January 8, 2017

Meet Neda Honarvar of Tough Love Yoga in Candler Park

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Neda Honarvar.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Neda. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I took my first yoga class when I was 18 years old. I don’t remember much about the class but I remember vividly how I felt after: calm, centered, clear, and HIGH. I struggled with anxiety and depression as a teenager and practicing yoga helped me connect back in and feel more like myself again, like everything was so much more manageable. That feeling kept pulling me back to class and I practiced on and off for the next 7 years before deciding to take the next step.

A few of my friends had told me that going through yoga teacher training had changed their lives and I wanted that so I took the leap and signed up for the first of many yoga teacher training programs I would take over the next few years. I threw myself into the process with everything I had and sure enough, my life started shifting radically. I learned so much about myself in those first six months of study and went through some pretty serious growth and transformation, which was simultaneously excruciating and the best thing that had ever happened to me. I even met my Guru Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati during that time, and she taught me so much about how to be courageous on the path, how to uncover who I really am, and how to love myself. Ma’s teachings really fueled my passion and gave me the courage to trust the process and to go after what I want.

I graduated in June 2008 and started teaching immediately. I took every teaching opportunity that came my way, whether it was paid or not. I was in college at Georgia State University at the time doing some postbac work so that I could apply to medical school and was bartending at MJQ and the Bookhouse. But practicing and teaching yoga was what made me feel alive so I went after it more and more. At the end of 2009 after completing my second teacher training, I realized how much my time at the bar was keeping me from living the life I really wanted to live so I quit and started looking for an office job.

The economy was really bad at the time and jobs were scarce. One of my friends was a recruiter for a very large corporation in Atlanta and offered to help me craft my resume and cover letters. After 4 months of applying for and being rejected from jobs, I found myself sobbing at her dining room table. That’s when she asked me, “If you had all the money in the world, what would you do?” I said, ” I would open a yoga studio.” She told me that that’s what I should do then. I had about one million excuses for why I couldn’t do that and why it wouldn’t work out and she just sat there encouraging me until I actually started to soften around the idea. A few nights later, I met with my dear friend Durgaya and we sat on my couch and drank wine and dreamt about possibilities. We settled on a few things: we wanted to offer yoga classes in unconventional spaces, we wanted to teach on our own terms in a way that was authentic and unique to who we are, we wanted to make the practice accessible, and we wanted to call our business Tough Love Yoga. We asked my friend Eric LaCombe to design our logo and started building out a website, but we still didn’t have anywhere to teach.

One night I went to an art opening at Young Blood Gallery and Boutique and after a lot of pep talks from my husband (then boyfriend), I approached the owners Maggie White and Kelly Teasley about teaching few classes a week in their gallery space. They graciously said yes, told me I could teach there rent-free, and only asked that we allow their employees to take complimentary classes. Maggie and Kelly also took me under their wing in a lot of ways and mentored me as I figured out how to get a business off the ground with no experience. Durgaya started teaching in the upstairs of a coffee shop in the space that the bar Church now occupies and once it closed, she joined me at Young Blood.

We had to work around the gallery’s hours so we started with just three 10:30am classes a week and soon after added a couple 8pm classes. Attendance was pretty hit or miss at first but we kept showing up, even if no one else did. I started asking my guy friends what it would take to get them to come to class and they said that if I played metal, they would come. I love metal and love practicing to it so that was a no brainer for me. Six months after our first class at Young Blood, we added Metal Yoga to our schedule and 12 people showed up to the first class. I remember looking at that room full of people that night and thinking that this yoga studio thing might actually work out.

Metal Yoga kind of took off and all kinds of people showed up. It was fun and different and got a lot of people’s attention. A lot of people who came to that class told me that yoga had never interested them before but that the fact that we played metal drew them in. And that was my goal- to get more people practicing yoga and to make the benefits of the practice accessible to people who might not otherwise try it. I wanted everyone to have access to this practice that had offered me so much. So we kept it going. We kept adding classes to our schedule, and as we grew, we realized we needed more space and more teachers. We had a few newer teachers apprentice with us and then brought them onto our schedule. We started teaching at other spaces including Raw Bronzing Studio, Condition Kettlebell Gym, and Dance 411.

A few months after our first anniversary at Young Blood, Durgaya and I realized that we wanted different things and decided to part ways. She continued to teach with me at Tough Love and started her own local yoga business as well. I really wanted to try to find and open my own studio so I found a space, busted my ass working 16 hour days for a month straight to try to get it open, and spent all of my dollars and then some before realizing that there was a massive issue with permitting that the landlord was not honest about and had to back out. It almost broke me but I trusted that it had happened for a reason and kept teaching my classes at the gallery.

In early 2012, Durgaya moved home to Florida where she now owns a beautiful and successful studio called Sebastian Yoga. I used that year to continue growing our classes and then that Fall, Maggie and Kelly decided that it was time for Young Blood Gallery to close doors. This was hard news for me to take, especially because Young Blood’s gallery and community was such a huge part of the heart of Atlanta in my eyes. As difficult as it was, it was perfect timing. I had just designed curriculum for my first teacher training program and had 33 people signed up and nowhere to teach it. Young Blood closing forced me to get into action and start looking for my own space. I’m the kind of person who believes that there’s power in saying what you want out loud, so I sat down wth a friend and and shared about what my ideal space would look like: a large space with two yoga rooms, plenty of skylights, and a large glass garage door. And then it showed up. When I initially saw the space, I didn’t jump on it because it was so out of my budget and I wanted to try to be in a neighborhood that had fewer yoga studios. But after searching all over the city, I kept coming back to this space. It was walking distance from my house, large enough for us to grow into, and it just felt right inside. So I negotiated with the landlord who graciously offered me a pretty serious discount for the first couple years.

So I took the leap. I borrowed $10,000 from my family (which I promptly paid back) and with the help of our teachers and community, built out and opened our new studio, affectionately called “Cobraville,” in only one month. Our first class was on Thanksgiving Day 2012, incomplete walls and all. Less than two months later in January 2013, our first teacher training started. I was really overwhelmed. There were so many things that I had to do and roles that I had to fill that I had not anticipated. I was very stubborn about trying to do everything by myself but luckily some of the other teachers at our studio saw how much I was struggling and stepped in to help. I fought it and worked so hard that year that I made myself sick. The stress, lack of sleep, and some other variables made me so sick I ended up no longer able to eat solid food and was forced to slow down and take some time off to heal. I also got married that year and realized that the pace I was going at wasn’t sustainable for my body or for the kind of life I wanted to live so I started saying yes more when others offered to help.

In January 2014, after months of some seriously difficult times, I met my teacher Darren Rhodes. I had been taking his online classes for a few years at that point and finally drew up the courage to invite him to come to Atlanta for the first time to teach a workshop. He agreed and told me he would be teaching something called yogahour, which I had never heard of before. I’ll never forget that first class. My body and my spirit were so weak from months of illness and personal challenges that I didn’t think I would make it through the first few poses, much less the whole hour. But I made it through both classes the first night. The second day of the workshop, he taught a practice called Barefoot BootCamp, which is 200 poses in 4 hours. I thought for sure that I wouldn’t make it but the more I practiced, the stronger I felt. Something shifted in me during that practice – I went from feeling defeated and broken to strong and connected back in to my fire and passion again. I remember thinking, “If I can get through this, I can get through anything.” Darren taught two more classes the next day and they really sealed the deal for me. I knew I wanted to learn more about yogahour and offer it at our studio. And I knew that I wanted Darren to be my mentor.

Darren came into my life at a crucial time. After my Guru Ma passed away in 2012, I was crushed by grief and felt untethered in a lot of ways. She was the person I turned to when I needed guidance or a reminder of what my purpose was. And while no one could ever replace Ma, I really yearned for a mentor and teacher who cared, and who would nurture and push me. Darren stepped into that role for me immediately. He offered me a lot of advice that first weekend and luckily, it never stopped coming. One thing that came out of Darren’s advice was me hiring one of my best friends and fellow Tough Love Yoga teachers Rachelle Knowles to be our studio manager. Rachelle had a lot business experience and a lot of ideas about how to make our studio run better. She helped me implement a new software system, changed our behind the scenes operations, and helped me dream up a bigger vision for Tough Love. Having Darren’s and Rachelle’s support ushered in a new era for our studio. I really realized how much better our business could be as a group effort so I let go of more control and watched things shift. I kept calling Darren for advice and soon, a few of us started teaching yogahour classes at our studio and even signed up for a yogahour training with him that summer in St Louis.

One thing I really saw in St Louis is how stellar the yogahour teacher training program is and how prepared yogahour teachers are to teach straight out of training. A year later in July 2015, after three rounds of our original teacher training program, we shifted to yogahour teacher training at Tough Love Yoga. That same month, my sister Bita, who was a photographer and photo editor at the Atlanta Journal and Constitution for 16 years, came on as our new studio manager. This gave Rachelle and I more space to focus on nurturing other parts of our business and gave me space to continue my training with Darren. I started flying out to Tucson, AZ (where Darren is based) once a month for the yogahour 300 hour advanced teacher training. It was challenging, to say the least, and really helped me refine my personal practice and my teaching in a radical way. In August 2016, I graduated from the training, registered at the 500 hour level with the Yoga Alliance, and became one of eight official yogahour teacher trainers in the country.

One thing Darren is known for is opening doors for others. Besides helping me refine my practice and teaching and grow my business, he has definitely opened doors for me. I taught my first national class and assisted him with training in Michigan in July. I taught my first national workshop at his studio YogaOasis in Tucson in August. We’re leading a retreat together in February. And I’m co-teaching my first international teacher training with him in Fukuoka, Japan 3 times in 2017 and 2018. If you had told me that night sitting at my friend’s dining room table, sobbing into my hands, that this would be my life, there’s no way I would believe you. So much has happened in the past 6.5 years that I never thought would happen. It’s been challenging and transformative and definitely a group effort with so many people supporting me along the way. And I’m so grateful.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been a very bumpy road. I knew nothing about starting or running a business when we started Tough Love Yoga. In the beginning, I took everything moment to moment and learned mostly through trial and error. So much of this path has been a failure, and that’s not a bad thing. I think it’s really important to fail sometimes in business and life. It has taught me tenacity and resilience and how to learn from what comes my way and turn it into something useful. Luckily, I’m stubborn and have a lot of fire in me so no matter what has happened, I’ve picked myself up out of the ashes and kept going.

The first studio not working out is a great example. It was excruciating going through all that work and having it not work out, but I felt like I got a trial run of how to open a business in the City of Atlanta. I learned about the process, what questions to ask, how to achieve what I wanted in a more efficient way and much more. And on top of that, the space not working out was a blessing in disguise. It had a capacity of 20 students and our first training had 33 people in it! I would have been stuck with a space that would have hindered our growth.

And then there are the daily struggles. Running a small business is so much work. A lot of people think that I’m just out there doing yoga all day but that is just not reality. There are so many different things that have to happen and even though I work really hard, I feel like I can never quite catch up. My to-do lists are endless and even on my most productive days, I sometimes feel like I’m falling short or disappointing someone. It’s hard to maintain a good work/life balance. I don’t see my friends and family as much as I’d like. I don’t have as much time to nurture my non-yoga passions. At times, my needs have come last and self-care has gone out the window. But that’s the nature of the beast. My teacher Darren shared this teaching with me: Everything costs something. You must pay the price. You must make a profit. No matter how hard it’s been, no matter what the cost, this is worth it. Yoga is my passion, it’s my heart, and being able to share it and build a beautiful community and safe space is so worth all the struggle.

Tough Love Yoga – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Tough Love Yoga offers affordable, accessible, expertly-taught alignment-based yoga classes for students of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels. We’re known for kick-ass instructors, our open and welcoming community, and our unique offerings, including Metal Yoga and yogahour.

Metal Yoga is pretty simple, actually: we listen to metal and do yoga. Not everyone wants to listen to new age music while they practice. And it’s not just metalheads who come to those classes. People of all ages and backgrounds come to Metal Yoga. It’s just a different experience than what you’ll find at our other classes and at other studios. Most people tell me that they don’t even notice the music after the first few minutes because they’re focussed on their practice and breath and on following along with the cues. In those classes, I usually pick a principle of alignment or an action or something anatomical that I want to focus on and then sequence class toward a peak poses or a few peak poses that are similar to one another. I often share yogic teachings in an accessible, non-dogmatic way so that students who want something beyond asana (the postures) can get exposure to the deeper, more subtle practices and teachings yoga has to offer.

Yogahour was founded by my teacher Darren Rhodes, and is an accessible, affordable, expertly taught flow/form class that offers clear and specific alignment instructions. Yogahour aims to be the most doable yet difficult one-hour flow class offered anywhere and is appropriate for everyone from the fit beginner (students without injuries or significant limitations) to the most seasoned practitioners. The aim of yogahour is to support and sustain the local studio and longevity of practice and that is exactly what it has offered our local studio and community. It helped us add tons of new classes and time slots to our schedule and to build up attendance in our existing classes. I’ve watched my own practice and our students’ practices transform and improve exponentially since adding yogahour to the schedule. The clarity of the cues, the balance of the types of poses practiced each sequence, and the boundaries of strength the style offers has made everyone so much stronger and that is more sustainable for the long haul.

We also now offer yogahour teacher training and I’ve never seen trainees come out of a yoga training more prepared to teach. Darren has created an amazing teaching technology and curriculum and all of our teachers who have taken this training amaze me with how much they’ve refined their teaching skills. I know that this method has completely transformed my approach to teaching and really helped me make every word that comes out of my mouth mean something. I teach in a much more intentional, strategic way than ever before and I still feel like there’s so much more to learn.

I think it’s important for there to be all kinds of yoga classes, studios, and teachers out there in the world because there are so many different people who want different things. Students should seek out and try out different teachers and styles so that they can find what resonates with them the most. What do I think sets us apart from others? Honestly, I don’t think about it that way. I just know that I have a strong vision and set of values that are important to me and I run my business with that foundation. I don’t compare what we’re doing to anyone else. I just keep my head down and do my work.

Our studio, teachers, and community are welcoming to anyone and everyone – that’s really important to me. I want people to feel seen and heard and accepted just as they are. I want people to feel at home when they walk through our doors. And I am very passionate about making yoga accessible. Our drop-in rate is $10 per class. It’s the most affordable in the city. We also offer discounted class cards, monthly and yearly unlimited memberships, and a work-trade programs, And accessibility doesn’t only have to do with pricing. It has to do with the way our teachers share the practice. We’re not preachy and do our best to teach with plain language so anyone walking in off the street can understand what we’re saying. Offering detailed alignment cues is a hallmark of the teaching at Tough Love Yoga. I want our classes to be expertly-taught and consistent so that students know what to expect and so that they can learn how to practice with a sustainable balance of strength and stretch and keep from getting injured. We teach more than just how to make shapes. We offer all the nitty gritty details so that students can empower themselves and learn how to use their bodies in a more sophisticated way. This desire makes me very particular about who teaches at the studio. All of our teachers are incredibly well-trained are all of us are students first, teachers second. We are all continually taking trainings or continuing our studies so that we can continue to offer our students our best. I’m proud of all of this. I’m proud of the way our teachers are so generous with their skills and hearts and time. I’m proud of our amazing, generous community of dedicated students who are the reason we do the work we do. I’m proud of our vision and commitment to offering affordable, accessible, expertly-taught yoga that now only sustains our studio, teachers, and students, but also helps us support so many non-profits in our community. I’m so proud of what we’ve created over the last 6.5 years at Cobraville. It’s my life and my heart and is the manifestation of all my dreams coming true.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me is all about staying true to our vision, taking care of each other, and taking care of our students. It’s about continuing to do the work, despite setbacks and failure. It’s about staying committed to this path and personally, it’s about staying dedicated to my personal practices. I have to be. It’s what keeps me grounded and connected to my source, to the well of what fuels me. And my teaching is much, much better when I’m strongly rooted in my personal practice.

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