April 24, 2017

Meet Dean Milite of Black Crow Yoga in Arlington

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dean Milite.

Dean, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was an attorney for 25 years. I began practicing yoga shortly after my 45th birthday, and I was soon hooked. Yoga was good for my body and my mind. I decided several years after I began my yoga practice that I no longer wanted to practice law…a mid-life crisis of sorts. So, I opened a yoga studio. Black Crow Yoga was born.

The goal of Black Crow Yoga was and is creating community. I strongly feel that in this age of computers and cell phones, texting and emails, people crave personal interaction. BCY was born out of the desire to create a warm and welcoming social environment for the practice of yoga. We strive to create a friendly atmosphere to foster meaningful connections on and off our mats. Our teachers are encouraged to get to know and interact with our students, our students are encouraged to get to know one another. We have a downstairs “lounge” with changing rooms, Wi-Fi, sofa, chairs and a coffee table for before and after class conversation. We host social events such as an artist’s open studio, theme and holiday parties. We host events outside of the studio: we’ve offered harbor cruises with yoga on Spectacle Island. We rented a skating rink in Cambridge for our students and staff. We run two free outdoor classes every summer that draw nearly one hundred people. We even fell in the water during stand-up paddleboard yoga.

I’m an avid music fan. Our classes are set to music, and we often offer classes set to live music. Our downstairs lounge has its own sound system. The lounge is decorated with ever-changing framed LPs and framed concert posters, most of which are hand-pulled silkscreens signed by the artist.

We are approaching our seventh anniversary and I feel that we have achieved our goal. We’ve created a wonderful, vibrant community. I truly believe that we make people happy – that we make a positive contribution to the lives of our students.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It was a struggle early on to find our identity. What we were trying to create was quite different than what most other yoga studios were doing at the time. Although I had been practicing yoga for some time, I mostly practiced in one studio, and the owner – a longtime friend – was the inspiration for what I wanted my studio to be. I really hadn’t researched other studios. When I did visit other studios, I was often reminded of what I wanted my studio to be, and what not. It took some time to find teachers who agreed with my vision. I also quickly learned that the old saying “you don’t know what you don’t know” was true.

Once we got going, it was a relatively smooth road. The space is beautiful. We worked hard to identify our client base, and, once we did, people responded very positively. We have never advertised, all of our business comes from word of mouth. I was in the restaurant business before lawyering, so I have a reasonably good sense of the service industry. I became the Maitre D of the studio, so to speak, greeting people and making them feel welcome. I remember everyone’s name. We were also lucky; when we opened, I had no real direct competitors, the economy was improving, and there was a growing awareness of yoga in general. We were also fortunate and grateful -and completely surprised – to be awarded Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston (West) Fitness Facility award in 2016.

Please tell us about Black Crow Yoga.
We are a heated vinyasa studio. Vinyasa means flow, and our classes “flow” from one posture to the next, unlike some other practices that are more meditative, or sedentary. The basic formula of the classes is the same, but I encourage my teachers to improvise and express their personalities. Teachers create their own music playlists for their classes, which also gives them creative flexibility. We use the word “heated” deliberately, as opposed to “hot.” The temperature in a hot studio can exceed 100 degrees. We run the studio at 85 degrees all year long. We actually run air conditioning in the summer to cool our heated classes to the appropriate temperature. Heat detoxifies and, once the body is warmed up, helps a student get deeper into a posture without risking injury. We feel that 85 degrees is sufficient.

Our live music classes and music in the studio, in general, sets us apart from other yoga studios and makes us unique. I feel that we have had an impact on the yoga community, though, as more and more studios are using music in their classes. Once a month we have a three-piece band – guitar, standup bass, and drums – and the band improvises to the teacher’s cueing. We like to say that we are the only yoga studio in town with a house band.

The social component of the studio also sets us apart. We often have evening gatherings of one sort or another in the studio, utilizing our downstairs lounge area. These gatherings don’t necessarily involve yoga. We cater food, provide snacks and, again, sometimes live music. We once had a party and I hired an Elvis impersonator to sing with the band. Again, not exactly yoga, but a chance for people to socialize and connect. Our Friday night classes have become a destination and night out for many people.

I’m proud that we’re still in business after seven years… I’m also proud and pleased – based on the feedback I receive – that we make a lot of people happy. I’ve made great friends through the studio, people with whom I spend time outside of the studio. People enjoy coming to see friends they’ve made in the studio. I sometimes have to gently shoo people out of the studio when we have the next class coming in because they stick around and chat after class.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
There’s really not a lot that I would change it was a growing process, but I don’t think we made any major missteps. I think that we had to take the path that we did to get where we are. We periodically tried to step back and objectively evaluate what we’re doing, and whether or not it was working. For the most part were able to do so, and to make changes accordingly. I perhaps could have taken more yoga classes in more studios to get a better sense of what other studios were doing, but I’m not sure that would have changed what we did and how we did it.

Pricing:

Our Introductory Special is 3o days of unlimited yoga for $30
Our single class drop-in price is $16
We offer ten class cards for $140, and the cards don’t expire
If students sign up before their Introductory Special period expires, we offer unlimited yoga for $89/month with a three-month commitment
We offer $10 cash classes at 9:00 am Monday through Friday

Contact Info: