“’Buti’ is a word from the Indian Marathi dialect meaning ‘the hidden cure within’.”
“Buti Yoga is a fusion of power yoga, plyometrics, cardo/tribal dance elements, primal movements, spiraling, core work, and chakra activation.”
“Buti Yoga is your soulmate workout.”
All of these things are true, but what has that really meant as applied to me and my life? How much time ya got?
Imagine me, about eight months postpartum (you’re going to have to imagine- I hated taking pictures of myself at that time), heavier than ever, no core strength, literally so uncomfortable in my own skin. I was doing a few things- I had started jogging again and I had started fumbling my way through a grain and dairy-free (GF/DF) way of eating. Those things definitely helped to kickstart a healthier routine after having a baby, and now that I’ve really learned how to manage GF/DF, it’s crucial to my health, but I was still kind of floundering. I felt sluggish and sloppy and nowhere near my pre-baby level of fitness. Enter a well-placed Buti Yoga Facebook ad. Badass-looking women making yoga look FUN. Like so many others I’ve encountered along the way, that one click changed everything. Perusing that website made me feel things, and I immediately signed up for a trial of their online streaming subscription and busted out the ol’ mat. The music hooked me instantly- hip hop, dancehall, hard-hitting tribal beats. I thought, I can do yoga to this?? That shit was probably SO comical. Like, you want me to put my leg where? Nope. Uh uh. F*%@ yourself, lady. That was the dialogue, yet at the end, I just KNEW that somehow I was meant to do this for the rest of my life. Maybe even teach it.
Four short months and a lot of online Buti classes later, I drove 11 hours to Middle of Nowhere Ala-BAMA (obviously read in the Forrest Gump voice), the closest, soonest training, to get certified to teach. It was definitely one of those pivotal moments where you define your life as “pre” and “post”. Once you experience that first Buti training, it’s a high that’s hard to top. The empowerment and camaraderie are unmatched by any other training experience. The next year and a half or so consisted of me just immersing myself in the Buti Yoga world. I completed my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training with Buti. It was there that I started talking about things like chakras, energetic anatomy, modern spirituality, living in alignment, holistic healing… my whole life shifted. My nursing practice shifted. Things that did not have to do with running a Code Blue or chasing hemodynamic stability, things that had previously felt boring to me like… wellness and energetic healing… suddenly felt like the most important things. In fact, I realized, I actually wanted out of the hospital altogether quite badly. Intimate relationships started to reveal themselves as out of balance. Growth has to happen together, and it wasn’t.
After YTT, I felt the continued urge to train and learn. I got certified in DEEP, Buti’s luxurious, restorative format. My classes were really evolving, and I allowed a thought to develop that I had never really felt worthy of before- I wanted to be a Master Trainer (MTs lead Buti Yoga trainings). I had put in all this work, and for the first time, I thought, I deserve to give this a shot. I signed up for Advanced Certification, where you can “try out” for the Master Trainee program. That first Advanced Cert was so much fun and physically, the most challenging weekend I can remember. After my demo, I was told… “not this time. Not yet.” I was given some things to work on. I was crushed for a hot second, but boy did that turn out to be part of the package of some of my most valuable growth yet (trust the process, guys). What else happened that weekend? I had a conversation with my teacher and mentor about what I was actually going to do with all of this yoga training. Her advice, to get certified in a technique called Fascial Stretch Therapy™, wound up being the crucial element to round out the business model for what was to become The Studieaux.
So, that temporary rejection (not really, but for lack of a better word) and introduction to FST landed me in Phoenix, where both Buti and FST are headquartered. Talk about symbolism… here comes my rising. Buti happened to hold another Advanced Certification the weekend after my Level 1 FST training (no divine purpose there). Day one went off without a hitch, but I woke up on demo day incredibly sick (Phoenix burns before it rises!). I spent most of the day lying pathetically on the couch at the hosting yoga studio, took a shit ton of cold medicine, then basically pulled a “hold my beer!” on that demo. Guess what? It worked! I was now FST certified and in the Buti Yoga Master Trainee program. Did I mention how many quality friends for life I made along the way?
What happened next with the meeting of Taylor and me is for another day. All this is to say that for me, Buti is The Medicine. Buti cured me of only being concerned with things of this earthly world, of social constructs controlling my choices, of mediocrity. Buti is The Catalyst. It allowed me to really see myself for who I am and believe that I actually deserved whatever my version of ‘success’ is. It empowered me to make the choices and do the scary things to get me there. It taught me how to create a life in alignment. It gave me a tool to teach others so that they can find that cure within and we can all live that “aligned grind” (borrowed from a great Insta account, @thealignedgrind, check em). It’s not over, by any means. When I have a thing to deal with… “Buti it out!” To me, Buti is life, it is truly everything.
I’d love to leave y’all with Buti Yoga’s core values, applicable to all humans:
1. BUILD the world you want to live in.
2. You can only LEAD others as far as you’ve led yourself.
3. The greatest gift you can give is the gift of unwavering FRIENDSHIP.
4. One can only be as spiritual as they are GROUNDED.
5. True leaders don’t create followers, they CREATE more leaders.
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