What followed was to be expected. If you’ve been reading along, you can see that the way I tend to handle stress is to do more. I couldn’t find another downtown location that wasn’t three times my rent per month. Meanwhile, the space next to us in Manheim Township had been vacant for over a year. I decided to expand our studio location to include two studio spaces so we could run classes concurrently. It wouldn’t be the same as having a downtown location and I knew we would lose clients, but it was what I could do. Interesting even now to see how the only way I could give myself permission to downsize was to make up for it by doing an entire studio build out. While pregnant.
Andrew did the work again, my dad invested, and my son was born in October 2017. I spent the summer leading up to his birth, closing one studio and expanding the other. I still remember cleaning the floors from construction until the wee hours of the morning. Paloma by my side with my parents picking her up to put her to bed at some point after midnight. These are the things that people don’t see. Again, I was scared. Again, I doubted if this was the right decision. And, again, people around me supported me.
What followed was probably the most stable part of the life of the studio. We were growing. I was constantly doing trainings to learn how best to make the studio profitable. We had gained a reputation. And we were able to offer dance classes again. There were the usual ups and downs of owning a small business. And, I was grateful for the support of the mom clients I had. Every once in a while, I would share my grief at another shooting or allude to being sick at the election results in 2016. But I always made sure to walk the thin line between expressing some general thoughts without saying I supported a specific cause or candidate. I knew that most of my clients were likely more politically conservative. And I knew it would be a risk to share more openly about my racial identity and take on wider world events. It was all I could do at the time.
Andrew was working two jobs while I straddled the stay-at-home and entrepreneur life. It was a lot. In January of 2019, I saw an ad for a space downtown that called to me. The natural light, the wooden floors, this space had to be a dance studio. I was starting to feel an inkling that maybe my time as a studio owner was running its course. At the same time, I had a lease signed at one location and knew that the only way to recoup costs was to at least run out that term. I wasn’t clear on what I would do instead of running a studio. Plus, my kids were still young enough that I was with them a lot. I was at a critical point. And after consulting professional advisors, friends, family, and more, I came to the conclusion that it was time to go big or go home.
I had a vision for the downtown location. Ever since we had to close in 2017, I had been looking for another potential studio space. I had finally found it. The lease term was 7 years, at that point longer than I had been in business. My husband didn’t understand why I had to do more! And, I didn’t see another way. The space was meant to be a studio, I could see it. I would have the downtown location be focused on dance with a space for a Pilates reformer. The Manheim Township location would be built out to focus on barre fitness with the addition of Pilates equipment. After a lot of negotiation, I signed the lease in July 2019 for an open date of January 2020.
At that time, my husband was renovating a house that my parents generously were flipping to us. I was working on creating a Pilates equipment program and space in Manheim Township while supervising the buildout of the downtown studio. I still remember bringing my then 4 year old and not quite 2 year old to a walk through! We thought the big deal that year would be moving into our new home, opening the Pilates portion of the studio, and launching the new downtown location. All of those things were big. And, so was my father-in-law passing away.
Within a span of two months, we had launched our fully equipped Pilates studio and program with my dear friend Deb at the Manheim Township location. We had also managed to move into our new house which Andrew was mostly done with. And I was planning for the January opening. In the midst, Andrew’s dad who had many health problems, went into the hospital. We were used to his trips to the hospital. It was always difficult to tell when it was truly serious. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, we knew it was. We hosted Thanksgiving in 2019 two weeks after moving in. By mid-December, his dad had passed away. Although he had been ill for so long, the last bout felt sudden. I remember moments after he passed away being on the phone with the contractor installing mirrors downtown. It was surreal.
A couple weeks later, we opened the downtown location. By March, we had consistent Pilates equipment clientele in Manheim Township in addition to our full barre classes. And we were starting to get traction on our dance and barre classes downtown. As word of a possible virus started to trickle in in mid-January, I wasn’t too worried. We held a teacher training at the beginning of March. I still remember saying, “let’s hold hands now since that might change soon,” not quite believing that things would become as serious as they did.
That week, I got on a call with other boutique studio owners. It was an international group. This was real. They talked us through steps we should be taking to not only prepare to start social distancing, but the technology we should get in order to livestream classes as needed. I still remember my teachers and clients thinking I was neurotic (which I kind of was) in the two weeks leading up to the closure as I was not-so-subtly gathering technology and preparing for distancing. On Friday, March 13 we announced our social distancing measures, by Monday we were announcing that we were going virtual. By Friday, we were mandated closed.
Friends, this is the part of the story that I’ve been talking about in various ways throughout the past four years. It’s part of the reason why I wanted to share so much of what led to Move It opening. Because I realized in the midst of the trauma of pandemic that Move It really was my solution for having gone through so much. It was my answer to the struggle. It was the way among many other ways, I chose to alchemize my experience. My goal was always to offer the beauty of the art of dance, without all of the toxicity. And it was also to make money doing it. I poured everything into Move It from our doors opening in 2014 to now.
During pandemic, we went virtual overnight, rebranded, launched an entirely new website, created an online platform, and applied for every grant you could think of. We stepped into our values even more, by standing with the Black Lives Matter movement after George Floyd. We invested in antiracism training. We went out of our way to provide as much protection, in the most responsible ways, to our clientele. I went through doula training through Patients R Waiting and assisted 12 births in 10 months. We downsized. We pivoted and re-pivoted. We launched an ethically-sourced shop. We supported other marginalized businesses. We lost a lot of clients. And we gained new ones. And as much as I doubt decisions and sometimes feel silly for giving it my all, the studio gave me more than I can properly attribute.
There is a lot more I can say about the past four years. I can share about how we were heartbreakingly ineligible for forgivable loans that I am now personally liable for. How I taught from home to a camera with a 2 and 4 year old in the background. How many times my teachers had to fill in for me when the anxiety spiked. How I felt that I had let everyone down, especially my family, by choosing to start and continue the studio. How I couldn’t see a way out or through for so long. How I have worked a full-time job in addition to the studio for almost three years. How I’ve navigated advocating for my children in school situations, for myself in professional situations, for women and people of color in bigger picture situations. How I have literally had a full blown anxiety attack crying under the desk before teaching on more than one occasion. How I have been back and forth with the landlords to give me some sort of break (hasn’t happened). How I found myself praying to be able to borrow money from the SBA because we were out of options. How I’ve cried to my kids, to my family, to my teachers, and coworkers at one point or another over this business. How my team and my family have supported me though it all. And, how I finally realized it might be time to move on.
In many ways, Move It is a microcosm of the wider world. It has suffered trauma, it has weathered conflict, and it is somehow still here. In the spring of 2023, I shared with my teachers that I felt like a foster parent. I was nurturing Move It through some rough stuff, to get it healthy enough to pass on to its adoptive parent. They stuck it out with me. And now it’s time. As much as this story has been focused on my individual journey (can you believe I left A LOT out???), this story is about what we have created together. Every client, every teacher, every person behind-the-scenes, everyone who follows us, together we have put something beautiful into the world. And although it’s easy for me to focus on so many things I could improve upon, what ultimately endures is the love. From all walks of life, we’ve come together for the love of movement (and Move It!). We’ve created something countercultural, a dance community primarily made up of women who uplift each other. One that doesn’t focus on appearance, but on connection. A place where you don’t have to check your emotions at the door. We’ve created a literal movement. And it’s one that has saved lives. It’s certainly saved mine.
So, we’re at a turning point. Move It just turned 10. And it’s time to start a new chapter in this beautiful love story of ours. I’ve put out the intention that whatever the next transition looks like, that it would be beautiful and not traumatic. That we would be able to bless and release in a life-giving way. And that’s what we’re doing. The journey is continuing, and I couldn’t be more proud. Read on for what is to come!
Mambojaz Studio is Here 
Part X – Jasmin’s Story 