We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Toyofuku-Aki. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Yoga had been a part of my life since my first year of college. Many years later, I was living in NYC and realized that the professional path I was on was not fulfilling AND I didn’t know what I wanted in life. After I completed my first 200-hour yoga teacher training I also figured out that I did not want to teach in yoga studios because they tended/tend to be exclusionary – white, able-bodied, financially comfortable, or affluent people. These spaces did not feel reflective of me or my community. So I pivoted and started working with non-profits offering Yoga and meditation to incarcerated youth and adults. In these spaces, I had major learnings. First, these students were predominately black and brown folx and being in a community of black people and people of color makes a difference. Second, many of the student’s stories were not only more similar to mine, but in many cases, I started to see myself in them – that different decisions could have led either of us down very different paths. Finally, I started to learn the differences between my familial and intergenerational trauma and these students and on my own healing journey that inspired me to live these practices and bring them with me, wherever I go.

When we look at the differences, my family, kānaka (Native Hawaiians) have intergenerational traumas due to the illegal overthrow of Hawai’i, loss of language and history, loss of land and home, and loss of family. These realities are alive today and rampant throughout Hawai’i and kānaka as heartbreak and rage.

Coming to Hawai’i was kismet and staying in Hawai’i was written in the stars. I could never have imagined the significance of being in Hawai’i and doing this work here. Teaching Project Koa Yoga (PKY) classes started because I wanted to offer something to my ancestors, ‘ohana, and the ‘āina that I was coming home to. It started as a small offering and grew into a community.

PKY was the idea of offering well-being to kānaka through yoga and meditation, celebrating the resilience of kānaka, and honoring the beauty of Hawai’i. This version of a dream all kānaka share and PKY was the way I could contribute.

Laura, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Our mission is to diversify the faces of yoga and wellness in Hawai’i while preserving the people, land, and culture that are Hawai’i. We have approached this mission through a multi-prong approach: direct access “yoga programs” with NGO partners working with marginalized communities, BIPOC-centered yoga classes at Ka Waiwai, and a 200-hour Yoga teacher training that is 100% scholarship based for BIPOC and QTIA2SMāhū+.

Project Koa Yoga (PKY) was officially formed in June 2021 as an LLC, a social enterprise. We had been building community and accessibility to trauma-informed, resilience-centered yoga and meditation in Hawai’i since 2019. Laura, one of the Co-Founders, was networking with programs that were similar to where she was teaching prior. Laura met Victoria, the other Co-founder, while teaching at a youth emergency housing shelter for victims of trafficking and exploitation, where Victoria managed and saw the benefits of trauma-informed training on the young people at her site. They both recognized the gap in the accessibility of yoga and meditation in Hawai’i and the resistance of folx in Hawai’i who did not see themselves in the “yoga” community here. Along with life changes and growing families a partnership was the best way to grow our business and complement each other and the skills needed to thrive!

After our first year, we have experienced exciting growth which inspires us to stay focused on our mission, values, and hui. We expanded from having trained and mentored 4 BIPOC trauma-informed yoga teachers to graduating 11 more BIPOC trauma-informed yoga teachers on O’ahu. Of those 11 graduates, 10 have been paid to teach since graduation and 5 have joined PKY as teachers, apprentices, and mentors. This increase in teachers and apprentices has allowed us to expand our programming to 6 new sites including UH wāhine (women) basketball, Department of Education with a focus on reducing CAN (child abuse and neglect), prenatal yoga, postpartum yoga, wāhine veterans, and victims of domestic violence. Most recently, we are beginning to expand our teacher training program to incarcerated women to reduce recidivism and create a community of support upon reentry. Additionally, our community yoga in the park program was such a success that we have increased from quarterly to monthly meet-ups with community partners. We now offer this program in a rotation between A’ala Park, Wai’anae Boat Harbor, and Waimānalo Beach Park. With our NGO partners, we offer basic needs, yoga and healing space, testing, wound care, vaccines, STD testing and contraception, and showers to name a few. All of this expansion has fortified the importance of deep pilina (relationships) with our hui (community) which we sustain through regular check-ins and aloha ‘āina days working in the lo’i.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn my fear of being in a partnership. As an entrepreneur, it is hard to share a dream and vision and there are lots of fears wrapped up in the idea of control, rightfully so. The idea of a partnership was proposed to me because within a month of deciding to formally establish PKY I found out I was hapai (pregnant). At the time I thought PKY was done before it began until my mentor proposed, “why don’t I get a business partner?” Everything in me said, ‘No way!” The next day I was talking to Victoria and the question just spilled out of my mouth, “would you ever want to do this with me?” Asking Victoria to do this together was the practice of me really listening to my intuition and trusting the universe.

I had to unlearn that I can do it all on my own, cognatively I knew and already believed that community was the only way to liberation. But I had to trust that doing it together was going to be the best move, despite all of the fear and lack mentality that had been previously taught and engrained in me.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Pilina (relationships) and trusting each other (co-founders).

Victoria and I have built a business with a focus on decolonizing our business and early on this showed up in how we built our clientele and hui (community). We focused on deep pilina, relationship building, rather than profit or transactions. I believe this is at the crux of being in Hawai’i and a lesson everyone can learn from Hawai’i.

Our conversations begin not about the business but about the people – we want to know who you are, do we share the same values, do we have the same expectations. If something doesn’t align for either of us then we don’t move forward, right now. AND we are still in relationship with them.

There are a few reasons this approach was important to establish at the beginning of our business. First, culture of a business starts at inception and has to be reinforced. Second, By decolonizing our business we are pushing against capitalism and white supremacy cultures that center lack mentality. We are practicing abundance with our clientele and that translates to every aspect of our business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.projectkoayoga.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projectkoayoga/