HONEST YOGA STUDIO

HONEST YOGA STUDIO

PARTNER

HONEST YOGA STUDIO

thehonestyoga.com

Your yoga studio should be a place with zero judgment and top-quality classes. If you’re seeking a community, healing trauma, ready to come home to your body, or you’re just tired of yoga studios with pumping music and dark rooms…You’ve found your new yoga home here at Honest Yoga Studio.

HONEST YOGA

3900 Vinewood Ln N #21
Plymouth, MN, 55441
3900 Vinewood Ln N #21
Plymouth, MN, 55441

(612) 354 6939

Shanti yoga Center
Shanti yoga Center
Shanti yoga Center
DHARAMSALA TC

DHARAMSALA TC

PARTNER

DHARAMSALA TC

DHARAMSALATC.COM

We are a women owned and operated yoga studio in Traverse City, Michigan. Our story is rooted in a desire to share the beautiful benefits of Yoga + Mindfulness. Dharamsala TC is a sacred space for everyone to feel welcome.

From the moment you first visit, you will sense the genuine warmth and vibrant energy. It is a collective passion for yoga and well-being shared by amazing teachers and students practicing here.

The founding principles of our yoga studio are based on our trust in the benefits of yoga. And with deepest respect for the long line of teachers who brought forth the traditions of yoga.

The word Dharamasala means rest house or shelter. And that’s just what we offer to all who enter our doors. Our yoga studio is a place to spend time together soaking up the beautiful benefits of this practice.

Dharamsala - Front Street

319 Front Street
Traverse City, MI 49686

Dharamsala - Robinwood Court

869 Robinwood Court
Traverse City, MI 49686

869 Robinwood Court
Traverse City, MI 49686

319 Front Street
Traverse City, MI 49686

(231) 421-3808

(612) 354 6939

Check out our great chat with Kay, founder of Dharamsala TC

Dharamsala
BIG BEAR YOGA FESTIVAL
To celebrate the release of our print issue themed LOVE, we reached out to our amazing community to share with us a few thoughts on love. This week we celebrate Dharamsala TC  in Michigan and founder Kay Epple. Dharamsala TC is “a women owned and operated yoga studio in Traverse City, Michigan. Our story is rooted in a desire to share the beautiful benefits of Yoga + Mindfulness. Dharamsala TC is a sacred space for everyone to feel welcome.

From the moment you first visit, you will sense the genuine warmth and vibrant energy. It is a collective passion for yoga and well-being shared by amazing teachers and students practicing here. The word Dharamsala means rest house or shelter. And that’s just what we offer to all who enter our doors. Our yoga studio is a place to spend time together soaking up the beautiful benefits of this practice.” Pick up your free copy of Yoga Love Magazine at Dharamsala TC today!

Share with us what you love about what you do:
I opened my studio, Dharamsala TC in Traverse City, Michigan in 2021 with  the intention of bringing community-practiced yoga back to my community. All of the studios in town had closed during the pandemic and I missed teaching in person and sharing the energy of yoga when practiced with others. Dharamsala TC serves as an inclusive sanctuary, a safe space, and a  shelter for all to practice yoga and learn the benefits of a lifelong practice.Through this dream my daughter Hilary Lee joined me as a co-owner and we grew to open a second location. While I love seeing adult’s faces leaving class with the look of yoga bliss on their face, I personally am most passionate about bringing yoga to kids. As the Dalai Lama said “If every 8- year-old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from  the world within one generation.” I strongly believe in the emotional benefits of yoga, breathwork and mindfulness for children of all ages. We are teaching them lifelong tools that can be used on and off the mat for  overall health and well-being. I love providing children and families with  tools for living healthy, happy lives.

Share with us what you have learned about LOVE:
I’ve learned that the more love you send out into the world, the more love that returns to you. Love is such a positive force of energy that when you do things with love as the motivator you can’t go wrong.

What inspired you to support Yoga Love Magazine?
I support Yoga Love Magazine for many reasons, not the least of which is  that it represents real yoga, not a social media version of what yoga should  look like. Yoga is truly for everyone and Yoga Love Magazine highlights people of all cultures and backgrounds. I also love that your magazine is distributed for free!

YOGA PURSE

YOGA PURSE

YOGA PURSE

Yoga Purse

This Yoga Purse is designed to carry your essentials and a yoga mat in one bag.

The inside tote bag is made from organic cotton. Featuring an inner pocket. This shallow tote is a perfect place to carry a water bottle, purse, keys and phone. Due to the nature of the fabric, each purse is very unique and may not match the image exactly. Please contact Yoga Purse directly if you have questions. Yoga Mat is not included.

Yoga Purse is  a Woman Owned Business proudly made in Las Vegas, NV. Check the website for a full line of colors and designs.

ABOUT:

Yoga Purse
Yoga Purse
Yoga Purse
YO BK

YO BK

PARTNER

YO BK

YO-BK.COM

We can’t wait to meet you!

Step into the heat and discover the incredible benefits of hot yoga and pilates! We offer Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga, Traditional Hot Yoga (Bikram), Yin Yoga, Inferno Hot Pilates and even Aerial Yoga (in our Greenpoint NYC location) with some of the East Coast’s best certified instructors. From HIIT with weights to Yin style yoga, there’s a class style and focus waiting for you to enjoy! These varied and complementary classes provide all of your fitness needs in one incredible community!

607 Manhattan Ave

607 Manhattan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11222

20 Broadway

20 Broadway #108
Brooklyn, NY 11249

2319B N Miami Avenue, Miami FL 33127

2319B N Miami Avenue
Miami FL 33127
607 Manhattan Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11222


20 Broadway #108
Brooklyn, NY 11249


2319B N Miami Avenue
Miami FL 33127

Our chat with YO BK founder Kate Davies

ABSOLUTE YOGA LOGO
ABSOLUTE YOGA STAFF

LOVE PROFILE: YO BK

PROFILES

LOVE PROFILE: YO BK - Kate Davies Durand

We are so excited to chat with Kate Davies Durand, the owner of YO BK with locations in Brooklyn and Miami! You can see the full interview via YouTube, and here is an excerpt of our fun IG live chat we had about what it is like owning multiple yoga studios, surviving the pandemic, and great things coming up in 2023!

Iana:
How long have you been in the location you’re in now?

Kate
We opened in 2015 at our Williamsburg location, which is on Broadway and Kent, right by the water and it was just this beautiful, sunny studio. I did a lot of the build out myself. About three years after that, we expanded to Green Point, which is quite a large studio space. We have a big upstairs room, and we also have a basement room where we do a lot of workshops and teacher trainings, and we take care of some of the overflow from busy classes. And this year we opened in Miami in February of 2022, which was a big leap and a very different market, but it’s been a fun challenge.

Iana:
Why did you choose Miami?

Kate:
When I decided I wanted to open a studio, I had an amazing mentor, and the first thing that my mentor had me do was choose five different cities and then narrow them down to two, where there was a need for the type of yoga that we were offering, where the studio could potentially be successful. And the two places I narrowed it down to were Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Miami. I ended up living in Miami for about six months and realized that just the way that the city worked, that I was not equipped to open a studio there at that point in time. It’s a city that’s way more intense in terms of regulations permitting architecture build out, which sounds weird, but it’s not logistically as challenging to open a business in New York.

Iana:
Yeah, I’m shocked to hear that. Quite honestly, I thought New York was the hardest to do and the most expensive it is to do just about anything.

Kate:
But it’s also the yoga industry that is so interesting because we haven’t quite been regulated in the way that restaurants or even massage parlors have been regulated. So between signing my lease and Williamsburg and opening it was only about 60 days. Whereas Miami, we had ten days between signing our lease and opening.

One of my dear friends who I met as a student in Williamsburg and who helped me expand to Greenpoint, actually introduced me to my husband who was the general contractor at the Greenpoint expansion, and he ended up moving to Miami pre-pandemic. So we ended up with this huge space that has an all day cafe with indoor and outdoor space, a place that people really come to and bring their laptops and stay all day, and they can come and take a class during that time.

Iana:
Wow, that is amazing, because I was going to say, as a business owner, you can’t be in three places at once. I mean, one business is challenging, three is monumental.

Kate:
Trying to be in three places at once, and I fail over and over again. That’s kind of the story of my life and the mistake I keep making. I have really amazing teams set up at all three locations. I have a full time manager in Miami who runs the show. I have a really robust sales team. We have a pretty much full time staff in NY that is at the studio to greet students, to support our team, to make sure that it’s warm and welcoming.

It did take a really long time to get to that place. When we first opened, I was teaching 18 classes a week, and I was the manager, the cleaning crew, and the janitor. So it’s been really cool to see how just people coming in the door over and over again can not just change their lives, but it can change the way that a business runs.

“When we first opened, I was teaching 18 classes a week, and I was the manager, the cleaning crew, and the janitor. So it’s been really cool to see how just people coming in the door over and over again can not just change their lives, but it can change the way that a business runs.”

Iana:
You survived the pandemic. I mean, you made it through that, and that is unbelievable to me. What was that like?

Kate:
We were actually in our first, 200 hour teacher training during the pandemic. We had 18 teacher trainees and we were kind of in this bubble in our Green Point studio where we were so saturated with the study, and just the process of training these amazing new teachers that I wasn’t even reading the news or paying attention to what was going on. I think it was the weekend of March 15, and one of the trainees came in, and she said, “Hey, I’m really not comfortable coming into this space. Can you offer something online?” And we took a vote, do we want to move fully remote or do we want to stay in person? I went home that night and I had a conversation with my husband. He said, “I have an elderly mom and I would prefer it if you actually shut the studio.” So we ended up closing our doors two days before the government mandate. I remember sitting in my old apartment going through Mind Body, which is the software system that all yoga studios use, and I canceled 80 classes,one after the other after the other, after the other. And every time you cancel a class, it’s asks: is this a permanent cancellation? And you have to say, yes, it’s a permanent cancellation.

The next day, we went live on Instagram and did that for the first couple of weeks, offering classes because everyone was just in a state of confusion and shock. In those early days, it was like you’re scared to go outside of your apartment to the hallway. You’re scared to do laundry, you’re scared to go to the bodega to get food. All of the grocery stores were out of toilet paper. It was very different from how it is now and how it was a year ago. But we started offering online classes right away. We figured out how to price them. We got a pretty good system in place.

Iana:
One of the things I always like to ask people: what was the thing, if there was a person or a mantra or a practice when things got so challenging that you’re like, I don’t know if I can keep doing this? What got you over that hurdle?

Kate:
I would ask: How can I be of service to others? I feel so privileged in the way that I was raised and the opportunities that I’ve had and it’s always come back to: I have to keep providing for my staff, I have to keep providing for my students. So when I open a studio, there’s no other option than to figure out how to make it work, and that’s a different mindset than a lot of businesses, than a lot of restaurant owners or store owners are in. Our students need us, it’s a really fundamental part of their day to come in and disconnect. We have a very strict no cell phones policy across our locations. Just take an hour of your day without your phone to come and breathe. Which to me is so much more profound than anything that actually happens in those rooms. Yes, we want it to be challenging, we want it to be fun, we want it to be mindful and safe. But to me, the thing I keep coming back to is that we all need that time to disconnect. And unless it’s scheduled and we’re paying for it, we’re probably never going to do it.

“I feel so privileged in the way that I was raised and the opportunities that I’ve had and it’s always come back to: I have to keep providing for my staff, I have to keep providing for my students. So when I open a studio, there’s no other option than to figure out how to make it work, and that’s a different mindset than a lot of businesses, than a lot of restaurant owners or store owners are in. Our students need us, it’s a really fundamental part of their day to come in and disconnect.”
Iana:
What are some of the things that are coming up that you are excited about?

Kate:
So Sheri Celentano, who you know, and I are co leading some trainings and upcoming retreats. Sheri is amazing, one of the best pandemic gifts. I think that we all spent so much time talking about what the pandemic robbed from us, and how it negatively affected our lives. And there were actually some really great things that happened during the pandemic. I took a teacher training with Sheri about five years ago at the old Laughing Lotus Studio and I was like, I want to work with her so badly. I was in awe of this dazzling, sparkling woman. And the fact that now we get to lead 200 hours teacher trainings together is really incredible.

I would say the best thing for me was also a necessary shift of the team. It kind of forced people to get really clear on what do I actually want? Is this serving me? Is this who I want to be working with in the capacity I want to be working? So I feel like a lot of relationships that have become stagnant kind of filtered themselves out and created space for the new.

We also have a retreat in Greece coming up in June. We booked this amazing retreat space on an island and it’s super hard to get to and that’s why it’s beautiful. It’s amazing. We’re really so excited for that.

Iana:
I always wonder how people also choose where to run their retreats. I mean, you could literally go anywhere in the world.

Kate:
Sheri and I both have a really strong foundation in mythology. Sheri with Hindu mythology, she spent many years studying it. She’s led trainings on it as well in the past, and I was a classical studies major. So when we realized that Greece was on the table, we were like, we could really nerd out with this retreat and could really tie it into how the myths relate to where we are. There’s a huge link between Hindu mythology and Greek mythology that will be really fun to kind of tease out and bring into the classes.

Iana:
That sounds amazing. And that’s very unique.

Kate:
And the other thing with retreat, like, we’ve done a few retreats in the Caribbean, we did Nicaragua, we did the Dominican Republic. And I like the idea of taking people somewhere they might not go otherwise or they might not go on their own. That creates more of a sense of adventure and perhaps will attract more serious practitioners. It’s a big deal to go that far away.

Iana
Kate, thank you so much for chatting with me today and for supporting our next issue of Yoga Love Magazine. I can’t say this enough, but it’s only because of people like you, other small businesses who support us, it is the reason we can share free print magazines with the community! Thank you so much for and we look forward to partnering with you guys again in the future!

SALTARA

SALTARA

PARTNER

SALTARA

saltarahealing.com

YOGA AND WELLNESS IN WARWICK, NEW YORK

Situated on the top floor of a 111 year old railroad building, Saltara Healing’s Yoga studio is surrounded by windows, an in-studio waterfall, and ancient Himalayan salt, the purest salt on earth, often referred to as “white gold” in the Himalayas. We love how ancient, sacred and mystical Himalayan salt rock is – having been formed hundreds of millions of years ago! This magical crystalline formation is primarily [and very carefully] mined in the Punjab region of Pakistan, at the base of the Himalayan mountains. There are many touted health benefits, such as purifying the air and boosting mood – but we just love the way we feel when it’s in our space! Think of how amazing you feel when you’re at the BEACH, it’s that ultimate nervous system regulation, ultimate relaxation. That’s the feeling we want to invoke at SALTARA.

Partnering through a friendship that began while working together at a New Jersey yoga studio, plus a desire to create our dream healing sanctuary, SALTARAwas born. The name is a play on words, a combination of SALT, and TARA happens to be both of our names! When coming up with a name for this dream space, using our name suddenly made so much sense – especially because of the significance of TARA in Sanskrit, Buddhism and Hinduism.

In Hindu mythology, Tara is one of the names of the wife of Shiva, a Hindu goddess who embodies fierceness, compassion and unconditional LOVE FOR ALL BEINGS. She represents creation, wisdom, oneness and strength to overcome obstacles. Then there’s the Buddhist Goddesses: Green Tara protects against internal dangers such as pride, ignorance, jealousy, hatred, attachment, self-doubt, and greed. And White Tara, who is the savior, the mother of all Buddhas, is the perfect embodiment of graceful power, wisdom, and purity. In yoga, she promotes health and extending one’s lifespan.

These are all such beautiful and meaningful representations of the name and what we aim to embody. But the most significant meaning for us is that Tara means STAR in Sanskrit (and Punjabi) and symbolizes THE LIGHT OF THE SOUL. Tying back to Himalayan Rock Salt being mined in Punjab, it all seems to align in such a sacred way. We are all made of stars, and it’s that light within that connects us to one another and all that is.

Tara Lauren and Tara Marie realize that many people have busy, stressful lives and feel grateful to be able to offer a place of holistic healing and peace. Together, and with all of the amazing SALTARA practitioners, they aim to be a positive light and inspiration, helping others tap into their truest soul selves, elevate their lives, and having a ripple effect out into the world.

SALTARA

17 River St (Ste 9)
Warwick, NY 10990
17 River St (Ste 9)
Warwick, NY 10990
Saltara, Yoga and Healing
Saltara, Yoga and Healing