5 Questions for Anya Porter Yazawa from Recenter Space

2. TELL US ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS.

I started this idea in our last home in Zürich, Switzerland in 2018. I wanted to start my own business but didn’t want the stress or cost of commercial rent, especially after my experiences in managing yoga studios all over NYC. I also wanted my work to integrate cohesively with my role as a mother and partner at home. When I opened a tiny studio in our apartment in the center of Zürich, it really took off and the community we built there felt like a family by the time we left. I wanted to try that same model in the states, even though we would no longer be in the center of a city, and I would be starting all over again from the ground up. I believed in the model, and believed (and still do even after two very hard years of the pandemic) that recenter space has the potential to become a vital space for community, well-being, learning, and personal growth.

When we knew we were coming back to NY, we began to look for a home with enough space to have a studio as well as some land, something I had come to long for in my twenty years of living in big urban areas. When we saw this carriage house built in 1892, we both knew it was it! The history, the natural beauty, the perfect layout to have the business inside but still separate from the house… it felt absolutely perfect.

We closed on our house February 27, 2020, and then as we all know the pandemic hit. I was not able to open my doors until June 2021, and since then I have been trying to find many ways to pivot with the times. It has been one lesson after another in being creative and resilient as a business owner since that time. I’m so grateful to still be here and really grateful for the students and clients who have supported me throughout this time.

I offer group classes and private sessions covering a variety of topics that center around well-being. I use movement, breath, and other mindful techniques to help people slow down and rediscover their own capacity to move, breathe and live WELL. I feel most aligned with my purpose when I can empower others to walk their own paths toward balance and wellness.

My group classes incorporate yoga, biomechanics, resistance and mobility training, breath work, meditation and more. They are a culmination of over 20 years of my own study and training in movement and optimal health practices.

While I dearly love teaching groups and the energy and accessibility that affords, the deep work I do with individuals in one-on-one sessions is the heart and soul of my offerings. The depth and breadth of these sessions are unparalleled in their ability to assess the function and state of where people are living and to guide them toward a more balanced state. Instead of viewing people who are in pain or experiencing challenges as “dysfunctional” or needing to be “fixed”, I see each person as living in their most optimal position given the circumstances of their lives up to the moment they walk in the door.

My role as a coach is to empower them to find the places they have forgotten about or have not had an opportunity to inhabit in their minds and bodies due to injuries, trauma, old belief patterns, and more. By rediscovering their potential, they themselves are then able to fully own their healing process. I become the facilitator, not the “fixer”, and they are that much more empowered through the journey.