My Yoga Warrior Story — How I battled Goliath and won!
This is Glide and Strike in the AgeDEFY practice.
I created this series about 7 years ago when I was struggling to keep it together during a court battle against the State of Colorado.
The state sued me for labeling QiFlow yoga teachers as I-9 contractors.
They believed I had employees and nothing could have been further from the truth. The teachers at QiFlow had always been independent and I could not and would not back down from their claim. I had proof of teacher independence and I proved my case from the very beginning, but the female auditor assigned to my case continued to battle me for 9 months.
In the end, we went to court.
The court experience was less than appealing. It was hell for 9 hours of interviews spent in a small room with my lawyer, the judge, and the lady auditor on the phone. For nine hours they made five QiFlow yoga teachers sit in the waiting room for 9 hours as witnesses. When I say the entire experience was bad, I mean it. I can’t even begin to explain to you how bad it was for all of us.
What sucked about the experience is that I proved my case 4 months into the battle. The auditor’s boss gave me a way to do so. They provided a list of 100 (past and present) yoga teachers to contact. He told my lawyer that if enough of them, at least 20, in their opinion, stated they knew they were independent contractors and were treated so while working at QiFlow, then they would consider dropping the case.
Guess how many teachers wrote back?
Over 50 teachers wrote in favor of me and my business model. Not one letter came back as negative, and, naively, this is when I thought the case was over.
But they didn’t drop the case. They negotiated.
The negotiation: Drop the claim amount by 50%
This is why we ended up in court a few months later.
What the state was doing to my studio was wrong and I would not and could not give up. I was fighting for myself and for all yoga studios.
Yoga should remain independent. Yoga teachers belong as contractors.
There was no one in this city who believed in this concept more than me and everyone who ever taught classes at QiFlow knew this to be true.
I created an independent business model I was proud of … I paid QiFlow teachers more than any other studio in town, and, from the very beginning, before they ever taught their first class, I encouraged them to be their creative selves.
It was a business model I was proud of and I was not going to let the state take that away from any of us!
After I said no to their negotiation, I was scared.
This is when I gave in. What will be will be. But I knew I could not glide my way through the situation. I needed to remain strong to the end.
There is a time to glide in life and there is a time to strike in life.
My preference is to glide but when it’s time to strike, it’s time to strike.
This is why I gave in.
There is a difference between giving in and giving up. It’s the practice of Wu Wei. I was trying too hard to prove my case with no results. I had to give in. I had to stop trying so hard.
I stopped focusing on the case and went to work on a new flow.
For inspiration, I watched a Bruce Lee documentary and found the idea of glide and strike. His fight philosophy was one of patience and power. He knew when to glide, and when to strike, and from there I went to work.
I added glide and strike to my classes. The flow went something like this … crescent lunge, airplane, glide/strike, twist, swim, bow/arrow, floating backbend.
This FLOW creation of mine helped me to win my case against the state!
I started to feel the striking power pumping through my veins in my classes and soon that same feeling started to present itself in my fight.
Against all odds, 9 months later, I won my case. It was my David and Goliath moment and even though it happened 7 years ago, I still think of this win every time we glide and strike in my classes.
How we do anything is how we do everything.
We learn how to glide and strike on the mat and then we start to glide and strike in life.
This is why I AgeDEFY … To know when to strike, and when to glide.
Life demands the ability to do both … This is why I am striking today.
This is why I tell you one of my yoga warrior stories. Yoga is beautiful, and yoga is wretched. It is both.
The Yoga Warrior contest is one I want to win.
I want the chance to be featured in Yoga Journal to tell my yoga warrior stories from my battle with the state I love so much, to my years in chronic pain, to losing QiFlow, and to how I have bounced back after two hip replacements to be here today as a warrior.
My yoga warrior stories can help.
Please vote for me.
