Welcome to our blog series, telling the stories behind the businesses in Clevedon.
Jude and Howard – Kabbala
Tell us about your business. What services do you provide?
Jude: The Kabbala was an ancient Hebrew doctrine, it was mystical, based on the tree of life and the interconnection between everything here and outside. I wanted a name that was quite expansive, and you can’t get more expansive than Kabbala!
Our prime function is as a yoga studio and we offer yoga classes on a daily basis. However we soon found that there was a demand for pilates as well, which fits into our wellbeing ethos, so we now also do Pilates and have expanded to bring in tai chi. And then on top of that we do have a little retail offering, we produce our own Kabbala branded products, t-shirts and other things, and we also sell yoga and pilates supplies.
The other thing we do is events and workshops, and this is a really big part of Kabbala because we want to give something back. It’s a service we are providing to the community, which is driven by our desire to improve the mental health and well being of the community.
Howard: Covid was a difficult time for everybody and I think the aftermath of covid has left people very unsure about where they stand in the world, and there are also wars and climate change. A lot of people are very agitated, we hear about a lot of people struggling with their own mental health so here is a place to stop and just put a pause on everything. In my class we always have a breathing exercise at the beginning, just so you can mark the transition from the outside world into the inside world, and then we do the yoga. There’s nobody yet who has gone away from a yoga class less happy than when they came in!
Jude: Howard and I both teach, but we also have about 12 teachers here at the moment, and we open the opportunity to any local yoga teacher to come here and offer classes.
How did you start your business? What’s the story?
Howard: We’ve been dipping in and out of all this stuff for quite a long time now. We met in 2004, I was working for Government education programmes and Jude was working in her retail business. Then we came to Bristol and everything sort of stopped, and we started looking around for places. Then various things didn’t happen, then somehow we found ourselves here and it all sort of fell into place. We bought this place, and live above, and it all sort of accelerated really. At one point we thought we were retired, and now we are un-retired and doing all this! And I love it!
Jude: I was in the corporate world and I loved it, but there came a time when that was enough, and so I did retire. Then I found that I needed some outlet for my creativity. I could see that there was a need here and I just wanted to offer something of myself. We want to live our latter years still being creative and giving back to the community.
Howard: We still need to do yoga, and the best way of making sure I do yoga is knowing that I have a group of people here waiting to do yoga and I have to teach them.
Jude: This is a welcoming space and is open to all.
What is the best thing about running a business in Clevedon?
Jude: I think it’s the people and the community in Clevedon. We are part of the traders group for Hill Road area and there’s a lot of interaction and support.
Howard: Bad environments are places where people walk down the road and feel unsafe, and Clevedon is not like that at all!
Jude: Another thing is that it is beautiful here. We love this building, which is almost 200 years old. We are opposite the park and we love that we can do yoga outdoors in the summer.
Kabbala is on Hill Road. To find out more visit https://kabbala.co.uk/