As an undergraduate at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, Elianna Sable ‘08S loved her major’s multidisciplinary approach to advertising and English communications. “I got to take literature courses and art classes and business courses at the Sy Syms School of Business—I really felt like I was taking advantage of all the different aspects of the University,” she said.
In the years since graduation, Sable has carried that appreciation of life’s fullness and complexity with her as she channeled a passion for fitness into a career as a much-beloved instructor at SoulCycle, which offers empowering 45-minute full-body cardio sessions that seek to create a mental and emotional experience transcending a physical workout. Sable first fell in love with SoulCycle as a student at Stern and remained dedicated to it as a new alumna working in communications at a nonprofit firm.
“The first time I was ever in a SoulCycle class, I was sitting in the back of the room not really knowing what was going on and trying to absorb it all,” Sable recalled. “The instructor, someone who even today is still a guru of mine, started telling us as we were sweating and working so hard that we could accomplish anything and to picture something we really wanted. Something about that mind-body connection was so powerful—I walked away wanting everyone to have an opportunity to feel the way I just had.”
That desire led Sable to attend a three-month program that taught her the ins and outs of personal training even as she continued her work in nonprofit communications. That in turn led to a gig at Equinox and another behind the desk at SoulCycle. “As the company began to expand, they created a training program for instructors, and I was in the second cohort,” said Sable. “The rest is history.”
Today, Sable lives with her husband, attorney Yoel Kaye ‘09SB ‘12C, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side—the two actually collaborated on a paper for a YU class they both took together and loved, the Doris and Dr. Ira Kukin Entrepreneurial and Executive Lecture Series, although they hadn’t yet started dating at the time. Sable feels that course and many others she took at Stern have helped her to carve out a career she finds deeply meaningful: “As an instructor, it’s all about communication—why should you want to take my class versus another? My speech class and English literature courses at Stern taught me to speak off the cuff, to be able to market myself and use words effectively, which helped prepare me for what I do every day,” she said.
As she and her husband welcome a new baby girl to their family this week, Sable feels that all the many different parts of her life continue to enrich and inform the others—and her work at SoulCycle. “Part of being a religious person in the Modern Orthodox world is trying to find that balance,” she said. “Feeling good about yourself and about your body, not necessarily just in terms of how you look but in terms of how you feel physically, is so important. We stress to students in classes that whether you’re a mom or an executive or both, if you want to be there for others, you have to be there for yourself. Yes, it’s fun to be surrounded by music and dance around in a room full of great energy and people cheering, but ultimately it’s about giving yourself that confidence that you need to live the rest of the day. Anything you can accomplish in that room, you can take with you beyond it on your path to becoming a successful person.”
