New center offers both massage and yoga

11.28.2009

Former Tar Heel athlete Cindy Werley Baugh learned the mental and physical benefits of yoga and massage while training for the Olympics.
Now Baugh, a certified massage therapist, is offering those benefits to her University City neighbors. This week Baugh opens the Prana Massage and Yoga center in University Research Park. The center’s therapists offer massage as well as one-on-one and couples yoga instruction. They also hope to serve local businesses.
“Connect Your Mind and Body,” reads the Prana slogan.
“The mind and body connection is the huge one,” says Baugh, whom one sports website describes as “the most decorated player in the history of UNC field hockey.”
Besides playing on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team, Baugh helped the Tar Heels win NCAA titles in 1996 and ’97 while setting all-time Carolina records for career goals and points.
Baugh says her coaches used yoga in recovery training because of its ability to increase flexibility and speed. Yoga also helped the athletes let go of the stress they felt as student athletes. Massage therapy helped the athletes prevent injuries and recover more quickly.
Baugh began to see deeper connections between massage and yoga while studying at the Asheville School of Massage and Yoga. Both work on mind and body. Both help reduce stress and increase flexibility.
The Prana center opens with a total of seven therapists. Yoga instructor Cassie Anderson-Fortune also lives in Highland Creek and, like Baugh, was a standout athlete in college. Originally from Vancouver, she played on Canada’s national soccer team.
“I always wanted to do yoga but was afraid,” she says. “Then I took a class and loved the mental benefits of it.”
The center will start by offering one-on-one yoga sessions as well as sessions for couples. Fortune and Baugh also hope to draw customers from the nearby office buildings. “These are people who need a massage,” Baugh says.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Prana Massage and Yoga is at 1914 J.N. Pease Place, Suite 135 (in the Office Suites PLUS building, off of Medical Plaza Drive between West W.T. Harris Boulevard and Mallard Creek Road). The center is open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. To make an appointment call 704-516-1630 or email pranamassageandyoga@hotmail.com. Learn more about the center at http://pranamassageandyoga.com


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