Brian: 0:09

All right. Well, welcome back to the Vero Beach Podcast. I'm Brian and I'm Shawna, and today we are sitting right here at the Level Yoga Studio. Now we're with the owner, Amanda Steadman. You have two locations, correct.

Amanda: 0:21

I do yes.

Brian: 0:22

We're sitting in the.

Amanda: 0:23

Royal Palm Point Studio, the very first one that opened, and you're celebrating 10 years. I am 10 years.

Brian: 0:29

Thank you Big congrats Well, yes, congrats Well. We just did an episode with Audrey from Seahorse Lane and she just celebrated 10 years, too, right she?

Amanda: 0:36

did. Yeah, she's a good friend of mine.

Shawna: 0:38

Did you know each other back then, when you first launched I?

Amanda: 0:41

actually had. Just I think I met Audrey on our grand opening party.

Brian: 0:46

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, amanda, we're so glad to be here with you. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Amanda: 0:53

So I grew up in Vero, born and raised, and I moved away for a little bit and then ended up marrying a friend of mine who I went to high school with and we relocated back to Vero and started our family.

Amanda: 1:07

And then, during a challenging time in my life, I was doing yoga and I thought I want to learn more about this, because I would go to class like really stressed out and then I would leave and feel really good and happy and like, wow, this is like amazing stuff. I want to learn this. So I ended up going into my first 200 hour yoga teacher training in 2008 and then instantly was done within three months and went right into teaching. So I started teaching around town Christie's Fitness, quail Valley, did some privates and at the time there was a yoga studio in town and I was teaching there as well. In 2015, a student of mine who was younger than me she had just graduated from college and moved back to town and was actually sitting at La Tabla. This space was empty and she asked if I wanted to open up a yoga studio with her kind of bring something different to Vero Beach. I said yes.

Brian: 2:04

So yoga Okay, I don't do a lot of yoga I encourage him all the time. She always encourages me.

Shawna: 2:10

I'm like just start doing a few moves, a few stretches, You'll open those hips right up.

Brian: 2:16

We've been following you on your Instagram and stuff and I do have one question Did you really come out of that box or was that like some kind of editing?

Amanda: 2:23

I was in the box, are you? Serious and I could only get in that box because of yoga, oh my gosh, have you seen that video?

Shawna: 2:31

No, I got to show you that video.

Brian: 2:33

I can picture what you're talking about though I'm like there's no way that I was in the box. I can't wait to see it. Well, tell us some of the benefits of what you've learned about yoga.

Amanda: 2:42

A lot of people come to yoga because they want to stretch or they've been told they need to stretch. And yes, that is true, you do stretch when you take yoga. But there's so many other benefits to it. One you can become stronger, strengthen your muscles, your body.

Amanda: 2:59

But the one thing that kept drawing me back to yoga was the mental aspect of it, because it helps you really work through the stress that you might be feeling in your life. It's helped me in some like darker times in my life, through depression. It just it gives you a tool to be able to use when those things are happening in life. So there's, I mean, it's just, it's the only like I've. My whole life I've either worked out at the gym, I've done spin classes, you know I've done other modalities of exercise, but yoga it is modalities of exercise, but yoga it is a form of exercise but it's not really a workout. We like to say it's a work in, but it, it, um, it's the only form of movement that helped me kind of change my life in the my the mental aspect.

Shawna: 3:47

Um, that's been my experience too.

Amanda: 3:49

The, the main part with yoga is, again a lot of people come because they want to stretch, but they don't realize that they're going to learn how to breathe properly, and so that really is the biggest part of yoga is you learn how to breathe properly, because so many of us in life don't use half as much as we can to breathe our lungs and really shallow inhales. So with yoga, we talk a lot about that and we teach you how to breathe properly and then so then you're putting your bodies in these shapes and you're breathing into them, and that's ultimately what starts to happen is you feel better and happier? And, yeah, it's very interesting.

Brian: 4:26

Talk to us a little bit about breathing properly.

Amanda: 4:29

So in yoga it's called Ujjayi breath and it's through the physical practice we breathe in and out through our nose. Some people breathe through their mouth. I've been doing this for so long like I can't even imagine breathing out of my mouth anymore. But it's called Ujjayi breath. So it's a sound breath and what we do is we constrict and use kind of the back of the throat and it really helps to deepen your breath. So when I'm teaching somebody how to breathe I will talk them through about probably like a four or five count inhale and then a four or five count exhale, because we want the breath to match, be the same length.

Shawna: 5:07

Okay, you're going to love this. When I was doing yoga consistently with an instructor, my asthma got so much better and I didn't need my inhaler nearly as much, and I could feel like my lungs felt so much healthier, yeah.

Amanda: 5:21

A lot of people don't even think about breathing. They just don't, you know. And then there's so many people walking around that are struggling with anxiety, stress, depression. You know things like that, and I mean myself. I struggle with anxiety. I hate getting on an airplane and flying, but I know I have to do it so I can utilize my Ujjayi breath to help calm me. And then, within that, there are other breathing exercises that we, you know, teach, that we learn as well, but through the actual, like practice, when we're going through a flow, we're using the ujjayi breath.

Shawna: 5:52

I've never heard that word before.

Amanda: 5:55

It's called victorious breath or ocean sounding breath. Oh, yeah, okay.

Brian: 5:59

Yeah, I know that even you, shauna, have talked to me about like sometimes, like if I can't turn my mind off when I'm trying to go to sleep, she'll tell me to do these breathing exercises, and I'm surprised how many times it actually does help if I just really slow down and just focus on the breathing. So I could definitely understand a little bit of how it could benefit.

Amanda: 6:19

But that's very interesting Because the mind is definitely busy. We're constantly thinking and that's what we're teaching also in class is how to stay in the moment, be present. You know the mind's going to think, oh, I have to go to the grocery store or I have to go do this. But how can we just focus on the breath, even just by simply counting to yourself? You know, counting the breath in, counting the breath out.

Brian: 6:49

That's really, really anybody that's listening. That's something really important to capture. There is being in the moment. That is something that is so difficult these days to consider that breathing right, breathing better, would actually help us be more present in the moment. That's pretty powerful. Amanda, tell me what was the moment that you decided to go all in to launching this business? What did that look like?

Amanda: 7:03

Well, once she approached me and asked me to open up the studio, I of course had to talk to my husband about it, and we had our children were small at the time. It wasn't that she didn't have to convince me too much, I did, I was excited to do it. It was something that I felt that I probably never would have done on my own, and to have somebody see something in me to open a business with, I thought was very kind of her, because it is something I probably wouldn't have done without her. My husband he's always been so supportive, even when I said I'm going to go take a yoga teacher training and I don't know what's going to happen, but I feel like this is something. And he was like go do it.

Brian: 7:43

And you said you have. You said you have kids. You had kids when you started.

Amanda: 7:46

Yes.

Brian: 7:47

So how old were your kids when you started?

Amanda: 7:48

It's funny, we were just talking about this last night because we're at 10 years, so my son was four and my daughter was eight.

Shawna: 7:55

That's kind of hard ages to start a business.

Amanda: 7:57

So that was one of the reasons why I wasn't sure, because I was still. I was teaching yoga and I was teaching a lot of yoga around town, but I was still able to be with the kids. My mother-in-law helped out a lot with the children as well, and so that was something I had to consider. I knew this was going to take up more of my time and but, you know, we've been able to really have a healthy balance. My husband has been very supportive.

Amanda: 8:21

He's he works, he's an oil painter, so he's an artist and works from home, so we've been able to really balance it out and raise our children the way that we, you know, felt was important, and that's cool.

Brian: 8:33

That is so cool. That is so cool. Wow, oil painter. I want to talk to him. What's his name? Again, luke, luke. All right, luke, if you're listening, luke, we need to get you on the podcast. Oil painting. I love that. I love that. Do you want to share any of your story about, like you said, you were going through like a dark time and then you found yoga, like that helped. Do you want to share any of that?

Amanda: 9:32

Yeah. So my husband and I we got married at 24 and um we had lived in Sarasota and then we moved back to Vero and I started a job and he was trying to become an oil painter. He just graduated from art school and then we ended up getting pregnant a lot sooner than we weren't not trying, but because we weren't. You know, we didn't really have any money. So when I had our daughter I did not go back to work because it didn't make sense and so it was hard. We didn't have any money.

Amanda: 10:07

I was really stressed out and I would go to this gym, yoga class, and met Mary Rapogle, who is owner of Ocean Grill, and was really inspired by her, and so I was like I want to, I want to do this and I would, really I would go to class really upset and stressed and just I guess I was feeling a lot of like unknown. You know, and that can go when people have insecurities or money issues or whatever it might be. So that's when I decided to do a yoga training and it was the best decision ever. Wow, it's kind of funny. When I was a senior in college, I took a elective class. It was a yoga elective class, not thinking anything that I would end up doing this for my whole life. But I was. I needed, needed an elective and I took a yoga class. So I'm like, wow, that's kind of funny how like life prepares you for like these things yeah.

Amanda: 11:06

Cause that was my first well, I took. I did a few yoga classes in college, but so I feel like all those little things prepare you for more things in your life.

Brian: 11:13

That is so true. Well, what would you say like through your 10 years?

Amanda: 11:22

did you have any times that you faced any fears or doubts? Yes, and I'm sure this is probably a very common one, for a lot of people. But I would have to say, 2020 COVID was very, um, a very hard time, because they were like don't get next to each other, don't breathe on each other, and this is what we do.

Brian: 11:36

Yeah, you just talked about. You talked about it correctly, and now you're like don't breathe, so yeah, that was um.

Amanda: 11:43

that was a very scary time and it was definitely um a very hard and dark time for me. Um, I ended up buying out my business partner um September 1st 2020,. I took over full time and I was very scared because we were still operating at like 14 people in the studio. Our max in the studio spaces are 27 people, so we were not even getting, you know, a full class and it was. It was just a very scary time. But again, I had my husband on my side and he was the one who really pushed me through this and told me that we can do this. And that's when he kind of took a step back from his job and stepped in and helped me a lot more with the kids and like, when I look back at that time, who I was into, where I am now, I'm like, wow, I've really grown a lot.

Shawna: 12:35

Did you have to close down for any period of time?

Amanda: 12:37

So I think we were closed for like six weeks, um, but we instantly went online. So we were closed, we closed, and then, I think like two days later, we live stream. We would online, um, the teachers that wanted to, we would still teach classes. We did it all at the other studio, so it was a pretty quick turnaround to be able to do that. And then we have such a wonderful community of students that supported us through that and they would hop online with us and practice with us, and I think that one of the beautiful things that came out of that is how many people came to me and with my teachers and told them that we helped them so much through that time. And that's ultimately, that's why I teach. I want people to experience what I've experienced through yoga. I want them to grow and learn and feel better in their bodies and their minds.

Brian: 13:27

What do you love most about running your business?

Amanda: 13:30

I think what I love most is the people that I get to be with every day my teachers that are here some of them have been with me since the very beginning my support staff, my studio manager and assistant manager. We tend to we are together a lot because the two of them they're a lot on the back end of everything, and then just being with the students. I mean it's like I said this last night in the class that I taught, like how grateful I am that I get to do this every day. It's a lot of work. When you add a brick and mortar, you know something that you have to like really manage. But I wouldn't change it.

Brian: 14:10

Well, I'm super excited to get into episode number two, to learn more about what the day to day looks like, maybe some more about the breathing, and probably, I'm sure, there might be some funny stories you can share with us, too, that you maybe have experienced through here as well.

Shawna: 14:24

No names, no names, no names have to be included. Someone's listening right now going, oh no please don't, amanda, don't don't tell my story, but uh but yeah, well, I'm excited to learn more about the day to day.

Brian: 14:34

So, with that, if you guys are enjoying the podcast, make sure you click subscribe and leave us a review see you later, neighbor.