Sophie | Ōmata, Taranaki

“This week is the first week of me and my friend opening our own business. So that definitely calls for bravery, I think. It was a really quick three-month change of life plan, because of Covid.

I was supposed to be in Melbourne, working there, and I’m in New Plymouth, and in New Zealand, and me and my friends saw it as an opportunity, and so we opened our own community space and yoga studio. It’s really exciting and nerve-wracking and lots of learning and lots of trust involved.

So, the name of our space is called Common Good, and the whole point of why we created it is to bring the community together and break down some walls that stop us from associating with different kinds of people. Especially to enhance the connection that we have to our bodies. We want it to be really accessible for people that normally wouldn’t come to a yoga studio or come to a community space. So it’s really affordable prices, and there’s no mould you have to fit. It’s come as you are, wherever you’re at and if you’ve never done yoga before, it’s just a really neutral space of acceptance – that’s what we want to try to bring into Taranaki.

So, coming out of Covid, obviously we’re really lucky in New Zealand, but I think it just created a huge disconnection physically with humans, and sharing a space of conversation and using our bodies. So me and my friend both have a background in yoga-teaching, and I’m a professional dancer, and we both are so passionate about how amazing our bodies are, and how we need to learn about them, and connect to them, and be a little bit more healthy I think, in the way that we live. We just really want to inspire people to find the joy and the appreciation for their bodies. 

I’ve just had a huge appreciation for how generous people can be, and how when you open yourself to people, and genuinely want people to be involved, it’s such an enriching process that makes it so much bigger than a personal experience. It’s such a collective action. Just with setting up the business, we’ve only been open two days, but the whole process leading up to everything, just being super-open to people’s opinions and ideas, and really listening, and giving people time too, so that we can learn from them, it just gives us so much more trust in ourselves, as well. I think that’s a big take-away from the experience, so far, is just being super-open and listening to people and trusting. Trusting the process, and trusting the difficulties and the challenges are there for a reason, to learn from.

I grew up in Ōmata, by Back Beach here in Taranaki, and I moved to Wellington when I was 17, and studied at the New Zealand School of Dance for four years, fulltime. Then I went to India for five months, and I’ve travelled for the past five years dancing, doing yoga, learning, training, meeting lots of people, and now I’m back in New Plymouth for a couple of years, at least, and grounding a bit more down in New Zealand.”