WELLBEING Being an entrepreneur nowadays is extremely challenging

Kristina Rihanoff is a world-renowned professional ballroom dancer, choreographer, and former star of Strictly. She started dancing the age of six and began teaching at 16. She talks about discovering the benefits of yoga and the challenges of running a business.

Kristina was invited to move to the USA in 2003, to compete professionally as a dancer. She has reached numerous national and world finals, ranking in the Top 12 in Open to the World International Latin competition held in Blackpool in 2007. Shortly after Kristina moved to England to start an exciting new venture.

Kristina also appeared in Strictly Come Dancing from 2008 until 2016 before leaving the show to start a family. She now lives in Northampton and is mother to a little girl Milena.

Besides her passion for dancing, Kristina has been a yoga devotee for nearly 20 years and is a certified yoga instructor in Hot Yoga; Hatha; Vinyasa;

Pre/Postnatal yoga; Children and Family yoga; Chair yoga for mobility issues; and Meditation. She now runs the Soo Yoga family and wellbeing centre in Northampton with her fiancé Ben Cohen.

Kristina talks to us about her passion for yoga and what motivates her to run her own yoga studio…

DH: You’ve transitioned from being on TV to running your own business. What has been the biggest challenge in for both you and Ben (co-founder of Soo Yoga) in changing your career? And what have you learned from that?

KR: Being entrepreneur nowadays is extremely challenging. We opened Soo Yoga in June 2019, nine months before pandemic. Like many businesses, we suffered tremendously through the two years of lockdowns.

As a new business we didn’t have a strong client base. It was really hard to sustain our members. We worked extremely hard doing everything online, keeping the community going and I felt like I did literally everything possible to keep engaging people. We had zoom meetings to help people struggling with mental health or lack of motivation.

When we opened up we had pretty good return rate – we had a pretty much everyone coming back to the facilities. As a business owner nowadays, you get something new thrown at you. There’s new taxes and electricity bills – it’s an ever-changing game. And it’s an unfair game too because it’s not about the quality of product or service – it is literally how you can survive because no one can predict things like doubling price of energy. There is no business plan that can help you to get through it.

DH: Our readers will empathize with that and it’s great to hear you’re embracing the whole holistic side of things to help. So, what was it about yoga that attracted you?

KR: I moved to America in 2001 to Seattle, Washington, because of ballroom dancing, I was invited to teach in local dance school and compete as well, professionally. One day my dance partner said,” Oh, we’re going to go to Hot yoga?”

I was like, “what is that?”

And he’s, “Well, all dancers love yoga, it’s really good for your body, it’s a heated room which opens up the pores, the muscles.”

So, I went to the tiny smelly studio, and it was literally like a room of hell. 40 people stuffed in a tiny box with no ventilation, and really hot and I thought, “Oh, my Lord, I’m just going to die in here!” It was a 90-minute class, and you can’t leave. I just thought to myself that I’ll never do it again. I came out of the studio and it was really strange, because I felt such a beautiful lightness in my body. The next day, my body was craving that experience.

I just got hooked and loved it very much. My dance partner and I were going to yoga five times a week, and it was a must, especially before big competitions. I’ve been practicing for 20 years. So, the first thing I did when I moved to London, I asked everyone where I can find the yoga studio and literally off the plane and onto the yoga mat.

Strictly is a full-on emotional rollercoaster. So, you need to find an outlet where you can just be in silence.

DH: I’m getting the vibe that it’s about, it’s about family, it’s about holistic, it’s about looking at things that try and make it accessible for people. Would that be a fair summary?

KR: Exactly. Regardless of age, ability, or disability, we have something for you because we have a full range of classes. I teach pregnancy yoga and then I go into baby yoga and baby massage with the new-borns and the mums and the postnatal classes and everything in between.

I have a Reformer Pilates gentle class where we do like a very light strengthening exercises, and resistance exercises for the elderly or those recovering from operations. I’m qualified in chair yoga which is yoga for those with mobility issues. Our facilities are accessible to wheelchair users. We can offer something to absolutely everyone.

DH: I understand you and Ben have both been involved in charitable work. Is there a way that people can get involved in what you’re doing?

KR: Quite a few things. I am working with a charity called Autoimmune Support and Awareness Foundation which brings awareness to Autoimmune conditions such as long covid, lupus, chronic fatigue and even autism. We hope to set up a local charity too, because we want to help the local community and also want to offer classes to children who perhaps need some help with the emotional and mental health via dance and drama. www.asafoundation.org.uk

Of course, Ben is well known for his StandUp Foundation, an anti-bullying foundation which, which he set up in the memory of his father who was murdered. He does a lot of work and a lot of talks about equality, diversity, and the impact of bullying.I just contribute to various projects. I do work with local charity to help cancer patients with some yoga classes and raise money for them too. If you able to help, why not?

DH: Anything you want to share with us like a secret or a new launch?

KR: I’ve launched Facebook group called Wellness Academy by Kristina Rihanoff. You can look it up on Facebook and join my group. It’s really new. A lot of people who asked me, how do you transition from what you’ve been doing to what you do now, or people who may be already in the field of, let’s say, yoga, fitness, dancing, and they just don’t know how to really succeed in that field or do better than what they do now.

So, I wanted to help because I know, it’s super scary to go from one type of work you knew all your life – for me it was show business and dance – into the world of wellbeing. I’m looking to do courses and workshops to help people start out businesses in field of wellbeing and especially explain to them what not to do and what not to overspend on money.

DH: A lot of people would love to hear that. I’ve got a couple of fun questions for you. If you could train anywhere, with anyone past or present, who would it be and where?

KR: I grew up watching films like Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze. I did Mastermind on BBC and Patrick Swayze was my subject because I was just obsessed with his films and journey from being a dancer onto the big screen. I would have loved to be able to train with him and have danced with him.

by Kristina Rihanoff

Professional Ballroom Dancer & Soo Yoga Co-founder @krihanoff