A young, social and creative yoga brand from Berlin with hand-sketched prints … that is our short description. But there is a lot more behind the story how Pitaya Yoga and the idea behind it was born. And here it is:
We were a two-women team when we started and got to know each other in 2016 in a one-month long partner acrobatics training. Irina is originally from Barcelona and worked for different companies in the print design sector and I, Sara, worked in the finance and business development sector in a British Ed-Tech start-up. We both left our job for more freedom, independence, adventure and above all to be able to move the body more. We both went travelling (Asia, Mexico) and weren't working on anything specific. Spontaneously we signed up for the partneracrobatics.com teacher training and spent a month together with 50 other hobby acrobats in the mountains of Andalusia.
Irina was the first person I talked to when the group was first meeting. She told me about her tantra experience in Thailand… a pretty random topic for a first ever talk with a stranger but I liked the honesty in it and felt her big excitement about the teacher training. And her shorts with astronaut cats on them.
We became good friend in the teacher training, which was an intense, beautiful and enriching experience. We learned a lot, fell, laughed, ate big amounts of yummy food and talked more about tantra. Yeah, why not!
We also mentioned a few times that we should do a project, maybe clothes together but we never made it any more concrete than that.
After the training we split ways, but only physically - we stayed in touch for random news. I believed for a while that Irina is on a constant LSD trip, and I still like to describe her that way. Of course she is not, she is just seeing things differently.
After the training I went back to Mexico and because I had injured my shoulder in a stupid movement I had to rest for a while. To use my energy elsewhere I wrote Irina and asked her for a design to make some yoga pants out of it.
And literally in just two weeks, our Mexican friend Renata took me to a producer who prints and sews fabrics. Perfect! It took me longer to find a good fabric for the leggings.... but it was worth it. We and many yoginis are very satisfied with our 'peach skin' brushed fabric which has a cotton surface on the inside and outside. Already after a few weeks I had the first sample in my hands and sent Irina this photo: our first ever design Frida Nude / Frida Mexican Nights.
We decided to buy more fabric and had more yoga leggings printed and sewn. In the meantime Irina also had some time on her hands and sent me six more designs. All of them were pretty awesome, for example Flying Leaves and Night Hunting Jaguars are from our first collection.
At the end we produced our first collection with more than 200 colourfully printed yoga pants. In just one week we set up our own online shop, put the products online and off we went. The artsy yoga leggings were very well received and we had fun with the project and the challenges.
A couple of years later we had to deal with many realities when we started our own company. From export and customs problems (because if you are exporting from Mexico, it is surely not fabrics....) to the funniest (but most frustrating) mistakes our producer can make. But we are happy and free and independent and have enough time for yoga, handstands, dancing, Acroyoga and partner acrobatics.
Sometimes the unplanned things turn out to be the best. When we founded Pitaya Yoga we intuitively followed our heart. Since then we are happy with it and we hope that you are, too.
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