Today we’d like to introduce you to Ricky Tran.
Ricky, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My family immigrated from Vietnam in the 1980s while I was a young boy. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up in Dallas, but I learned to create my own opportunities and developed an entrepreneurial spirit at an early age. I remember buying five packs of bubble gum for 35 cents and selling each piece for 25 cents in middle school. After graduating high school, I was without much direction. No field of study seemed to interest me, and I decided I didn’t want to do what everyone else did because that’s what we were supposed to do.
Going to college, getting married and working this month to pay for next month’s bills is not what I wanted to do the rest of my life. So, for a few years following graduation, I worked retail jobs, partied a lot and spent a lot of time in the personal growth/self-improvement section of Barnes and Noble. I read and listened to books on tape by Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, Harvey Mackay, Zig Ziglar, Stephen Covey, Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, John Maxwell, and others. I attended numerous seminars and trainings preparing for “success.” This time spent reflecting allowed me to become clear on what success meant to me.
By my late 20s, I knew I wanted to do what I loved so I didn’t have to work another day the rest of my life. I just didn’t know what it was that I loved that could add value to the lives of others. Then one day, an old childhood friend mentioned she was attending the University of North Texas for an undergraduate business degree with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and strategic management. This was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to learn to be in charge of my own destiny, and I knew I wanted to make a positive difference in the lives of others. I enrolled in Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management program with a minor in Real Estate!
I graduated after a few years and was ready to pursue my dreams, but I still felt lost. I didn’t have any real-world experience nor did I have any capital to start a venture. So, I played the resume game and went out at night. This continued until I developed an addiction to meth and realized I needed to change my environment. I moved to Austin to start over, but learned that you can’t run from addictions the hard way! I moved back to Dallas and attempted to clean up my act. This is when I found yoga. I had said I would never sell cars with a college degree, but that’s what I ended up doing for a year.
During that year, I developed a weekly yoga practice that helped me regain my physical and mental well-being. Little did I know, but the practice of yoga empowered me to make choices that aligned with my intentions and overcome the tyranny of my own ego. After a few years practicing yoga, I began teaching part-time, while originating loans in the mortgage business. Practicing and sharing my passion for the yoga that helped heal my body and mind became more fulfilling than making a lot of money closing mortgage loans. I slowly transitioned into teaching yoga full-time between around 2008-2009.
In 2008, I had the idea to create a yoga prop and collaborated with the founder fo Manduka on the TranBand yoga prop. In 2010, the idea of unity in the yoga community and the Breakfast Yoga Club came to me in a mediation. I decided to put it out there, and Breakfast Yoga Club spread to Austin and Houston. I also taught yoga on the road at host studios, conferences and festivals while holding weekly classes at five local yoga studios/gyms. Then in 2011, I decided to open a yoga studio with a loan. I got married in the summer of 2013, and we opened a second location in October. We did well for a couple of years after that but then I began to have trouble in my marriage, and that affected the studios.
I ended up having a closing both studios by May 2018 and finalized my divorced in August of this year. The brands I have created so far are Breakfast Yoga Club, Krama Yoga Center, Yoga TranBand, Standard Yoga Training Company, Pop Up Yoga Dallas, Navanga Yoga, and Yoga South Side. I am opening Yoga South Side in January 2019 at South Side on Lamar in the Cedars, Dallas. I will be taking private clients and offer group classes, workshops and teacher trainings. I will also continue to travel the country spreading my teachings. Hopefully, I will get my US citizenship in a couple of years. After that, I plan to offer my yoga teachings around the world.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. I have struggled with addiction early on. Within the past few years, separation and divorce with an infant were my biggest struggles, and I have to say that it was probably the most painful thing I have had to endure. That coupled with the closing of my two studios was very depressing. It was worse than making it through my meth addiction. At least I didn’t have suicidal thoughts with addiction!
Please tell us about Yoga South Side.
My life mission statement is to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Right now, I’m doing it through my passion of yoga. I’m in the business of helping people find health and happiness. I help people heal, transformation and awaken through the full spectrum yoga. I teach yoga beyond the postures. The physical yoga I teach only scratches the surface because real yoga is invisible. I teach the invisible yoga. Those who do not really know me, know of my advanced postures practice. Those who have studied with me know I specialize in equal parts yoga theory and practice.
I’m most proud of the difference I’ve made in the community in Dallas and on my yoga tours around the country. I’ve helped many people heal from health conditions that western doctors have not been able to heal. I’ve been able to help kids understand their minds better and have even gotten compliments from their psychiatrist. I helped one teenager with anorexia and another autistic teen with his behavior. The reason for anyone’s suffering or freedom has to do with their mind. My approach may not begin with the mind, but it always leads us to the relationship with and control of one’s mind.
Leaving a positive legacy is important to me, and I feel I have given yoga practitioners and teachers tools to spread the teachings that have helped heal my mind, body and given me spiritual or self-awareness. My intention for opening my yoga studios was never to make a million dollars. I think I could have been a lot more profitable if I had watered down the spiritual teachings and catered to the general population with fitness-based yoga, but I decided to stay true to what worked for me, and that was authentic yoga.
There was a time when I considered adding Barre classes to help bring in more clients, but I decided I was going to stay consistent with my intention of healing, transformation, and awakening. I don’t think anyone got enlightenment through Barre workouts. Real yoga is a work-in, meaning we go inside. We learn to quiet and observe the mind. We learn to be at peace because I heard a long time ago that happiness is an inside job. Most people seek happiness outside and are happy contingent on happenings. True happiness is not dependent on an event. True happiness is acceptance and gratitude.
What sets me apart from others is a combination of my experiences and my lineage of teachers. Because I know what real yoga is and have experienced it in both theory and practice, I can talk about it to others. There are a lot of contemporaries who have had similar life experiences and yoga knowledge, but what sets me apart from them is my ability to impart the knowledge in a way that is consistent with the ancient teachings. I’m also pretty good with my hands on assist.
Most yoga studio owners are either proficient in business or proficient in yoga. Rarely are they proficient in both. What sets me apart is my business background coupled with my yoga experiences.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I think I blocked out a lot of my childhood. I was separated from my mother before I was weaned. I was literally breastfeeding the day my father and I emigrated from Vietnam on that fishing boat in the middle of the night. The two weeks we spent at sea on a sinking boat was apparently traumatic. I do not remember a thing. My last memories of my mother were of me missing her around the age of five.
My fondest memories were of family fishing trips with my father, uncle, and grandmother. Those were probably my favorite memories. I did enjoy ice hockey and skateboarding, but those were more exciting than anything. The memories of being with my family were the best.
Pricing:
- Drop in classes are around $20 per class and price per class decreases with package deals.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1409 South Lamar St. #206 Dallas, Tx 75215
- Website: www.YogaSouthSide.com
- Phone: 972.833.1893
- Email: yogasouthside@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yogasouthsideonlamar/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yogasouthsideonlamar/
- Other: www.RickyTranYoga.com
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