My Yoga Studio Journey | How I Opened My Own Yoga Studio

Transcript

welcome to this chassis video all about my journey as a yoga teacher opening a yoga studio [Music] I have created all the videos on my channel giving you a tour of my yoga studio so be sure to check those out but this is more of like a chatty video as it's something that I get asked a lot about opening a yoga studio so let's go back a few years back to the start of my journey as a yoga teacher and I think this is really important so whatever reason that you're here for it might be just because you're curious maybe it's because you're thinking about opening a yoga studio maybe you have a yoga studio or maybe you're thinking about a career change I have not always had a yoga studio and I really just wanted to point that out that sometimes if we are in different like chapters of our story not to compare it to other people's I have had comments made to me before saying it's oh it was all right for you when you started out because you had a yoga studio I I didn't like I started out from nothing and so that's where we'll begin I actually started out hiring a room in a gym and that gym was literally on the other side of this wall and I am so grateful to the people I'm so grateful to the space as well because that's where it all began and I started out with two three classes on on the timetable and the classes themselves began to grow organically they began to grow over time it did take time it's I think sometimes you know we can start out and think oh well I've just taught like one class and I haven't got the numbers there you know these things if it's worth it you have to then put that trust that patience that effort and that energy and also surrender to it so anyway the customers then started to build in numbers and the demand started to come in and I then started to expand the timetable also in the space in the space on the other side of the wall and I then kind of started to have I think I might have even had maybe plan classes maybe I don't know if it was ten I've had a lot of classes on the timetable and obviously then I was paying out to hire the space and it started to then cost more money than if I was then renting somewhere when I first started out as a yoga teacher I didn't have a dream of having a yoga studio I just wanted to be a yoga teacher that was my my dream and you know I was living that dream I'd left my job as a school teacher a time when my mental health was at an all-time low and I'd I'd made that transition happen and like I was just really happy with where I was at and so then I was starting to think like okay right where can I then expand where can I grow and then that's when this dream of the space started to come about so this space did not look like this it needed a lot of work to enter it I thought that their location just worked perfectly in terms of it was next door like I'd spent that time and energy building got my classes in that space and I really feel like that played a big part in the success of the space because I wasn't a yoga teacher that was going all about over town spreading myself in loads of different areas it was just this one area that I was in and it meant that then all the beautiful stars that came to my classes there hadn't got them anywhere else to go if anything was literally just the next building down the street and so it took a while like this space needed I needed walls knocking down I had to then you know apply for things like planning permission from the council it it did take time obviously money as well and yeah this space right now that we're in this is the yoga this is the studio space had three bedrooms it had a landing and so all that came down you can imagine the mess as well from the space and then yeah I just started to then make it like my own and ah it just was such a beautiful journey to go on and I'm so glad that I did so time wise from this space being ready to launch ready to open I had been teaching yoga for just over a year and then open the space and then because I could just choose as a one-on-one setting classes to be on I had that freedom and flexibility to really listen to what my beautiful members wanted and so yeah I just added onto the timetable so at this point then I was teaching around about 15 classes a week and then covered happened and I'd gone from having a successful Studio to overnight just having to close the space like so many people and that was that was really hard like I think if you have a business that's been struggling then things just kind of like gradually start to kind of go down but just like so many it just happened it literally happened overnight and so I had to close this piece down and that is when though the the birth of my online self-care Club happens and that in itself has had like its own Journey that it's been on it didn't start off as the the song care club and so I the studio was closed for for a while and then I was just teaching just solely online I then started to think well then how can these two things like exist together and so that was when I didn't want to go down the route of doing Zoom classes so the soccer club is on demand videos and I just knew that that would then really work alongside this phase when I eventually reopened after the restrictions lifted so the restrictions started to ease it it took a long time I think even for the you know the the Health and Fitness and Wellness industry took a long time to reopen I think it was like one of the last things it was way after pubs opened which that's just not going to go down that route more about being really honest and truthful and I'm not gonna lie like like many it was a struggle opening back up again after covert like the world had completely changed like the way that people were showing up the way that people were behaving in the habits completely changed you know from March 2020 to June 21 when I could open again life had completely changed and you know people's circumstances um situation their passion their interests have completely changed but what was really beautiful was seeing that people were starting to welcome yoga into their lives like people who hadn't really connected with yoga before they found it over overlockdown and really started to Value their mental health and I'm really feeling that shift of energy in the space people really are coming here to de-stress to heal to rest and to be and I am so here for that so even just this space has really grown and changed in its energy as well so naturally I had been time away from the space as well and when we give ourselves time and space we really connect with Clarity and I was able to reflect on the things I didn't want to go back to and so it really gave me the opportunity to reflect on that and I was able to reflect that I I'd unconsciously gradually built up a timetable of around 15 classes that was leaving me feeling burned out but when you're in that state of burnout you're not always aware of it and so I'm grateful that then I had that chance to reflect on that and I didn't want to go back to doing that many classes and I still haven't gone back to doing that I've like kept it kept to that and over that time I've really started to embrace them this slower living and really believe that you can still find that that balance and I have family classes on my timetable now definitely not 15. but earlier in this video I mentioned how I then started my online platform and I knew that teaching 15 classes and then doing online it was just something that I couldn't do and I didn't want to go back to that feeling of burnout I didn't want to go back to just being stressed all the time that's you know one of the reasons why I left teaching like we used to wear burnout and stress as like a badge of honor and that's just not a Vibe and that's not what I'm about and also I think as a yoga teacher we need to be practicing what we're preaching like how can we be then encouraging people to slow down and relax and when we're going 100 miles an hour and so when I opened the studio again it was like I'm not going down that route again I was getting to a point before where people would be like can you do a class at 6am on this day or can you do a class on this day and I would just be such a yes person I'm like yeah yeah sure I'll do that and I did it and yes don't have me wrong there was the demand there but at what cost at what expense and so yeah my mental health really is that priority and so right now then I do have and I have my online platform and I have the space and they are just like flowing together nicely another lesson that I learned over the Tan Studio was closed was the way that I used to do bookings so before people used to contact me on Instagram email my number to book a class and it used to probably take like a good amount of time every single day it took time to then book people in to move things around I didn't have a booking system like I was the booking system and it was just I don't know how I did it as well it yeah I just would not definitely not go back to that and it just was then not not the best use of my time and then I'd have people that then wanted to show I'd have them people cancel last minute I'd have a wait list but I couldn't get them them in because somebody hadn't let me know they won't come in just all over the place and so I was like I'm gonna invest in a book in the system and it's not that much of a financial investment but it is the best investment that I have made in this space every single month and it's an investment to my energy as well because it massively frees up my time and my energy and also then it just kind of takes care of all those things themselves automatically and people can then book at any time they want like if somebody wants to book early hours in the morning then they can if they're thinking about that late at night they can they're not waiting for a response from me and so that's just something that oh I'm like yay me I'm I'm glad that I made that reflection and then took action on it and so in this space right now it's just me excuse me in this space and I I really love it it's important to me that I create a safe space for everyone to come into but it's also a safe space for me and that's really important to me in my whole being it's important to me as a yoga teacher that I feel safe when I'm guiding people through a practice like I feel my most authentic self we all do when we feel safe and I yeah I'm just really grateful for it like it's not been an easy ride it's been like this but I've just kept on believing in the space and kept on showing up even when the waves were like down here and they were hard to to ride but still Surfers range rather than fighting against them but yeah a lot of gratitude for this space and it certainly taught me a lot as well and it's a space that I can then share my passion of yoga in in real life and I have classes I do host and workshops as well love to collaborate with other like-minded souls and yeah I've had so many beautiful people in the space that have come to share their passions and we've worked together to really create something very special and so I'm looking forward to then this year to be another year of events of workshops of often classes as well I think I have covered everything I wanted to in this video about my yoga studio Journey however if there are any questions that you have then please pop them in the comments box below I will be more than happy to answer them and if there's quite a few then I can always do a follow-up to this video be sure to check out the other videos of the the tours of the space and I just want to say if you are ever as well in the area if you're ever in Nottingham then you are so welcome to come and visit this space I would love to meet you I would love to have your beautiful energy in this space but if you're not able to I just want to say a really big thank you to you for sharing your time and your energy and watching this video and I hope to see you soon in another video too [Music]