Exploring Life & Business with Mark Stefanowski of Full Throttle Yoga

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Stefanowski.

Hi Mark, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
In 2008 I got a DUI on Christmas Day. That experience was an eye opener and forced me to look at the choices I was making in life. I knew that changes needed to be made and one of those changes was taking some yoga classes. I began with doing yoga on VHS tapes in my basement – I was super self conscious about doing classes in public. I then went to Bikram yoga and finally ended up doing vinyasa yoga. I was enjoying the yoga so much that I ended up in a teacher training. During that training I came to the realization that I was not like the other people in the program and, because of that, I could make an impact as a yoga teacher. That moment is what started Full Throttle Yoga. Since it began, I’ve been delivering donation based classes mostly in breweries, doing fun yoga events and running yoga retreats.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Building an ‘alternative’ yoga offering from the ground up was a challenge, but it also very enjoyable. We started the first class fourteen years ago with just a few students and they’ve grown to hundreds of students at time. Online yoga offerings have also been a challenge to address. All my brewery classes are live streamed on Zoom and creating an experience that allows the online students to get what the in person people see, took some work, but I think I have it dialed in. Finally, there are just the basic challenges; finding new students, navigating the social media craziness and making sure the my offerings are valuable and of service to students.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Full Throttle Yoga?
Full Throttle Yoga was born out of a desire to bring yoga to people outside of the regular, traditional and boring environments. The classes are accessible to all kinds of students as well as donation based to make them financially accessible as well. The practice is designed to challenge you physically and to challenge your mind. So often yoga is about breathing and moving. At Full Throttle we breathe, move, think and celebrate! At Full Throttle, we rock and roll and have a really good time. Yoga can be fun and I work hard to make it that. I think that what I’m most proud of is that so many people say to me “I didn’t know yoga could be like this” or “I’ve never gone to a yoga class because I thought it was ‘weird’ and your classes aren’t” I love that people feel part of something with Full Throttle. I also think that its great that you can do the classes live in person or via a livestream. The biggest thing about yoga is that you just need to show up and I try to make that easy for students.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I’m incredibly grateful for the people that ran my teacher training and supported my teaching growth at CorePower Yoga. I still teach there and without CorePower, I would never have what I have today. I also cannot that my brewery partners – currently Sanitas Brewing in Boulder, Boostrap Brewing in Longmont and Collision Brewing in Longmont – they’ve all taken a change on yoga classes and have truly given us our ‘home’. Finally, THE STUDENTS! There are so many wonderful people, great stories and good times that have happened over 14 years and they would never touched my life if they didn’t show up.

Pricing:

• All Full Throttle Yoga classes live and online are donation based. Pay what you can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fullthrottleyoga.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fullthrottleyoga
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ftyogamark
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@fullthrottleyoga