Posts In: physical health

This interview originally published on Canvas Rebel

CR: Michael, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Michael: Amy and I had just returned to the United States after backpacking abroad for three and half years. She got a job working at a great family-run produce distribution company and I became the account manager for a boutique graphic design studio.

One of the first clients I worked with at the studio was Mitchell Repair Information Company. The company innovated “the automotive industry’s first collision estimating guides to include parts illustrations, prices and part numbers.”

During our staff brainstorming sessions, names were offered and debated. Thinking of premiere cars world-wide, Formula 1 racing seemed to me to be the pinnacle, and so I suggested the name, “Mitchell 1.” It stuck.

Not long after that, Amy was getting ready to open up our yoga studio. Since it worked well for a nationwide company like Mitchell, I suggested “Yoga One.”

Additionally, we had recently gotten married. Instead of wedding rings, we had the “eka” symbol tattooed on our ring fingers, symbolizing “we are one” (see the flower like image growing out of the “Y” in the Yoga One logo). Furthermore, yoga means “to yoke/join” or “union.” One divided by one is one and the practice of yoga helps individuals to become more “one” with themselves and the world.

Plus, we always strive to be the best studio in the world, numero uno, number 1! So the name is also aspirational.

In short, Yoga One came from an automotive manual writing company. (:

CR: Can take a moment to introduce Yoga One to our readers?

Michael: Since 2002, Yoga One has been helping people to live healthier and happier lives. We share the joys and benefits of yoga, but what we really provide is a forum to increase self-awareness, skills for individuals to be their best selves, and a positive, open, non-competitive, welcoming, and supportive community. We foster relationships – the individual with self, and with others. We offer a beautiful space for people to set aside their worries, responsibilities and stress so they can return to the world refreshed, stronger, more flexible and with increased mindfulness.

Yoga One is a woman and black owned family business. We treat our staff and students as family. We are fortunate to have been practicing yoga since 1997.

Our vibrant, airy studio with canyon views in Mission Hills is also a community space for workshops, classes, gatherings, events, exhibits, book clubs, acoustic concerts, learning, growing, sharing, laughing, loving and connecting. We look forward to seeing you there!

CR: How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Michael: It was March, 2019. For the previous 18 years we had shared the joys and benefits of yoga with thousands of San Diego residents and visitors via our award-winning Downtown studio on 7th Avenue. For several years, it had also been a dream of ours to open a studio in our neighborhood of Mission Hills. Our children attended the public schools in the area and we wanted to connect with and give back to our community.

With the help of our friends, Johnny and Renee of Wolf in the Woods wine bar, we found the perfect spot to open our second studio, on the beautiful Fort Stockton Drive. We were planning a grand opening celebration for April 1st, 2019. Then Covid-19 hit and San Diego, like so many places, went into lock down.

Our new studio was put on ice and our Downtown location locked up. Within two days of the stay at home mandate, and thanks largely to our amazing team – Missy and Laura, we brought our entire schedule online via zoom. We were able to quickly shift some of our corporate clients online as well. We will be forever grateful to our generous and wonderful students who maintained their memberships and stuck by us throughout such challenging times. In turn, we were able to keep our full staff and maintain their pre-Covid schedules.

Yoga teaches us to be strong, flexible and present. The circumstances surrounding Covid-19 certainly put our practice to the test. We feel so fortunate to have these tools to take care of ourselves mentally and physically. All of us at Yoga One look forward to continuing to offer and grow our services – enriching the well-being of as many people as possible! We now are offering classes in-studio, in Presidio Park, live online and on-demand, with some of our students and companies across the country.

Read the full article here!

Yoga One’s month in review, in response to Covid-19.

by Laura McCorry

Just last month (although it feels like eons ago!) the Yoga One team was full-steam ahead getting ready to open our new Mission Hills location  We were busy teaching a full schedule of classes at our Downtown location, half way through our Winter/Spring, 8 weekend 200 Hour Teacher Training Course,and leading classes at multiple off-site corporate locations. 

Our teachers were sharing the joys and benefits of yoga with students who walked into our studio off the street, with students who had never practiced yoga before, with students who popped into an empty conference room for a lunch-time practice, with students who have been building their yoga practice for years – all of whom trust Yoga One to guide them with depth of knowledge, skill, heart, integrity, and compassion.

Enter Covid-19. California and many other states rushed to issue stay-at-home orders and the world as we knew it was turned upside down. So many more people were working from home. Schools were closed indefinitely. Businesses scrambled to put protective measures in place, some closed their doors, and still others decided to offer their services online.

Our Downtown studio, a place that since 2002 has been an oasis that admits the city, a h-OM-e way from home for so many, was (for the moment) no longer a place we could congregate. We have long believed that sharing the practice of yoga was not just good for the individual, but good for the community.

How could we continue to offer yoga to help people live healthy and happy lives and to foster connection between individuals, building community, right now when people need it the most?

In just two days, we pulled together with staff and students to transition all of our classes online. Questions regarding Zoom ID#s were now as common as namaste. Because our online classes are live and interactive, they have the same feel as practicing in the studio. Teachers and students greet each other in real time. Teachers can watch their students’ alignment and provide feedback and encouragement. Soon we had our groove on and it was inspiring to see everyone really utilizing their yoga practice, way beyond the physical asana –

Holly Wright and David Lloyd got their cat Zimbo to attend classes online!

Allison Page roped her sister Caroline into rolling out her mat regularly next to her.

And the graduates of the Yoga One Teacher Training Winter/Spring 200 Hour course stayed after class for a Catch-Up Party.

It’s been amazing to see the outpouring of love and support from within our community during these challenging times. Small businesses everywhere are hurting right now. When you shop or support a small business like Yoga One, you’re taking one step forward towards the kind of world we all hope to emerge from isolation to find. (Tweet that)

In recent days, we’ve been reviewing our class recordings, trying to determine how and when we might be able to offer them for a streaming service – so students could access quality yoga instruction whenever is most convenient for them. 

What we’ve found is not just hour-long yoga classes: We’ve seen our whole community encouraging each other, sharing updates about their families, offering each other blessings and messages of hope, checking in on teachers and students and neighbors alike. Despite the upset of Covid-19, we have found each other and forged a real, human connection through the portal of the internet.

Our community has adapted and our connection is intact and strong. Yoga means union, or to yoke together. Thank you (yes, you!) for showing us through your presence and your support that we really are all in this together.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com