Marnie Luck and Amanda Star really did share the love with us when we met at a quintessential Toronto health-spot, Fresh by Juice for Life. Their company makes it easy to find affordable classes in the big cities where $25 yoga classes can be normal.
These bubbly gals are filled with excitement for their “passion project” where in a matter of months, they’ve highlighted community classes in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Vancouver, Ottawa and New York.
We laughed, we chatted, and we got our smoothie on.
Share the love! What an amazing idea.
Amanda: I was teaching yoga at McGill, and Marnie came to one of my classes. She said, “I think you would be a good person to work on something with.” We chatted about the idea. A year passed, where I switched from business to science and Marnie switched from business to naturopathy. It became a functional site as of January 2013.
Less than a year old, and already so many cities!
Amanda: Toronto is the highest market, for sure. We’re also branching out to the GTA to Brampton, Mississauga and others. Boston has turned out to be a gem, with community classes at almost every studio.
Do you guys have a computer background?
Marnie: (laughs) I have taken two IT classes. One in high school and one in University, and I got someone to help me with my work. I don’t even have a smartphone. Twitter stresses me out. There can be so much noise.
Amanda: I’ve taken an HTML course, but we have a web guy. Marnie always has a guy.
Marnie: Our web guy made it really easy to add cities. We have a Google spreadsheet that we update with class schedules, sometimes daily. It’s a live site where the changes are reflected live.
Amanda: We peruse the yellow pages, Yelp and Google search. Many classes that operate as community classes are not called community classes. I sometimes bulk up my research on the weekend. I moved from New York to Toronto to make this work and Marnie is really good to work with. But sometimes we need to have a beer and take a break from our partnership.
Quite a bit of work for two ladies with full time jobs in other areas. When and why did you first get into yoga?
Marnie: I wanted to get flexible.
Amanda: Me too! I thought flexible was cool.
Marnie: I took my balanced life yoga teacher training in 2006.
Amanda: I first went to a Sivananda yoga retreat when I was 13 with my dad. I met an amazing family there who seemed so strong and happy. I wanted to be like them.
Mission accomplished. Why this business specifically?
Marnie: Our theme was accessibility. We wanted to approach the demographics that don’t really have accessible yoga, whether because of physical or financial reasons. Can we create a community of sharing yoga, without having to acquire it in a conventional way?
Amanda: In our logo, we point it out: Accessible. Affordable. Adaptive. We want to create infrastructure to get free classes to the fringe communities in the future. Even people who have more money can find it hard to keep up with fair trade goods, organic produce and yoga classes. Being healthy in many aspects can be expensive.
Support these ladies and your own wallet with a look at their website today. Even though Marnie is not Twitter friendly, the site sure is and you can find them at @SHARELOVEYOGA. They also have a YouTube tutorial to get you in the right class as quickly as possible. Take a look at their site daily and you could be in more affordable classes year round.
Then start loading your savings into your piggy banks.
