Photo by Kathy Tran
Today we’d like to introduce you to Phyllis Smith.
Phyllis, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Live Free Yoga is a partnership between me and Tida Chambers, which we launched five years ago in 2016 after I began teaching yoga to student athletes in Dallas ISD. The DISD Athletic Director at the time offered me the opportunity to teach in multiple schools. I couldn’t possibly do it alone, so I asked the owner of Move Studio in Far North Dallas, where I often practiced Yoga, to forward an email from me to her studio yoga teachers offering them the opportunity to teach youth at DISD. My preference was that they had a strong desire to work with youth. Tida emailed me back detailing a litany of experience working with youth and a heartfelt desire to serve them.
Since then, we have expanded from athletes to integration into physical education classes in as many as 20 DISD schools as well as Uplift Luna Academy and The Winston School, a private school catering to students with learning differences.
Initially, our primary focus was yoga, but with the more recent requirement of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools, our yoga-based program has now expanded to include other mindfulness practices as well as mindfulness training for educators. We offer mindfulness workshops for professional development, and we have just launched our mindfulness video series called “Lighter Being” for adults. It can be purchased by organizations or individuals.
When COVID-19 invaded our world last spring, we switched to virtual classes. I’m proud to say all of the schools we were in continued with online classes, including the yoga classes we teach to Garland ISD employees twice a week. We even added weekly online yoga classes over the summer for DISD employees.
We recorded most of our online classes and created a video library subscription service on our LiveFreeYoga.com website. So, like everyone, we have had to be extremely enterprising in order to adapt to our current circumstances, but I think we’ve done a pretty good job of it.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think the hardest thing for us is managing the bureaucracy in the public school system. There are so many steps and people to get through to finally get into a school or district. That said, the people we have worked with see the value of what we bring and are passionate about giving their students and staff support for their own-wellbeing and success.
Of course, the pandemic has forced us to find new and creative ways to do business. Our work with students has slowed down this semester as educators adapt to the challenges of a new teaching environment. But as the dust settles in the education field, we are starting to hear from administrators about moving forward with our programs next semester.
Live Free Yoga – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Mindfulness is about being present. When we are present in the moment, we reduce the thoughts of past and future that cause fear, doubt and worry. But it takes practice for us to clear our minds and reduce tension that we hold in our bodies to achieve a present state of being.
Live Free Yoga offers yoga and other mindfulness programs for youth and those who serve them. Our online programs, Lighter Being and our LFY Home Studio yoga video series are offered to the general public.
What makes us unique is that our school programs are targeted to adolescent age, primarily middle and high school students. We chose that demographic because it is one of the most challenging and pivotal times in in a person’s life. We’re no longer children, but not yet adults. More is expected of us, so the pressure and stress builds up. Our yoga program for students is structured in a way to develop character through character-building themed classes, build confidence and teach other mindfulness skills to help students cope with stress in a productive way. There are lots of yoga and mindfulness programs for elementary-age students, but nothing like ours that focuses on adolescents.
Our mindfulness workshops for educators help them develop an understanding of mindfulness through direct experience with mindfulness practices such as conscious breathing, mindful movement, guided relaxation and other mindfulness activities. Teaching teachers is our way of reaching more students, because they can integrate the mindfulness tools they learn into their own classrooms. Our goal is a kinder, gentler more peace-loving future. It is the youth of today who will be the facilitators of a better future for us all.
At its core, our yoga and mindfulness programs are all about cultivating a strong mind, brave heart, wise body and noble spirit – all of the traits that empower us to be better human beings. We end every class we teach with those same words of affirmation, “I have a strong mind, I have a brave heart, I have a wise body, I have a noble spirit. This plants the seed into to their brains, so they can begin attracting those values to themselves and blossoming with continued practice.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I think we make our own luck. Luck is about being in the right place at the right time. But I believe that if you don’t put yourself out there, luck won’t just fall at your doorstep. You need to set yourself up to meet the right people who will believe in you and then connect you with the right people.
One example is how I met the Athletic Director of DISD. It actually began several years before that when I was a reporter at KRLD radio in Dallas (yes, I spent three decades in the TV-Radio news business and corporate media before becoming a full-time business owner). I was working on a story about bullying and interviewed a woman who had a non-profit to prevent bullying.
Fast forward to my next job working in the corporate media department at a Dallas-based company called eWomenNetwork, a networking and support system for women entrepreneurs. They have an annual conference where they select a humanitarian of the year who serves women and children. I recommended the woman from my radio interview.
While I was helping to coordinate her appearance at the conference, we became better acquainted. I told her I wanted to bring yoga into schools. She invited me to a DISD rally for her anti-bullying organization where the district Athletic Director would be. She even had me kick-off the program with some exercise, so he would recognize me when I approached him later.
When I introduced myself to him at the rally, he asked me to schedule a meeting with him in his office. At that meeting, he invited me to present my program to all of the Athletic Coordinators of all of the DISD high schools at one of his monthly staff meetings. He wouldn’t agree to bringing us in unless his staff approved.
It was from that meeting that three schools picked us up for their athletic programs. Two years later, after the Athletic Director paved the way for us to meet the DISD district head of Health and Physical Education, our Mindfulness in Motion for PE program was integrated into the P.E. curriculum of 20 DISD middle and high schools.
So, our success started as luck when I happened to choose that particular woman of that particular anti-bullying program for my radio interview. The rest was networking, perseverance, patience and a whole lot of grit.
Contact Info:
- Website: livefreeyoga.com, lighterbeing.net
- Phone: 214-497-7982
- Email: phyllis@livefreeyoga.com
- Instagram: Live Free Yoga
- Facebook: Live Free Yoga
- Twitter: Live Free Yoga
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