The spotlight is on The Practice Energy Movement Centre

Mindful Movement

The Practice promotes social change through exploration via movement, stillness, and realization of personal power

By Heather Fegan

The Practice is not your average yoga studio. In fact, it’s not a yoga studio at all. The Practice is an Energy Movement Centre, a community built on movement. At The Practice, yoga-influenced movements, along with plyometrics, calisthenics, and stillness in the body support a shifting in the mind. At The Practice, you shift, move, and nourish.

INSPIRE ME Magazine sat down with founders Laura Kieley and Amy Tattrie to talk about building their business, their intentions, challenges, and success along the way.

Amy Tattrie (left) and Laura Kieley (right) are the founders of The Practice Energy Movement Centre. #movement #intentions #thepractice

How it all began

The Practice, overlooking Lake Banook in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia first opened its doors in July 2019. Covid closed those doors just eight months later, but thanks to the dedication, perseverance, and commitment of the owners in helping others get moving with mind and body workouts, The Practice is still there, warmly waiting to welcome you in.

Founders Laura Kieley and Amy Tattrie aren’t new to the world of business.

Tattrie went to university for sociology and anthropology with a minor in economics. “I kind of have a bit of technical business training in that sense,” says Tattrie. “It was really interesting because through sociology we studied how a lot of business owners and business creators are shifting towards people with that style of background, human behavioural studies, as opposed to a really technical business background. I was always interested in business and just took a different kind of modality to get there,” says Tattrie.

Amy Tattrie went to university for sociology and anthropology with a minor in economics. #flow #movement #entrepreneur

While she was studying at university, Tattrie was also training at a yoga studio through an energy exchange. That’s when you clean for a certain number of hours a week and get free unlimited yoga in return. Tattrie climbed the ranks, through positions as a membership advisor, front desk support, trade coordinator, and studio manager. “I kind of wore all hats there at one point or another which was really great because it gave me a full 360-view of the studio operations. And through that experience I took my teacher training.”

Tattrie wound up working as a yoga instructor at the studio more than full-time. That’s where she met Kieley.

“I went to university for business, learning the technical aspects of things,” says Kieley. “My family also owns a few businesses so I saw the dedication and hard work that is needed to go into owning and operating a business. It’s interesting because I saw people’s perspectives of owning a business from the get go, and be like, ‘oh it must be nice to own your business!’ Yes, if you like waking up at 5:30 in the morning and starting your work and then it never stopping ever!” Kieley laughs.

She says it’s not the grit that she was ever afraid of. “I’ve kind of always enjoyed playing with risk, but in terms of the growth of this place, this didn’t feel risky to me because I feel like it is truly what I am meant to be doing,” says Kieley. Like Tattrie, she started taking yoga classes while going to university. She also started an energy exchange program, cleaning and seeing the back-end operations in exchange for going to as many classes as she wanted. Another instructor encouraged her to do her teacher training too.

Laura Kieley says it’s not the grit that she was ever afraid of in starting The Practice. “I’ve kind of always enjoyed playing with risk, but in terms of the growth of this place, this didn’t feel risky to me because I feel like it is truly what I am meant to be doing.” #movement #intention #entrepreneur

That was 11 years ago, and Kieley has continued her learnings over the last decade. She worked in business in various roles including project management and marketing, continued teaching yoga on the side, and had her son, who is now seven.

Kieley says it has been her dream to own her own studio space ever since taking that teacher training.

“I was dreaming, ruminating, reflecting, planning, thinking, and actually my first stop was not this,” explains Kieley. “It would have been a franchise of another studio where I was teaching.” But Kieley’s application was denied. “I was heart-broken. All my dreams were, ‘I’m going to open this studio, it’s everything that I have, everything that I own, everything that I know is going into this’ and they were like NOPE and I was like OKAY here we are. And I hate this word, pivot, but I had to adjust, shift around, turn 180 degrees. And I just decided that this was not going to stop me from opening this thing that is greater than me and that also inspired me to find someone who was on the same wavelength that I was on—it was Amy!”

The two met at the studio where they were both teaching. “She invited me over to make cookies,” says Tattrie. “I'm pretty intuitive and I called my mom on the way there and said, I think somethings going to happen.” Tattrie says she also dreamed of opening a space or studio of her own. “I think she actually had a slideshow presentation,” laughs Tattrie.

“Very possible,” admits Kieley. “A-type personality. I had notes. Well... I already had the business plan written, ready to go.”

Tattrie says their partnership evolved organically. “It was very aligned. We have a beautiful duality between the two of us. Laura has this connection with real intensity in movement and anatomy, where I—I do love to move, I do love to sweat, I love to get people to that space, but I deal a bit more with the soft side of things. I mean, in the world you see so much hustle and bustle and I think there’s something so special about watching people relax.”

Tattrie explains how “Laura approached me with this beautiful grand idea that she had been growing. We were in chats about it for two years before I actually quit my previous employment. We were just growing all these little ideas, gathering information, people we’d like to work with, partnerships we’d made in the community. Six months before I stopped teaching is when we really got into the nitty gritty.” Tattie was living in Truro and coming to the city everyday to teach and meet with Kieley. In May 2019 she stopped teaching elsewhere and they opened the studio in July.

“I had two months of just hands-on working with construction workers, getting supplies, we pretty much lived at Home Depot and of course along these lines we were supplying our business plans to banks and getting loans and all of those little things I forgot we even did, because it feels like a lifetime ago,” says Tattrie.

Laura Kieley (left) and Amy Tattrie (right) say their partnership evolved organically. “It was very aligned. We have a beautiful duality between the two of us,” says Tattrie. #smallbusiness #movementstudio #movement

A studio built on movement

At The Practice you can find classes aptly named The Practice, The Flow, The Restore, The Release, and The Presence. Each class embodies its title, whether it’s hatha/vinyasa and yin-influenced yoga, cathartic cardio, or mindful meditation. While Kieley’s passion is fuelled by movement and meditation, Tattrie’s favourite thing is witnessing people reconnecting with themselves and discovering what it really means to be in their bodies.

“I should say too, we always want to note that everything we’ve learned has always started with that studio where we met and with the training so just to show it its honour, even though we’ve grown from it, we’ve moved away from it, it still has been so important and integral in our foundation,” says Kieley.

“Amy and I are very much self-learners. We love seeing what’s out there and then getting the knowledge and incorporating it if we jive with it. We loved our teacher training, and then of course that sparked another layer of training in different ways. So Amy went on to take reiki training, and I went on to take hands-on adjustments, and more of the physical, anatomical workshops.

“Now we’re integrating more of the mind and psychoanalysis aspect of what movement and what this practice is. And that stems from yoga theory, there is a lot of that in the other limbs of yoga, so when you look into yoga itself, the physical practice is called Asana, and so that is what westernization of yoga is for the most part. You will find little pockets of more traditional yoga at studios elsewhere, but there is a whole aspect to yoga, it’s really an analysis of your life and how you interpret and interact with people and kindness. There’s so many aspects to the yoga tradition, however Amy and I both felt that some parts of the westernization of yoga just didn't jive with us anymore and so that’s what stemmed this divergence from our traditions, but we still honour and take some of the learnings from that.”

Tattrie says if you visit their studio, they won’t talk about the eight limbs of yoga or anything along those lines. “We don’t want to misrepresent it, or cherry pick what we do and don’t want from it,” she says. “We so honour it and admire it, I guess we’ve transmuted it into something different.”

Kieley reiterates The Practice is not a yoga studio. “We’re very intentionally a movement studio. Because while that is our training, our background, our learning, our foundation, we don’t feel right carrying that forward in the way that it is, and part of that of course is the accountability and accessibility of it.”

Kieley explains they’ve taken it into a movement studio label because everyone can find some form of movement. “Everyone, for the most part, is walking, shifting, whatever the case may be. And that is why we offer so many options. It’s not just, you need to go into this Warrior II and this is what that Warrior II looks like and it better look like this Warrior II. It’s, here’s the intention, we will go into this posture that is a Warrior II but here’s where you’re grounding down, here’s where you should feel it, these are the muscles that should be activated, here’s what we’re looking for, and how does this feel in your body?”

The Practice is not a yoga studio. “We’re very intentionally a movement studio,” says founder Laura Kieley.

This leads into a notion at The Practice of stepping into a zone of discomfort, both in class and in real life.

“There’s this beautiful place of discomfort, and our intention within all of our practices is to find the line from discomfort to pain,” says Kieley. “So it's a re-circling back to yourself, if you’re in pain, don’t do it. But if it’s uncomfortable, why is it uncomfortable? Let’s see what’s there, what's underneath the surface, what if you take it breath by breath by breath versus thinking about it as the whole thing? That is applicable to our whole unfolding of this business as well.

“Our whole intention of doing this is to empower people. Our whole purpose of this studio is to empower people. To be their authentic selves, or do whatever they want to do essentially, get them thinking outside of their limiting boxes, their limiting beliefs, that we really are more capable than we think we are. It’s really up to us to develop that relationship with ourselves.”

While there’s talk about discomfort at The Practice, there’s also talk about empowerment. “That's the thing about choice,” says Tattrie. “It’s also about the empowerment to choose ‘I don't feel prepared mentally or physically to be in discomfort today’, and to know yourself well enough to have that relationship with yourself ,that you feel ok to say, I’m going to be soft with myself today. And on the flip side of that, it’s so interesting, especially as a restorative instructor, to see how uncomfortable people are being gentle with themselves. Because we are so in this mind space of it having to be challenging to be worthy. ‘I have to be working to be worthy, I have to check all the boxes’. I think that’s an important part because we do encourage people to press their limits but then to respect the times that they are not able to press their limits. It’s really getting people to be empowered by their own choices.”

“It’s also about the empowerment to choose ‘I don't feel prepared mentally or physically to be in discomfort today’, and to know yourself well enough to have that relationship with yourself ,that you feel ok to say, I’m going to be soft with myself today.”

For example, Kieley says she finds stillness so much more challenging than movement. “But it’s the practice that I need and the practice that I crave to go back to, and it's so interesting to have those self-reflections. That’s part of it, are you self-aware enough to recognize the things that you need in the moment. Is it stillness or is it movement? That's why we offer that range here because we recognize and honour that sometimes you’re full of fire and you want to do the burpees and sometimes you can’t even fathom doing that so you’re going to lay down, still in challenging poses, especially mentally, but that’s what we wanted to offer, something for everybody so we can be the support for everyone in their day and their routine.”

With challenges comes success

Aside from Covid shutting their doors just six month in, Kieley and Tattrie agree on the challenges they’re overcoming.

“We haven't had a full operational year in business, so of course Covid has been our main challenge, but it’s hard to compare it to anything because we don't have a baseline,” says Tattrie.

“The first thing that I will say, starting at the beginning, I do fully believe that being two youngish women in business has been a challenge,” says Kieley. “I do fully believe that, because there were some bank meetings I went into and felt very much judged and talked down to and not supported.”

Tattrie grimaces. “A ‘are you sure you want to do this sweetie?’ kind of vibe. Very much just underestimated, I think as a whole is the word,” she says.

They also faced the challenge of starting completely fresh—they are not a franchise, they don’t already have a name, or ready-made following.

“And we’re trying to shift cultural norms,” says Kieley. “And that is an uphill battle. Because we are trying to teach people the opposite of what they’ve already had ingrained in them for x number of years and I do find that a challenge. We’re trying to explain something that should just be experienced. I can’t do my 18,000 point presentation to everyone who ever comes into the studio!”

Tattrie is honoured they’re still here. “Saying it gives me chills. As a new business, as a very physically small business, a literal small business, we’re still here, we still have support, we’re still gaining new people coming in all the time and most of all we are shifting culture. That is so huge. To see that moment.”

Kieley can’t agree more. “We put all of our effort, all of our energy, all of our learnings into our classes, into this space, because we believe in it so wholeheartedly. When it connects with someone and we get that feedback, I'm just in tears all the time. It’s so fulfilling.

“I think of how we get to do this, and we get to broaden that box of people's self-perspective and we get to say, you know what? Even though you were taught this your entire life, what happens if you think outside of this way, and then to see people start to think outside of this way and really truly step into the comfort and authenticity for who they are, that’s what we're here for. That's what we’re meant to do.”

Laura Kieley’s passion is fuelled by movement and meditation, Amy Tattrie’s favourite thing is witnessing people reconnecting with themselves and discovering what it really means to be in their bodies. #movement #thepractice #wellbeing

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