We are so excited to chat with Maureen Benedict, the owner of Red Tail Power Yoga in NY! You can catch the full interview via our YouTube link, and here is an excerpt of our fun IG live chat we had about what it is like owning a yoga studio, surviving the pandemic, and great things coming up in 2023!

Iana
We are chatting with Maureen, owner of Redtail Power Yoga here in New York. Yoga Love magazine is based in New York City so we love supporting our local studios. It’s never easy as a small business owner but it feels extra challenging now.

Maureen, tell me about your studio. You’ve been open for a few years before the pandemic hit, so at least you had a couple of years to get your bearings before the pandemic. What was that transition like for your studio?

Maureen
We opened here February of 2018, and we had pretty much just celebrated our second birthday and then March 2020 hit. We were already live streaming from here because I had a friend and colleague who was the original brainchild of Vivaya Live and had this idea probably two years before the Pandemic hit to have an interactive wellness website, and she asked if I would help launch it. So basically in 2 hours, I had every single class up and live streamed.

Iana
You’re the first studio owner I’ve spoken to who was set up basically before everything happened. I feel like in 2018, people would have been like live streaming yoga? That sounds odd. And I love that you were open to this new idea and embracing this technology to reach your community.

Maureen
Yeah, it was really interesting. She had this idea, and I told her, well, I teach through the body, is that okay? We don’t put a mat down and demonstrate. It’s just the nature of how we teach with our eyes and our words and often our hands. So I taught live classes. I would teach the people on Zoom and the people here. Then I realized my teachers also had to stay healthy and connected to the community, and the community would miss them, too. So they learned to teach live. And so when it was that we weren’t really coming back into this physical space, then it was “from our home to yours.”

I moved the furniture, the dining room out, and that was the yoga studio. My old golden retriever, he would do savasana every time. My cat would do meditation every time. We did that pretty effortlessly. And then in June, I got a permit from the town because I knew these humans needed to get together in the community and right up the road there’s a park. So we taught outdoors four times a week. Even when we were outdoors, we still live streamed the class.

And then in August, we were back in the studio with the restrictions that New York State had, and we thought, what can we do to keep people healthy? What can we do to keep people connected? And so we still live stream every class,  every single class on the schedule has the option to choose in person or view broadcast.

Iana
I love that that’s still being offered. Did you find that a lot of your community moved away during the pandemic? And have they come back or have most people stayed?

Maureen
I think in the beginning, everyone was so connected and together on the screen and really in support and then when it went on a little longer, people tended to drop off. I think in yoga in particular, there’s so much about community and connection and togetherness. We put the zoom classes on gallery view and then they were socializing and introducing their pets. When we came back in, there were still people online socializing. I think people are really ready to be in community, in connection. So, it’s been an interesting challenge.

Iana
When things got challenging, how did you get through those moments? Was there a person, a mantra, a pet, something that helped if you felt overwhelmed in that moment?

Maureen
There were definitely moments, lots of them, lots of emotion. It feels a little like despair, right? A lot of people would say, “oh, it’s so great you could keep your studio open when so many closed.” It was a conscious decision to keep the studio open. I was here to be of service for my community and my teachers, and so whatever it took to keep this place open, which meant balances on credit cards and financial commitment to hold the line.

So what was my mantra? What was my guiding faith? I have “Walk With Grace” tattooed on my arm. I actually got it for my birthday last year, because the Red Tail Hawk is my spirit animal and he always tells me to rise above, to look at the big picture, and that this too, shall pass. And that in the moment, I wanted to believe it. We’re spirits having a human experience. So to allow this human and all of the humans to have whatever experience they’re having right now is what I felt was my calling to just be space for them of love. Space of love for every human to go through whatever their human journey is taking them through right now.

“So what was my mantra? What was my guiding faith? I have ‘Walk With Grace’ tattooed on my arm. I actually got it for my birthday last year, because the Red Tail Hawk is my spirit animal and he always tells me to rise above, to look at the big picture, and that this too, shall pass. And that in the moment, I wanted to believe it.” 

Iana
That’s so beautiful. And that faith, that feeling has to be so strong within you to keep moving forward, and that’s why you’re still here. It broke my heart when I would hear of a studio or a partner that had closed. It felt like a punch in the stomach every time I heard about it. And then the ones that did stay open, it was like this joyful release. 

With everything you went through, and then you turned around and supported our business, which was amazing. Our business only survived, because you paid it forward and supported us. So thank you for doing that and for continuing to be that. It feels like a miracle!

Maureen
It is a miracle, right? Every breath we take is a miracle.

Iana
How has your personal practice changed in the last couple of years?

Maureen
I love getting on my mat with my teachers. We’re a family of teachers. We’re a team. So every teacher here is trained by me personally and then by each other, and they usually rise up through the community. We don’t do teacher training as a regular money maker, but we do two teacher trainings a year. I’ll do teacher training when I have people that come to me and want to give back to the community and they want to share what yoga has done for them. In their classes I show up as just love and support for them in whatever stage they are in their teacher training journey and their teacher journey.

I did an apprentice program with two people recently that also allows my teachers to step into leadership as a mentor. So I’ve gone from studio owner, mentor, and now I’m a professional life coach. I’ve stepped into those shoes this last year as well. It just was the natural evolution of me.

Iana 
What did you do before you owned the studio, what was your previous life?

Maureen
It’s so funny because I like to say that I’m a cat, so I’ve had so many lives. I started as a young person in fashion sales in New York City for one of the biggest manufacturers. I was a sales executive for Liz Claiborne back in the day, and then I raised three sons. I made the conscious choice to stay home and raise my boys. During that time, I had a boutique baking business, and then I worked for a nonprofit, the Eleanor Roosevelt Center up in Hyde Park, New York. It’s the nonprofit arm that does international girls leadership and I was the assistant to the director, and then I was a  yoga teacher who taught from here to Stanford, and was a Lulu ambassador for two terms. I’ve had a lot of lives.

Iana
What would one piece of advice you would give someone that’s maybe looking for a little bit of guidance to get towards their dreams or their goals? One quick piece of advice you could leave them with.

Maureen
One piece of advice for anyone that they can use at any time to move forward: Your path is where your feet are. It’s today, the present moment. If I’m opening my eyes, I’m actually focused on the present. The possibilities are there. If I’m not in fear of the future or regret of the past. Your path is where your feet are right now.

“One piece of advice for anyone that they can use at any time to move forward: Your path is where your feet are. It’s today, the present moment. If I’m opening my eyes, I’m actually focused on the present. The possibilities are there. If I’m not in fear of the future or regret of the past. Your path is where your feet are right now.”

Iana
Thank you for chatting with us this morning. Thank you for supporting us and helping us continue the work that we’re doing as well. I’m so happy to hear all the amazing things you have planned.

Maureen
Thank you for the good you guys do, and I’m honored to be a partner.