MANNABLISS
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keeping it real. I feel like we live in a world of “bummer karma”. My karma bumps into your karma and that creates this explosion and sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it’s a hot mess. But hopefully this practice gives us a place to land where we can reflect upon that and then reset our course in conscious way.
MB: Are you aware of the incredibly powerful energy that surrounds you when you are teaching yoga and the positive energy you bring to everybody?
SF: Yes. I think that there is definitely a standing in your power that this practice gives to us. I don’t perceive it as a power over anyone but it is a sense of owning our bigness. I think it’s contagious and we have to be willing to claim it. I think a lot of teachers have a hard time with that because paradoxically it fuels that sense of power that feeds the ego. We feel afraid of fueling our power because we think it’s the ego. So much of our work about power is really healing the 3rd chakra and standing in our autonomy and our self-assurance and using it in positive ways – that’s for sure.
MB: What are you focusing on in your personal practice right now? Is there something you are working on in particular?
SF: Whatever challenge I am looking at in life, I used to say that this is in the way. I’ve started to view that as the way. I am moving through life with greater fluidity and a sense of moving with grain instead of against the grain. When I stopped viewing life as moving against the grain – it became the grain. In a way, I’m finding a way to be in deeper harmony with the perpetual impermanence of everything. In terms of a specific practice that allows me and brings me to that space of are really 2-fold. That is pranayama and mantra. I really think of mantra as a pranayama as well. They just seem to be the practices that really still all the fluctuations in my consciousness. I feel like a recalibration occurs when that happens. And it gives me a new lenses to see my circumstance through, to choose my words from and to make my decisions from. Those two practices, I’m just really falling in love with.
MB: A few questions about Kula Yoga Shala. What does it mean to you?
SF: The word Kula means “community of the heart”. Community in many ways has been fragmented in our modern day culture and I think a return to our connectedness is essential. What really inspired me to want to open a yoga studio was the idea to create a community center rather than a yoga studio. Regardless of style, yoga lights you up, it brings you to the deep place of connection with yourself. I kept asking myself what would happen if we connected to each other from a space of connectedness within ourselves. What would it become? If we saw into our sameness rather than our differences? And our differences became diversity that we cherish while understanding of our innate interconnectedness. That Idea excites me, inspires me to bring people to a space of union with self and others. The center is a gathering place. We are a collaborative of 45 yoga teachers. We all chip in for the rent and then we offer out the classes on a donation basis so people can come practice regardless of their financial circumstances. A yoga studio is a really potent opportunity to bring people together and serve and heal the community. My biggest goal is to offer a place that is really genuine and where the energy is really warm and inviting, and not in the least bit pretentious, and to give people the freedom to be who they are, where they are on their path to heal. And to be not only completely ok with that, but excellent in that. And to look at the space together as home.
MB: How has this paradigm that is different from other yoga studios effected your business?
SF: It’s been remarkable – truly incredible to see what has transpired. The root mission in my mind is to run the center as an extension of my spiritual practice and an embodiment of the principles which are expressed through the wisdom teachings in yoga. And I kind of wanted to know if they were real or if they were b.s. In other words, is the stuff that I am teaching in class is true? I didn’t want a of membership-based studio with a contract and fear-based rules and regulations like having to use all of your classes by a certain date and fixed prices, I wondered if there was a better way. Let’s see what happens if we’re transparent and say, “ Pay what you can and come and leave whenever you want”. Let’s say, “If you want to support us and be here, then we will continue to be here and support you”. It’s a way of calling our own bluff. If there is a stream of yoga consciousness moving through the walls of the space then the space being here is evidence of that. I don’t have much interest in teaching if yoga is not really happening. So the answer to your questions is its going fantastic. We are going on just over 5 years and every month, with a few exceptions, has been the best month that we have ever had. It’s almost like when a video goes viral. It’s like yoga gone viral. It just continues to grow and more people come and practice. They choose to support us from a conscious place and its really beautiful because it gives them a sense of ownership in the place. It gives all the students a sense of ownership and every teacher a sense of ownership. There is a bond there that goes beyond a a business/customer relationship. It’s something much more steeped in the heart of yoga.
I would not have done it any other way. It’s called a disruptive business model. You take things and flip them on their heads. Instead of charging a certain amount for a service, people pay what they want. Instead of paying the teachers, the teachers pay to teach at Kula. Instead of paying the teachers a small feefor what they do, we give them the majority of the revenue earned. It’s kind of like this win-win all around. It’s almost like taking business school and putting it into a headstand. Like inversion practice. It’s really cool and its fun. There is a generosity that exists in people. Not everybody’s selfish. You turn on the television and get a framed picture of the world that is full of danger. The world that I see every day is so epithetical to that notation. I’m surrounded by everyday people being generous, compassionate and caring. Maybe it a small sample size or maybe it’s just a different demographic, I don’t know. But I choose to believe that when one person is living in their truth and coming from a place of love and connectedness it inspires others around them to do the same to help it happen on a greater scale all around the planet.
Inside Kula Yoga Shala Healing Arts Center