What the Triangle Yoga Festival means to Peak Fit Events.

Hey, y'all, as you know the Triangle Yoga Festival is happening again!

It is no secret that this festival is one of my favorite festivals to organize, plan, and market! There is something about yoga and being around others who are practitioners and healers that fills me up with so much hope and optimism.

The love that we receive during the duration of the event as well as planning and post event feedback keeps us committed to improving the festival year after year.

My duty is to create a yoga festival that does the following:

• Inspires and gives life to those who may be feeling stuck/hopeless and looking to find community

• Bridge the gap between fitness and yoga

• Accessible

• Practicable

Yoga that inspires people even inspire those who don't practice.

I am a fitness girlie at heart, I have muscles, I have a large frame, so I never thought I fit the ideal image of yoga. You know what I mean when I say that.

Slender bodies, contouring and moving in ways that a nonflexible and big bodied person believes they cannot do.

And if you suffer from tight hamstrings, you know that stretching can be painful before it feels good.

Not to add even more damage do why I didn't do yoga before, I don't really buy expensive stuff to work out in!

I love Lululemon and Alo Yoga from afar, because my budget and bank account won't allow me to have nice things!

Anyway, I hope you are starting to get the gist of why I felt alienated from yoga.

Because of the misconception and the messages, I received. I assumed yoga wasn't for me and only for certain people, boy was I wrong!

My Yoga Journey started at Spenga

Me with Founding Members of Spenga

In 2021, I got a job as a presale's assistant manager and an instructor at Spenga in North Raleigh. Spenga is a fitness studio means Spin. Strength. Yoga.

I knew I could teach fitness and do fitness, but I never thought I could possibly enjoy yoga or teach yoga.

My job at Spenga didn't pan out but it made me highly curious. I saw so many fit and strong women of all frames kill it in the gym and then glide through yoga, wearing whatever they wanted!

Seeing that changed my beliefs instantly! I could do yoga, and maybe yoga was really for me.

After my stint at Spenga, I went to Lifetime Fitness of Apex and Cary (briefly) where I met certified yoga instructors who were also personal trainers!

At Lifetime, I started doing yoga after I would teach group fitness, and it became my religion!

I got stronger and I got grounded! Best time of my fit life!

Btw, if you want to feel really amazing do a restorative yoga class and then lay in the sauna! (Peak Fit Energy right there)

(Pause)

I know what you are thinking,

Lifetime's yoga isn't authentic it's not what real yoga is. True you are right; it might not be what "you" think yoga is. But to me, it was.

It was what I needed to drop all assumptions and negative thinking about yoga and embrace this new movement and pace.

I accepted yoga in my life when a Lifetime yoga instructor said this in class:

If you inhale and exhale on the mat, that's yoga, that's all you have to do is breathe.

From there, I got involved with hot yoga, yin, hatha, meditation, online yoga, community yoga, and Vinyasa.

My yoga practice has grown tremendously but I never gave up fitness, weight training, or running to grow my practice either.

Yoga became a compliment for my fitness journey, and when I took long breaks from weight training for a few years, I still did yoga.

If I gained weight, I did yoga.

If I took a rest day, I did yoga.

No matter what, my body would not fail me because yoga was holding me up even when I was agitated or frustrated with life.

Yoga was still there for me.

I can confidentially say that yoga and fitness go together better than peanut butter and jelly and peanut butter and chocolate.

Don't believe me, try it!

Try being still.

Try going to a class

And try coming to the Triangle Yoga Festival, you won't regret it.

So, what does this yoga festival mean to me as the Founder of Peak Fit Events.

Sigh....yoga has brought me much space in my life to recalibrate and reflect.

Creating and organizing the Triangle Yoga festival has change my approach to organizing other festivals and events as well.

Yoga has shifted my perspective on how I approach and learn from folks.

I am much more patient and much more understanding.

When I first started Peak Fit Events, yoga wasn't really on my mind, let alone creating a yoga festival.

I used Yoga to escape from the demand of event planning. It was our audience that asked me to integrate yoga into our festivals, it was you all who asked me to put on a yoga festival.

When I finally listened, I saw how yoga created a better community for us all. One that supports one another.

Now, yoga is in all of our events!

And I'm glad for that.

I hope yoga finds its way into many people's life, even if it's just breathing.

Will I ever become a yoga teacher?

Now that is a question for a different day and a different blog post.