Chelsea Vona is a Fort Wayne entrepreneur making a name for herself in the yoga world. The owner of Discover Yoga, a popular yoga studio downtown, Chelsea has helped countless individuals find balance, focus, and inner peace through yoga. With her passion for success and dedication to yoga, Chelsea has become a tremendous role model for aspiring business owners, entrepreneurs, and yogis alike. We will explore Chelsea's journey as an entrepreneur and how her love for yoga has significantly impacted her success.
Chelsea Vona was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan; when she was six months old, her family decided to move to Fort Wayne. As a child, she attended Wars Elementary, the Fort Wayne Community School districts Theatre Arts Magnet School, a part of the Summit Arts Program. In kindergarten, Chelsea was in her school's ballet class. Unfortunately, the school was shut down due to funding issues, and all the students, including Chelsea, were transferred to Weisser Park.
She continued to dance throughout her school years, primarily with LA Dance Studio, with her favorite dance styles being Jazz and Hip Hop. She graduated from Homestead High School but went to South Side High School for most of her high school years. She was so proud to talk to us about how wonderful going to South Side was and how grateful she was to be a part of such a diversified community. After high school, Chelsea went to Columbia College in Chicago for a year before making the difficult decision to move back to Fort Wayne.
Chelsea was struggling with finding her place in this world; she didn't exactly know what she wanted to do for a career or who she wanted to be just yet, so she did a lot of soul-searching for the next six years. She was a waitress at a few different restaurants throughout this time until one day, in 2010, during a vacation trip at her family's home in Pensacola, Florida, she discovered yoga. When we asked Chelsea why she decided to try yoga for the first time, she told us she's always wanted to try it. When she was very young, her sister passed away, and with this trauma, her father found spirituality which over time helped him heal, and throughout the next few years, Chelsea would find her spirituality as well. Her spirituality is what guided her to try yoga.
Once she discovered the wonders of yoga, she incorporated a lot more order and structure into her life and learned how to process past traumas and deal with things better when life gets a bit chaotic. Yoga helped her in so many different areas of her life that she decided to get certified in March 2015 through Prana Yoga, a local Fort Wayne yoga institution. From there, she continued to study and today holds five certifications in yoga, including; a 300-hour certificate, yoga for 12-step recovery certification, which is a modern approach to meshing the 12 steps and yoga together to help those struggling with addiction to blend their mind and body together to help with total body healing.
She is also certified in barre and fitness, and all of these certifications are reflected in her classes. Chelsea also joins in on training classes to ensure she is always learning to be the best instructor to her clients.
When Chelsea first got certified, she started her career teaching at Prana Yoga for five years and then taught at Rebel Yoga (now collective wellness) for two years. In June of 2021, she led her first class on her own at a pop-up location, and in March 2022, she opened her own studio, Discover Yoga, located within the historic Bell Mansion at 420 West Wayne Street. Chelsea currently has seven instructors, including herself, running classes every day of the week, primarily during the evenings and weekends. They also offer morning classes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She is currently working at her full-time job, but every day she is working hard to be able to leave that and focus primarily on Discover Yoga full-time.
She shared that the most challenging part of running her own business is learning proper time management. She has experienced extreme burnout and is trying to learn how to listen to her body and take breaks when needed. She said something to us that we believe hits home for many entrepreneurs:
"As a yoga teacher, to be able to hold space for everyone else, you have to be able to hold space for yourself." As entrepreneurs, we all try to do everything, even if that means not sleeping or taking breaks when we desperately need them. Eventually, it all catches up to us, so we need to make sure we are creating space for ourselves so we can continue to give space to other things while ensuring were showing up as the best versions of ourselves."
When we discussed the hopes for Discover Yoga's future, Chelsea said her dream for the business would be to stay at their home base at 420 West Wayne Street. She loves being downtown; she loves the direction DTFW is going with all the new buildings and storefronts coming up, all the local shops and restaurants, and the overall atmosphere of being in the area. So the goals now are to grow their clientele and expand their class schedule. She would love to incorporate more classes geared towards workshops and teacher training to get more into the educational side of yoga. She would also like to add classes with a heavy focus on wellness and mental health to help others experiencing hard times and needing help managing it all. She said,
"My main goal is to help people find peace with life. I don't feel like joy and happiness are always consistent; hard times come and go, so it's about learning to live with the flow of life and finding balance and peace, and yoga is what has helped me with that. I really like helping people find their best selves."
Chelsea is so passionate about helping people and teaching them how to really show up not only for others but primarily for themselves. She loves teaching yoga and sharing everything she has learned throughout her career in the industry. If you have ever been interested in taking a class or would like to learn more about Discover Yoga, visit their website at discoveryogafw.com for a complete list of class schedules, pricing and packages, and upcoming events.
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