We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Morwen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Emily, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
When we opened our first location in 2011, we had an intuitive sense of what we wanted to bring into the world, very much based on what we felt we were missing in the yoga/wellness world. The main goal in everything we do is to bring more peace and connection into peoples’ lives so they can in turn ripple that out into the world. If I had to pear it down, HOW we do this, falls into three main categories:
1. To welcome the unassuming yogi. All those who do not fit the stereotype of what social media and society tells us that a yogi looks, sounds and behaves like. The stressed out studio exec, the cigarette smokers, the “I can’t touch my toes” folk, the football players and everyone in between. We wanted to create a space that truly felt welcoming, no matter who walks through the doors.
2. To hand the power back to the student. It seems to be human nature to create a sort of dynamic with any teacher/student relationship that has the teacher on a pedestal. In more recent years, in our teacher mentorship program, my business partner/bestie and I refer to this as the “Simon Says” way of teaching, you know, do what I say because teacher know best. While this is a very common co-dependent dynamic that has a way of sneaking in- especially as students, we want to believe that someone else has the answers, right?- we believe that we as teachers, we have a responsibility to communicate, instruct, and relate in a way that empowers the student and reminds them of their own internal compass.
3. To foster connection. In a world that values and rewards productivity, we wanted to create a space that really allows people to disconnect to their jobs, roles, expectations and develop the tools to be able to connect back into their bodies and their hearts. We are a cell phone free space and we start and end the class together. We believe that it is this connection to oneself that allows us to show up fully in our relationships, in our jobs and to make the sort of choices that align with a deeper sense of truth.
Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Emily Morwen and I am the co-founder of Modo Yoga LA. I first came into yoga (as a student) entirely by accident. I grew up struggling with anxiety and chronic insomnia. Yoga always seemed like it was for someone else, someone who was already “zen”, someone with the proper outfit. I eventually took yoga classes in NYC in theater school but it wasn’t until my first hot yoga class in Toronto in about 2002 (that totally kicked my a$$) when I experienced a Savasana that contained a level of peace that I knew I needed more of. That was the beginning of what would become the seed for the rest of my life. I was a dedicated student for a few years and then in 2006 I became a yoga instructor. I moved to LA in 2008 after a bad breakup, looking for a fresh start and a new place to perform my one woman show that I’d toured throughout North America. When I arrived in LA with one bag, a yoga mat, zero dollars, no work visa (I’m Canadian) and no plan, I quickly realized that I would need to hustle in order to feed myself and eventually buy a bed to sleep on. I went all over LA (with an A-Z paper map!) plastering my very amateur poster advertising private yoga. Eventually I would get enough clients to scrape by. I spent hours in my broken down car driving from one client to another. I tried all the studios. I made friends with fellow yoga instructors. While I loved the one on one experience and each of my clients, there was something about it all that felt quite lonely, very spread apart. I craved community so badly. And the studios that I went to (while they had some great teachers), they always felt elitist, like they were only really for the obvious yogi who looked the part. The teachers I knew who taught in studios all complained that studios were paying next to nothing and in many cases the teacher had to pay the studio owner in order to obtain a teaching slot, they had to do all their own marketing and if they were lucky, they would take home a few dollars made from a donation-based studio model. I could not reconcile how a job that to me felt so important, that brought so much support for physical, mental and emotional health (which had saved my life) could be so undervalued. I also did not like the feeling of everyone out for themselves. The Canadian in me yearned for something that really valued the collective. A place that was welcoming to all walks of life (including the unassuming yogis), that could provide an honorable living for teachers and a place that really fostered connection to oneself and each other. When my now partners Jess and Deena (who had been two of the owners of that first hot yoga studio I went to in Toronto) asked me to open a yoga studio with them in LA and to be the main owner one the ground, my first response was, “um, no, I think you have the wrong person”. Something about the level of responsibility that I knew this role entailed had me thinking that someone else must be better suited for this job. After suggesting a few other candidates, Deena and Jess insisted that I was the one that they wanted to lead the charge. Eventually I said yes and gave myself 5 years to go all in after which point I would give myself an out if I couldn’t handle it. Cut to nearly 15 years, three LA studios (plus one in Seattle), two kids, a global pandemic, many triumph, and countless lessons learned later, and here we are. The thing I’m most proud of? I think it’s that our team always puts their studentship first. The humility and integrity that accompanies the student first approach is something that I value so deeply. It creates for an open hearted, ego-in-check, curiosity that is fertile for growth and evolution. Not sure if I have answered all of these questions, but wow, it’s hard to capture this journey in a few words.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I think that any small business experienced one of the biggest global pivot when the world shut down for the pandemic. As three hot yoga studios in LA where our whole business revolves around gathering in a room to get very sweaty, we certainly felt the tidal wave of the pandemic. I remember my partner/bestie, Alice (who came on board in 2016) and I having a work meeting together on March 11th 2020 where we cheersed each other after having -just that day – paid off the last of a very high interest loan we’d taken out to keep us afloat as we got our second and third LA studios off the ground. They were supposed to be staggered several years apart but the city held us up in permitting for years and we ended up opening both locations a couple months apart. This timing was excruciating as we didn’t have the funds or nearly enough teachers to operate. Alice and I hustled, tried to bend time and space, and kept saying things like, “okay, if we can make it through another 4 weeks, then…” and that 4 week yardstick kept repeating as we were flying teachers in from Canada one after another, having to borrow more money to pay the rent etc. So, on March 11th 2020 when we finally paid off the last of our loan and realized that we finally had enough local teachers to fill our schedule, it was quite the pivot when the very next day, we realized that this pandemic was going to be a bigger deal than we’d hoped and that we would need to announce on March 12th that we would close for 2 weeks and then “re-assess the situation” once we knew more about how this pandemic would unfold. Well, as we all know, that two weeks turned into years. Like any other small business, the overnight pivots were unimaginable. Trying to figure out how to move classes online, apply for government loans, conduct layoffs… was a colossal rearranging of everything we thought we knew. All the skills and tools we’re learned over the many years of running a business seemed to go out the window and we had to re-invent not only our business but ourselves. Of course, all while simultaneously trying to navigate babies and toddlers at home, homeschooling, groceries etc. There was some camaraderie in knowing that we were certainly not alone in this experience and that much of the world was going through their own metamorphosis and reinvention along our sides. And fully recognizing that despite our life’s work being turned upside-down, we were still some of the luckier ones. It was humbling and confusing to say the least.
How’d you meet your business partner?
I have a fun story about both my partners, Deena and Alice. I’ll tell the one about meeting Alice so I don’t go on all day. It was 2012 and we were both attending a Yoga teacher training in Toronto, my home town. At the time, I was running my (then one) studio fueled on passion and adrenalin. This was before having kids so I was able to simply be at the beck and call of every one of my studio’s needs (PS. this is NOT a sustainable approach). I had a sense that I needed to bring someone on board who could work alongside me who had the ability to ground adacious ideas, map them out and help execute. Alice and I rod the subway home together one day after training. On that ride, we learned that we had previously both lived in the same exact co-op in down town toronto (she was there right after I left for theater school in NYC and I was there for my entire childhood), she had worked at a dance studio where I sometimes took classes, we had gone to all the same local toronto hang spots and that she went to a Toronto Theater school where we share multiple mutual friends. It was sort of wild that we’d never crossed paths until this subway ride many years later. It was during this conversation where I felt an immediate connection. Something about who Alice was gave me the kind of exhale and familiarity that I didn’t even know I was looking for. There was an instant trust. Shortly after, knowing that she worked as a director for the government and had lots of experience working with people, I called her up to ask her for some advise on dealing with a challenging HR issue. She generously spent time sharing some of her expertise and I was so grateful. I then asked her to move to LA and become my partner. Initially, she was like, “um, well, I have a job, a long time partner, a dog and a house here…. oh, and I never want to live in LA”. But, she DID agree to come for a few days to teach some yoga classes so that I could take our teachers on an appreciation retreat. She’d have to tell you her side of this story, but from what she’s told me, the first class she taught and the way she experienced the students breath and togetherness, she knew that she COULD and maybe even WOULD move to LA. Cut to a couple years later, Alice sold her house, left her job, her dog, her life in Toronto and moved to LA. She ended up investing in our second and third locations jumped in to run them both. We have been each other’s ride or die ever since and I truly don’ t know if or how I would have made it through the last 9 years without her.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.modoyogala.com
- Instagram: emilymorwen
- Facebook: modoyogaLA
Image Credits
Catie Laffoon