Good news – we are in full-on summer cleaning mode in the studios, getting ready to welcome you back to in person classes for a soft-reopening in August!
As a business owner, I feel exceedingly lucky to still be here. When Covid turned our world upside down more than a year ago, we were fortunate that Source Yoga was already an established business with a dedicated community. Last year we were able to pivot quickly to an online format for classes – while prioritizing keeping our students and teachers safe during this pandemic. Many of you have joined us online this year and have expressed that the online classes you’ve attended have been a support through a difficult time.
As we open our doors to you, I am excited to continue to offer many online classes for those of you who want to continue practicing remotely. We also plan to offer some on-demand online options in the coming months.
More good news – a large percentage of our Source community reports being vaccinated against Covid-19 (according to 270+ responses to our re-opening survey, 93% of you!), and the case numbers in our area and nationally are dropping consistently. There are still plenty of unknowns, as there always are. We may not know what the months ahead will look like, and we will continue to adapt to the changing needs of our community.
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As we plan for reopening our physical spaces, we have an opportunity to remember why we are here to begin with. This is a time to reconnect with our intention of serving our community and having the benefits of yoga accessible to all. It’s why the yoga practices we offer are adaptable and physically accessible for most, and we continue to expand the accessibility of our offerings for all bodies. Stay tuned for the return of Chair Yoga with Bonnie as a drop-in class in the fall! It’s also why we have implemented tiered/sliding scale pricing and offer many scholarships and income-relevant payment options.
For me personally, this time has also provided an opportunity to rethink and reimagine how a business can function.
Truth be told, I am not a businesswoman at heart (don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon). What matters most to me is living a spacious, creative, and spiritual life, with time to enjoy family, friends, and activities that enhance and support community. I want to make a difference in the world in whatever small ways I can, while holding space and time for contemplation and rest. I started a yoga business 16 years ago because I could see it was a way that I could do something I loved while starting a family. It has been that, and it has supported living a life with purpose.
I have always been interested in living my life a little counter to our cultural narrative. A narrative which primarily centers hard work and productivity over rest and non-doing. I try to let go of my hardwired need to strive, and I speak frequently in my classes about slowing down. The reality is – it takes a lot of practice when everything in our culture pushes us in the opposite direction. It takes writing a new narrative of what kind of life is possible for us all.
I am committed to bringing this different narrative into the actions of business as well as my personal life. What if we reimagined what the pace of our workdays looked like? What if we let go of the hustle, the capitalistic grind, the need to be productive all the time? Our cultural conditioning is deeply rooted. It takes practice to shift this narrative in our lives. For me, it takes frequent reminders – it’s why I speak about it over and over again.
What if our perspective shifted from finding personal value in how much we accomplish and how fast, to how much space and time we have to enjoy our life? What if what was truly valued was being with the ups and downs of living that we all face, without needing to push through them as quickly as possible? What if we, as Source Yoga, were doing just that? What if the cornerstone of our business was a foundation of rest and slowing down the pace of daily life?
This year has afforded us behind the scenes at Source Yoga the opportunity to go slow and steady through all our decisions. We’ve been home with our families, we’ve moved furniture and taught from our houses, we’ve taken time off in the middle of the week and gone hiking, we’ve been living in a pandemic world and trying not to force ourselves into “business as usual.”
At many points along the way, I asked myself if it felt right to open and gather in person. Over and over again, I noticed the inner voice that said, “not yet.” I honored that. In this spirit of this honoring, it feels appropriate to take our summer re-opening in a slow, thoughtful, and spacious way.
We will be opening our doors for in studio classes on August 2nd. I know our region is set to open businesses to full capacity by July. But in line with my greater commitment, I am choosing spaciousness instead of rushing, and I am balancing family time this summer with business. In August, we will open a handful of classes in studio with limited capacity to give a comfortable amount of space for all. We will maintain a full online schedule as well. In the coming months you can expect us to expand our in-studio schedule slowly.
As we begin to gather, we will find our way into a new normal. We will make space to rest, to digest, to settle, to live. We will experiment, make mistakes, adjust, and write a new narrative of what our post-pandemic life can look like.
It would be inauthentic if we were teaching you to have a restful and restoring life, and then scrambling beneath the surface to force movement before we are ready. With this new opening, you can step into a yoga studio that is honoring rest and space with each step we take, each decision we make, each action we choose.
Let’s breathe together. Let’s find space and slowness and rest. Let’s write a new narrative.
With Care,
Erin Joosse | she/her
Source Yoga
Studio Director
