
Chances are, if you practice at all at HYA, you have seen Becca Sacora. Because she practices a lot. And by a lot, we really mean a lot. In 2024, she clocked the most classes of any student at our studio: 408. Yes, that is more than one a day. Doing two, or even three, classes in a day is not out of the ordinary for Becca.
“I took my first class here two years ago, January 2023, a Hot 26 class on a Tuesday,” Becca said. “It was really challenging, and I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. And I just kept coming. I come every day because I’m better balanced as a person because of it.”
Becca had not even officially moved to Asheville when she took that first class on the urging of her sister-in-law, but she quickly relocated here and has become more than a regular practitioner. A longtime runner, Becca was working through a knee injury when she started, and later practiced through the recovery from a shoulder surgery.
After working as a physician for many years, Becca stepped away from her medical practice when she came to Asheville. “I was burned out and looking for a different lifestyle after living under chronic stress for so long,” she said. “I felt like I was too young to feel so old.”
She now works as a personal trainer and is working on developing a functional fitness system to share with physicians so they can incorporate it into their care for their patients. She hopes to help doctors move beyond traditional approaches of prescription medicine and physical therapy to address pain.
“I’ve always been very active and been healing injuries all my life,” she said. “My last couple of injuries were healing very slowly, part of it because of the chronic stress. Now, I have much better flexibility and range of motion than I used to.”
She said she noticed a big difference in how fast she recovered from her shoulder surgery, keeping up her yoga practice throughout. “The teachers were so good about helping me with modifications that were appropriate for me and telling me things not to do. I remember I was trying to do camel with one arm and Booie telling me it would be better not to do it that way. It really helped to get that advice from everyone.”
Becca’s practice includes regular Hot 26 classes as well as Flow and BLAST. She appreciates mixing all the styles, which appeal to her hard-driving nature. But as she has also done both a 200-hour and a 300-hour yoga teacher training, she is broadening her horizons. “I even started practicing and teaching a Yin class,” she said. “I was never able to sit still long enough to do Yin poses. But for athletes, I think it’s so good to add that kind of deep stretching. In medical school, the only thing I learned about fascia was how to cut through it! I’ve become such a sponge with all of the yoga and I’ve really learned so much from the teachers at HYA.”