25 years…I still can’t believe it!! I vividly remember the huge gamut of emotions I had surrounding the decision to buy BL. I had so much uncertainty about the ability to juggle being a mom of 3 young daughters with the many responsibilities of owning my own business. Actually, at that time, I really had no idea what all those responsibilities even were. I have to admit the fear of failure did cross my mind as I took on this foreign endeavor.  I remember thinking if I could just make enough money to help with upcoming college tuition for my 3 daughters, I would consider this little side gig of mine, a success. Well needless to say, BL exceeded my expectations. BL even survived buying out a business partner, my husband quitting his corporate job to pursue a career in art, the 2008 Recession and, of course, most recently, COVID!! Just giving you this cliff note version of why celebrating 25 years in business is truly such a big deal. And although me and Chris and our amazing BL staff have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making 25 years a reality, it’s really our students that are due the credit. We want to say thank YOU for seeing the value in supporting a business that promotes your wellness. We want to thank YOU for being a part of this BL community whether it be for a week, a year or perhaps for the entire past 25 years. So we felt that in view of this huge accomplishment, a day of celebrating just wasn’t enough…so we decided to celebrate for an entire week. Yep that’s right…we are calling it a TOAST TO 25 and the celebration will be from Sunday, October 30th until Saturday, November 5th. Here’s what to expect…Read More

I don’t know about you but I have heard the word “anxiety” more in the last couple of years than I ever have before.   The business conference Chris and I just got back from shared a few statistics with us to substantiate this unfortunate trend.  MINDBODY reported that 50 % of individuals report that Covid has continued to impact their mental well being.   45 % report being more stressed out and 42 % say they have gained weight.Read More

If you know me, or have paid attention to my comings and goings on social media, you undoubtedly know I like to stay busy.  Well…those who know me well, know that even that is an understatement.  Truth is, I get a bit panicky when my schedule is not full.  I look at my upcoming week and if I happen to have an open night or two, I start texting friends and family to make plans.  The other day I came home from an unusually long day at BL…upwards of 16 hours…and my husband said…”you work hard and you play hard!!”  There may have been a bit of judgement in his statement, mainly because it is not how he is wired, but also, a great deal of truth in his statement as well.  In just the last month’s time, I have been to Vegas for a girls trip…had a couple of days to turn around and head to California for a combo “play” hiking trip and a “work” Mindbody conference with Chris.  Then I gathered all the information from the conference to present at a bi-annual staff meeting just days later back at BL and then was completely immersed the next weekend with the Julie Run, Kicking off Yoga Teaching Training and Yoga 101.   Every day in between these events, I had dinners, boat rides and concerts scheduled with friends and family. Oh, and all while having my suitcase half packed to jump on a plane to Atlanta to be there for the birth of my 5th grand child!   I know, it’s a LOT!!   And some of you are likely exhausted just reading this…but I LOVE it!!   I re-fuel by being around people and I had never really thought of it this way until Dave said it out loud, but I DO “work hard and play hard!!”Read More

One of the things we are hearing a lot of lately is that students are embarrassed to come back in studio because you’ve gained weight. Maybe it's that you got out of the rhythm of working out or maybe it's that you were stressed out, and downing that bowl of ice cream or bag of potato chips seemed to be the answer at the time. Regardless, I just want you to know that you are NOT alone!!  AND a seemingly simple but hugely challenging concept to grasp is that you can only start where you are. Moving in a more positive direction to take better care of yourself starts with baby steps. So I’m going to give you just 2 suggestions to nudge you in this direction…Read More

As I mentioned last week, Chris and I spent the last couple of days at the annual Mindbody Conference called Bold. We have been attending Mindbody conferences for the past 10 plus years and have found the information to be very helpful in terms of running this big ship we call Body Language. Part of the conference is dedicated to inspirational stories of other individuals or businesses who have overcome great obstacles to land where they are today. Other parts of the conference focus on improving the client experience whether its upgrades in technology, tweaking of our branded app, best practices on connecting with our clients or most importantly, ways to continue to foster that deep sense of community we have all grown to love and appreciate at BL. This year though the conference kicked off with a very interesting segment on industry trends. They gave us much data on how other fitness and yoga studios across the country have navigated this pandemic and the staggering reality is that 30% of businesses like BL have closed over the past 2 years. Mindbody also collected data from those who have survived and across the U.S., fitness & yoga studios are only at 60-70% of pre-covid numbers. (Which is exactly where BL is.) While other industries have survived and even thrived, fitness & yoga studios have been disproportionately impacted because of the option of “substitution.” Many have chosen to “substitute” working out at home for their in studio classes. The stats also show that 30 percent of those who were previously working out pre-covid are just not working out at all any more…perhaps a testament to the fact that those at home workouts are not really a viable “substitution” after all.Read More

I wonder how many of you know Body Language’s tag line??  Here’s a hint…it’s found spelled out with different colored metal letters above the lockers in the Link.   Anyone?? Next time you’re in the Link be sure to look up and you’ll see it.

Work…Sweat…Play!!

Chris and I came up with this saying to describe our approach to how we have chosen to run Body Language but also as an encouragement for you, our clients, to find this balance in your own lives as well.Read More

 
 I have spoken with so many students lately who are thinking about joining Body Language’s teacher training but who just haven’t quite made the leap.   So, I just wanted to take a few moments of your time to tell you a little more about our program and why you might want to consider joining us.

First of all, although I am the creator and coordinator of the program, I am just one of a whole team of teachers who lead the training sessions.   If you look around at other programs, you will find that this is very rare.  There is typically one person who leads the entire training which was originally me.  But over the years, I have been able to add other teachers into the training who have way more expertise in certain areas than I do. This has really added depth and value to our program.   For example, Ronda has a Ph.D in psychology and she leads many of the sessions especially those related to how yoga can help you deal with anxiety and depression.   Margie is a physical therapist and she leads the sessions on anatomy, the Respiratory and Nervous systems.  As a Registered Dietitian I lead the sessions on nutrition and how yoga can be an effective tool in managing your health and weight.  These are just a couple of examples of the amazing staff we have in place to lead the training.  Having all these teachers with their depth of knowledge in different areas is a huge value added to our program and is singlehandley what sets us apart if you’re looking around at different studio’s trainings.Read More

Well, this is the last entry into my 25 year story of the evolution of BL.  We are now up to date…BUT I am so happy to say that my story is just continuing.  We are moving forward in 2022 and creating a new story each and every day.   And although we can’t wait to see what the future holds, we also want to pause to celebrate this huge accomplishment of being in business for 25  years!!!

We want to celebrate this milestone for sure, but we also want to celebrate the amazing community who has showed up and supported us along the way.   Our BL community is Body Language!!!!!Read More

This part of my story is a hard one to write. Since I purchased BL in 1997, we were on a steady incline in terms of growth of the business and bodies through the door…AND THEN COVID. How many times have we said this phrase over the past couple of years…I know I’m definitely not alone on this one. Life was going along pretty smoothly…AND THEN COVID. BL was operating like a well oiled machine…AND THEN COVID!! So my story now picks up on March 16, 2020. A day never to be forgotten by many…but this is part of my BL story, so I’m taking this opportunity to share with you my behind the scenes view of how BL “navigated” this crazy couple of years.Read More

As you can probably imagine, over our 25 years in business BL has been approached by many well meaning individuals and businesses looking to raise money for their favorite charity or good cause. And, while we love the idea of supporting those around us, we needed to streamline who and how we were giving back to the surrounding community. Over the course of the past 25 years, we have come up with three very different ways to support our community.Read More