Meet Kelly Kenworthy of The Little Yoga Studio + The Little School of Yoga in Boulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Kenworthy.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’ve been practicing yoga since I was 21 years old. As with most people, I had been through numerous traumatic experiences and had endlessly (and exhaustively) searched for something to save me. I found it in Galveston, Texas on my purple Gaiam yoga mat that my grandmother had just given me for Christmas. It was the first time I felt safe and welcome in a long time. I left that first yoga class knowing that this practice would forever change me.

Over the next ten or so years, I deepened my practice as I continued working in corporate America. I made my way from Galveston to Santa Barbara, shifting jobs, and getting into the local yoga scene.
Something still wasn’t totally jiving for me even though I was doing well at work and practicing yoga consistently. I needed to take more steps, bigger ones, in order to really generate the change I wanted in my life.

I completed my first yoga teacher training during my last year of graduate school in counseling, an area of human-based study that had interested me for years. As a practitioner of yoga, I felt that moving through a yoga teacher training could only benefit my counseling practice. Because I was so busy with graduate school, I enrolled in a yearlong 200 hour teacher training program and was able to complete both simultaneously. While in the program, I had the opportunity to begin teaching yoga at a local studio in southern California. Looking for that next step, shortly after finishing graduate school and my teacher training program, I moved to Boulder.

I was on the opening team of teachers at the Little Yoga Studio, a small independent studio in central Boulder. There was one person in my first class. It was scary. I felt vulnerable. And I kept showing up. Classes built in size and the community at the Little was slowly born. Within six months, I was approached by the owner to become her business partner. I immediately said yes. With my background in corporate headhunting, graduate coursework in counseling, and my experience as a yogi, this made perfect sense. This marked the moment that I left all my side gigs behind and focused 100% on the operation of the studio and teaching public classes.

In 2013 just a few doors down from the Little Yoga Studio, CrossFit Sanitas opened its doors. I had always struggled with my weight and decided to give CrossFit a go and immediately found an encouraging and supportive community. A few months later CrossFit Sanitas held their first 30-day Paleo Clean Challenge and I signed up. This revolutionary lifestyle change brought me further along my path. Over the course of 18 months of disciplined work, I shed 65 pounds…and my marriage of 9 years. Through this process, my understanding of myself began to shift. I was able to finally step into my true identity as a gay woman.

The lessons I’ve learned over the years have allowed me to create a safe space at the Little Yoga Studio for students to inquire about their own life paths and identities. Currently, I am the sole owner of the Little Yoga Studio. In addition to operating and managing the studio, you can find me teaching public classes, leading teacher trainings and working privately with clients.

Has it been a smooth road?
Even though we are thriving, we are not immune to challenges and obstacles. With so many yoga studios in Boulder (a great problem to have!), students and teachers have lots of choices. Running a small business in Boulder is challenging, especially when trying to stay true to the tenants of yoga.

On any given day…teachers get sick, the stereo breaks right before class, the lobby floods, or the prop shelf breaks. The good news is that the solution is right there for me every time: show up and serve. If we show up in service, the obstacles soften and challenges are welcome.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into The Little Yoga Studio + The Little School of Yoga story. Tell us more about the business.
The focus at the Little is yoga. It’s a space free of distraction and drama, which allows the teachers and students to engage in their practice. Our goal is to offer the highest quality yoga (asana, vinyasa, meditation, kundalini, yin, restorative) without the bullshit. There’s no memberships. Instead, we treat everyone like a member (“members only” is our way of saying “all are welcome!”). We have done our best to create an environment free from the structures that exclude some and prioritize others. Instead, we seek equality and inclusivity.

What sets us apart? We’re actually doing it. We charge $10 per class and have since opening the Little’s doors almost eight years ago. We encourage our students to “drop in”—the term that for us embraces our no members/everyone’s-a-member way of doing business. There are a few other options: a ten-pack of classes (that saves you $5) or an unlimited two week pass that gets you all the yoga you want for two weeks (for 40 bucks). There’s no t-shirts for sale, but you can purchase a yoga mat or water bottle.

Outside of our regular class schedule, the Little has started offering more consistent workshops for students looking to deepen their practice. I found that students were asking for deeper study and teachers had incredible ideas for more in-depth inquiry in the studio. It only made sense to up our offerings. These 1-2 hour long intensives range in topic from Therapeutic Yoga to Inversions and most recently, Energy Anatomy. These workshops are not simply for the “advanced”—instead, they are designed to appeal to a diverse (and eager!) set of students. In this way, the Little acts as an educational hub for the spiritual and physical practice of yoga. You’ll find me at many of these workshops—at the front desk checking students in and in the studio learning from our outstanding teachers.

Education, for all of us, continues to be essential on this journey. Outside of the six public classes I teach each week, I also run three 200-hour Yoga Teacher Trainings per year. These trainings are an advanced study in technique and teaching methodology and offer instruction from many of the Little’s teachers. Students learn both physical anatomy and energy anatomy, as the program seeks to engage in both the spiritual and the physical. Students emerge energized and confident.

We are constantly evolving, responding to our community, creating offerings with our teachers to even better serve our students, and staying nimble and ready. We make adjustments every day, and also are sure to stay true and close to our core values.

Contact Info:

• Address: 2525 Arapahoe Ave, E-42, Boulder, CO 80302
• Website: http://www.littleyogastudio.com/
• Phone: 303.444.495
• Email: kelly@littleyogastudio.com
• Instagram: @littleyogastudio

Image Credit:
The Little Yoga Studio

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