Today we’d like to introduce you to McKenna Rowe.
McKenna, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Chakra 5 Yoga provides yoga and meditation classes on location and by appointment at businesses, schools and organizations throughout the Greater Los Angeles area.
I always led an active life hiking, running, snowboarding, and once was a nationally ranked equestrian. After years of working in the digital industry for clients in entertainment and fashion, I took a sabbatical for yoga-teaching certification. A desire to help people heal soon followed. As a musician and composer, it was important to me to share cutting-edge music during yoga classes, and I recruited local musicians and DJs to perform at “pop up yoga” classes I offered around town. I owned and operated East Hollywood’s Chakra 5 Yoga studio throughout 2011, creating a vibrant community on and offline, but decided to shift to a mobile model. Now our team of advanced instructors brings yoga, meditation and even healthy cooking classes on site and by appointment to businesses, schools and organizations throughout greater Los Angeles.
Has it been a smooth road?
Operating a physical studio open to the public was an enormous financial burden in terms of the cost of operations and commercial real estate. Traffic and parking conditions made it difficult for people to make it to our classes. I sensed right away that a better model for everyone would be to provide a customized yoga experience on location and by appointment. I work several jobs in addition to managing Chakra 5, so time management is critical. I need to carve out strategic time to build new business relationships and treat our current client base well regarding our service, scheduling, invoicing, etc.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Chakra 5 Yoga story. Tell us more about the business.
I’m very proud of the care, professionalism, and unity our entire team has around our mission. Our customer experience and safety is number one in our minds at all times. I truly believe I’ve got some of the best yoga teachers in LA working on our team, mature and experienced teachers with backgrounds in Zen Buddhism, senior yoga, kids’ yoga, and yoga therapy. We also have a DJ and healthy chef on our team, so we’ve been able to provide holistic wellness events for companies that incorporate yoga, music and nutrition. Over time, we work with our clients to customize the experience and make it better and better for them. I like to call us a “boutique yoga service”.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Just in the last few years alone, we’ve gotten a real upswing in inquiries about our services. I think that more studies are coming out with the data to prove that yoga at the workplace is extremely beneficial… Not just for employee morale, but for team building, focus, stress reduction, and overall mental/physical health and well-being. It used to be that a “trendy dot com” company or ad agency looking to attract millennials would only be the type of place to have yoga. However, now we’re seeing that the desire for on-site yoga classes is starting to be requested by companies in other industries such as real estate and banking.
Pricing:
- Weekly 1 hour class: $120
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.chakra5.la
- Phone: 310-853-3885
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chakra5la
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chakra5la
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/chakra-5-mobile-yoga-los-angeles
Image Credit:
Personal Photo: Ben Gibbs. Last photo with woman in turquoise top: David A. Hudson.
