Bryanna Pollack’s journey into yoga began with the inspirational support of her teacher, Lesley Fightmaster, who saw her potential early on and guided her along the path to becoming a yoga instructor. Through her passion for yoga and desire to create a nurturing community, Bryanna launched Brya Yoga and Yoga Mama Café. Both ventures reflect her deep commitment to helping others, especially women and mothers, find peace, wellness, and strength. With a vision rooted in connection and healing, Bryanna continues to inspire by sharing her story of resilience, creativity, and her unwavering belief in the power of yoga.
- What inspired you to start teaching yoga and eventually create Brya Yoga and Yoga Mama Café?
My teacher Lesley Fightmaster inspired me to start teaching yoga, she invited me to her Yoga teacher training in California in 2018 & trained me herself! Lesley always believed in me & encouraged me to teach in person and online. When I first met her in real life I was working on my very first attempt at online business: a digital marketing company for dentists. I was 19 years old, had just discovered online business and was following a blueprint from the first online course I invested in ($3000 that I earned working at Chipotle). I was so sure that I was going to become a millionaire doing digital marketing for dentists lol.
I wasn’t actually passionate about that (I mean is anyone really) and Lesley steered me towards making a career out of Yoga.
As for Yoga Mama Cafe, I have been dreaming of creating a safe space where people can truly be themselves & exist in a peaceful community since I was a kid. I would draw my little communities, journal about them, dream about them with other beautiful people I have met on my journey. The challenges I have been through have shaped my idea into what it is today, the ultimate project I am creating.
- How did Lesley Fightmaster influence your journey into yoga and teaching?
I found Lesley on youtube when I was 17 years old, and started practicing Fightmaster Yoga classes every single day for 2 years. When I was 19 I signed up for her Yoga retreat in Italy, and flew to another country on my own for the first time in my life-which led me down a beautiful path of solo travel, but that’s another story. I was truly star struck when I met Lesley for the first time, she was completely my hero and I was a teenager, the youngest person on the Yoga retreat by over 10 years (and the woman who was 10 years older than me had come with her mother, and was the second youngest person there). I spent a week with Lesley, her family, and our little group of yogis in the beautiful coastal town of Sperlonga. We explored the area, walked through the ruins, relaxed on the beach. We had every meal together, and I sat with Lesley and her family and we became really close that week.
We stayed in touch and Lesley personally invited me to her Yoga Teacher Training in California. I was living in Miami at the time and studying at Florida International University, and I didn’t really have any money; so Lesley let me be her apprentice. I helped out with little things like passing out papers and cleaning up the Yoga Shala during teacher training, and made small payments to her whenever I could-but she didn’t charge me full price. She really saw potential in me and wanted to help me grow.
No one in my life had believed in me, especially building a business online. It wasn’t mainstream back than, and even now my family does not believe in it. Lesley always believed in me, and wrote me a beautiful letter when I graduated Yoga Teacher Training telling me she knew I would be successful & have a cult following as a Yoga teacher.
Lesley encouraged me to create Yoga classes on YouTube and always answered all of my questions. She was my mentor and my friend.
A year before she died, I was traveling full time and ended up in California for Angie Lee’s Pays to be Brave event for women in business. I was living out of a backpack, mostly in Mexico and never had any money.
Lesley invited me into her home, and one of her sons lent me his bedroom for a few weeks. I lived with her & her family, they even went grocery shopping for me because I am a vegetarian. Lesley taught me how to make kitchari, she took me to the farmers market and showed me all her favorite places. We would get ready together in the morning, and dance around her bedroom. I went out with some of my friends one night, and she helped me get dressed up. We had so much fun together, I truly felt apart of her family.
Lesley was the kindest person I have ever known, and that was the last time I ever saw her in person.
- Can you share more about how yoga transformed your life and led to your decision to become a teacher?
I was a cheerleader my entire life, I started when I was 3 years old and stopped when I graduated high school. Cheerleading absolutely wrecked my body, I was a hardcore competitive cheerleader and it was my whole life. By the time I was 17 I had constant, severe back pain. My doctor told me to stop cheerleading at 15 (which I did not do) and gave me no other advice, so I thought I was going to be in pain for the rest of my life.
Senior year we randomly did yoga one day during gym class, and for the first time in my life stretching felt good instead of painful. I had already been stretching everyday my entire life for cheerleading, but Yoga was different. Yoga is about feeling good, not forcing your body into shapes.
Our gym teacher had pulled up a yoga class on youtube, which is what led me to finding Fightmaster Yoga, which led me to Lesley who encouraged me to teach.
- What has been the most rewarding aspect of sharing yoga with others, especially in the context of your online business?
Helping people feel good & find calm wherever they are, in the present moment, with whatever they already have. You don’t need anything to practice Yoga, especially with free classes online. All you need is to be here in the present moment and move your body in ways that feel good. We all deserve to feel good, which was a revolutionary concept to me. I pushed myself hard my entire life in cheerleading, and as a teenager I was diagnosed with Hoshimoto’s thyroiditis, Endomitriosis, & IBS. I always felt like shit my entire life, that was the norm for me until I found Yoga. Anyone can feel good, even people who have been diagnosed with chronic illness, even people who have been through traumatic events. Yoga can help us all feel good from within, despite what is happening around us.
- How did the unexpected death of Lesley Fightmaster impact your practice and teaching?
It broke my heart and I couldn’t teach or practice with her classes online for a long time. Lesley died in 2020, during covid, while I was pregnant with my first baby and trapped in an abusive relationship with a psychotic man I had just met. I had a lot going on at the time, and I was completely broken as a person. I never got to tell her that I was pregnant, and I really needed her guidance at that time.
While I was pregnant I took an online certification in prenatal Yoga and spent all my time creating a yoga membership website for pregnant women. I spent so much time and effort creating it, but everyone in my life told me I was being irresponsible and that I needed to get a “real job”
No one believe in me, and I ended up deleting all of my hard work-which I really regret.
Lesley always believed in me, she would have encouraged me to keep going.
- Could you describe the vision and goals behind Yoga Mama Café, and how you see it impacting women and single mothers?
Yoga Mama Cafe is a global wellness community with locations all over the world! Each location will have a Yoga shala for Yoga & other wellness classes, childcare on site, coworking spaces, a cozy cafe and optional coliving. A safe space for women to connect with each other, heal, grow, and create their dreams together. Members can visit any location and either come for a yoga class, to get some work done in our coworking space while their children play in our childcare, or stay for awhile in one of our rooms or apartments. Single mothers in need will get free membership to help them become independent in a safe space that supports their unique dreams. I need a space like this to exist, and it doesn’t so I am creating it. Applications are open for memberships and I am always open to anyone who wants to help me bring this dream to life, please reach out!
- What were some of the most challenging moments you faced while escaping your abusive relationship and caring for your daughters?
I never would have left my abuser if it wasn’t for my daughters, and he would have killed me. It started with emotional & mental abuse, he learned everything about me and than used it all against me to break me down piece by piece. I was no longer myself, by a shell of a person, completely numb. After my oldest daughter was born, he got kicked out of my parents house for being insane and we went with him. We started living in motels in NYC and that is when he started beating me.
The worst part is I used to train in martial arts with men all over the world, I knew how to defend myself. But I was so broken that I didn’t do anything, I just took it. He ended up destroying my computer, literally ripping it into pieces because he didn’t want me to work online.
We ended up in a homeless shelter in Washington DC, where I got pregnant again but he did not stop hurting me in every way.
I was convinced I deserved it, that it was my fault. I wouldn’t even react or respond when he started yelling and hitting me. I would just sit there in silence and wait for it to be over.
It wasn’t until my youngest daughter was 3 weeks old, my oldest just over a year. The three of us were sitting on my bed, my newborn was asleep and my oldest was awake watching him scream at me complete nonsense. He woke up angry so I knew this time that I really hadn’t done anything to trigger this, and he attacked me with my babies right next to me.
He easily could have hurt them, I didn’t care that he was hurting me, but when I realized he could hurt them to and I was powerless to stop him I finally called the police.
I told them what he had done that morning, not even the worst thing he had done to me by far, and he was arrested. We haven’t seen him since, I have full custody.
It’s been over two years and I have healed from that relationship and am creating a beautiful life for my daughters & I. By working for myself online I can stay home with my daughters 24/7 and spend all my time with them.
Before I met my abusive ex, I was solo traveling around the world full time and living my absolute best life. I am working towards making enough money to have my own home for my daughters & I (we live with family) and to start traveling around the world with them ASAP
- What are some strategies you use to maintain your mental health and well-being while managing your business and parenting two toddlers?
Yoga!! My yoga practice is essential as a work from home single mother, caring for 2 toddlers on my own 24/7. I prioritize sleep over trying to wake up early and have the perfect morning routine. Incorporating my daughters into my yoga practice, and having them practice with me helps all of us feel good throughout the day. My practice looks a lot different now, than before having kids. Sometimes we sit and stretch, sometimes we have a dance party, and sometimes I become their jungle gym!
When my girls are struggling with big emotions, I always tell them to take deep breaths. Now they don’t always listen, and they do still have tantrums because they are toddlers. Whenever I start to lose my cool, my oldest will look me in the eyes an say “Mama, deep breaths” and she will sit with me and take deep breathes with me-like I do with her!
Being a mother is so beautiful and it amazes me how intelligent and kind my children can be.
- Can you talk about the process of healing from trauma and grounding back into reality after your experiences?
It definitely took time and practice, because I was SO disconnected from reality. My abuser had created a completely false reality that I was trapped inside of, and when he finally went to jail and I stopped having contact with I’m it was like I could breathe again after 2 years under water. Being present in my daily life, spending a lot of time in nature (touching Earth) and reconnecting with myself through yoga is what healed me.
Reconnecting with friends (because I wasn’t allowed to have friends when I was with him) also helped me process and release the trauma. I discovered a lot of women I know had similar experiences and understanding the patterns that all abusers do helped me understand what happened to me and that it was not my fault.
- What motivates you to keep pushing forward despite the challenges you’ve faced?
My daughters. Without them I would have given up on life, and when I was with my ex I thought about leaving Earth all the time. I did not want to be alive anymore, and I had accepted that one day he was going to take it too far and kill me. It was so unimaginably dark for so long.
But I know that life can be beautiful and there are wonderful people in the world. I have been so happy and lived so free and I know I can get back to that place.
My daughters deserve a beautiful life, without struggling to survive and I am the only person who can give that to them. My daughters will always have a safe, comfortable space to truly be themselves – and right now I am that space for them. But I want us to actually have a place in this world, so even without me they will be able to do anything they want to and live however they want. Everyone deserves that.
- What message or lesson do you hope to share with others through your work and personal story?
Every one of us has unique and incredible dreams for their life, and I truly believe that we are given these dreams because they are meant for us. Anything you dream of is possible for you, and the world needs you to create it.
The challenges you face add depth and beauty to your life, but you do not need to struggle to have joy and freedom and love.
We all deserve to be happy, we all deserve peace, and we all have the power to do anything we truly want.
Lean into yourself, listen to your intuition, all of the answers you are looking for are already inside of you and through meditation (the goal of yoga) you can discover everything you need to know to get to that beautiful dream life that is inside of you.
IG: @bryayoga and @yogamamacafe
W: BryaaYoga.com
