A little back story...
Yogis & Stogies started from the ideas that came to Allison while on her honeymoon in 2018 in Nicaragua, where she did her Yoga in the mornings, visited Cigar factories, farms & was like a sponge absorbing as much as knowledge about cigars as she could. Combining Allison's 20+ yrs of Yoga Teaching & 14+ yrs of Cigar Passion, people in both communities always asking if she would mix the two worlds.... she thought WHY NOT & made it happen.
2019 began the Yogis & Stogies experience inside a Cigar Shop. Where Allison would teach an all levels Adult Yoga class & then have a Cigar Social after with mimosas & snacks. For many people the cigar shop is the adult Disney World where they can step away from the regular grind & take a breath with great people & have a cigar. With the onset of 2020 & everyone staying home many people were missing their cigar shop time or as we call it the Cigar Social. Also, 2020 didn't allow Yogis & Stogies take the next step & expand to other cigar shops as planned. So, it seemed only fitting to take the experience & the community, VIRTUAL. Further Back Story...
Allison's Yoga adventure came from unconventional beginnings in 1999. She started as the flexible/fat “kid”, where students referred to her as, ”roly-poly” because of her lack of balance in simple Asanas. That little nickname fueled her to purge the limiting, “I can't” from her life. On the mat, she found that all the old rhetoric and negativity from her past was silenced and that every moment is empowering. Within a few months, she embarked on a 6-month Vinyasa/Pranyama teacher training and became the substitute teacher, at the request of those very same students. Allison's expansive philosophy and teaching style is rooted in the culmination of the lessons learned over years from varied experiences. Everything from the countless hours of training with specialized teachers (Hatha, Iyengear, Children's, Partner) to nine years of Seva (selfless service for the good of the community) at the Hanuman Temple in Taos, this has offered priceless gems of knowledge. She brings "an in the moment teaching style" that allows her to work with each class as an individual. Full of life, Allison embraces helping students to overcome old boundaries while guiding them to live as their optimal self. Her capacity to meet & connect with all students (as of so far teaching ages 4 to 89 and Addiction Rehabilitation Patience to Olympic Athletes) allows her to share her fun and passionate love for Yoga, which has proven to foster the building of community within all her classes and workshops. Allison teaches ticketed virtual Adult all level Yoga classes through Zoom & then after the community stays on Zoom for the Cigar Social, with a twist. The twist to the Cigar Social is, that people have an option to pre purchase the un-banded Yogis & Stogies cigar pack, each week the Social smokes a selected cigar together without knowing the maker. These cigars are specially picked by Allison to compliment the experience & allow people to smoke a cigar with an open mind as she does with Blind Man's Puff. It is truly a fun experience as the community engages each other about the cigar & each other in a new way. Sometimes the owner of the cigar will join the Cigar Social on the last 1/3 where the community gets to learn & laugh even more.
