A Look Inside the Vagabond Life of Yoga Academy International's Founder

How traveling the world helped Lauren Rudick build Yoga Academy International

Photo courtesy Lauren Rudick

Yoga Academy International retreats are designed as all-encompassing experiences that disconnect attendees from their normal routines to fully engage with their inner selves. Rudick, now 39, loves teaching the philosophy and soul of yoga. She first tried yoga 20 years ago in her hometown of Montreal. She grew up in a Jewish school where she learned to read and write in English, French, Hebrew, and Yiddish. Coming out of university, she knew she didn’t want to live a traditional suburban life. Yoga, and the ability to speak multiple languages, helped her find comfort in her own skin. Travel – and yoga – became her escape.

“From the first moment, it was just a love story,” she says. “I felt so good in my body. I felt beautiful, I felt challenged. It was hard, and athletic, and dancy.”

Following a breakup and a nudge from her yoga teacher, Rudick decided to get her YTT certification herself in Mexico.

“I ran away to Mexico and it changed my life forever,” she says. “First solo trip, first time living next to the ocean. It was the first time I’d ever seen surfing in real life. And I met all these women who were older than me, and single, and traveling around the world by themselves. I was like, “Whoa, there are other paths!”

Bouncing around Mexico after the yoga teacher training, Rudick eventually found herself in an $8-per-night hostel in La Paz. She was scared – to be alone as a woman, to be without a job or a partner or a straight path forward. But objectably, sitting there alone in a foreign country, she realized this was the freest she’d ever felt.

“That was the first moment I realized no one’s going to save my life but me,” Rudick says.

She met a group of surfers at the hostel who invited her to stay with them on the beach. At first hesitant, she built a rapport with them and agreed to their offer of a tent and sleeping bag.

“We got there right at sunset, and in Baja the sunsets are so pink,” Rudick says. “I sat there watching these men surf, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I thought, this is the most romantic moment of my life – and I’m sitting here alone, on a rock. I was proud of myself.”

Life on the road drew her in. She eventually found work on cruise ships, as a nanny, and a host of other “travel jobs.” Through them all, the desire to teach yoga remained poignant.

“I kept telling people I was a yoga teacher, it just felt so important to define my sense of self that way,” Rudick says. “I’d worked so hard getting through the yoga teacher training.”

From high to low, to high again

Photo courtesy Lauren Rudick

In the 2000s, yoga teacher training wasn’t as prevalent as they are now. Nor were yoga teachers. In this sense, Rudick talked her way into becoming one, simply by constantly repeating that she was qualified.

“I used to teach in the hostels, I would teach on the cruise ships,” she says. “In China I was invited to teach at a local studio, which was so cool because I got to teach people who didn’t speak English. I could try things, and no one really knew (if I messed up).”

Rudick felt like the best of herself when teaching yoga. She took more training in Australia and attended conferences and yoga industry events globally. Arriving back in Canada in the 2010s Rudick landed a gig teaching yoga full-time.

“I made like $19,000 my first year, busting my butt,” she says. “During the two years I was away my friends had mostly all started careers, started relationships and were getting married. Once again I felt like a total loser, like I was so far behind.”

Rudick first had the idea of hosting yoga retreats while looking at Yoga Journal magazine. An ad for a prominent teacher hosting retreats around the world planted the seed for Rudick to host her own, more fully combining her passions of travel and yoga. The business idea came while attending a yoga industry conference in Hong Kong, where Rudick found herself struck by the level of legitimacy presented by the businesses targeting yogis.

“That was when I decided that I want to be part of this industry, and not as a consumer but as a player,” Rudick says.

Photo courtesy Lauren Rudick

The early days of her business consisted of building a Facebook page, trying to get publicity in magazines and on the web, and generally putting herself out there as the host of international yoga retreats. Rudick put the skills she learned at an event planning job to work at yoga events and festivals, notably landing a gig as a production manager at Wanderlust Festival, an annual traveling yoga festival. She worked her way into a teaching role, which helped establish her name with an international audience.

She organized her first retreat in Morocco in 2014. Six months later she held a retreat in Costa Rica, and she made enough – about $1,000 – to live in the country for a month after the retreat. That was all the motivation she needed. She learned to surf during that month, and landed a gig teaching yoga classes at local hotels. She ended up staying in Costa Rica for three years, and led her first teacher training through a friend’s company.

This experience inspired Rudick to add YTT programs to her plan, and to do them well – in the manner that her trainings had been conducted rather than in a trendy, contemporary fashion.

“One day I was meditating on the beach and I had this vision, and it was so clear,” Rudick says. “My website is black and white because it was clear as night and day that this is what I needed to do. I saw people meditating in a circle on the beach, I saw sunsets, I saw people dancing, and me teaching yoga. I could feel it. I got out of that meditation, and I turned to my dog and said, ‘Tanto, I have to go start an international yoga academy.”

That URL was taken, so Rudick put international at the end and had the name of her website and business – Yoga Academy International.

The school now has a dozen or so programs and retreats, and employs yoga teachers Rudick has come to know and trust over the years. Ideas from teachers are welcome, but the vibe of the school is uniquely hers – it’s grown as she has, and added new retreats and teachings as they’ve made their way into her life.

“I take a step back and am like, ‘Holy shit I built this thing,’ but it started from the ground up,” Rudick says. “It’s been natural, as I’ve lived more experiences in life and as my students have grown and wanted more offerings and I’ve had access to more colleagues, it grew. It’s cool that because I have the credentials to certify, if a colleague or friend comes to me and says, I have this great idea for a training, we can make it work.”

Rudick is proud that she’s able to offer colleagues a chance to bring their teaching dreams to fruition – particularly those who don’t have the accreditation or event planning skill set that she’s built over the years.

“I’m always clear with people when they sign up that you’re not buying a diploma,” Rudick says. “You’re buying a box. We’re going to spend the month filling it with tools and teach you how to use them.”

This approach encourages students to take the teacher training or attend a retreat as a gift to themselves, not as some sort of a career foundation. If a student goes forward with teaching, that’s great – but the first benefit of a Yoga Academy International training is the experience of working on oneself.

For others looking to build a business or career in the same manner she has, Rudick encourages finding a mentor. “I wish I would have had a mentor earlier on. Seek mentorship, and believe in the dream and in your vision. It does sometimes feel like a fight, like I’m fighting for my life. But I think what drove me was this fight to live life on my own terms, and this freedom that came with creating these yoga programs that help other people feel that freedom and that acceptance I felt in my first training. Trust your vision, and put in the work.”

Learn more about Yoga Academy International

Try Lauren Rudick’s yoga classes online