Transform Yoga & Wellness

Inside a shared wellness building at 705 Avenue D, in Opelika’s historic district, Transform Yoga & Wellness occupies a quieter corner of the city’s revitalized downtown, sharing its address with a midwifery practice and a massage therapy service rather than sitting among the shops and restaurants of Railroad Avenue proper. The studio’s tagline, tranquility, balance, vitality, sums up its approach fairly directly. It is owned and run by Susie Weigel, a certified yoga therapist who spent nineteen years teaching English and German in Alabama schools before retraining in yoga therapy, a background that shows up in how deliberately the studio frames its classes.

Weigel began practicing yoga in the fall of 2015, earned her RYT-200 certification in 2017, and transitioned to yoga full-time in 2019. She now holds credentials as a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT), an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT), and a YACEP continuing education provider, and completed a Master of Science in Yoga Therapy from the Maryland University of Integrative Health, credentials that place her practice closer to therapeutic and rehabilitative yoga than the flow-class model more common at big-box fitness studios. From 2019 to 2023, she served as Program Director for Prison Yoga Project Alabama, work that put her in direct contact with populations rarely served by conventional yoga studios, including incarcerated individuals working through trauma.

That work included leading a twelve-week pilot program at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, a project that drew attention from the Give Back Yoga Foundation, which featured her work. The studio’s offerings center on Yin Yoga, described on its own schedule as a gentle class that focuses on longer-held passive stretches with plenty of prop support, alongside Yoga Basics: Hatha Yoga, a non-flowing style built around foundational poses and breathing technique for students still building familiarity with the practice, and a one-hour Restorative Yoga class centered on gentle stretches supported by blankets, bolsters, and blocks and described on the studio’s site as a chance to unwind, restore, and reconnect with body and breath while releasing daily tension. Transform Yoga & Wellness describes its work explicitly as yoga with a therapeutic focus for improved well-being, aimed at helping students improve functional movement, reduce pain, manage symptoms of common health conditions, and restore quality of life.

Weigel has worked across a notably wide range of populations for a studio this size, including seniors, athletes, people in addiction recovery, special needs youth, and correctional staff, tailoring sessions to what a particular body or situation needs rather than running a single standardized class format for everyone in the room. Both virtual and in-person sessions are available, a flexibility that has become more common among independent studios since 2020 but remains genuinely useful for students managing mobility limitations, chronic pain, or unpredictable schedules who might otherwise skip a class entirely. Students can find current offerings and pricing packages through the studio’s schedule and packages pages, and new students are generally encouraged to reach out directly before their first class given the more individualized nature of the therapeutic approach, rather than dropping into a single class format designed for a broad, general audience with no particular focus.

For visitors exploring Opelika’s historic district beyond the more heavily trafficked stretch of Railroad Avenue, Transform Yoga & Wellness is a reminder that the neighborhood’s revival includes wellness spaces built around a single practitioner’s expertise, not just retail and dining. Weigel’s studio reflects a broader shift in small-city yoga, away from generic vinyasa flow and toward something closer to individualized, evidence-informed therapeutic practice, shaped as much by a career spent teaching in Alabama classrooms as by a decade spent studying and practicing on the mat.