We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jenny Reitz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jenny, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you ever experienced a times when your entire field felt like it was taking a U-Turn?
One of the biggest industry-wide U-turns I’ve ever witnessed was at the beginning of the pandemic when so many businesses – within the health and wellness industry and beyond – made the pivot to offering online services. Our well-established but exclusively in-person yoga studio made the big (and terrifying) pivot to offering classes online. It was something students had been asking for for years, but up until that point, we had just never gotten around to it. It wasn’t that we weren’t interested in offering online classes, rather, the idea of it was so intimidating that I never quite wrapped my head around it. Then, March of 2020 happened. The studio closed its doors for in-person classes on March 17 and on March 19, we were offering our first Zoom class.
It was terrifying in the beginning because I knew how many things could go wrong (with Zoom, with the internet, with user error). And, as the studio manager (and the one who coordinates anything relating to technology), I felt a huge weight of responsibility to get it right. It was almost as if, on some level, I could feel how much we all needed yoga at that time and I didn’t want to let anyone down. The class went off without a hitch. We had over 40 people attend our first online class. It was primitive as compared with how we operate today: no microphone, no audio system, no camera. Just a teacher and their laptop. The sound echoed, the video wasn’t perfect, but the yoga was exactly what everyone needed. No one cared that it wasn’t professionally produced or engineered. We were all just grateful to be in community again – even if it was virtual.
I attended many webinars and zoom meetings during that time on best practices for offering online classes, how to navigate the pandemic as someone running a business in the yoga industry, what others in the industry were doing – you name it, I attended it. My whole life began to revolve around Zoom meetings. During one of the presentations, someone mentioned that from a technology standpoint, we (in the health and wellness industry) catapulted forward the equivalent of five years in a matter of about two weeks. That blew my mind and serves as a testament to our strength and resilience as a people. If we can do this, we can do anything.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi! My name is Jenny Reitz. I’m a Texas-based mom, meditator, yoga teacher, studio manager, healing practitioner, and spiritual educator. I manage and teach at Indra’s Grace Yoga in Weatherford, Texas and I am also the creator of The Spiritual Embodiment Masterclass – an online, self-paced course designed to help you navigate life more mindfully and intentionally through the process of embodying the potent spiritual tools and soulful practices offered.
I am, by nature, a seeker. I’ve been on a spiritual journey most of my life. It has evolved through the years from being steeped in religion to finding a more open, spacious, and personal expression of spirituality that includes connecting directly with divine energy through the practices I have learned. I have experienced on a deep level how potent and profound these practices are in my daily life which is why I’m so passionate about sharing them with others. My goal is to help individuals incorporate the lessons learned on the mat into daily life in order to navigate life more mindfully and authentically. In the course, I offer a variety of practices including pranayama (breath work), yoga, meditation, journaling, and mantra.
The practices I share help students regulate their nervous system, alleviate suffering and find more ease in life, connect with intuition and make decisions from a place of deep inner knowing, bridge the gap between spiritual or religious practices and daily life, unlearn limiting beliefs and behaviors, uncover and connect with their true nature, and so much more!
I’ve had the opportunity to learn tools from a number of different traditions and lineages including: Hatha, Vinyasa and Bhakti Yoga; Tibetan Buddhism; Meditation in many forms; Energy work including Reiki and CranioSacral Therapy; and Modern Mystery School practices. It’s a great honor to share these practices.
My most heartfelt intention is to offer practices that bring about a remembrance of the universal truth of our interconnectedness to each other and all things through the use of yogic tools. The world needs us to awaken – now more than ever.
Any advice for managing a team?
I feel unbelievably fortunate to work with the group of teachers that I do. We have a high-quality, rock-solid team of absolutely incredible people with even more incredible hearts. I believe the key to our success is attributable first and foremost to the studio owner Sandra Vanatko who has done an incredible job of modeling for teachers what it looks like to truly live your yoga. She has set the precedent for the expectation of how teachers show up both on and off their mats based on how she shows up for the team day after day, year after year. She has cultivated a community of open-hearted and compassionate teachers who serve the community in a way that I’ve never seen anywhere else. This is absolutely a top-down effect that cannot be taught any other way than by example. As a result, all of our teachers are dedicated to living their yoga – on and off the mat. This is so essential! Every one of our teachers has a heart for service and it is evident in how they love on the community through their teaching and interactions.
I believe that another key to our success is that we train our teachers from the ground up. All of our teachers have been through the Indra’s Grace 200-hour Teacher Training program. And, most have taken the 300-Hour Advanced Teacher Training with us as well, in addition to other specialized training programs outside of the studio. Because we have all immersed ourselves in the same style of yoga, we are all teaching the same quality practices with the same quality of heart and a cohesive message.
There have been points along the way, since the pandemic began, where teachers have doubted their ability to operate all of the technology or equipment properly which ultimately led to doubting their ability to teach. It became so evident to me, in the moment that I was reassuring the teachers, that we can teach the technical stuff to teachers – whether it’s Zoom or downward dog – what is harder to teach is how to have a heart of gold (which every single one of our teachers do!). When the heart of a teacher is good, the other things are easily coachable.
I am so grateful for the individual hearts of each of our teachers and the collective heart that we generate when we come together to serve the community.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
I think that the most helpful thing for succeeding in the yoga industry – especially in this present time – is the ability to think outside of the box, question the way things have always been done, and be brave enough to do things differently. We are in unprecedented times and if we continue doing things the way they’ve always been done, we are going to become irrelevant. The ability to see needs in the present and think of creative ways to meet those needs, is essential right now. It’s also necessary to question the way things have been done in the past. We’ve done a lot of dismantling of outdated processes, procedures, and ways of thinking. It’s scary and at the same time, it’s absolutely liberating with the introduction of so many new opportunities and possibilities.
Contact Info:
- Website: indrasgrace.com, jenny-reitz.teachable.com/p/spiritual-embodiment-masterclass
- Instagram: jenny_reitz
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/KarmaFlyDesign/playlists
Image Credits
Tribe Photography, Jenny Reitz