Today we’d like to introduce you to Larry Santiago.
Hi Larry, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My wife, Amy and I actually met at a yoga studio through a mutual friend. In fact, we each did our yoga teacher training a year apart before we even became a couple at a wonderful, now-defunct yoga studio in Burbank called Yoga Blend. Fast forward a few years when were approached by the owner of a studio in Los Feliz where we were both teaching part-time asking if we’d be interested in buying it. We’d never really seriously considered owning our own space as we both held down full-time corporate gigs, but took the plunge and acquired our first space, Yoga Vibe in Los Feliz, which we officially opened in January 2012. Fun fact: that studio was actually our first date. We went on to open a Glendale studio, Yoga Vibe At The Village in 2014 and then had a chance to add a 3rd studio to our resume, Black Dog Yoga; a longtime fixture in Sherman Oaks in 2016. In 2018, we partnered with our friend and fellow yoga teacher, Sigrid Matthews to open a West Hollywood space, Yoga Vibe WeHo. So at one point, we were the proud owners of four independent yoga studios in LA. Unfortunately, the property ownership of our Glendale space changed hands and we closed that space in 2019. And then in March 2020, our world and everyone else’s changed.
When the pandemic hit, we permanently closed our West Hollywood business, while Yoga Vibe and Black Dog Yoga shifted to online classes only and the tough economic decision was made to give up BDY’s 6000 square foot space while retaining Yoga Vibe’s location. In late April 2021, Yoga Vibe reopened its physical space, but we hadn’t yet found a suitable spot to reopen Black Dog. By chance, Amy was driving on Moorpark in Studio City one May afternoon and noticed a for lease sign on a building, just around the corner from charming Tujunga Village. A lease was quickly signed and on July 1, Black Dog Yoga 2.0 was born. We now currently operate two yoga studios, both with in-person and online offerings.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One word, COVID, probably gives you an idea of what kind of road it’s been since reopening. With 14-month and 16-month mandated closures for Yoga Vibe and Black Dog Yoga, respectively, we had been pretty cautious about reopening. As restrictions were slowly being lifted, we didn’t necessarily want to be among the first studios to reopen, while also not wanting to be one of the last. When we did, class sizes were very limited to provide adequate spacing for students’ comfort as well as compliance with city guidelines. Still, many students were reluctant to return to group settings. After all, yoga is about breathing and we’d just spent over a year of our lives telling everyone and ourselves not to breathe on anyone. Still, it seemed there were signs to be optimistic and then the Delta variant reared itself in late summer/early fall 2021 and with it came the mask mandates. As you might imagine, outside of some of our diehard students who were willing to practice masked up, attendance took a hit. And then it seemed just as Delta waned towards the end of ’21, along came Omicron. Masks and the hesitance to be around others in close proximity once again took its toll on our in-person classes. Fortunately, we had invested in high-quality audio and visual technology to make our online classes as good as possible, but to be honest, nothing can replace the in-person experience.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
For Black Dog Yoga (and Yoga Vibe), we hang our hat on being an independent and are proud to be small businesses in LA. What does that mean? We do our best to create a community, where teachers and staff call you by name when you walk through the door. Community also means interpersonal relationships between students. It’s a pretty awesome thing to watch, students come to class as strangers and in a short time, are going to grab coffee with someone whom they met in class. We just had a couple of teachers and some students go support a fellow yoga student’s standup comedy gig a few Friday nights ago.
As far as what we do on the mat, our goal is to make everyone feel welcome. Let’s face it, we live in a yoga mecca, so much more so than many other cities around the country. In LA, you can find just about every style to suit your personal preference. There’s a lot of hot yoga around town, so we make a point not to crank the heat up. (That’s not to say you won’t break a sweat in some of the classes when appropriate). Since we have such a wide demographic, we offer everything from the gentler sides of the practice (Restorative, Yin) to more vigorous flow classes and everything in between. We’ve also empowered our teaching staff to create not just a yoga class, but an experience. To be creative and playful with class architecture and style, as long as it fits in the box of yoga. We’re a yoga studio, so you won’t find pilates or functional movement on the schedule. Accessibility and sustainability are two things that are important to us.
We also offer a monthly Soundbath, a delicious restorative yoga practice set to the soundtrack of crystal singing bowls. Each fall, we hold a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, accredited by Yoga Alliance. And Black Dog Yoga is open 365 days a year; our Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day classes sell out every year.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
How could you not? It’s the single greatest upheaval of our lifetime. It also gave us perspective and a chance to be more introspective than we ever had before. When you’re locked up in your house and all of the layers get stripped away, all you have left is time. Time to take a step back and figure out what’s important. So while it was an incredibly challenging, frustrating, frightening and for some, devastating period in our lives, we got a chance to take everything off the table and had the time to decide what exactly was going to be put back on it.
Pricing:
- New Student Special. 2 weeks of unlimited yoga for $40 for students who have not practiced at Black Dog before
- 1-month unlimited yoga $165
- BDY Club. Unlimited yoga for $135/month with a minimum six months commitment
- Single class $24
- 10 class series $180 (breaks down to $18 per class)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BlackDogYoga.com, www.YogaVibeLA.com
- Instagram: @blackdogyoga, @yogavibeLA
- Facebook:facebook.com/BlackDogYoga, facebook.com/YogaVibeLA
Image Credits
Megan Meza Photography
