Carolina Yoga Company is a group of sister studios ready to help you connect with yoga. The Carolina Yoga Company includes Carrboro Yoga, Durham Yoga, and Hillsborough Yoga. We serve the communities of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Durham, Hillsborough, Pittsboro, and all of central North Carolina by creating a space for connection. This can be a connection of body, mind, and spirit; of the individual and the community; of mindfulness with action, thought, and feeling. Our classes meet you where you are, at any age and in any state of being. Join us to connect with the right yoga to help you find balance.
You’ll often find our owners, Sage Rountree and Lies Sapp, enjoying our broad range of class offerings. Together, Sage and Lies direct the Carolina Yoga Teacher Training program. Their commitment to well-being through balance extends to their other businesses, the Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat and the Carolina Massage Institute.
We are both proud and humble to create a space for connection, community, and balance. Thank you for recognizing our hard work with numerous awards, including Best of the Triangle in the Independent Weekly poll for both Carrboro Yoga and Durham Yoga for five straight years. We are excited to continue to grow with you.
Sage Rountree, PhD, E-RYT 500, is an internationally recognized authority in yoga for athletes, athletic recovery, and healthy aging. Her goal is to help people find the right balance between work and rest for peak performance in sports and in life. Author of seven books including The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga, Racing Wisely, Everyday Yoga, and Lifelong Yoga, she contributes to Runner’s World and Yoga Journal. Sage’s classes, training plans, videos, books, and articles make yoga, core strength, and endurance exercise accessible to everyone. Sage teaches workshops internationally and online at Core Strength for Real People, Yoga Vibes, and Sage Yoga Teacher Training. Visit Sage’s website. And take her Yoga for Athletes class in Carrboro every Monday at 6 p.m.—it’s also streamed online at Yoga Vibes.
Lies Sapp, a former litigator, comes from a ballet background. While you won’t find her on the schedule, she directs the studios from behind the scenes and is responsible for the formation of our internationally acclaimed yoga teacher trainings. Her commitment to health and well being was extended last year by her conception and construction of the Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat. She is also the co-owner of the Carolina Massage Institute. Lies dreams big, with creation of community as her prime directive.
About the Manager
Our studio manager is Jenni Tarma. A native of Finland, Jenni came to us by way of Los Angeles, where she enjoyed a decade-long career in the music industry before shifting her focus to teaching yoga. Jenni is a graduate of Sage Rountree’s Teaching Yoga to Athletes program, an RRCA-certified endurance coach, alifelong runner and athlete, and an enthusiastic if not particularly skilled surfer. An avid student of anatomy and functional movement, Jenni is currently working towards her 500-hour certification through Tiffany Cruikshank’s Yoga Medicine program. She also loves to write and is a regular contributor to Yoga Journal on the topics of anatomy and yoga for athletes. As a classic Type A personality and hater of loose ends, Jenni loves nothing more than answering your e-mail in as timely a manner as possible.
Studio History
Carrboro Yoga opened its doors in March 2004, with several of our current staff—including Sage, Ann Burrus, Molly Drake, and Lauren Sacks—on the original teacher roll. When its founder, Donia Robinson, moved to California in 2010), Sage and Lies bought the studio. Durham Yoga was born in 2012 with co-founder Olynda Smith, whom you’ll find teaching there on Sunday mornings. In 2015, we assumed ownership of Hillsborough Yoga from Paula Huffmann, another original Carrboro Yoga teacher.
Sister Businesses
Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat is a peaceful and inspiring full service day spa in Hillsborough, North Carolina, nestled in the woods beside Cates Creek and just minutes from Chapel Hill and Durham. Take time to unwind in the tranquility lounge and treetop deck before or after your treatment and enjoy complimentary use of the two steam rooms and infrared sauna with any service. All spa treatments are customized to your unique needs and focus on inner beauty. Come unwind for an hour or for a day retreat full of quiet downtime. Read all about it.
Carolina Massage Institute offers intro to massage courses, a full diploma program, and continuing education for body workers just below Hillsborough Spa. Students learn to heal people through human touch and connection and how to bring the art and science of massage into a conversation to help each unique client feel better. Read all about it.
