Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Cummings
Hi Ashley, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
SHE WINS (the end).
My story starts in Georgetown, Washington, D.C, where I fell in love with modern dance, ballet and gymnastics at very young age. What I have dedicated the past 18 years of my life to is Yoga, so let us move on to it. I started coaching gymnastics while attending the University of Miami, which is how I found my first Yoga class. Fellow coaches at the South Miami Gymnastics Center were raving about this “yoga thing”, some new class they were obsessed with. I avoided this class as long as possible, until I finally succumbed to the “come on Ash! You will love Yoga”, they were right. I was hooked after my first Yoga experience, an Ashtanga Yoga class, in a very small and sweaty room in South Miami being rented out by a teacher. I delved into a consistent yoga practice, which I quickly found to be imperative, as I was feeling and seeing so many benefits in/on every level of my being. The next step my first Yoga Teacher Training in 2006 at Miami Yogashala, this experience changed the course of my life, I found my purpose. Yoga, not as an hour class a few times a week, but the life-style has changed my life for the better and forever! Not even in my wildest dreams could I have been prepared for the adventures, places, and the people that teaching Yoga would lead me to. I am so proud of my first Yoga studio, established in 2008, Just Breathe Yoga, Sunny Isles Beach. In 2011 I left my first Yoga studio to move to Los Angeles to be with my sister, Whitney and my mother who had recently taken ill. To leave the community, students and studio I had spent four years building was devastating, but when my sister said “Ashley please move to LA and help me take care of mom and be a family”, I could not say “no”.
After two years of teaching at any studio that would hire me in LA, Agni Yoga, West Hollywood was established in 2013, my second studio, another chance. As fate would have it my father became terminally ill in 2015, so Agni died with my father, in 2017, perhaps there is a beautiful lesson in there? The healing/ grieving process from both losses were brutal on me, I retreated. In 2020 I started to feel strong enough to work with a few Yoga Conferences and with my private students again. There was also a texture of shame involved, having built two very successful studios and “failed”. I knew in my heart that many people understood how these events shook my whole world, but many did not, most important- it did not matter; It was me that just could not hold it all together, I tried with every iota of my being, but it was just too much. To lose so much of my life and who I defined “Ashley Cummings”, was a spiritual experience in itself. I, for the first time in my whole life, had no one except “Ashley” to care for, this was a foreign concept to me. Irrefutably I lost more than I ever expected, more than I thought I could survive and I know I could not have gotten through any of “all of it”, or the hardest years without Yoga, Breathwork, Meditation, present moment awareness tools and the physical “yoga posing” . I am at my favorite place in my life now, which I could never have expected with my 43rd birthday just around the corner. But, I am still here, I loved and lost and now all I have is unconditional love again. When we lose things, things we love so dearly, it can feel like we will be empty in places that could never be filled, at least not the way they were. But I have found that from so much loss, and the luxury of time to heal, I am over full of gratitude for all that was, everyone I had the honor to serve and be near while they were here. I do not have empty places any more, I found space; to try again, to love, to grow, learn, and ultimately be where I am today – in the happiest time of my life, all I can feel or see is possibility.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I am not sure that “smooth roads to success” exist, the struggles along the way teach us to appreciate the smooth parts of the road. Without knowing the struggles and strife, how could we even know the smooth, easier times. Every struggle on my path was a lesson that better prepared me for the next struggle. For example, lessons that employees are not your “friends”, usually, and that is ok. Lessons in the first 3 years of any small business about how hard it is to even get there for a myriad of reasons, but you got there. Lessons about loss, loss of resources, studios, family members, “the way we do anything is the way we do everything”, so with each struggle that pops up we remain grounded in resiliency. So I see the inevitable obstacles and challenges more as opportunities to grow, evolve and expand.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about ASHLEY CUMMINGS YOGA ?
ASHLEY CUMMINGS YOGA/ PRIVATE YOGA LA
I have been teaching Yoga and Meditation for over 18 years, in this time I have opened and operated two successful Yoga Studios, Just Breathe Yoga and Agni Yoga, in North Miami Beach and West Hollywood, respectively. I started running Yoga alliance Yoga Teacher Trainings in 2008, in 2023 I created Ashley Cummings Yoga Teacher Training, an online course for practitioners from all over the world to take their practice to the next level and become certified Yoga Teachers. I have also worked in Chiropractic and Doctors offices which just honed my skills for private, one on one Yoga sessions, which is currently what I do most these days. I started offering zoom yoga classes that are doing well, which brings me joy.
What makes you happy?
My dog Hondo makes me very happy; he is unconditional love defined, manifest, we have so much fun together. I am also very happy to see my students progress, and ultimately feel better in their bodies, I am elated when I start working with a student, and to see their commitment to themselves pay off. I love showing people that “yoga is not ever about “reaching your toes”, but always about deep, steady even breathing.
Pricing:
- 5 Zoom Yoga Sessions = $200
- 1 Private Yoga Session = $150
- 10 Private Yoga Sessions = $1,000
- Online Yoga Teacher Training = $2,500
- 1 Zoom Yoga Session = $50
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ashleycummingsyoga.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/venicecanalsyoga/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AshleyCummingsYoga
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ashley-cummings-yoga-santa-monica-2
