Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign hello and welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. I'm Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And today, the day this airs is a really special day because it is the 10 year birthday of True Love Yoga. So we've been in business now for 10 years. We've been through a lot of ups and downs. So many wonderful moments and connections. We've had this amazing community for 10 years that has been evolving and changing. So this episode is really all about reflecting.
[00:00:53] I'll be sharing some stories, some lessons, talking about what's next for True Love Yoga.
[00:01:00] And I'm feeling, I think, a lot of things, you know, life at this point is moving fast.
[00:01:08] Like I say all the time, a business owner and a mom and, you know, life does feel like it's moving fast. So really taking this moment to pause and reflect is something I personally need. I think it'll be cathartic for me, but I'm hoping there are also some entertaining stories or lessons in there for you as well. For anyone out there who's a yoga teacher or maybe a business owner too, hopefully this will provide some really realistic insight into having a sustainable business and provide some inspiration too. So sit back and relax. Let's celebrate today. So in 2015, one day, I think in March, I put a call out on Facebook. It happened to be really unseasonably beautiful. None of the outdoor yoga programs had started yet for the year. And I just said, hey, who wants to come do yoga with me outside at the Nelson this weekend? And a lot of people seem interested, but I was super surprised that about 50 people showed up that day. Really blown away. And I taught a class. I put out a big jar at the end and I'm like, you know, pay whatever you want or nothing at all. This was just, you know, kind of a new teacher.
[00:02:32] It was a beautiful day. I just wanted to do something nice to bring people together. And people were asking when the next one was, and I hadn't even thought that far ahead, but I said, okay, we can, you know, if it's nice, we'll do it again next weekend. And that time the crowd size doubled. There are a hundred people there. I had taught at the Nelson before as part of a summer series and there would be maybe like 15, 20 people there. So I don't know if it was the weather, the algorithm, vine timing, I don't know what it was, but a lot of people were showing up. And there was already a program at the Nelson. I didn't want to step on any toes or keep doing it there. But I saw this interest and I also saw all of these different people and bodies and stories coming together to practice in a public way. And I started envisioning this popup yoga program. So I started or founded Pop Up Yoga KC and we went to different locations in the city every weekend and practiced yoga together. It was super fun, really exciting, like just good, good vibes. And I started envisioning maybe having a yoga studio way down the road. I was teaching at other studios and gyms and things at the time.
[00:03:44] And I didn't personally feel experienced yet, experienced enough yet, I should say, to start my own studio. But I started feeling this vision. We're seeing it.
[00:03:54] And within a couple of months someone offered me a space. They had been doing these small donation based classes in this space in the Crossroads neighborhood in kc.
[00:04:06] And she said, you know what, I think you're going to be able to do a lot more with this vision than I have the energy or time to do right now. So. So I decided to do something crazy and just say yes and figure it out along the way.
[00:04:21] And so I said yes. And by September 15th of 2015, we had opened what's now called True Love Yoga, but then was called Karma Tribe Yoga in a building in the Crossroads in Kansas City. And I'm pretty sure the first class, no one showed up, even though there was a lot of hype around it and stuff. And I was really nervous. But I had brought this amazing group of teachers together and soon enough the students were coming and we were hosting classes and workshops and it was just so much fun.
[00:04:58] It was exciting and different and it was also donation based, just like the Pop up yoga program. And I would just put a jar on the desk and people would put cash in it and that was our system. So a little different than what we have now. I've learned a lot through the years, but like I said, I didn't totally know what I was doing, but my heart was in it. People were hyped about it and I decided to step up to the plate. And that was really our origin. Unfortunately, the space didn't really work out. It was a shared space. It was a little sketchy on the business end, I had found out. So we soon thereafter found our space on Broadway, which I'm recording in right now. And I had pretty much no money to open up this space. So we found this space. It was a former Walgreens pharmacy, like a small pharmacy, and found an amazing landlord. And I'm like Okay, we have about a month to open this space up. And in the meantime, I needed to get us out of our old space. So we were just doing classes in the park. It was in May of 2015.
[00:06:02] Sorry, 2016. We were holding classes in the park.
[00:06:06] And during that time, we gutted this space. We ripped out a wall, we ripped out all the old yucky carpet, and we made it into a yoga studio with recycled, found, and donated materials and a lot of donated labor as well. So the whole community really came together to create this space. Just before then, I had led my first solo yoga retreat in Mexico in this adorable little town called San Pancho.
[00:06:41] And they have this incredible community center that was founded by the director of Cirque du Soleil, I believe. And everything was, like, handmade and upcycled and had this artistic touch to it, and it was really inspired, but by what they were able to do with a small budget. So it was really great timing because I came back with a lot of inspiration.
[00:07:07] And we made this space out of pallets, corrugated aluminum, rope, donated coffee bags for the roast from the roastery. Our ceiling is like a drop ceiling, and I just disliked the way it looked, so we couldn't get rid of it entirely. But we found these coffee bags and glued each and every one to the ceiling tiles, which has provided nice acoustics for this space, but also is kind of tie in to all these international places that the coffee comes from. A lot of them are close to my heart, like Costa Rica and India and then Kansas City, because the roastery label is on so many of them. And our wonderful Sedona Alvarez, who teaches at the studio and has since day one, painted a beautiful mural on the wall. Another friend of the studio, Elsa Rae, painted the other wall. I painted this rainbow behind me and filled the space with things that are really special to me. Maybe someday I'll go into those, like on a reel or something like that, and things that I've accumulated through my travels or through family.
[00:08:14] So this came together on a shoestring budget with so much heart, and it has become our beautiful home. So we started running classes here, and it was going well.
[00:08:27] It became pretty clear after a couple of years that we needed to tighten things up a little bit. It's hard to run a business with a jar on the desk, collecting cash and teabags and crystals and things from people. So we got our first business management software, which we still use, called Wellness Living, and created a tiered pricing system with a minimum donation. We still do work, trade and stuff like that to keep it really accessible.
[00:08:57] But we really needed to systemize everything as well as like contracts and stuff like that. So it felt a little more legit in 2018.
[00:09:06] In 2018, we also launched our first yoga teacher training program.
[00:09:12] And that happened sort of in a similar way to pop Up. I had a lot of students who are interested in becoming yoga teachers or at least studying to become a yoga teacher, asking if I was going to start a program and when, and I didn't feel quite ready for it.
[00:09:27] So I decided to do my advanced yoga teacher training all through 2017 with my school of Frog Lotus Yoga in Spain. And I got to travel to India and experience the culture there. And when I came back, I felt more ready to be in that position of leadership.
[00:09:46] And it didn't feel quite as audacious to do lead yoga teacher training. So we started that in 2018. We can fast forward to now. We're almost graduating our eighth class, so that is really exciting. Also in 2018, we opened our second space, which was right outside of the River Market area in Kansas City within the Leia center, which is a beautiful wellness space that was there.
[00:10:12] And we held our yoga teacher trainings there and aerial yoga as well, because it had these nice high ceilings and big beams. And I had an office there and it was this beautiful, creative space.
[00:10:25] So by the end of 2018 through 2019, we were rocking with two Karma Tribe yoga studios, a great yoga teacher training program, retreats, as well as Heartland Yoga Fest, which we did for two years, which was affiliated with the studio. So, so, and then 2020 came. And for all of us, that is a poignant year, dramatic year in a lot of ways for me. I became pregnant, like right as things were shutting down with my daughter Gemma. She was born in November of 2020. So again, here we're in this space, we're like really rocking. Things are growing. I'd envisioned like opening multiple studios, things like that. And then the pandemic hit. We transitioned from in person classes to online classes in three days. I called my team together and I'm like, I'm seeing the writing on the wall right now. Let's do this. So we made the decision to close down our in person classes. Got the online up and running and it was a lot more complicated to do than it is now. We had to really figure out the whole system in a very short period of time and it was really hard. We tried to keep the energy high and exciting and we were so blessed that a lot of students stayed with us during that time. But it was really hard. A lot of people couldn't afford to do yoga anymore or didn't care to practice online.
[00:11:59] And you know what they were saying back then? There was two weeks to flatten the curve and it went on for months and months. We had to move our yoga teacher training program online without any clue as to whether or not we could meet in person again that year. So it was really tough. All the while I was growing this human inside of me and things really shifted and changed. I had Gemma in November, still mostly online at that point with socially distanced classes in person. And we had lost a lot of members and it was just painful to keep both spaces open.
[00:12:35] I didn't want to negatively impact my family. So we had to make the tough decision to close down our second location in 2021 and just stick to our Broadway location. Kind of the lucky thing was that Covid really trained us how to do online classes and how to work in this like hybrid way. So even though we just had one space, we were able to expand our offerings to online as well. So as we started offering more in person classes, we also able to offer them in this hybrid way so that people who wanted to stay home or needed to stay home could. And people who wanted to be in the studio space could be in the studio space. So that was a good thing that came out of COVID as well as moving our teacher training from a fully in person program to one that's more of a hybrid now. So we have a lot of great self paced online content as well as in person content and people can join us live via Zoom for the in person content. So that was a really nice positive change and it works really well for my family and a lot of the people who lead busy lives who do our training. Another outcome, I don't want to say it's an outcome of COVID It was kind of something brewing for a while beforehand, but I started feeling uncomfortable with the name Karma tribe yoga in 2015 when we opened. I named it that with really good intentions. It felt like it captured this vibe of being donation based and also having this really strong community that that had started forming through Pop Up Yoga. And tribe was a word that was being used a lot in that time period, especially among like the hippie yoga community. And so it felt really good and aligned and people liked it. And then I started seeing articles pop up or comments over the next couple of years about how tribe is an appropriative word for white people to use, especially living in the United States. And so it started weighing on me probably for a full year or two before we actually went through the branding change. And with the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd and the increasing awareness around things like cultural appropriation, racism, that came to light in just a really different way in that time period.
[00:15:01] Due to a lot of amazing bipoc educators, I made the decision to go ahead and change the branding. It's. It's not an easy thing to do and change our name. It is quite the transition. It took a lot of work, especially doing it, I think like a month before my daughter was born. But we really embraced it.
[00:15:22] The name True Love Yoga came to me in a nice relaxed moment and it just felt right. And I hired a muralist and graphic designer who, whose name is Travis Stewart. He did a lot of the cool murals you've seen around town and being at Mildred's Coffee, he's done all their branding. So I hired him to zhuzh us up, create a new logo, create all of our beautiful new branding and colors.
[00:15:50] And we made the switch to True Love Yoga. And in some ways it was hard. It was letting something go that was really meaningful for me.
[00:15:57] Opening Karma Tribe Yoga totally changed my life. The trajectory of it, what I thought it was capable of, the people I've met, the relationships I've formed. But I knew that this new era of True Love Yoga would be more elevated, more respectful, and was evolving with the times.
[00:16:17] So that happened in 2020. My daughter was born. And then we started opening back up in our singular space. And for the last few years, we have been kind of building our business back because it was hit very hard during the pandemic. I've had to spread my attention between raising my daughter and keeping the business afloat. And I've been beyond blessed to have the most incredible teachers here at the studio. Management work, traders, yoga teacher trainees, all of these people who have come together to really enforce and strengthen the heart of this community, which is this love for yoga, this deep acceptance of others, and this space that allows people to just truly be themselves, to let go, to release and to grow in a really safe, trauma informed, professional, communal space. So I'm super proud. I know it feels like less story in the last few years. The business story really feels like before COVID and after Covid in so many ways. And I've been so happy to see things just become really steady again and more easeful. And I'm really proud to have this space now for 10 years that has valued accessibility, inclusive, inclusivity, integrity, respect for yoga's roots, Creativity that has nurtured so many people, that has heard so many ohms, that has held people through difficult times, including myself. I truly feel humbled by it. The space, especially with its students and our trainees and grads who become our teachers, just continues to evolve in this really beautiful way, still rooted in these values and rooted in heart. And I just love seeing how each individual person has contributed to this atmosphere and to this community and how it continues to evolve and grow. I feel like we've reached more of a place of maturity at this point. The studio has really grown up with the clientele. While we host a lot of different ages of students, we used to do a lot more like Halloween parties and and themed events and you know, we'd try anything. We'd have like happy hour with drinks and stuff like that. And I feel like over the years we've settled into something that feels a little bit more steady and a little bit more mature. We've gotten into practices that are deeply rooted, like Qigong, for instance. We returned to the roots of Hatha yoga. We renamed our classes more traditional names like Vinyasa, Flow, Hatha, et cetera. We've brought in more restorative practices and myofascial release. And we really keep this love for yoga at the heart of everything that we do. I hope for the next 10 years we maintain the steady heartbeat of community of who we truly are, while continuing to evolve and grow and expand and serve our community in different ways. I hope that we continue to change and touch lives in a way that's helpful and respectful and meaningful. And I also maybe hope for things to evolve in a way I can't even totally picture or expect just yet. Because like in the story I've told about how we came about, some things were surprises, many things I've had to just say yes to and figure it out. And I'm so glad I did. It's hard. It takes bravery and vulnerability and maybe even like a willingness to be embarrassed sometimes because things don't always work out. But I'm willing to take that risk because the fruits of it have been so worth it and our community is so incomparable. I'm really excited, you know, looking forward into the coming years for what we have planned. Our 300 hour yoga teacher training actually launches today, or applications launch today. I'm so excited to offer that next year. It's one of the first things that's come about in a while that I feel personally, like, kind of nervous and excited about because it's something really new and challenging for me and I know we're just going to get so deep and juicy with the yoga, so I feel the anticipation of that coming.
[00:20:44] I'm loving seeing our yoga trainees graduate and bring them into the fold and see what they have to offer our community. And as everyone keeps learning and evolving, I know we're going to have so much richness to offer over the next decade. Who knows what it'll look like, but I'm sure it will be beautiful. I want to thank all of our students, our team Special shout out to Sedona Alvarez for being here since day one. I also want to give a special shout out to Brian Hubbard. I don't know if you listen to this podcast Brian, but you are our one remaining founding member. You've been a member with us since the beginning and I'm so grateful for you. I know you love Sedona's classes and you being a part of this community has been so wonderful. I've loved cheering you through your runs and I'm so happy that we've been able to provide this space for you. I want to thank our community as a whole and also my family, parents, my husband, my daughter, my siblings. Everyone has helped, whether it was help building out this space or providing support, maybe providing childcare.
[00:21:56] I'm so grateful for you for helping to keep this alive and being supportive of me on this journey. And I want to express that same gratitude to everyone who has believed in this vision, who has taught alongside me, who has shown up in the hard seasons, whether that's personal or collective. And if you've been with us for a short time or a long time, I want to offer you just a moment to pause and reflect on your own practice journey with me and with True Love Yoga. How have you evolved over time and how has it impacted your life? I'd love to invite you to share your favorite True Love Yoga memory on social media. We also have a QR code up on our socials that you can go in and upload videos or writings to in a Google Drive so that we can collect all those memories together for our 10 year celebration. We also have all kinds of cool sales and merch and events going on at the studio this month. Just celebrate and I want to encourage you to keep practicing with us, whether you're in Kansas City or joining us online from afar for the next 10 years. Plus and may you continue to love yourself, your practice and your community deeply. Here is to the next 10 years at True love Yoga. Om Shanti Om. Peace.
