Today we’d like to introduce you to Tanya Rice.
Hi Tanya, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always been a very detail-oriented type-A personality, always on the go, with lists of things to do, it’s my nature. But what I didn’t even realize was how much stress that was putting on my body, physically, mentally, and spiritually. I am a fire protection drafter, engineer, and project manager, who in my late twenties went back to school, premed, and nursing to be a physician assistant, and was derailed by medical issues. A cancer diagnosis, surgeries, and additional cancer scares kept me closely rooted in my family.
However, it still didn’t “click” for me, that my life pace, my stress levels, and my internal chaos were self-induced, until one day on the yoga mat, I experienced my “ah-ha” moment, and my life finally began to course correctly. The more that I began to delve deeper into yoga philosophy, eastern medicines, and Reiki energy healing, the more I began to see my life change and the lives around me were impacted by proxy.
It was not easy, but it was so inherently simple, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t clued into it sooner. The more I fell in love with how I felt the more I wanted to share that feeling with others, and thus was born Azitala Yoga, an oasis for wellness and healing.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road has not been smooth, and will never be, but the wise words of Buddha tell us, “Difficulty is inevitable, Suffering is optional” words to strive by. I have had both personal and business struggles while trying to build and grow Azitala Yoga. On the personal level, two months into the opening we lost my father-in-law, and almost one year to the day we lost my father, the experiences brought me to a grief yoga education that was pivotal in how I wanted to turn my business towards healing.
I continued to have cancer scares and surgeries until the Reiki energy healing seed was planted and became part of my life. Our family experienced an accident that caused a brain injury for one of my children, which brought our yoga family even closer together during our new location’s grand opening. Each of these events, helped me grow and helped the vision of our studio grow into a wellness center. This and of course a global pandemic, that nearly brought us to a full closure, faith and abundance kept us on the course and we are stronger for it.
As you know, we’re big fans of Azitala Yoga. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Azitala Yoga, is a wellness center, that began solely as a hot yoga studio and has quadrupled in size to now include hot yoga, special events, sound healing, and sound training, practitioners that offer: reiki healing, Thai Bodywork, and massage, Reiki training, and Yoga teacher training. Azitala yoga is an oasis for wellness and healing that is available to Every Body. We are unique in that all of our instructors are certified through YA, are required to maintain teaching hours, and continuing education hours, and of them have their unique voices, passions, and niches, in yoga philosophy and Eastern modalities.
We pride ourselves on creating an experience for our students from the moment you walk in the door and are greeted by our instructor’s voice, the clean/beautiful smells of oils and sage, the warmth of the studio space, the spiritual opening, and the physical wellness that they will feel on the mat. We are most proud that our students will tell you, someone or something at Azitala Yoga has changed their lives and that is why they keep coming back. This is what we want for our students, transformation wellness, and healing for their bodies, their minds, their hearts, and their spirits.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
Being an entrepreneur is a risk in and of itself, however, in our business, there have been 3 major risks I have taken.
The first was to move from my home studio to a brick-and-mortar studio. The leap was big, the buildout was bigger and a five-year lease was daunting, but as we watched the studio, steadily grow from negative, to break even, to profitable over those five years, at lease renewal, the next risk barreled in on us. To stay, to close, or to grow, and we took the leap to grow, the opportunity, the location, and the timing was all scary as the location was 4 times the size and more buildout costs, seemed like going backward, and yet we did it.
It felt amazing, our grand opening in the new location, and the events we were starting to add to the calendar, we were not in our location but 6.5 months when the first COVID closure hit us, and then the second and then reopening under capacity rules and mask mandates.
We watched our build loan, turn into additional emergency loans, fear crept in, and then we had to decide, to either close our doors or take on the personal debt to keep going and fight through. Ultimately, that fight was battled, I muscled through, and our community is supportive and so very grateful.
Pricing:
- 2-week unlimited intro offer for $29
- Our best value is our Tiered monthly memberships based on how often you can attend.
- 4x month for $59, 8x month for $99, unlimited for $119
- Drop in class $20
- 5 class pack for $79 (3mo expiration) and 10 class pack for $149 (6mo expiration)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.azitala.com
- Instagram: @azitalayoga
- Facebook: @azitalayoga
Image Credits
EricaAnn Photography, Azitala Yoga, and Amber Perry
