THE EVOLUTION OF SOWA YOGA

My name is Emily- I am the founder of Sowa Yoga - thanks for being here!

I am currently 45 years old, have been teaching for 7 years and am completely obsessed with yoga, running, dogs, writing and plants. In no particular order!

I became a yoga teacher in late 2019- yup, just before the Covid lockdowns! So my first classes were on facebook live and zoom… talk about a baptism of fire!!

I had to learn how to manage camera angles, lighting, dogs in shot, and transmitting energy through a screen and it was a lot… but it also kept me sane during those awful lockdown months! 

So, here I am, post covid lockdowns, with some pretty alright yoga facilitation skills and nowhere to teach it. So, I did what so many yoga teachers do, and I started my own classes… in a park! Cue Heffron Park Yoga! 

I had some students come who had been in class with me before. I had some randoms show up too… but I also had dogs, and birds, and footballs and rain … park yoga sounds good, but can I tell you, it is an absolute ball ache in reality! 

After struggling to find a space to rent,  I found a gym I could use but it was buried deep in the middle of a truck yard… yep, it was an odd location! But, it was a space, and so Nudge Yoga (as I was known back then) was really born. 

 I ran three classes a week- 2 were really quite successful, and one (Wednesday nights) was just me and one student (shout out to Mel- she is still a student of mine!). A humbling experience.

After a few months, the owner of the gym decided to leave and I definitely did not want to take that space on full time, so I found myself needing a yoga home. Again.  

HELLOOOOOO PERRY STREET! 

I found an advert for our Perry street space on Gum Tree by accident- as ya do! I agreed to hire it for my three classes a week and shared the space with another gym owner. The floor was covered with stinky black rubber matting. The walls were covered with elastic bands and weights and lifty-uppy contraptions (clearly I don’t gym!). It was not ideal but it was a big space and it worked ish!

Our very first class 14th August 2023!!

And then the owner told me he was going to move downstairs to a smaller space they had and that I either needed to expand and take the space on full time or they were going to readvertise, and I might lose the space.

So here I found myself once again!

I shat myself.

I didn’t know how to take a space on full time.

I was not ready.

 And so I said yes!

New floor, curtains, logo and aircon and the space has transformed! 

And then the landlord took on a new Tennant downstairs,… which would be boxing… at 6am… oh so very not ideal for a yoga class! 

 I was pretty angry, but in good Leo fashion that anger fuelled me instead to start looking for another space. Like, an actual studio. With nice floors, and a street front location.

 Be careful what you wish for friends, because that is exactly what I found… 

… cue our Bunnerong road location! 

Now the only problem with this location is it had walls. So I got them taken out- this is what it looked like the day I signed the lease… I am not scared at all here…. 😬

Buuuuuuuut, I ran out of money and had to do the rest of the renovation myself. And when I say I did the reno… I mean I did the Reno! 

I sanded the walls

I plastered the walls.

I sanded the walls again.

I plastered the walls again.

And then I painted the walls (…. don't look too closely 😉. 

Did I know how to do any of that? No, no I did not! 

But I got shown along the way by some great people and nothing beats just getting your hands dirty… or your face…