we’re one!

with a blink of an eye, we are now a one-year-old yoga studio living in the pandemic!
we started our very first class this day today on 1st sep 2020 with big and high hopes.
one that we wish to reiterate and also review after a year running our small komuniti with a big mission. 

day 1 and always, do good. everyday. 

here is our core philosophy, and one that we continue to act on, daily. 

conscious living requires us to act on, with compassion and kindness, and do what we can in our best effort, to help and assist others whenever we can. we believe strongly that when we do this, even if our actions are small and do not create a huge change, it will still create a ripple effect for the larger good, and slowly manifest and create more yogis who are always ready to do good in the long run.

for the last year, an amount of myr 4750 has been donated to various animal shelters around klang valley to help the livelihood of stray dogs and cats living in shelters; this donation is done on a monthly basis from any extra profit that we gain from our operating expenditures. we have also given back in monetary terms a donation of myr 1820 to giveindia.org to help india in its covid-19 pandemic aid. on top of that; an amount of myr 450 has been collected and was given back to 11 yogis affected by the pandemic through unlimited class plans. 

with anyone affected during the pandemic, karma yoga provides free access to our classes to them with no questions asks. this includes 28 frontliners, 11 yogis affected financially throughout last year, and 3 service cleaners/maids.

we have done quite a bit for 2020 and 2021, but we strongly believe it was not enough. this is mainly due to the continuous lockdown imposed and also the opening and closing of the studio about 3 times since we have opened our doors. as such, we only had the opportunity to run within the studio space for 4 months since we have opened our doors; while maintaining a huge overhead cost of the space for the remaining 8 months (and maybe more to come). 

that said, here are some of our mission and goals for the year ahead; from now ‘till 1st sep 2022. 

1. to continuously give back monthly our excess profit to non-profit organizations to support the livelihoods of the underprivileged. 

2. to support and give aid to those in high need whenever the need arise; especially in the face of the pandemic. our priorities will always start locally.

komuniti, the heart of karma yoga

for the past year; a combined total of 6,790 yogis have joined our komuniti classes for free, we have run 2074 komuniti classes just in a span of a year (yes, we are still in disbelief of this number) and we have kolaborated with over 31 partners and small businesses across klang valley to give back to the komuniti we are operating in. 

in addition, we have also run komuniti klasses for 18 teachers who are not teaching with us to help them gain traction and network during the lockdown, during mco phase 3. 

to date, we have 21 teachers teaching with us. we hope that we can continuously support our teacher’s endeavors and help them continuously guide our yogis through events, workshops, and partnerships so that we can keep quality teaching as our prime offering.  we have kolaborated with 3 yoga studio partners in september 2021 and are looking forward to doing more in the future. 

our aim is to not take any profit whenever we provide komuniti classes and kolaboration. in fact, we don’t take profit. we try our very best to keep our teacher’s pay at full rate at all times, and when we do kolaboration and komuniti; we let our partners take the cut. any access profit goes to paying our esteemed teachers. 

in fact, truth be told, paying our teachers is our biggest struggle every month. hence, the support of the komuniti, truly keeps us afloat. for that, we thank all of our students for continuously showing their love and presence for our teachers. whether it’s 7 am classes, rainy days to the studio, or showing up during lunchtime, your time with us means your support to the teachers and the komuniti we are trying to uphold. so, thank you 🙂

from hereon, here is our goal for the year ahead. 

1. to achieve a combined total of 10k goal for no. of yogis joining our komuniti classes.
2. to maintain our kurrent awesome kolab partners and increase our kolab partners into 60 partners across klang valley.
3. to increase to 10 wellness kolabs within the next year for our kolaboration with other wellness studio partners

that said if you want to be part of our mission, and join us to do good together, we are all ears. do reach out to us at namaste@karmayoga.my . we say yes to almost everything 🙂 

living with the pandemic

keeping the komuniti sane, active, and going through the pandemic is one of our biggest challenges since we opened our doors. our mission to give back needs to be balanced with keeping our people safe. we have turned into online classes to help our students stay active right after we got into the second lockdown in november 2020. soon after, a third lockdown was imposed in january 2021 which lasted until today.

our komitment to put our students first remains. 

we will not reopen until all our teachers are fully double-dose vaccinated. 

full adherence to s.o.p to be incorporated and additional safety measures to ensure we are keeping everyone safe within the komuniti. on top of that, we will be taking extra precautions to keep our space safe and clean by sanitization measures, clear and new mats upon reopening, props, and equipment that are clean always.

we strongly believe that staying couped at home is not the viable long-term solution; hence we strongly urge all yogis to be double dose vaccinated as soon as possible so that we can all return to practice in our studio space once this is allowed. the faster we bounce back, the faster the komuniti grows. 

we will still be running hybrid (in-studio and online) classes for those who are far away from us or those affected by the pandemic, living in quarantine, or not ready to practice in-studio once we are allowed to reopen. this will likely go on until the pandemic woes die down. 

covid-19 will not go away anytime soon. the only way, is to live with it. we are ready. 

the art of giving back is karma yoga

at the end of the day; our main sole purpose is to continuously educate our students and komuniti on the meaning and most importantly, the application of karma yoga. that giving back should be practiced without expectations. that the practice of yoga heightens our awareness of the self. our mission is to build a komuniti and a larger wider scale of students who are always ready to be kind, compassionate, mindful, and practice empathy, and loving-kindness in all that we do. 

it’s not about the free things. it’s about the intention that we bring. we hope you will join us in this journey together, to be karma yogis. 

do good,
jen o.
founder, karma yoga