Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Anthony Benenati. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Anthony, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?
My story began when my body started falling apart in my 20’s from years of playing sports and competitive weight lifting. One day while I was waiting tables in LA I met a fellow co-worker who, from the way she was carrying herself I was convinced she was either from royalty or was brought up in a very well-to-do family. She walked very erect and poised. I was struck by her maturity for someone my age. One day I asked her about it and she laughed. No, she wasn’t from that background. She told me that she has a 13″ steel rod in her spine from severe scoliosis when she was very young. She told me she couldn’t bend her spine at all. She could only bend from her pelvis. I asked her what sh could do for fitness and she told me that she did yoga. I didn’t have any ideas about yoga nor had I ever tried it. She invited to take a class and I remember that I couldn’t finish it. I was shocked because I had spent my entire life working out in one way or another and this class kicked my ass! I kept going back to class because I couldn’t deal with not be able to be “good” at it. The more I did it, the more I liked it. She introduced me to her teacher and he slowly became my teacher. I began studying with him full time and a couple of years later he encouraged me to teach. I got my first teaching job in 1997 at the newly opened Crunch Fitness in West Hollywood. Within a year my classes were overflowing and I started looking across town for rental space to teach my own classes. 2 years later in 1999 I opened City Yoga along with a business partner. We started it with our own money and built it from the ground up. I sold the business 14 years later. If there was one piece of advice I would give young professionals is to make sure your love for what you do exceeds your love for money or success. It never would have worked out if I had started this business because I wanted to get rich or famous. I had grown to love and respect what I was doing and I wanted to open a place that was only for yoga. While teaching at Crunch, I had to compete with loud music and different modalities. It wasn’t a dedicated space for yoga. I wanted to create that space. I had a vision and followed through with it.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My journey into the world of yoga started in 1991 when I moved to Los Angeles. Prior to being introduced to yoga, I was an athlete focused on football, baseball and powerlifting. I began competing in powerlifting in Seattle in 1987 while in the US Air Force. After multiple injuries of my knees and shoulders I quit powerlifting and competitive sports. When I was taken to my first yoga class I thought “how hard could this be?” Turns out I couldn’t finish the class. It was so much more difficult than I had realized. It demanded a different use of my muscles that I had not previously worked on. I kept going back to class. I think part of that for me was it connected me to my competitive nature that I had been missing after leaving sports. After years of study, I fell in love with yoga and I decided to become a teacher. That decision would change my life forever. In 1994 I began teaching public classes. By 1997 I had already made an impact on the burgeoning LA yoga scene by starting the yoga program at the newly opened Crunch Fitness LA in West Hollywood. After building that program to over 90 students per class, I decided it was time to open my own space. In June of 1999, City Yoga opened its doors. City Yoga remained on the leading edge of yoga culture for over 14 years training hundreds of teachers and hosting many of the groundbreaking leaders of the yoga movement worldwide including Krishna Das, Dave Stringer, Aadil Palkhivala, Manouso Manos, Shiva Rea, John Friend, Sally Kempton, Douglas Brooks, Gary Kraftsow and Georg Feuerstein just to name a few. City Yoga nurtured a close-knit community and became a force for change in the community through their Yogathon™ program which raised over a quarter of a million dollars for charities such as Project Angel Food, Habitat for Humanity and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
In 2014, I sold City Yoga to YogaWorks to focus on writing, spending more time with my family and bringing my teachings to students around the globe. The working title of my book, “That’s Not Yoga” explores the practice from inside the culture of yoga and works to demystify the practice and show the practicality of the teachings. It is more than a book title; it has become my mantra. My ability to take these ancient and esoteric teachings and make them applicable to everyday life is renowned. My teaching blends precise alignment, deep knowledge of anatomy and philosophical allegory with clarity, humor and rigor. I challenge and inspire my students to pursue transformation both on and off the mat.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I met my business partner through another friend who was interested in opening a yoga studio with me. After some serious talks about our visions for the business, my friends decided it wasn’t the right time for her to take that risk. She told me of a friend of hers who was running a small rental space and teaching yoga, very similar to what I was doing at the time. I went to meet with her and take her class. I wanted to get to know her teaching style, her personality and figure out whether it was going to be a fit. After we took each others classes and sat and discussed our visions, it turned out that we were more aligned than my previous potential partner. We even had similar ideas about the name. We wanted to tell everyone that we were serious about the practice, yet understood we are living in one of the largest cities in the world and how do you take this practice and make it accessible to everyone? In 1999, City Yoga was birthed.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Getting into yoga and deciding to become a teacher was a very pivotal time for me and complete direction change. I wasn’t ever considering teaching, let alone teaching yoga. But, it had such a profound affect on my body and my mind unlike anything else prior I knew I had to go in this direction and see where it led. It was transforming. Not only did I start teaching, I started my own business with my own money. My partner and I never took a penny from a bank or lending institution. She was a graphic designer my trade so she was the “look” of the business, everything from the logo, to advertising to our color palette. I was the handyman and could build or fix just about anything from my training in the military. Together we made a great team. Until it wasn’t. As with any relationship they take a lot of work and sometimes no matter how much you want it to work, it just can’t. We parted ways a few years later. I kept the business and continued running it for another decade or so. Things were changing rapidly in the yoga world. What was once a small community was exploding. Corporations started getting into the business and it changed it forever. I saw what was happening and knew it was time to get out. I hired someone to help me look for buyers. I had a very renowned and profitable business and all I needed was the right buyer. I found one in Yoga Works. They were in the process of rapid expansion and the timing was right for me. That was another pivotal time for me. What was I going to do without my business that I had birthed and worked tirelessly on for 14 years? Who was I going to be? There were scary questions that I knew I didn’t have the answers for. Only time was going to reveal them.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thatsnotyoga.com
- Instagram: thatsnotyoga
- Linkedin: Anthony Benenati
Image Credits
Photo credits: Anthony Benenati; Ashley Shea Benenati; City Yoga Inc;