We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cleve Willis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cleve , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

What we do different?
We have not done much different in 22 years ( new floors ) just Bikram Yoga. And I think that is where we stand out and apart. Doing what works traditionally.
I can tell you what folks tell me that come from other yoga studios that end up at still hot yoga.
This was a a quote from a student just last week visiting our studio,
“Your teachers are the real deal, experienced and dialogue based, and know how to actually teach and with compassion and strength.” What this says is that STILL HOT YOGA is authentic and that means the world to us.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Coming from the music world as a musician, performer, and vocalists in a rock n roll n band. We toured and lived the life that goes with that world, and thankfully I still get to create music occasionally. However things change and I had already been in recovery from drugs and alcohol and my roommate overdosed on heroine & I couldn’t save him I did mouth to mouth, When I arrived at home, I thought he was passed out on the couch, luckily I was sober and had to try and save him, I was in a bad place before coming home. He passed away that night but he actually saved me.
Friends from the music industry took me to a bikram yoga class the first and only one at the time off Chesire Bridge. They insisted I keep coming to classes ( I was not in a good emotional or head space, wanted to relapse )
I remember as I kept going with resistance I also started feeling less anxious, and mostly that I had stopped the monkey brain for 90 min that was when I realized that this was a meditative thing. Not to mention the heat and the amount of sweat feeling cleansing. So I resisted less and started going as much as I could over the next several years and the chance to buy Still Hot Yoga was available from another authentic guy, who has his own story (which is inspiring also ), Ahoo and I partnered up to buy Still Hot Yoga from Eric Jennings. Here we are still strong at still hot yoga.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

During covid I had to text clients a lot and when we were allowed to re-open and had limited people. We had to tell them they got off the waitlist into class or if someone canceled they got in to let me know within minutes, so besides email , what has been the culture is me being accessible, they will text my personal phone with any questions or issues about their account or class or something. I can say that most are very respectful since most of the students do have my personal number, I also think that us being personal on this level creates loyalty both ways, the practitioners to us and still hot yoga to them. It can be a lot, however it is worth it , as far as I know no other yoga studio did that. I was told I was crazy during that time and it was overwhelming, I knew having the ability to be available was beneficial and remains to be true.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

A tragic moment , we had a hose burst from a closet, so I woke up to several calls and texts, I got to the studio and was in shock prob for several hours the water was ankle deep, we flooded our units and 3 businesses below us. This was a hard and stressful time, we effected all these other great local businesses in our community, I felt horrible even though it was an accident. The pivot would have been a lessons in knowing more about insurance and coverage how fine print is important, talk about working together and getting closer to your neighbors, we did. The silver lining, we got upgrades new floors etc. and so did those other places. I took a closer look at Ins. policies to my home and to the yoga studio it turned out apparently we did not have as much coverage as we thought, and sadly some big stuff cam out of pocket. We made it through thankfully, 22 years old now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stillhotyoga.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stillhotyoga
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stillhotyoga
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CleveWillis
• Other: https://solo.to/clevewillis