Meet n’ Greet with Zoe Mantarakis

April 18, 2011 by Taylor Hengen Newman of alt-mama.com
Filed under Austin (central), Austin (downtown), Community

Zoe Mantarakis has seen Austin’s yoga community explode over the twelve years that she’s lived, practiced and taught here. She arrived—after growing up in LA, majoring in philosophy at Berkeley and living briefly in New York— with a regular yoga practice under her mentor, Brigitte Snyder. Like most one-time coastal transplants, Mantakaris is now proud to call herself a true Austinite, and she’s earned her local stripes. Along with serving as Yoga Director at Pure Austin, teaching Vinyasa classes at Yoga Vida (where she’s known as a “rock star” among students), and leading yoga retreats out in Marfa, Mantarakis collaborates with her friend DJ Manny to host Yoga After Dark—large-scale, annual yoga block parties—and other public yoga events.

How can one woman have so much in the mix, you ask? Mantarakis credits Austin itself. “This is a lifestyle city,” she says. “There’s lots of support for the kind of lifestyle that I want to live, and a lot of like-minded people that want to live that lifestyle. It feels like everything is supportable here.” She notes that Austin’s growth—and surge of interest in yoga—has meant that she can bring yoga to its sub-communities. “You can cater to a college crowd, or a mama crowd, and fill a class like that.” In fact, Mantarakis, a single mom of two, says that “Being a mom here has been an effortless transition. My yoga didn’t stop.” She adds, “I noticed other moms didn’t want theirs to stop either.” So when Yoga Vida’s owners approached her about teaching a class just for moms, she jumped on it.

Zoe teaches the class at the studio’s downtown location on Tuesdays while another yogi-mom leads on Thursdays. While moms bring their tots—toys are strewn around the room to keep them entertained— the class is not a mom-baby yoga class in that the kids aren’t incorporated into the yoga itself. “Reaching the moms is what interests me,” she says. “Watching their moms do yoga is also a cool thing for kids to witness. They have fun during the class, but they also get to experience ‘I’m not the center of attention right now.’ I think it works. My own children do give me some ounce of respect sometimes—‘mama’s meditating… shhhh’— they get it.”

It’s not all peace and quiet in Mantarakis’ world, though, and she wouldn’t want it that way. In fact, her next big event– called Boom Boom Pow! and coming up on April 22 at Castle Hill Yoga (book your babysitters now, people!)— will kick off with Vinyasa Flow yoga set to phat beats, followed by a dance party, complete with food and drink. Mantarakis sees Austin’s nightlife and party scene as as natural a pairing with yoga as the city’s mom culture; “This collaboration with DJ Manny”— who was initially one of Mantarakis’ students, and now spins at the duo’s collaborative events—“just naturally evolved out of our friendship. He gets it, is the bottom line. He’s looking at it as also being a yogi; the music moves people.” Austin appears to get it, too; Boom Boom Pow! will be the duo’s sixth such collaboration, and the events have grown to attract sizeable crowds (one brought 500 people out) as well as sponsorships; Luna Bar and Red Bull will be part of the Boom Boom Pow! party, as will local businesses Yummy Living Foods and Castle Hill Foods’ Fitness Café.

Looking forward, Mantarakis plans to continue teaching and hosting large-scale events, and hopes to travel the conference circuit (she’s already gotten a taste for it, having taught for two years in a row at the Texas Yoga Conference). She’ll continue to take yoga wherever her life takes her, and vice versa; from partenthood to the party scene, Mantarakis twists and bends effortlessly among niches, forming bridges between them. “It’s me,” she shrugs. “This is how my life is. I do it because it’s fun.”