Conversations with the Inspiring Andrea Crowl and Kaity Holsapple

Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Crowl and Kaity Holsapple.

Andrea and Kaity, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Community Yoga, formerly Loveland Community Yoga, was started in 2016. In 2017, the studio explored being a teacher co-op with five business partners working for shares of the business on “sweat equity”. This model did not work out and Kaity and I became partners/ owners of the studio in Jan 2018.

We are both Yoga instructors and have been part of the studio since day 1. We are Partnership of creativity, passion for community and yoga. Kaity does yoga retreats, designed and leads our teacher training and does marketing, I am managing owner, all things that make the business run on a daily basis. We both teach classes at the studio on a weekly basis.

Has it been a smooth road?
Running a small business and a fitness business means a lot of “keeping all the balls in the air”. I had a background in corporate yoga and management experience, but being the owner and boss is entirely different. When the humidifier breaks or the cleaners don’t show up, it falls on me. I am the handyman (or my husband) and back up for all things studio. This has been a big challenge for me personally, learning to balance the needs of the studio, teach and manage the studio needs, student and instructor.

We both pull from our different backgrounds to achieve a diverse Community experience. We both felt offering a variety of class platforms, taught by teachers from different backgrounds, lineages and training would set us apart. And it does! But finding continuity can be tricky.

My biggest piece of advice is finding the balance of work life from the very beginning. When you go into business doing something you love, like teaching yoga or running a studio, work life can often take over. Most teachers can identify with the challenge to maintain their own personal practice when they start teaching. It is so important to stay connected to what brought you to your industry in the first place.

Please tell us about Community Yoga (Loveland).
Community is our focus and our brand. We changed the name from Loveland Community Yoga (LC) to Community Yoga last year to emphasize this as the overlying piece of why we do what we do.

This means offering classes from Heated Vinyasa Flow to Kundalini to Yin to Sculpt, etc. We have an amazingly diverse group of instructors who bring their gifts and knowledge to the studio and their classes.

The community experience is the driving force. I believe that the customer experience is at the heart of a thriving business, which means we work with student’s needs, communicate openly about the studio and continue to build a business out of community love, spirit and energy.

That is our brand and our pride: Community Love, Community Spirit, Community Vibe, Community Yoga.

For good reason, society often focuses more on the problems rather than the opportunities that exist, because the problems need to be solved. However, we’d probably also benefit from looking for and recognizing the opportunities that women are better positioned to capitalize on. Have you discovered such opportunities?
I think that the wellness world has really shifted to a women-focused industry. It offers women a place to feel and be strong and supported by other women. I think this is in part because women are naturally the ones who nurture and understand the holistic approach to well being, physical and mental health and connection to community.

Contact Info:

• Address: 284 E 29th Street
  Loveland, CO
  80537
• Website: lcyoga.com
• Phone: 9703689642
• Email: studio@lcyoga.com
• Instagram: @lovelandcommunityyoga
• Facebook: Loveland Community Yoga

Image Credit:
Community Yoga

Suggest a story: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.