Why Gnarly Bison?

Our primary focus at Gnarly Bison is health and wellness. It’s a sweet, messy blend of mind-body movement, and the craziness of life.  Being an entrepreneur, while also being a mother, wife, friend, daughter, sister... and doing so with integrity and grace. 

It all began with the word Gnarly. I've always loved that word.  When I went to college in Australia there was this old tree.  It was the widest, most powerful tree I had ever seen. It seemed ancient and full of wisdom.  It was, by definition, gnarly and I loved it.  It's limbs were like that of a wise, aged person's joints, gnarled by the years of living passionately and joyfully. Years back, I had a severe ankle fracture and surgery that left me with some scars... some gnarly scars.  Whenever I look at them the word gnarly always comes to mind.  I was told I probably wouldn't be able to teach or do yoga again, let alone many activities that required me to stand for long periods of time.  During this time of my life, I taught yoga and worked in a restaurant to provide for myself, so that was a pretty intense thing to hear.  Even so, it brought out a fight in me and I wasn't going to give in.  I would be the one to determine what I could and couldn't do, and I chose to "embrace the storm".  Gnarly, to me, can mean rough, literally gnarled and mangled, but also beautiful, wild, and free. It’s a sweet combination of it all.

As far as the bison part, I think they are a tough, cool animal.  When a storm comes most animals run away, which obviously doesn’t prevent the storm from coming.  Bison run toward the storm, go through it, and come out on the other side.  They "embrace the storm".  This is something that I've always been inspired to teach in the pranayama & meditation parts of my yoga classes.  And I've tried to live this way.  Storms come-literally and figuratively. Chaos happens and we can't avoid it... it all finds us. 

So, let's take the storms head on, charge at them, and get to the other side.  With God's help, of course!!  Bison also do this as a herd-they do it together.  In this world we have a tendency to think empowerment comes from doing things on our own.  I mistakenly do this quite often.  We need community.  We need support-just like those bison! Let’s embrace our messes, our mountains, our storms!  But let’s not remain there.  Let’s push through them with integrity and grace, and always some laughter!! Gnarly Bison-style!

See you soon :)

-Tara xo