Beloved Peachtree Yoga Center teacher retires after decades of guiding, training students

On Dec. 11, Elizabeth Nix Smith, who was one of the first instructors at Peachtree Yoga Center in Sandy Springs, will wish her students “blessings and love – namaste” for the last time.

Smith, whose gentle self-deprecating humor and ability to make yoga a comfortable and accessible practice for all –no matter their skill level – said it’s time for her to make room for the future generation of teachers.

“I’m ready to step aside from teaching and let the new crop of instructors to come through,” Smith said. “I’m stepping away from teaching, but not who I have become during these last 30 years.”

Graham Fowler, who founded PYC, said he met Smith when he was teaching at the Buckhead YMCA in 1996, which was the beginning of their decades-long friendship.

“She first attended my class at the YMCA instead of the tai chi class she was also considering,” Fowler said. “It was one of those small decisions that affect the trajectory of one’s life and, by extension, many lives.”

Fowler said his student “fit right in” with Atlanta Yoga Fellowship, an informal gathering of local yoga friends. From then on, Smith became an active participant in the group’s regular potluck dinners and weekend yoga retreats in the mountains and at the beach.

“From when we met, I adopted him, and he adopted me,” Smith said. “When I think about who I was when I walked into that first class, and what I am today, I am a totally different person.”

After Smith participated in Fowler’s first and second yoga teacher training courses at Fowler’s home, she began co-leading teacher training courses with him. The natural progression continued when Fowler decided it was time to open a brick-and-mortar location.

“By the time I opened Peachtree Yoga, Elizabeth was in on every part of it, including when we went on a road trip up east to check out other centers for design ideas,” he said. “From the beginning, Elizabeth was there to co-lead teacher training courses at PYC, and to teach classes. Her success was part of how we survived and thrived in those early days.”

Smith said one of the things for which she is most grateful is Fowler’s constant presence and support during their three decades of friendship.

“He introduced me to my husband, and he married us, and when my mother died, he was at the funeral,” she said. “I can’t overstate the significance of Graham in my life.”

Fowler and her students said they loved Smith for her quirky humor and made-up words that perfectly described certain changes in posture.

“Elizabeth is not only an inspirational yoga teacher, she also expanded my vocabulary. In certain poses, Elizabeth would tell us to move our hips just a ‘snerch,'” said Susan Mitchell, who has taken classes with Smith for two decades. “While that’s not a precise unit of measurement, we knew exactly what to do.”

Smith joked that for years she believed that “snerch” was a real vocabulary word.

Ilona Moore, who owns Peachtree Yoga Center Ilona Moore, said Smith “has served her community with a steadfast heart and a spirit shaped by compassion, civic duty, and unwavering kindness.”

“Her dedication to the path of yoga has touched countless lives, not only through her skill and wisdom, but through the way she infuses every teaching with her love of poetry, her curiosity for the world, and her passion for travel,” Moore said.

Su Ellis, another longtime yoga practitioner, said Smith’s retirement is bittersweet for her and the entire yoga community.

“Elizabeth is unique in her teaching style in that she is always challenging you to refine the poses and breath through the edge. Her sequences are smooth and original, never the same,” Ellis said. “She has taught me to have a light spirit, a sense of humor, and fun while practicing yoga.”

Moore said Smith’s long tenure at the studio has been “a guiding light—steady, soulful, and profoundly inspiring—and our community is richer because of everything she has poured into it.”

Smith said her retirement will allow her, her husband, and two cats to explore the United States in their recently purchased camper.

“We discovered fairly recently that we love traveling in a camper van,” she said. “While we don’t know exactly where this is going to take us, we would love to explore the eastern seaboard or take a cross-country trip to Utah.”

She said she will miss sharing poetry from her favorite writers, which include Mary Oliver, David White, Rumi, and others, and being able to joke with her students, “where I usually get the most laughs.”

Mitchell said those qualities will be missed by her many devoted students.

“She is an exquisite teacher who takes her yoga, but never herself, very seriously,” Mitchell said. “I’ll miss her guidance, her poems, and her effervescent sense of humor.”

Smith recalled wise words from a long-ago teacher, which she took as inspiration throughout her training and teaching.

The greatest thing you can do as a yoga teacher is to inspire in someone else the love of yoga,” she said. “This is what I feel I’ve done, this is something that I’m perhaps proudest of.”

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