In this post, we’re revisiting our Live Your Dreams series with FSM staff member and graduate Natalie Nix. She has recently created and launched a yoga studio in Gainesville, Kardiya, focusing on alignment based classes.
Natalie is an inspiring example of how our graduates incorporate their massage training to create a life on their terms.
When I was a student at FSM, I remember a business class where we were asked to set a goal for what our massage practice would look like 5 years in the future and share it with the class. I honestly wasn’t sure if my 5 year plan would even include massage, but for the sake of the exercise I decided to vision what a life immersed in this work might look like.
At that point I had been practicing Yoga for a few years, and I’d felt profound shifts from the combination of what I was learning in massage school and dedicating myself to a regular Yoga practice. I told my classmates that if this were the path I took, I’d hope to have a massage practice attached to a Yoga studio: that way I could do soft tissue work with clients on the table, and then get them moving after their session using Yoga as the foundation for the movement. Even as a spring chicken in the field, I thought that bodywork paired with movement was a winning combination. (I’m still pretty sure it is.)
As it turned out, I liked this work even more than I’d expected and decided to abandon plans of film school to continue with my career in movement and bodywork. But it wasn’t until I came back to practicing massage after a pause from the pandemic that I shifted to focus my efforts primarily on my private practice. It took nearly 10 years after massage school for that empowerment piece of the program — building a life on your own terms — to truly take hold.
In a big way, that gave me the confidence to move forward, step by step, with creating Kardiya Yoga Studio.
At Kardiya, all of our teachers come from different backgrounds and lineages, but we share a common ethos. In one way or another, everyone has some experience with an alignment based practice — giving cues on how to engage with poses. Just as we use touch as a vehicle for awareness with massage, we use alignment cues to hone awareness in our Yoga practice. The alignment cues give us a place for our attention to land — they give us yet another opportunity for awareness.
Like FSM, Kardiya is committed to our community. We recognize that we don’t exist in a vacuum, and that by staying engaged in our community we can open the door to build something more rich and interesting than if we were to go it alone. Community and collaboration aren’t always the easiest way, but thanks in large part to FSM, I think it’s far more rewarding.
We’re just getting started at Kardiya — we already have classes scheduled every day of the week (including a noon class on Wednesday with FSM instructor, Samantha Jones!) and we plan to offer classes ranging from beginners workshops, to “advanced” asana practice, to restorative mini retreats to teacher trainings. We’d love for you to stop in for class or just to say hello.
Check us out at www.kardiyayoga.com, sign up for our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram @kardiyayoga for updates and to stay in touch.
