Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Laura Patterson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

We are reworking the way we train students and teachers in yoga.

-This year we have launched how we are training yoga students to become better students of the practice and possibly share their practice as yoga teachers.
-Most studios offer a 200 hour teacher training course that is open to anyone who wants to learn or teach yoga. We have found that a small percentage of folks want to actually teach when they sign up for these courses.
-This courses are expensive and at $3000 to attend we feel they are excluding a large population of people who could benefit from learning how to practice yoga.
-We are splitting up the coursework 2 hour smaller workshops at the beginning so students can get in the learning space at a low barrier cost. This lets them experience the yoga beyond a 1 hour drop in physical or postural class.
-Then we will offer 80 hours of the 200 open to all who want to train in yoga – not teach, but learn the techniques have a space to ask questions to study with a teacher, to study with a group.
-For those that do want to teach we then have 80 hours of teacher training.
-We then offer elective hours in workshops

– we are three workshops into this program and the feedback has been wonderful.
-We are anticipating this will better educate students who love the practice and want to learn more AND in the long run train teachers to be better teachers by being in a committed space of professional development.

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?

So I had taken a handful of yoga classes when I was younger one at the YMCA and one or two at a local studio in town but I truly did not dive into the practice of Yoga consistently until around 2006 when I was living in Colorado. A friend of mine took me to a class at a studio called Yoga on sixth That offered Bikram and hot Vinyasa classes. I could not even make it through 20 minutes of the class it was 105° and on multiple occasions I had to leave to get sick in the bathroom. I could not understand how anyone could make it through one of these classes. I started eating cleaner getting prepared and hydrated for classes and my first goal was to be able to stay in the room for 60 minutes. I eventually made it!

I moved to Boulder Colorado shortly after, and had to find a new studio. That’s when I discovered CorePower yoga, which is now a franchise Yoga Studio that’s all over the country, but at the time there were maybe two studios in Colorado. I basically fell in love with this idea that I could make myself feel good without buying some thing Drinking something or any external factor beyond self directed practice. I ended up doing a teacher training discovered I was disconnected from my optimal or my ideal self ended up, quitting my job, moving broad, and it really was the catalyst that shook up my life to take a turn from the industry I was currently in which was selling Beer and moving in a direction of reconnection with self.

When I made it home to Bloomington Indiana, I was planning to get my things and take another trip and possibly teach English as a second language with a friend in Korea, but met my husband Nick and decided to stay in my hometown. That is when I realize there was nothing like what I had been exposed to in Colorado in Bloomington and I had the dream of having Accessible yoga seven days a week where anyone could drop in and take a class and stumble upon a practice just as I had that could support self-development and Wellbeing.

I have learned so much since I first opened up the studio when I began, I wanted to have every style of yoga every hour of the day with as many teachers as possible to provide all of these different opportunities for people to nourish themselves. I had no clue what I was doing on the business end of things and how much management Logistics of how frequently to do payroll, logistics of communication to staff, training, personal development. I just took a very yoga approach and dove right in many lessons over the years, but I have a much better understanding now that students need simplicity and a sense of clarity to get started, we have Modified our offerings, and I struggled with this personally, as I am a practitioner of so many methods of yoga, and they all hold so much respect my heart. They’ve supported me so much, but streamlining are offering. I believe his help streamline, the business side of things, so we can show up fully and clearly for the yoga we are offering.

I want people to know that Vibe is a place for you to practice your self agency. We offer the space and various spaces for our students to direct themselves to find their highest vibe each day some days we want to move we wanna work out other days we need recovery and nourishment for our nervous system and Vibe has some thing for everyone to simply get started.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

As a studio owner I have read various books on leadership, entrepreneurial thinking, and still the book that supports me most is a yoga philosophy book. The Yoga Sutras. It can support any business owner not just those of us in the yoga industry. Yoga is about finding your optimal, staying devoted to the devotion to the work ( or the practice ) itself, and finding your appropriate discipline along the way so you don’t get overwhelmed but do continue to grow towards your ideal version of yourself. The traditional practice of yoga is not what modern studios might been known for these days. You see more postural yoga as the focus but the deep connection to the philosophy of the practice is more of a mindset that can transfer into anything you are doing.

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

I would say I am unlearning the idea that making mistakes is a bad thing. I feel like a lot of people are terrified to make mistakes so they might not even begin a new venture or opportunity. I have been there. Freezing, not responding because I was so scared to mess up. To fail as a leader was a big fear of mine, but I think a huge part of being a leader is to take accountability when we miss the mark. But an even bigger part of being a leader is not to pretend we are above making mistakes. It is how we grow, it is how we learn.

I like to look at mistakes as missed marks. We all have a target, a goal we are trying to hit. We show up we do our best and sometimes we get a bullseye. More often we miss the mark. We don’t show up for our employees how we know we can, we don’t adjust things as quickly as we need and we miss a window. We think we have an awesome idea and its a dude. Or in my case I grossly underestimate the amount of time to complete a project.

Being in business for 16 years I have had so many mistakes there is actually a little peace when I find myself in a tough situation or I see something on the horizon that is not going to pan out well. I will say this is going to be challenging but all I can do is slow down and try my best to course correct. And to do so not from fear but from the peace that I have made it through mistakes before and once I get enough space from them they end up being my best teachers.

Contact Info:

• Website: vibeyogastudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vibeyogastudio/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IgnitePowerInfuseEnergyInspirePeace/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@vibeyogastudio7887?si=Gb0VojkiPZxammvB