Shaping Lives… An Interview with Aretha McKinney Blevins

Aretha is a senior certified Iyengar Yoga instructor and the current owner and director of the Iyengar Center of Nashville at Chestnut Hill. She has been steward of the center since 2006. In this interview she discusses her Shaping Lives social media series as well as her approach to building and deepening community.

Aretha explains that the Shaping Lives series (@chestnuthillyoga) is a “connection strategy.” As Aretha aptly points out, what you want to nurture is what you should share. What are the seeds that you want to plant and water? Though she doesn’t think specifically in marketing terms, there is an intentionality to what she decides to nurture and share. Aretha reports that her student base is built on word of mouth. However, she talks about the value in allowing a window into the studio and the community.

Q: Tell us about your Shaping Lives series on social media? What inspired the idea?

Aretha: When we moved to Chestnut Hill from 12 South we had some unforeseen building costs so we did a crowdfunding campaign. My sister had the idea to create a segment where the students would tell about the center—so if people were giving outside of the student base—it would tell them something about the studio and why they were giving.

The “Shaping Lives” idea came from a T-shirt that our studio created a number of years ago—the idea that we do more than teach yoga. The series started out as video clips. It was really fun and the crowdfunding campaign was successful. However, the video process was laborious, so that format shifted to emailing questions to students for them to write and send back answers.

The spirit behind it was that it is always helpful if you share what you do so that people have a view of what they are walking into.

Q: How do you select who to feature in the Shaping Lives series?

Aretha: I started with students who come to classes all the time. After that handful of really solid, regular students, I decided to ask students who are perhaps newer to the studio or who are younger.

Q: How did you come up with the questions and what is your process?

Aretha: The questions came from one morning when I was journaling. The questions were based on what I would want to read, such as “what brought you to yoga?” And the answer about why students stay will always be different...those magical reasons that pop up...the practice has a way of revealing itself in ways that you never necessarily planned.

Q: Have you found this series to have an impact on your yoga community?

Aretha: People connect the dots within the community. Does it translate into new students coming to our center...I have no idea. But it helps students and teachers within the community see each other. It deepens connections. It is a window into who we are and what we do. It is more of a connection strategy.

As a teacher, you learn about people’s lives and what practice means to them. In the moment, you may not know what people are walking through—and sometimes you find out after the fact. For example, you may learn how someone experienced loss or grief and how yoga provided a sense of peace.

Q: Do you think that these features help make yoga seem or feel more accessible to a wider demographic of people?

Aretha: I have tried to ask these questions to/feature a range of students. Making inroads into a wider demographic is a challenge for our community. Perhaps if I interview a wide range of students that will help more people see a reflection of themselves.

When someone walks by the studio, they look for you on social media. It can be a way of talking to strangers. People in the neighborhood who don’t know anything about us will probably look us up on Instagram. So I thought, if people are going to look us up on Instagram, it might be helpful for those people to hear from students.

Q: Any other thoughts you would like to share pertaining to outreach, community-building, communications, and/or marketing?

Aretha: Invest in your personal practice, invest in being a present and skillful teacher, and it will grow. If you continue to grow your practice and become a better teacher by being really present, that will have healthy and good fruit. And I think Guruji modeled that.