Start Where You Are
You know that Arthur Ashe quote, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can”? Well, that’s v applicable to our story. Where we were, was sick of our jobs. What we had, was an idea. And with a global pandemic that hit right as we were about to take a leap forward, all we could do was take pictures for instagram and keep dreaming it would all lead somewhere.
It took Jess and I six years to be in same place, both geographically and mentally. We had some life to live before we were actually ready to bring Child’s Pose down from the vortex. After a couple break ups, one move across the world, lots of therapy, a cat, and two dogs later, it was time. Like so many, the pandemic highlighted the areas of our lives we could no longer tolerate, and gave us that, “life is short” motivation. We started making content for the internet, revolutionary I know, but the intention was to just get the wheels turning and force some accountability onto us. It’s content that we look back at now and lovingly cringe, lol. We quickly realized that our biggest hesitation around posting ourselves on the gram was the fear of being judged #thatswhateveryonefears, insert eyeroll here. HOWEVER, it was such a necessary practice of being afraid and doing it anyway! In all honesty, not a lesson I thought we’d come head to head with in our 30’s, but better late than never, baby! We even had a professional take pictures of us. Doing yoga. On the beach. Another reason to LOL at ourselves. Since we didn’t have an actual business yet, or clients for that matter, our content was just of us. We were Child’s Pose - two gals, a dream, and a website domain.
Fast forward a few months into the pandemic and we finally gathered some kiddo clients to teach in backyards. We lugged equipment around in our cars, we tried to break down really big concepts of yoga and make them digestible, and when all else failed, we played. Arts and crafts accidentally became a really big part of our lessons. At first because we needed to fill time, and then because they so beautifully link those big concepts into something tangible. Eventually we tired of the backyards and wanted to move indoors, renting a friends studio out, which we very quickly outgrew.
What happened next led us to where we are now, two gals, a dream and our very own studio lease. We are one year in as studio owners and TRULY figuring it out one step at a time. It has not been easy. It has been chalk full of big big lessons. Lessons we would not have learned any other way other than by diving head first into the deep end with no floaties and no lifeguard on duty. The lessons and the challenges will keep coming, and we already look back at many things along the way and say with our head in our hands, “WHY DID WE DO THAT!?” But we laugh, sometimes cry, sometimes cry a lot, then we remember, life is short. So start where you are, use what you have and do what you can.
