About The BE

VISION

The locally grown and nationally recognized home of client-centered mindful movement practices.

MISSION

The Body Electric Yoga and Athletic Companies provide supportive and beautiful environments to improve the health and happiness of the people of Tampa Bay. We strive to be an inclusive and outward-looking community that is non-intimidating and non-dogmatic in its approaches and philosophies. We provide high-quality instruction and coaching, drawing from many modes and lineages. We believe in the personal and cultural benefits of yoga practices and mindful physical fitness. Our goal is to uplift the entire region by improving the well-being of every individual we reach, and to reach as many individuals as possible. We believe people should be empowered to become their own best coaches and teachers, and we strive to provide customizable models of fitness. We believe in giving people agency and tools so that they may create a sustainably healthy lifestyle.

CULTURE

• WELCOMING. We make everyone feel like they belong. There is no hierarchy of status here and no guru, but instead we are empowered to become our own best teachers.
• OPEN. We believe that yoga and fitness are like language, a living thing, kept alive and relevant by its users. We are non-dogmatic in our approaches and philosophies, welcoming ideas from all styles, studios, lineages, and teachers, as well as other modalities. We don’t say there is one right way or a wrong way. We actively adapt and implement new knowledge.
• COMMUNITY-MINDED. We are outward-looking and community-minded. We believe in the personal and cultural benefits of yoga practices and mindful mental and physical fitness. We believe that what we do has the power to uplift our city and world, and so we partner with many entities to spread the practices and philosophies of yoga and mindful fitness.
• EXCELLENT. We don’t rest on our laurels, but never stop learning and improving. We are authentic to ourselves, always growing and not beholden to any tradition.
• FUN. We like fun and don’t take ourselves too seriously. We make yoga and fitness accessible without dumbing it down. We retain beginner’s minds and check our egos.
• INCLUSIVE. We are committed to cultivating a diverse community, in which all people may feel they belong. We work to ensure that people feel respected, valued and seen for who they are as individuals. We are cognizant of personal and cultural biases, and curious about the realities and ideas of other people.
• ORGANICALLY GROWN. We make decisions and expand in ways that are natural and in line with these core values.

BE STORY

The Body Electric Yoga Company began as the lovechild of Katelyn Grady and Jenny Miller, yoga teachers, business and life partners who hatched a plan to create the kind of space in which they would like to practice and teach. For two years they schemed, working their day jobs, building their brand, and writing many business plans in a fruitless effort to secure a commercial loan. In the end, they were able to open with their small savings and a lot of help from some very good friends. They rented half of the building at 7th St N and 30th Ave. N in St. Petersburg, Florida, a former ice house with a friendly landlord. With a beautiful, historic space and just four teachers, they opened their doors on March 4, 2013.

There were 21 classes on the weekly schedule, and their operations manual consisted of one yellow Post-It Note with three rules written on it:

1. Be 30 minutes early
2. No shit talk of any kind
3. Long Savasanas

Since then, The BE has grown into two entities and facilities: The Body Electric Yoga Company, and The Body Electric Athletic Company, offering close to 100 weekly live and virtual classes, with more than 50 instructors and staff, workshops featuring homegrown and internationally-recognized teachers, and many offsite events at community-oriented businesses around town. The studio has its own service organization called The BE Good Club, a book club, classes for kids, a Karma Crew program, and partnerships and special events too numerous to list. The BE now serves thousands of students every week.

In 2016 the enterprise expanded into the entire building at 3015 7th St, creating three practice rooms, a large lobby with a retail area and showers, and a teacher’s lounge. The addition of regular staff improved the entire customer experience, allowing the studio to be open for business 8:00am-8:00pm, 7 days a week. The retail store, The Om Depot, offers the community a place to find high-quality yoga and fitness clothes, mats, and products by local-makers.

In January 2020, The Body Electric Athletic Company opened. The BE Athletic was a 15,000 sq ft mindful fitness facility located in South St. Pete. The new BE offered group fitness classes with the same core values and vibes our clients had come to expect. In three large studios we led core, strength, cardio, kettlebell, and movement classes of all kinds.  We hosted popular weekly barbell and run clubs, and the open gym, ice baths, and sauna were spots where people could DIY and socialize. Our goals were to offer a mindful, sustainable fitness practice to empower each individual to be their own best coach. Unfortunately, we opened right before COVID-19 hit, and we were never able to recover our original momentum. Despite a lot of successes, we had to close the doors to our beloved gym on December 31, 2022.

The BE relies on its original core values: to create an outward-looking, supportive space for people to practice becoming their best selves. Rather than trading on yoga’s esoterica and mystique, we’ve always strove to make the practice accessible. We believe yoga is a living, adaptable technology that we actively reorient to continue addressing its original inquiry: how best to live? As with language, it’s today’s users who keep the tool sharp and vibrant, and so we are not beholden to any great book or lineage, though we are committed students of yoga’s history and philosophies. Free from dogma, we explore, ask questions, and experiment with many styles and modalities.

Today, we believe there is an offering on our schedule for everybody. Whether you’re a veteran yogi or “the world’s tightest person,” we’ve got something for you. We still stand behind our original motto: At The Body Electric Yoga Company, we believe that yoga is for everyone. Even you.