go big or go home

I, and my family, have always had this motto of "go big or go home." Everything we do seems to be big and oversized. You could say we're very American :-) When I decided that I was going to do a yoga teacher training, I didn't want to just teach, I wanted to open a yoga studio. When I was young and had more energy, I used say that you would find a Blue Door in every major city of the world. You could enter the Blue Doors and you would know that you were getting traditional, healing yoga. For now, that dream is on the back burner as I make Blue Door Penngrove the best it can be.

When we bought a country property, we bought one that was completely neglected, overgrown, occupied by hoarders, needed EVERY system refurbished or replaced. I remember when we brought family and friends to see this beautiful property. they looked at us as if we had lost our minds. Where was the perfect family oasis that we had told them about? Certainly NOT the ruin they were looking at. With a lot of grit and determination, we made the ruin into a beautiful family home.

When we were making the old Bauman Nutritional College space "ours," we had to reimagine everything. What was in front of, was not what was going to remain. If you are one of the old-timer Blue Door students, you probably remember this space from when we used to hold our YTT sessions in their student kitchen to when we rented out the kitchen for our Cooking with Ayurvedic Wisdom classes. Also, we couldn't have put this space together without the help of our dedicated community who toiled endlessly in the early parts of 2020, all for the meager reward of pizza! BTW, what you're looking at in this picture is a "before" of the upstairs studio.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm tired; I'm, oh, so tired I think my "go big or go home" days are over. I still yearn to be a mover and shaker, but maybe I don't want to be so loud any more? Maybe I want to make a mark in a more subtle way? Not bulldoze things in my path. I don't know; check in with me in a few months and see what I have to say :-)

With that being said, we have some exciting things happening at Blue Door! We will be beefing up our wellness staff so that they have more availability and you can fit a session in when your schedule allows. We will be reimagining our YTT (yoga teacher training) program and re-launching it in 2026--taking a hiatus in 2025. We will be offering local retreats in odd years (keep an eye out for details about 2025) and international retreats in even years (currently looking at Ireland for 2026). We will continue offering community art classes with Claudia Posvar (make sure to check with the front desk for the schedule).

And one offering that I am so humbled to bring to the community is a Traumatic Brain Injury Support Group. We have a few students who have chosen the unconventional path of yoga to help them in their healing from a TBI. They say yoga at Blue Door is one of the most impactful recovery tools. We are in the nascent stages of getting this group going. Right now, the most important thing is to get the word out. We know there are others who could benefit from this support group and we need YOU to help us connect them to us. Please, if you or someone you know, has suffered a TBI and is searching for a group, contact us at info@ilovebluedoor.com and we will give you details as we get them. We know talking with others is so healing and cathartic, so that is step one. An opportunity to chat, in a safe space, with others like you. Then, we will start to formalize a program that includes the group support aspect, but also incorporates yoga+neuroplasticity. We are so excited to be of service to our community.

I don't know, maybe I'm still the same Jesi, stuck in the "go big or go home" phase of my life? You tell me.

Xx

Jesi