can learn the basics.
Both BEND and BPedal offer a 7 for $20 pass for locals, so people can spend a week finding the classes that fit for them right now. Sometimes an initial class may not meet someone’s expectations and that experience can prevent them from trying a different class. The 7 for $20 pass provides an opportunity to get comfortable so that ultimately, they can incorporate health and wellness into their lives.
The longer Sarah has practiced yoga and lived the life of a health and wellness entrepreneur, the more she’s experienced the physical and mental benefits of exercise and the mind-body connection. And, as she’s seen what those bring to her life, she said, “My journey has been creating a space where I was able to share that with the outside world.”
Locals can take advantage of a 7 for $20 pass at both BEND and BPedal: for $20, you can attend unlimited classes for a week. Learn more about Bend and BPedal at https://www.bendhotyogaprescott.com.
BEND Hot Yoga is at 434 W. Goodwin St. in Prescott. For more information, call 928.277.4430.
BPedal Spin Studio is at 377 Montezuma St., Suite 103 in Prescott. For more information, call 928.277.4143.