Cultivating Joy through Yoga with Rebecca Haber and Elle Randall

It was such a pleasure to speak with the owners of Ritual Yoga, Elle Randall and Rebecca Haber—two local moms, yogis and owners of Ritual Yoga in Ossining, NY. We discussed eastern philosophy, theater and how the practice of yoga helps you get better at life. 

Ritual Yoga Ossining is the love child of Elle Randall and Rebecca Haber, two local yoga teachers and mamas whose fates have been intertwined since 2012 when both trained at Yoga Vida in New York City. Since finishing her training, Rebecca has taught at various studios both in NYC and Los Angeles, including Life in Motion, Love Yoga and Red Diamond Yoga. She believes in using yoga to maintain physical health, but also to create an everyday emotional toolkit. Elle has completed a mentorship with Katonah Yoga, Advanced Sequencing training with Laughing Lotus, and multiple immersions with The Studio. She also has a certification in mat Pilates through Equinox. Elle believes that the purpose of the Yoga practice is to give us insight into our Life practice, to help us be kinder people, and to cultivate more joy in our lives. 

For more information or to sign up for an upcoming class go to: https://www.ritual-yoga.com/

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Transcript

“Welcome to A Therapist Takes Her Own Advice. Please like and subscribe. You can contact me on Instagram, at A Therapist Takes Her Own Advice, or at rebekahshackney.com.

Hi, I'm Rebekah Shackney, and this is A Therapist Takes Her Own Advice.

When I started taking yoga classes almost exactly two years ago, I found it to be a helpful tool to support my healing journey, but I longed for more. I wanted a place close enough to go to daily where I could connect with others in my community. That dream came true when Rebekah Haber and Elle Randall opened Ritual Yoga in Ossining.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with them to discuss yoga, Eastern philosophy, playwriting and how holding chair pose can help you get better at life.

Welcome, Elle Randall and Rebekah Haber. I'm so happy that you're both here today with me. It's so exciting.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for having us.

Thank you so much for having us, Rebekah.

My pleasure. So, this is my first time doing a two-person, so I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourselves. So, Elle, why don't you start?

Great. My name is Elle Randall. I'm originally from Guam, and my family is from Taiwan, and I've been living here on the East Coast for about 20 years, give or take, and I came here at 17 to go to school for a theater, and I was introduced to yoga in college because it was actually a school credit.

So, I actually got penalized if I didn't show up to yoga class, which is kind of awesome. I wish that exists now. And it's never left.

I just continued with it, and eventually went on to get certified in teaching yoga. At first, it was supposed to be a compliment to, you know, being an actor, a musician, and a bartender, but then it really became like the primary gig, and it was really fulfilling to go in that direction. So, I think that's it.

Awesome. No, that's great. I love that.

I love so much about that, and I'm so curious, but I want to hear about Rebekah. Tell us about yourself.

I'm Rebekah Haber, and I'm originally from Westchester, but then I went to college in North Carolina, moved up to New York City for several years, and went to grad school there, and that's where I did my yoga teacher training, and then went over to LA for five and a half years, and then during the pandemic, made my way back to Westchester. So, I've come full circle, and yeah, I've been teaching yoga in the area recently, and now we have this studio, and it's very exciting to be providing this community that I grew up in with yoga. I've never actually taught, I've taught in New York City, and I've taught in LA.,

and this is really my first time teaching in the community that I grew up in, so it's very exciting.

Yeah, I'm very excited that both of you are here, because for me, being on a healing journey or whatever, when I first started in October 2003, the only thing that would help me after I started doing some really intense, deep healing work was yoga. And I would get up and do it like three or four times a day. It was just individually.

I didn't go to a studio yet, but it's so healing. So I'm so grateful that both of you are here. And I'm curious, so Elle, you studied theater, so you're an actor 

“And I know, Rebecca, you studied playwriting.

I did, yeah.

Did you also study theater?

I also studied theater. I grew up doing musical theater. Thought I was gonna go to Cap 21 and be an actress.

And my parents were like, I don't think so. So instead, I just went into playwriting, which is worse.

Well, you know, so many people make a living playwriting. It's a thing. Yeah, right.

Yeah. No, what's really funny, I don't know if you know this about me, but I have a degree in theater. Of course you do.

Of course you do. Of course I do. Yes.

Nobody tried to stop me and I just did that. So we have that in common. And so now I'm a psychotherapist because that's what happens.

You find something else to make money. Actually, for me, I wasn't really an actor. I was stage manager, dramaturg, and I came to New York to work in casting at Playwrights Horizons.

And then I worked for a Broadway producer for a while.

Playwrights Horizons was my theater school. Oh, at NYU. Playwrights Horizons, I went there for quite some time.

That's so funny. Yeah. I started working for a Broadway producer, and I decided that if I was going to work with crazy people, I needed to know what I was doing.

So I went to social work school. So tell me about how yoga, acting, theater, music has shaped your healing journeys.

Healing journeys.

Or are there any healing journeys?

I mean, there are definitely some healing journeys for sure. Gosh. My first reaction to that question is really just how being an actor, you're so in your body, and you have to hold different emotions and you have to contain different experiences so that you can replicate it on a stage.

And if you get lucky to do a play over and over and over again, you have to replicate it multiple times a week. And yoga is such an embodied practice that it really is a tool that helps you keep your container in order and in well-functioning. And over the years of having practiced and taught yoga for really, really long time, that has always been something I come back to whenever I get lost, whether it's in my head or I get, you know, my mom likes to say, kidnapped by your emotions, is well, then if this is a container and this is a home that houses your thoughts and houses your feelings and houses your history and your memories and your vision and everything, then let's make it a functional house so that we take care of the physical side, so that the mental side, emotional side, spiritual side has space to resolve itself.

I love that. I love that. So it's yoga has been about taking care of your vessel, your body.

Yeah, wow. And one of the things I like to think about when clients will talk to me, kids, teenagers will talk to me about their disliking their bodies and that sort of thing. And or even adults, I like to say this is the vessel that takes you on your journeys in life and births your children and allows you to have such pleasure and connection and all of it.

I mean, this is what we have to deal with. And I just think it's, you know, it hopefully will shift a perspective a little bit so that we can have a little more, you know, love for ourselves, because it's a magical vessel it really is.

So yeah, I think I love that you're talking about the physical body. I think for me, yoga started as a physical practice for sure. But I think what really hooked me was that, you know, as a writer, as a playwright, specifically, I feel like my work involved really deep thought and analysis of the meaning of life, you know, and having grown up sort of agnostic without a true belief in sort of a universal connecting force.

I was really, really drawn to the Eastern philosophy aspect of yoga when I did my teacher training. And that really ended up being the thing that really made me want to go deeper into the practice. Because for the first time, it gave me the sense that I'm not the center of the universe.

And I spent so much time thinking about death and fearing death and my own experience of what that would ultimately be and mean. And I think through the lens of yoga, I was able to see that it's like the whole thing about each consciousness is just a drop in the ocean of consciousness. And that when you die, you just go back into the ocean that you came from.

And it's a benevolent force that connects everybody. And there's really no reason to fear. And to be afraid of my own consciousness ending is almost selfish in a strange way.

And that gave me a sense of peace that I'd really never had before.

Wow, I love that. I will say a lot of people who do the type of deep work that I've been doing often get a sense of an inner knowing that there are many lives and this is just one of those lives that we're experiencing now. Some of us remember multiple lives.

I don't. But I love that you were able to find that level of peace in doing this work. That's amazing.

Wow. How about you, Elle? Where do you land with all of this?

Well, it's very similar to Rebekah in terms of wanting to go deeper with this practice. This really was the one practice that I discovered really helped me access my own intrinsic experience. I grew up with religion and from a pretty spiritual family.

I grew up Buddhist and Taoist. I was exposed to Eastern philosophy from a very young age. At first, a lot of it was just like, we wear this color on this day and you must eat this food on this day.

It was just very dogmatic, which was fine and I did it. And there was a lot of comfort in routine and culture and doing certain things on certain occasions. And what I was really interested in, as I kind of dove deeper into the spiritual journey, was really like seeing God.

Like I just wanted to have this experience where it was in myself, but also outside of myself at the same time. And I remember I was taking class. This was like in my early 20s, and I was taking class at a studio in the city called Yoga Vida, and they were on the sixth floor.

And I would always put my mat next to one of the windows. They had windows all over the building. And every time I would do an extended side angle on the left side, I could look up at the sky and I could see the clouds.

And there were a few times where it was almost like being hit with a magnetic force that oh, this is it. And I couldn't really explain what it was. And I just knew that, you know, with this practice, at first it was about catharsis.

There was a lot of letting go. There was a lot of surrendering. There was a lot of release.

And then over time, it became also about organization and toolkit building and being functional in my container and organizing myself and taking everything that was happening on the mat, off the mat, and applying it to an actual real life experience. So it became, you know, and you've heard me say this in class, it's about the pose, but it's not about the pose, you know? And we do yoga, not to get better at yoga, we do yoga to get better at life.

It's a practice to get better at life. And you were talking about like many lives and, you know, reincarnation and the Buddhist tradition. We believe in reincarnation.

And so this practice was kind of like my access point to understanding a lot more about my own religion, my own spirituality, my own culture, and seeing how it can be used in a way to foster joyful living, you know? And Rebecca was talking about like death and ending of consciousness. Like I think that if we can get to a point where we live fully in the moment and joyful, then that fear of it ending kind of dissipates because you're just, you're in it.

And then once it ends, it's like, okay, and then next. You know, I mean, that's the hope at least. That's the goal, I think.

I mean, and it sounds like the goal of what I teach a lot too in mindfulness. And mindfulness is the over-arching skill that I teach my clients. And all of the, I teach them all a bunch of skills.

And it's all about building a toolkit. And so every time you say that, I'm like, oh, yoga is like DBT. It's the same thing.

And it's about, it's not about getting good at meditation. It's about being able to be fully aware in your moments in life.

That's right. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's, you know, like, you know, I talked about sort of the Eastern philosophy aspect.

Well, none of that would have worked for me if I hadn't also experienced it firsthand and when you connect the body and the breath and the mindfulness, it gives you a heightened sense of consciousness. It teaches you how to be more present in the moment and able to soak up the experiences that are happening in front of you.

And when you feel it, it's almost like when you start getting into the practice, for me, when I started really getting into yoga, it almost felt like the feeling of falling in love. And you sort of feel this heightened sense of everything, like heightened emotions, heightened, you really feel your feelings, and you really see what's in front of you, and you feel really grateful, and it feels really spiritual. And so when you're doing that in conjunction with learning sort of the Eastern philosophy that backs the practice, I think for me at least, it was like a hole in one, you know?

I was like...

I love it.

Yeah, yeah. So it all, you know, it all works together. Like you can't have the philosophy without the asana practice, at least for me, and you can't have the asana without the philosophical stuff to back it up.

I love that. And there's something about your studio that, you know, I feel enriched both physically and spiritually when I leave. So and I know that you've done that purposefully.

So I would love to hear something about going inward. And what were your, you know, physical aha moments?

I think in terms of yoga and aha moments, I, so when I first started practicing, I was in my 20s living in New York City. And just, you know, I feel like when we were kids, like we weren't raised with sort of emotional coping mechanisms. And I see that like my son now, who's at CET in Croton, like they do like emotional learning.

Like they have like visual representations of like, you know, understanding like I'm, I have high energy, but like low, low emotions or like low energy, high, you know what I mean? Like we weren't really given those tools. So I feel like I was unleashed onto the world completely with like no mechanisms to cope and just like, you know, I'm a theater person.
So I have a lot of feelings and I was living in these emotional highs and lows and it was not sustainable. And I really started to, you know, I was partying a ton and I was in graduate school and I didn't have a lot of responsibilities and I started to feel really lost. And you know, this sort of goes hand in hand with what I was saying about Eastern philosophy and how that sort of gave me something to glom on to.

But really, it was this idea that when you, through the practice of yoga and through this technique of linking your breath and your movement, you're sort of cultivating a sense of awareness and a sense of learning how to calm yourself down. And you're putting yourself into these challenging physical postures and then asking yourself to just breathe through them, right? And you can actually physiologically slow your heart rate and calm yourself down, right?

So that starts to show up in your everyday life. You can actually use the same tools, whether consciously or not, to, when you're in an incredibly emotional moment, calm yourself down, right? You know how to do it You're like, oh, if I can hold warrior two for 10 breaths, then I can sit in a traffic jam without punching a window, right? So you start to learn these emotional coping mechanisms, and for me, it was about getting out of these emotional highs and lows and finding this sort of middle ground of contentment. And that's how you use the practice to cultivate joy.

And that was such a aha moment for me. I was like, I don't have to live like this anymore. I don't have to live in these highs and lows.

I can have just joy and contentment. Like, yes, please, more.

Wow, oh, wow, that's incredible. And I have to tell you, that's exactly what I try and teach my clients all the time and try and teach myself. But I give them all of these skills and the breath and paired muscle relaxation and whatever.

And to get people to be able to just slow down and tolerate whatever distress is coming their way.

Yeah, that's a great word for it. And also, one of our other teachers, Lindsay, uses the word resilience. You're building resilience in your practice and in your life.

Yeah.

Do you want to answer, Elle?

Oh, I mean, I just a lot of, you know, I was a theater person too. Emotional highs and lows was like name of the game. And for me, the aha moment came when I realized that every time I would go through a breakup or a heartbreak, my whole life went into the dumpster and got set on fire.

And after like the third time, I was like, this cannot, I can't live like this. Like I can't, my whole life can't get thrown away because I get heartbroken. And yoga at first, like I said earlier, you know, it was really about catharsis.

It was about letting go and just release. And it was really in the last seven to 10 years when I discovered Katonah Yoga and the theory behind Katonah Yoga and really using Taoism and sacred geometry and Chinese medicine and a lot of the theory work in a more practical sense that the function and the organization and the measuring and the toolkit building started to reveal itself. And that really was pretty magical to me because the themes were so esoteric in the beginning that I didn't understand it.

But once it clicked, it became so pragmatic and so practical. And when I started applying it to my practice, I realized that my physical practice on the mat, my breath practice on the mat, I was able to take deeper breaths. I was able to do things here in my 40s that I couldn't do in my 20s on my mat.

And then I would take it off the mat and apply it to situations that I would, you know, be in communication with somebody and, you know, actually take a step back and before reacting, think about what I was going to say and then say it. Or, you know, hold my boundaries. That's a big one, right?

Boundaries. And it started to like work in real life. And so what we were talking about earlier about building this toolkit, like this toolkit started to work in real life.

And for me, that was like the big aha moment when I sat in a traffic jam and did not punch a window. And I was like, that's, that's the aha moment.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you so much.

So I'm curious. I know I just read, and this just was shocking to me that you met just eight months ago.

This is our love story. I love this story, though.

That's awesome.

I do. I love this story.

It's true. The rumors are true.

The rumors are true.

So you met eight months ago, and on that day, you decided you were going to open a yoga studio together. Is that or-ish?

So it was kind of like we were almost set up on a blind date.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so it wasn't like we just ran into each other and met. You know, like there was, you know, there was some planning built in, right? But yeah, I mean, I, the other half of my life is that I went the playwriting route, and then I ended up doing television writing, moving to LA and doing that whole thing for years.

I was teaching yoga the whole time, but then I started getting regular work in the documentary television world and sort of stopped teaching for a couple of years to focus on that. And now the entertainment industry is just so unpredictable. And, you know, in some sense, it's really fulfilling because I'm doing something that I was really trained to do and educated to do, and that feels really good.

But I just don't know what's going to happen long term with the industry, really. And so I had always sort of like fantasized about opening up a yoga studio. And when we first moved to Croton, which is where we live now, I noticed that there were like I had to drive like 25, 30 minutes to get to a studio that I really wanted to practice at.

And I was like, there needs to be a studio here. And you know, people were telling me there were studios that had closed because of the pandemic. And but now people are sort of starting to come out of the woodwork again and want to practice in like a communal setting.

And so, I don't know, in this moment of like, I just really want to do this. Like it makes no sense, right? It's like, it's totally insane.

I posted an anonymous post on a Facebook Parents Group page and just said, hey, I'm sort of thinking about maybe opening up a yoga studio, like like this post if you'd be interested, you know? And I put a picture of a studio that someone that I had trained with years and years ago had opened up in New York City. That's like a Brighton area, you know?

And I gave them credit and everything. I was like, this is SkyTing Yoga in New York City, just as an example of the type of studio that I wanted to put forth into the world.

Yeah. And so a friend of mine saw that post and messaged it to me and said, you should connect with this person. And I saw the post and I saw the picture.

And I had also trained with the SkyTing people. And one of them, one of the original owners of SkyTing is a great friend of mine. We're both from Guam.

And I read the post and I said, I have to respond right away. And so I did. And I think I managed to get Rebecca on the phone, I think that night.

And we had talked about, you know, we just kind of went through like where our training was from and where we, you know, where our, where our yoga journey was and we discovered that we went to the same yoga teacher training a year apart from each other. And we knew a lot of the same teachers.

And we now live 10 minutes away from each other. So I think it was like the next day or the day after we decided we were going to meet for coffee at First Village. And I, you know, I showed up and she was sitting there with her computer out and her yellow bag that she still carries around.

And I sat down and we just went deep into our yoga journeys into like this, it was a little bit like speed dating. It was like, we can't sit here and talk about the weather. We just have to go right into the deep end and talk about why we do this, why we love this, why we want this.

And everything lined up. I get goosebumps talking about it now because it was such the right time, right place. Like it could not have been more.

I call it a scan because it's like when the QR code lines up and it just scans and everything like explodes and confetti falls from the air. Like that's what it felt like. And this whole journey really has been a series of right time, right places.

And after that first meeting, you know, we discovered we had the same teachers, we had the same mentors, we come from the same lineage, we wanted the same things, our vision was very similar. And also another piece that was really important to mention was that there were a lot of pieces in the puzzle that she wanted to do that she could spearhead and that I wanted to do and that I could spearhead. And they complemented each other.

That was a very important part. And within half an hour of that coffee, we paid the tab and started looking at space.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. And it's an Ossining love story.

You did that in first place.

It was, it's like an Ossining Croton love story.

It's true. I love it.

And I've had that same experience of having to drive half an hour to get to yoga. And being, I yearned so much for a place that I could just go every day easily. And I really, I mean, I know I was like, this is what I want.

I want to be able to know the people who I am doing yoga with, you know, and say, hey, how are you doing? I see you here. You're doing a double again.

Oh my goodness, or whatever. So I know for me, I was like manifesting this for myself. But, you know, and I think that clearly I wasn't the only one.

Well, that was really important. You know, I was teaching up here in Westchester and in the city, and I found that I was spending a lot of time in my car commuting to teach at these, you know, great studios and great gyms and privates in the city. But a lot of it was commuting time.

And so I had been kind of looking at spaces for a couple of years, but I knew that I could not do it by myself. I didn't want to. And I said, but I don't really know anybody that would want to do this with me.

And sometimes like that really is the universe's way of reminding you that you are not in full control of the whole picture. Like you are in the driver's seat for sure, and you have the map and you have to chart your course. But there is an element to this entire existence that is outside of our control.

And like meeting Rebecca the way we met, and clicking the way we clicked was not something I could have planned.

It's amazing. It's amazing. And I am so, so very grateful.

So I love the name Ritual Yoga. I'm wondering about, you know, tell me the story behind that.

Well, coming up with a name, it was like naming a child, you know, we had like our list of names, and we like, we polled people too. And we went back and forth and, you know, kind of agonized over it a little bit. But at the end of the day, we kept coming back to Ritual.

It was one of the names that polled the highest among our friends. And yeah, I think that we really wanted a name that had meaning for both of us. And you can talk about what it means for you.

I feel like you're better at it.

Oh, the ritual. Well, you know, like, when we, for me, you know having a practice for myself, really, first of all, I think it makes me a better teacher. You know, I think everybody who kind of does the work that we do, you know, you kind of have to have that time and that window that is really just you, like, being the student.

And for me, I was really thinking about, like, what makes a practice and its consistency and its, you know, doing it consistently and frequently over, like, the duration of something, right? When we ritualize something, it becomes more than a routine because we put intention behind it. And so my teacher, Abby, always, she, you know, she talks about this in her, when she talks about the home practice, where she says, like, you have to kind of seduce yourself to your practice.

So you light a candle or you make it smell good or you put on a beautiful piece of music. Or in our case, we made the space light and airy and full of plants. So you have this, like, indescribable way of just wanting to be in the space.

You have to seduce yourself onto your mat, seduce yourself into the practice so that it becomes more than just a routine like brushing your teeth. And for us, in order for this to work, it can't just be a novelty. It has to be something you do consistently every day, every other day, ideally at the same time if you can make it.

And that's what we wanted to create. And so one of the first things we talked about was consistency in the timing of the classes, consistency in the description of the classes. And so it's like you take the guesswork out of a lot of the elements and you show up and then you can have an experience.

Like you know that this class happens at this time, you know that this is the class that's going to get taught. And then within that very formal setup, you can have a personal experience. And so that really for us was you know what a ritual meant, is putting an intention behind something and then really making it a part of your lifestyle.

And I think also you know there's a big difference between just a routine and a ritual. A routine can kind of become like second nature. You know what I mean?

Like a routine, you can go on autopilot when you have a routine. Exactly, and you can kind of tune out and just like go through the motions, right? But with a ritual, you're setting yourself up to have like real awareness and to really cultivate a sense of presence with what you're doing, right?

And that's what yoga is. It's teaching yourself the tools necessary to be in the moment. And the more you do that on your mat, right, the more it shows up in your everyday life.

So it really has to become a ritual for it to work, you know, in your everyday life. And the more you practice, the more you start to see the benefits. And you don't even have to try, right?

If you have a regular yoga practice, you will see the results in your everyday life.

I'm looking forward to it. I've already seen benefits for myself physically and emotionally, I'm sure. But I love the way that it's set up.

I don't typically sign up until maybe five minutes before the class that I show up to, but I usually show up to the same class most days. And I want this to be a ritual for me. And I have to tell you, there are a couple of interesting things.

First of all, I think you've created such a beautifully safe container, such a beautifully non-judgmental container, that I know for me, I've been able to do things that I've never been able to do. So I've been doing yoga for a long time, and I always set up against a wall or a pole or something because I'm not balancing, not going to balance. I don't know how, I'm bad at it, that's the thing.

And since I've been in your classes, I've started to do Half Moon. I've started to... I would never have even tried Warrior III, I would never have even tried it.

I would have put my hands down, no, I'm not doing that. Today I tried, what was it, Dancer Pose?

Yeah, Dancer Pose, we did that today.

I did it, I didn't fall on my face. And yesterday I did Crow, I had tried it before and the way you teach it made it accessible. I was like, there's no way my feet are coming off the ground in any other class with any other teacher.

And I don't know what you put the block in front of your face.

You took her back to class, right?

She has the block, it's so good.

And I did it, my feet came off the ground. And I know that may not seem like a huge deal, but I have to tell you, for me it's really, really a huge deal. Because when I was a little kid, there was a story in my home that I have bad balance.

And I can't walk on the balance beam, and I learned to walk late. I mean, it was just like it was a thing, it was a truth. And I believed it, and I internalized it.

And until I came to your class, I didn't ever really think that I, that balancing was available to me.

Wow.

So.

I'm so glad you had that experience.

Me too. And it is a very big deal. It's such a big deal, Rebekah.

It's such a big deal.

Yeah. And I think that goes to the stories that we tell ourselves, those things that are just living in us that are not necessarily true, you know, thoughts are just neural firings. They're not truths.

But we live with stories. We live with interpretations, judgments, assumptions. And they shape who we are in ways that often don't serve us.

And so with my work, with this, with the purpose of this podcast is to get people to step out of those stories and start to notice and just become, cultivate that awareness. And I think that you doing your work has helped me start to step out of my own stories, which I just think that's a beautiful synchronicity there.

So thank you so much for sharing that. I think you said something that is really meaningful to us, which is that we've created a space that feels open and non-judgmental. And I think a huge part of what we wanted was for yoga to feel accessible to everyone, if possible, right?

And part of that for us was creating sort of a playful environment, because when you take yourself like, yes, we're talking about ritual, we're talking about all the death, you know, all these serious things. But there's also an aspect to this practice where like, you can't take it too seriously, because then the ego takes over and it's not about the ego, right? So if you can, like if we're trying to hold space for people, where you're allowed to be playful, you're allowed to sort of like, maybe try something different that you never would have tried before, and then you have the space to sort of like, take a moment and reflect and get introspective and just ask yourself, how did it make me feel?

And, you know, resist the urge to judge yourself and resist the urge to pick things apart. You know, I say that in class all the time, like, you know, check in, notice your body, notice your breath, notice your thoughts, try not to get attached to any one thing, you know, try not to pick things apart, just notice, right? And that's really what we're doing.

We're trying to create this sort of playful environment where people feel safe and, like, they can sort of be themselves and just observe.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that was very, that was one of the, you know, that was one of the, one of our three pillars was playfulness, accessibility and community too seriously, because then the ego takes over and it's not about the ego, right? So if you can, like if we're trying to hold space for people, where you're allowed to be playful, you're allowed to sort of like, maybe try something different that you never would have tried before, and then you have the space to sort of like, take a moment and reflect and get introspective and just ask yourself, how did it make me feel?

And, you know, resist the urge to judge yourself and resist the urge to pick things apart. You know, I say that in class all the time, like, you know, check in, notice your body, notice your breath, notice your thoughts, try not to get attached to any one thing, you know, try not to pick things apart, just notice, right? And that's really what we're doing.

We're trying to create this sort of playful environment where people feel safe and, like, they can sort of be themselves and just observe.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that was very, that was one of the, you know, that was one of the, one of our three pillars was playfulness, accessibility and community being the third one. And knowing that you're in this space with other people who are also, probably have tons of stories that they're holding on to, probably also trying a Warrior III, probably also trying a Crow and probably falling on their face and probably having an aha moment.

Like, you know, it's a very intimate experience on our individual mats. It's like you and yourself in your mat. But knowing that there's someone less than a foot away from you, also working through their own stuff and their own stories is pretty powerful.

It's like it speaks to the universal human connection, right? Is that we're all really in it together. And self-care and community care are two sides of the same coin.

And, you know, to speak to what you were saying earlier about, like, neuroplasticity and neuropassage ways, like, it's scientifically proven that mindfulness practice and yoga practice and this type of embodied mind-body-spirit-breath work creates new neural passageways and changes the neuroplasticity and changes our brain. And if this body is a container for all the stories that we hold and all the dreams and all the goals and all our thoughts and feelings, then by coming to an embodied practice, we give ourselves choice to change the story, to change the thought, to shift perspective, to see big picture, right? Like that's, you know, in my own personal life, like these last few years has really been about owning my life so that I can have choice.

And part of it is owning the body and owning your stories and owning your thoughts and owning your memories and then deciding what you want to do with it so that you can orient yourself towards a joyful life, you know?

I love that so much. No, everything both of you are saying is so amazing and it's so reflected in the work you do. I, you know, and it's funny, I was on Facebook the other day, somebody just moved here and said, hey, is there a good yoga studio?

And I saw somebody mentioned one place that, you know, and then like 10 people mentioned ritual and I thought it was like, and it's so brand new and I was so excited because it means so much to me that this continue and thrive and become a place to be “Like it's, this has been so therapeutic for me and so connected for me. I mean, I still meditate, but this has been my ritual and I'm really, really grateful and excited to see where we go, where you go and I wonder what is your, what do you see for the future?

What is on the horizon for Ritual Yoga?

Disco dance parties, disco dance party yoga classes, disco dance party because Rebecca said it, like playfulness, we have to play. We, like, you have to play. But, you know, plans, I don't know, man, like location, maybe second location, maybe third location.

Ritual Yoga Taiwan.

Ritual Yoga Taiwan. My family's in Taiwan. And, you know, they might be, they might be ready to have us over there, you know, for longer periods of time.

The other, I was, oh gosh, we were talking about different locations and Rebekah and I were saying, well, but we have to be there, right? Like part of the space having life is like us physically being there. And I said, well, what about if we like made enough money to buy a building and we can have multiple rooms and we can have a cafe and we can have a store and it could just be a ritual yoga like building where we just host classes and dance parties and educational workshops and people can meet there together and they can go, you know, get some delicious food at the cafe and they can take class together and go to a dance party together.

And it'll just be like a community center where people like come and live and be in the space with each other.

And, you know, yeah, my eyes like get really big when Elle has these. I mean, it's great. She's obviously she's the dreamer.

And I'm like, let's make sure this location works. But I think like shorter term goals, we definitely want to introduce retreats. We definitely want to introduce teacher trainings.

We would love to do a 200 hour. We would have to figure out the logistics of how that would work. But in the meantime, you know, shorter module trainings, you know, stuff like that, we're going to be polling on Instagram and maybe via newsletter to see what times and styles people are interested in.

So, yeah, I think just generally growing our business and and trying to get more involved with the community is our is our more sort of immediate goal.

That's right.

I love it. That's fantastic. I say yes to all of that.

And, you know, as you're talking, the thing that I am really longing for, Rebecca, you mentioned, you know, you study the the asanas, but you also study the philosophy behind them. And that's the piece for me that's missing. And I wonder if there's a way to teach the lay people, the people who aren't going to be teachers, the the other piece of of yoga.

And maybe that's something we can talk about off.

No, that's a great point. I mean, so for me, like a 200-hour teacher training is a great way to deepen your practice. A lot of the people in my 200-hour, I think there were like 25 people in my 200-hour, and I think probably only like eight of them went on to become teachers.

Yeah, the same with mine.

Yeah, any sort of like teaching module, whether it's a 200-hour, 50-hour, whatever it is, I think can be really useful whether you're planning to teach or not. I think retreats can also be like a really good way to delve deeper into the practice.

Yeah, I think, you know, you said it, like the asana portion, if we're going by like the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga, you know, it's one limb, it's one piece, you know, and then there's all these other pieces like Pranayama and, you know, and Niyamas and Yamas, like, you know, just stuff that you... When I first started going, when I first decided to go into my 200-hour teacher training, it was because I wanted to deepen my understanding of the philosophy and I wanted to understand, like, well, now I've done this, you know, the physical practice, I want to know what's next. And then, you know, you open yourself up into the different limbs of yoga and then you go into different philosophies of yoga and different schools of thought and different lineages and, you know, you start to piece things together and make things work with each other to, like, really, you know, be in your body.

And so when our goal is really to be able to incorporate a lot of these other limbs and these other schools of thought and, you know, these theories and eastern philosophies into workshops and retreats, like Rebecca was saying, and teacher trainings. So that, yeah, maybe the goal is you come out of it and you can become a yoga teacher. Or maybe the goal is you come out of it and you have a deeper understanding of this incredibly beautiful practice that's, like, dates back thousands of years old.

So that's the hope.

And as you mentioned, you know, we do try to sprinkle some of our philosophy into our regular vinyasa classes, which, you know, not only makes it a little bit different and unique for this area for Westchester, I think, but, but also, you know, it just gives you the seed of, like, this is why we practice, right? We're going to guide you through and we're going to lead you through a physical practice, right? But we're also going to give you a little bit of the why and a little bit of the Eastern philosophy.

So that if you are interested in going deeper, you have that, you know, you, we're sort of planting the seed and then you can sort of do with it what you will. Yeah.

I had a student in my class today who came up to me afterwards and she was so, she really focused on the theory part of what we offer there, because we don't shy away from theory and we do our best to try to make it playful and accessible, which is why I talked about coffee today and how it relates to measurements and functionality. And I really believe that I don't think it's, I don't think it's possible to separate just the asana, you know, from everything else. I think it does, it does need to have all these other elements to it.

And I say that sometimes in class, I'll like give my whole, you know, kind of talk, my Ted talk in the beginning. And then I say, if it makes sense, amazing, put it somewhere. And if it doesn't make sense, shelve it, maybe it'll click later.

Because sometimes we take the information and it doesn't make sense. And it has to just kind of live in the space. And maybe through a down dog, or the first time you get into a crow pose something clicks.

And then that's like the magic of the mind, body, breath connection. You know, so yeah, that's.

Yeah. And one other thing I'll say is just that, like you never stop being a student.

100%.

So like, even if you've taken a 200 hour and a 300 hour and like countless workshops and all of this, like, we're still students. And our classes are just offerings of like where we're at and what we're learning right now.

That's right.

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And as you're talking, I'm thinking, I'm definitely going to do the teacher training. I have zero, zero, zero desire to teach yoga, but I am a therapist and I, you know, I think it would just give me a different perspective and a different bit of wisdom to share with my clients.

And it also I was also reminded that I I studied Reiki and I'm never going to do that to other people who are, you know, I'm not going to set up a table, but I do it to myself and I do it to my kids and I will send it to my clients. So yeah, I it's that makes so much sense to me. I'm wondering before we end if there's anything that you want to share that I haven't touched on.

I'm so curious about your, you've been with us like since the beginning, you know, and I'm, I would love to hear a little bit more about, you know, your, I guess, aha moments that maybe have clicked for you since, you know, in the last two months, I guess, in the just like in your whole yoga journey, because it's been, it's been really such a wonderful experience and an honor watching your practice flourish and seeing you at the space all the time and having you be like on the receiving end of what we were trying to cultivate and have it work. Like that's exciting.

Yeah. I mean, when we see like what we're putting out into the universe reflected back to us through someone who is so gracious and, you know, having, like it's really rewarding for us and we would love to hear more about it.

Wow. I don't know. So I don't know if I express this, but, you know, I've been doing this healing journey to a year and a half ago, two years ago, I was in a really dark place and I had to kind of strip everything down and start new.

And this is not to say that I, you know, I was not anything dire. I mean, I still worked, I still parented, I still did all of those things, but just emotionally, spiritually, personally, I just needed to strip everything down. And I'm still in the midst of excavating and still in the midst of exploring what is going to work and what is going to feel right for me.

And the first time I took one of your classes, it was at the bookstore and I was like, wow, this is different, this is not just moving, it's not grandma yoga, but it's also not, I'm going to burst into flames yoga or, you know, and all of those are fine, but this was like, this is what I want, because you seduce people in, you're, we're going to start slow and you're, oh, this is going to be too easy for me, I don't know if, wow, I'm not doing that. And then you get to a point and you're like, and “sit and share. And you just wait and you wait and I'm like, guilty, come on man, I am done.

And long story short, I realized that's what I wanted. I wanted to be eased in really gently and then put in a place that challenged me completely and then eased back out in a very beautiful way. And that is exactly what you do.

And I'm getting chills just thinking about it. I hope I'm describing it well enough, but that is your class. And in a way I've never experienced from any other teacher that I've ever had before.

And I want to shout it from the rooftops. Everyone should have this. Everyone should have this because I want to keep having this.

But also because everyone should have this. We all need it. And I love that when I go in there, there are dads in there.

There's like sometimes more men than women and doing their best. And it's like awesome. And just, I mean, anybody, any person, young, old, whatever, is welcome and nourished.

And I just, it feels to me like a dream come true. It's exactly what I needed. And I'm so happy t's here.

Wow.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you. That's really, yeah, chair pose really is the...

It's the hook, isn't it?

Yeah.

But no, that's really special. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing that with us.

You know, we're just, we want the same thing. Yeah. That's it, man.

We want the same thing. And we want it for everyone. And we want it for ourselves.

And we just want to live in this life. We get one. Like, you know, let's just be in it.

That's the goal. That is the goal. Thank you so much for being here today, Elle Randall and Rebecca Haber.

I am so happy to have you in my home, in my studio, and in my life.

Oh, thank you so much. The feeling is mutual.

Yes. Feeling is mutual. Thank you for having us.

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