Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaclyn Kryzak & Blanca Alcaraz.
Jaclyn & Blanca, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Practicing yoga is often the first place one is invited to feel truly at home in their body and to allow oneself to fully feel what they are experiencing. In yoga there is no competition, no judgment, no need to be other–rather an invitation to simply be. It is an incredibly empowering practice that facilitates individuals taking back the power of choice, finding their own voice and what makes them happy. Having experienced this as practitioners we knew we had to create a space in which we could provide these same opportunities to others.
Blanca, a longtime Somerville firefighter–Lieutenant now–came top yoga after 9/11 as a means to process the overwhelming grief. Having grown up a daughter to migrant workers, inclusive of helping them to work the fields, she migrated into an adolescence filled with violence, anger and rage, so much so that an educator told her that she would be dead by the age of 16. She was also a basketball and rugby player who retired with multiple knee surgeries. So, as one can imagine, for Blanca, her practice evolved into much more than a means to process grief.
I (Jaclyn) came to yoga initially to heal my body from multiple injuries/surgeries I endured while playing ice hockey for Boston College. Similar to Blanca, I found it to be so much more than a source of healing for injury.
My mom died at 36 when I was just 10 years old and because of this I live like each day might be my last. I’m a teacher, a coach, lawyer, real estate broker, mom, wife and business owner. Yoga is what keeps me going–what regenerates and empowers me, keeps me fit in every form to tackle every day life.
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?
Obstacles? More like cliffs and giant Mexican topes also known as reductores, likely because they’ll reduce your car to nothing if you don’t come to a screeching halt. And growing pains. It’s a tough balance to be a community based yoga studio as opposed to going corporate. We got pushed out of our original home above bloc 11 in Union Sq. due to endless rent hikes. We managed to buy our current studio with our own money as down payment before the real estate market exploded to secure a home for our yoga community…BEFORE we bought ourselves a home years later.
We poured everything we had into our little studio while we lived in a cheap apartment in Winter Hill to rebuild our savings. We still work our other jobs to fund whatever the studio needs to grow and or survive Spring and Summer slowdown–to pay teachers, to pay the mortgage, etc.
It’s been a constant challenge to stay relevant in people’s lives as all the latest workout trends flood the market, as Somerville grows and gets more expensive, as traffic increases, as social media becomes the way many individuals engage with businesses. But in the end it has worked out beautifully. Our community rocks. And as we show up for them, they show up for us day in and day out.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We pride ourselves on being real, on being humble…on maintaining a space in which students can feel at home to be themselves, to create their own practice and be empowered to live it. None of our teachers just teach yoga–they all have other jobs in a wide variety of occupations and focus their teaching on bringing the practice into the day to day experience of students so that yoga is about more than just the mat. Our goal is to inspire, encourage and empower students.
What were you like growing up?
Both of us were athletes, active, intelligent, outgoing and introverted, stubborn and determined. Blanca was/is a prankster and is funnier and wore/wears her heart on her sleeve. Jaclyn is/was more serious and very logical, patient and persistent with problems and would make a great judge. We’re almost opposites but make a great pair!
Contact Info:
- Address: 440 Somerville Ave, Union Square, Somerville, MA 02143
- Website: www.beinunion.com
- Email: info@beinunion.com
- Facebook: be. in union yoga
- Yelp: be. in Union Yoga
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
