A Reluctant Yoga Teacher's Path to Studio Ownership

Some origin stories begin with a bang. Janette's begins with a desk she didn't want, a friend's parents trying to help during a hard season, and a woman in an office who suggested, almost offhandedly, that she sign up for yoga teacher training. In a recent episode of DTO's 5Q interview podcast, recorded while the host was at his wellness retreat in Costa Rica, Janette, founder of The Yoga Barre in Florida, walked through how she went from occasional student to studio owner, and why the path was never the one she expected. The conversation also gives a window into a larger idea the host keeps returning to: that every teacher, musician, and builder of sacred space arrives by a different road, and that those roads converge in the places people go to feel some peace.

How Does a Yoga Teacher Origin Story Actually Start?

The episode opens in a rather unglamorous place. Before yoga became anything more than a stretch on a free afternoon, Janette had practiced here and there: YMCA yoga, a crunch class, a session whenever her schedule allowed. She spent a long stretch working in retail, a world, she noted, where a manager barely has time for anything else. Then came a divorce, and a temporary job arranged through a friend's parents while she figured out what came next.

That job put her at an office desk, which she was candid about not being built for. "I'm a people person, but I'm not like a sit in an office type of gal," she said. It was in that office that a woman who ran a local yoga school came through, and the two began talking about life. The woman knew what Janette was going through, and her suggestion landed as a shock. "She was like, 'You should do yoga teacher training.' And I was like, 'What?'"

The school in question was in Bradenton, Florida, and the program was a 200-hour training. Janette was raising two small children, somewhere between three and five years old by her own rough count, and she worked out a way to attend. She was not, at that point, looking for a teaching career. "I'd never thought that I wanted to be an instructor," she said, "but it just um I just kept going."

Why Did the Training Feel Like Therapy?

What kept her coming back was not the postures alone. She describes the training as encompassing much more than the physical practice: the philosophy behind the work, the reasons behind each pose, the sense that the mat was a place to sort through what was happening off it. "It was like therapy for me," she said, "with everything that I was going through."

That detail matters, because it reframes the usual story about why people enter yoga teaching. Often the assumption is that someone decides to teach because they've mastered something. Janette's account is closer to the reverse. She was being held by the practice first, and the teaching came as a consequence of wanting to share what had helped her. "The way that it made me feel was like indescribable," she said, "and you just want to keep going, share it with everyone and learn as much as you can."

What Happens When You Want to Quit?

This is the part of the story that many aspiring teachers will recognize. Right before she was due to finish the 200-hour program, Janette stepped away. She isn't entirely sure of the reason in hindsight. She thinks she got nervous, that the prospect of suddenly being a teacher felt like something she wasn't ready for, and that she could not see herself completing it. She stopped.

She did not stop for good. About a year later, she enrolled in another 200-hour training. The gap is a useful reminder that a stalled commitment is not always a verdict. Sometimes it's a pause that lets a person return with more clarity about why they started.

The episode also sits alongside a moment of clarity Janette describes later in the conversation, an "aha" that the host picks up on as the turning point. The details of that moment are the kind of thing a listener should hear in her own voice, so it is worth seeking out the full recording rather than reconstructing it here.

What Is the Host's Theory About Sacred Spaces?

The conversation is structured as a 5Q interview, and the host, DTO, who records as DTO Dave the Organism, frames it through his own philosophy. He has a theory, he says, that "no matter what our origin story is of how we got into this sacred practice from mother India there is this connectivity." Whether you are "the teacher, the student, the yogi musician," or even the people laying down the flooring for a new location, he argues, there is an energy that goes into creating spaces where people can feel peace.

That idea has a practical edge in DTO's own story. He is building a 2,000-foot yoga shala at Embody Costa Rica, a wellness and retreat center he and his partner began in 2020, while much of the world was, as he put it, fighting over toilet paper or learning to bake sourdough. He is also a recording artist, known for his debut album, which he launched in 2016 and says was endorsed by Deepak Chopra, and for a follow-up record organized around the seven chakras. His studio sits beneath the retreat space, and he describes it as "the ultimate man cave," a place to play and be self-expressed.

The point of tying these threads together is the spine of the episode. A yoga studio, a retreat center, a recording room: each one is a container for the same thing. Sound, movement, and presence become places where people can slow down. DTO makes the connection explicitly, noting that Janette's studio includes aerial yoga and sound healing alongside its physical classes, and asking what else could be brought into that space. "We're in the sandbox, right?" he says.

Why Does a Physical Space Still Matter?

DTO raises an observation that should resonate with anyone who has tried to build a community in person. Physical locations, he suggests, do something online platforms cannot. "Build it and they will come," he says, a phrase he uses to describe the way a real room draws the right people into it. Janette's own experience backs this up: she has built a studio and is preparing a second one, a sign that the community she gathered around her has become something solid enough to expand.

The episode was also a reminder that the logistics of tours and collaborations often arrive through people. DTO credits Carla Holland, who connected the two of them and acts as his ambassador and tour manager, as "such a connector." The chain of introductions is part of the story: Janette's path ran through a friend's parents, a woman in an office, and a yoga school, and her collaboration with DTO ran through a connector who simply knew they should meet.

What Can Listeners Take Away from This Episode?

Three ideas stand out. The first is that a teacher's origin often begins in personal need rather than in mastery. Janette came to yoga during a divorce and found therapy there before she ever imagined leading a class. The second is that wanting to quit is not the same as being done. Her return to training a year later suggests that hesitation can be information, not a verdict. The third is the host's broader claim that the people who build sacred spaces, from the teacher to the person laying the floor, are part of one continuous energy.

For a reader drawn to yoga, music, or community-building, the episode offers a model of how to begin without a plan. You don't need to know you'll teach. You need to keep showing up, notice what the practice is doing for you, and be willing to take the next step, even if it arrives sideways.

Where to go from here

If this story resonated, the full DTO 5Q interview with Janette is worth hearing in full, especially for the details of her training, her return to it, and the moment of clarity that shaped her next steps. The conversation also covers DTO's own path from his 2016 debut album to the retreat he is building in Costa Rica. Listeners in the St. Petersburg area can note that DTO has scheduled a tour stop at The Yoga Barre on September 26, from 7 to 9 p.m., and that the host is planning to explore Tampa and the surrounding region during that trip. Start with the episode, then pay attention to the spaces in your own life that already hold this kind of peace.