Article submitted by Lalita Scott, E-RYT500, PCA, P-RYT, C-RYT, SOYA Lead Faculty
Transformation
Before Covid in our small city, yoga studio’s overflowed with students. We would pack students into studios so close their mats would almost touch. The energy was electric. The windows would fog up from our breath on cold winter days.
I own one of these small ma and pa type studio’s.
600sq ft of cork floor with mantras and quotes written on the back side of the magic cork squares. We’ve chanted so much between these 4 walls we can feel it when we walk in the door. There’s no reception area. Every square inch is used for yoga.
Covid came in like Shiva.
Burning all of our old ways of healing together down to the ground. Confusion, heart ache, and loss on so many levels. I cried so many tears on the yoga floor. lock down after lock down. I pivoted so many times I felt exhausted. I thought the song “every day I’m hustling” was my new mantra. I watched yoga studio’s closing all around me. My friends studio’s all over BC and AB were closing. And we praised ZOOM and online everything. Zoom would save us, change us, kill us… so we could transform. Finally when our studio doors reopened for hopefully the last time I thought everyone would come running back craving what we had lost. Community . Togetherness. Energy. Self healing.
But fear is still real. Online yoga had taken over, students had forgotten the energy of the 4 walls, the magic cork squares to lay their mats down on. The fogged up windows on winter days now seemed scary, like breathing could harm you. Some students did come back ( I am forever grateful for) … but not enough, and there was no consistency. The once packed room felt full at ½ of its previous occupancy. Every month I would cross my fingers and toes that I could pay the bills. Paying yoga teachers became what was breaking the studio. The studio was paying teachers more than what they were bringing in. My heart was breaking, things had to change. I kept waiting, wondering if students needed just a bit more time. Eventually I had to get another job, as so many of my yoga teacher friends had to do as well. I reached out to other studio’s in town. We were all surviving. Battled and tired. Scraping by. Barely able to pay rent let alone pay ourselves.
Things had to be done differently if we wanted to thrive again.
We had to transform.
3 studio’s came together.
We decided that we could choose collaboration over competition. We decided to close our sole proprietorships/ studio’s and come together in 1 space as a partnership with a new name “The BE Hive”. We could share the risk, share our resources, our students, we could lift each other up and keep our yoga community alive.
We also decided to change the pay module of yoga teachers to a 70/30 split instead of a flat rate. We wanted everyone to win. To lift each other, to transform together. To BE the change.
We put down our ego’s and attachments to doing things our way and alone and the universe opened her arms. Everything became easier. Everything fell into place, the whole reason we practice yoga became real. Love +Action= Light
We have taken the chance to transform. It’s scary. It’s healing. It’s amazing.
Lalitā is the spiritual name of Natasha Scott, one of the founders of The BE Hive. She is an E-RYT 500 YACEP certified teacher, a passionate yoga practitioner and eternal student. With her deep knowledge of how to live YOGA, she is grounded in her desire for living an intentional life. Having taught yoga for 15 years, she specializes in yoga for persistent pain and teaches Pain Care Yoga along with being a certified Thai massage therapist, Reiki practitioner, and Prenatal and Children’s Yoga teacher. Lalita is rooted within this community, having created a strong foundation with her family in the Okanagan. She is a lead teacher for SOYA and chooses to engage through love and action.
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