WHAT A RIDE THIS HAS BEEN!!
Yoga Path
Dear Yoga Peeps,
The past few weeks have been explosive with creativity, opportunities, and the realization that certain callings will no longer be ignored. Yoga Path is now a certified Woman Owned Small Business, giving us access to populations we couldn’t reach through the studio presence alone. We are moving full steam ahead in our continuing work with the senior citizen communities, after-school programs, and our work with school athletic teams. I’m also in conversation about collaborative work with a local physical therapy clinic whose focus is with performance athletes. Being able to write this paragraph is the result of a ton of kick-ass work, and not mine alone! (If you’ve had a conversation with me about my intentions and where I’d like to see Yoga Path grow, reading that first paragraph, you can only guess how exciting this is for me. I mean…Y’ALL!!!!!)
My yoga path began as a newbie asana student, good lord!, thirty years ago?!!!!!! Its introduction into my lifestyle began when I moved here and studied, (like all Baton Rouge yogis and yoginis who have been taking yoga as long and longer than I), with Nancy Clark. This studio is now One Heart Yoga owned by Terri Hunter. Its the perfect passing of the torch. Xoxoxoxo
After Nancy retired and moved away, it was the sound advice of Cary Saurage and Lynn Raineck, that led me to teacher training at Kripalu. It was this month-long immersion that opened my eyes to compassion, forever changing the way I practiced and studied yoga. It is from there I could begin a path of forgiveness. I’m still on that one. Driving in traffic keeps it real for me.
The next few years saw me balancing motherhood, marriage, teaching, and studying for my 500HR yoga teacher certification. In 2008 Yoga Path, the school for teachers, began. After renting space with Red Shoes who graciously let us move from room to room as their programs allowed, we settled in to our first brick and mortar on Acadian Avenue. I’ve always said the school is my heart of Yoga Path, and as a studio grew, I struggled with my role as a studio owner.
No matter how many ways I try to rearrange the pieces, I’ve never found the heart for the job; however, I’ve never found the heart to give it up either. I enjoy our community. I lean into it. I grew up in it. Even looking back through all the crap that goes with owning a studio, I was meant to be on this road so I could learn what I needed to learn. Because of being a yoga studio owner, I grew leaps and bounds in finding my voice and speaking my truth.
All that stuff in the first paragraph is very important to me and I am determined to give it my all. And while a lot has been changing for me over the past few years, never as accelerated as the past two. So, here’s the catch…
What I’ve learned and where it is taking me is different from the role of studio owner. My heart started making more room for studying and working with special populations. My wreck and the recovery that still has me in physical therapy three times a week almost two years later…that’s a huge calling for me as a yoga teacher.
I’m ready, no, desperate, to dive down the rabbit hole of special populations. I’m ready to focus on individual clients, small classes, special populations, women’s health, knees, hips, shoulders, and that’s just me getting started! I am passionate about being a yoga teacher and seeing how many ways to address the practice to benefit the person right in front of me. People like me, with all our unique and completely shared quirks, insecurities, injuries, and beautiful hearts…oh, and spines…I got a thing or two to share about the spine.
Making time this year to study with my teachers fires me up to come back and offer a more in-depth and versatile teacher training school. The school, our methodology, our approach to the practice is a one-of-a-kind training experience. You leave not only with a clearer connection to your heart, but with the knowledge and applicable skills you need to teach a kick-ass yoga class that is safe for everyBODY. (Psst…A 500 hour program will soon develop from this digging in and getting into the nitty-gritty.)
What all of this means is, yes, I am retiring Yoga Path’s studio and my life as a studio teacher. The rumor mill that stole my story out from under me, (like I said, still working on that forgiveness path), may have hit your ears before this hits your eyes. It took me, personally, as Kate, a lot of hard work, mentally, physically, personally, emotionally, to get to the point where I could let the studio go and be at peace with that decision. If I want Yoga Path to continue down Kate Suchanek’s path, then it is time to say goodbye to the studio. Our doors will close April 30th, 2020.
This gives you time to use up the rest of your class passes. Most students on auto-draft do not get charged until mid or late month for the upcoming month. Sarah, our Accounts Manager, and I are going through all auto-draft accounts to ensure you will not be charged for classes past 4/30/20. I will still hold a workshop on the 28th, YTT will still graduate on April 5th, we will still be hosting a couple of upcoming community events…stay tuned for more info, coming soon.
Come to class, talk with your teachers, learn where else they teach and how to stay in touch with them. I will still be offering individual lessons and semi-private classes without a break in schedule, as is the same for our outreach programs. I’ll be offering workshops and trainings again in the fall.
This was never going to be an easy decision and it is a decision I feel is as honest as I can be. Thank you for watching me grow and loving me through my mistakes and my failings. Thank you for forcing me to acknowledge I have a great smile, not because of how crooked it now is, but because its one of the great ways I like to “reach out and touch someone”. Thank for holding me up when I literally broke down. Thank you for never letting me get too full of myself. Thank you for never letting me get too empty. Thank you for every test and challenge you sent my way. Thank you for keeping me accountable. Thank you for your resilience, your light, your compassion. I love you.
Love,
Kate
Owner, Yoga Path LLC