Clear Lake's Mode 8 Yoga and Fitness wants to be your one-stop shop for working out. The studio, which officially opened in September at 12012 Space Center Blvd. #500, offers strength, cardio, kickboxing, and yoga classes. 

“We all talk about work-life balance,” says owner Christine Rawls. “Our workouts should be balanced as well.”

While people of all ages attend classes at Mode 8, the studio caters to families with its free children's space—a staffed room where kids can play while their parents exercise. Rawls based the concept off her own experience with her 12-year-old daughter, Bella. She values the importance of exercise and appreciates the ripple effect it can have on loved ones. 

“The happiness you get from exercise spreads to your family,” Rawls says. “You have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.” 

Rawls put herself through the University of Houston by doing personal training on the side while she pursued a degree in mathematical science. Soon enough, she found herself drawn to the similarities in problem solving between the two disciplines.

“Mathematical science is about manipulating equations,” Rawls says. “In personal training, we see a problem and fix it.”

Fast forward to 2016, when a bad snowboarding accident left Rawls with the upsetting prognosis that she'd never run or dance again. She says she spiraled emotionally for about a month until realizing she needed to try to reclaim her identity. So, she rehabbed herself with daily yoga and meditation.

“Practicing yoga on myself saved me from being a sad person who was in pain all the time,” she says.

She went on to use her corrective exercise routine on her clients and eventually decided to open her own studio. Today, Mode 8 offers a variety of yoga classes, including meditation, power nap yoga, and hot yoga thunder—a blend of Iyengar, Ashtanga and Bikram that uses an infrared heater. 

The other class offerings focus on functional fitness and use lower weights with more repetitions. While yoga classes last an hour, the strength, cardio and kickboxing classes are just 30 minutes. Rawls wanted to “cut out the fluff” and have limited rest time so clients could go straight from one class into another if they desired. 

Trainer Michael Escamilla—Rawls’s brother—hopes to bring Brazilian Jiujitsu classes to Mode 8, too. He's been competing in jiujitsu for nine years and currently teaches Mode 8's strength, cardio, and kickboxing classes. Right now, he's focused on making Mode 8 a clean, inviting, and friendly place for people to come exercise.

“It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to do, but it really makes people feel at home,” Escamilla says. 

Rawls already has her sights set on a second Mode 8 location downtown and will start looking for locations in December.

For now, though, she's concentrating on getting the Clear Lake studio established. Mode 8 currently offers two weeks of unlimited classes for $29; after that, an unlimited class pass is $89 a month.