“We had a massive flood during the tropical storm and had to repair the fresh floors and drywalls,” she tells New Times about final 12 months’s storm that flooded elements of town. “The toughest transition was learning to become a true leader, to manage and inspire an entire team including teachers, front desk, and managers. I realized that having a business is keeping an ecosystem alive. There are so many moving parts, many of which were entirely new to me.”
Bilanchone began training yoga at 14 years previous, looking for that means and course shortly after her mom handed. At 21, she grew to become a licensed yoga teacher and visited India for 2 years to be totally emersed within the historic observe. Today, she has greater than a decade of instructing, beginning on the since-shuttered Dadeland location of Corpo Yoga. Shortly after the lockdown, she took her experience to Green Monkey in 2020.
“I started teaching at Green Monkey. I was giving feedback to the owner, Eloy de Armas, about social media, workshops, and teacher programming, and he gave me a marketing position.”
Feeling the stress of the elevated lease charges for business areas, de Armas was tempted to shut. Instead, he supplied Bilanchone an 80 % share within the enterprise, which ultimately grew to full possession. Bilanchone accepted the provide after a short reflection.
Last spring, she made two important pivots. First, she moved Green Monkey from Miami Beach’s Sunset Harbour neighborhood to a storefront on Sixth Street simply east of Meridian Avenue, the previous dwelling of Miami Life Center, owned by legendary yoga teacher Kino MacGregor. Second, the studio transitioned to Hanu Yoga, named after the part-human, part-primate Indian warrior god Hanuman.
“It was just like the chimp evolving right into a warrior who represented braveness and self-discipline,” Bilanchone explains. “We shortened it to Hanu, which represents how Hanuman took a success to the jaw. It was like how we have been taking hits however stored going.”
Hanu Yoga, previously Green Monkey, is one in all Miami Beach’s largest yoga studios.
Photo by Daniel Silva
At 4,000 sq. ft, the new location is among the metropolis’s largest yoga studios.
“We by no means closed for even in the future,” Bilanchone recounts. “There was no grace interval for coaching. All of a sudden, we have been altering the AC, portray, coping with town and contractors.”
Transitioning from an teacher to the proprietor was a watershed second for Bilanchone, who has little interest in outsized egos and $200 yoga mats. Hanu, she says, goals for the guts of what yoga has at all times been: natural vitality. “You’re right here for yoga, for the soul.”
Bilanchone realized she was at a crossroads: She might attempt to appease the glitzy Miami Beach yoga crowd or stay true to her imaginative and prescient. She made it clear that she was dedicated to the latter. “I need individuals to really feel welcomed, seen, and understood at Hanu. This is why we provide all kinds of sophistication kinds so that everybody feels at dwelling, regardless of their age or talent degree. We hope for Hanu to be a sanctuary for the nice and the dangerous days.”
“Most company studios are all energy yoga and burning energy, and it is unhappy that there are no extra yin or meditative courses,” says Bilanchone. “I added weekly breath [and] meditation courses — half-hour of simply respiratory — and it is one in all our hottest courses.”
A brand new yogi will pay $15 for a drop-in class, and Hanu’s hottest possibility is a six-month autorenewal for $133 a month. Members additionally get perks like reductions on all occasions and workshops, mat storage, and two visitors a month. “I truly introduced down our costs,” she provides.
With about 15 instructors, Hanu provides courses past typical energy and vinyasa, together with respiratory practices, heated and nonheated choices, and the extra obscure hatha yoga, a slower-paced observe.
Hanu Yoga remains to be present process rising pains, however resistance, and a wholesome dose of serendipity, are a part of any yogi’s arsenal.
“The observe [of yoga] modified me on a elementary degree revealing that every one the facility and love that I want is already inside me. Every time I observe, I keep in mind my fact, my gentle, and my objective. My objective is to share my love for yoga, neighborhood, and all issues that make us people really feel entire.”
Bilanchone is in it for the lengthy haul, and Hanu Yoga is able to give attention to serving to Miami’s rising yoga neighborhood. “Most of my buddies informed me to not be a enterprise proprietor, however my childhood greatest buddy informed me to do it,” she says. “It’s a candy deal. This alternative by no means comes round.”
Hanu Yoga Studio. 736 Sixth St., Miami Beach; 305-397-8566; greenmonkey.com.