Universal Appeal
After months of dealing with licensing issues, construction delays, rumours and misinformation, Univeral Yoga has finally opened, offering an extensive range of classes and a tranquil retreat for meditation and harmony.
If ever a businessperson had to practice what they preached, it must be Torey Lee Farmer, Managing Director of the recently opened Universal Yoga.
For the past six months while establishing her business, she has managed to deal with a level of stress and frustration that would’ve had most of us pulling our hair out and jumping up and down screaming.
“If I hadn’t been practicing my own meditation, I could never have done it, it would never have happened”, says Farmer. “Yoga is very good for sitting down and observing and being aware and being a witness to what is happening. You look at your reality like it’s on TV, so you’re not affected by it in that space. So then you’re able to make more conscious and clear choices”, she explains.
And it seems to have worked. Amazingly, Torey exudes an aura of total calm and composure as she shows us around her expansive new premises. Elegantly minimal in its design, Universal Yoga is finally living up to its potential as a high quality facility for health and relaxation, now that it has managed to open its doors. But reaching this point of apparent serenity has not been easy.
“Macau has given us a lot of obstacles”, says Farmer finally revealing a little of the frustration she has felt since the beginning of the year in her efforts to establish the business here.
“But I would like to say one thing, that is I really believe that you should never go into a new country or a new place thinking that you know it all. You really have to step back, observe and try to change and flow and move with it”, she comments. This is a lesson that Farmer has learned from experience and not just in Macau. Over the years she has assisted opening a number of similar operations in Taiwan, Korea and Singapore. She was one of the original co-founders and director of fitness for California Fitness in the Hong Kong, and also a founder for Planet Yoga in Hong Kong.
So she is no stranger to the complexities and challenges to be faced when establishing a business, particularly in Asia.
Macau however, in perhaps typical form, managed to provide its own very unique set of issues.
Torey, a former body builder, personal trainer, yoga instructor and nutritionist, began investigating the potential of a Macau operation in February 2007 and obtained her business license just a few months later in May. Her original plan was to have a soft opening in January 2008, with the official operations commencing after the Chinese New Year holidays.
However problems with obtaining a license for the construction of the project caused major delays.
“One week before we were supposed to get approval for our construction permit, the Public Works Department told us that it wasn’t going to be approved because they didn’t have all the proper paper work yet.” recalls Torey.
“I had engaged a licensing consultant, and was under the complete impression that they were handling things with professionalism, and they were not”.
It turned out that the consultancy company hired by Farmer to handle the paper work and licensing application with the Public Works Department had failed to provide the correct documents, despite the fact that she had handed over what the consultant had required.
“I had to show them (Public Works Department) that the consultant hadn’t done their job properly and actually they were very, very helpful”, praises Torey. “They provided me with the information and avenues to make sure we corrected everything, and what should have taken another three months, only took us three weeks”, she adds.
Ditching the old Hong Kong based consultancy firm, Farmer turned to locals for help.
“I found some local people, some very, very honest, hardworking, trustworthy Portuguese and Macanese people and they helped us move everything in the right direction”, she comments.
Not surprisingly, Torey also has a lot of praise for the Public Works Department and contends that without their help, the venture may have been in dire straits.
“I offer my heartfelt thanks to the Public Works Department for their understanding and patience and for showing us the way to go through to get the proper licensing, because if they didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have been able to complete the project,” she complements.
No doubt some very welcome, positive feedback for the much embattled government department.
Her advice for anyone coming to Macau to open a business is to “find a local law firm and hook up with them. You may spend a bit of money, but it’s worth every cent. I hooked up with C&C law firm about half way through, and I wish I had hired them from the beginning”.
Unfortunately for Torey, her troubles were not over yet. The licensing issues still ended up causing a complete stop to all construction work for six weeks and putting her even further behind schedule.
Consequently, a small number of clients became disgruntled and began demanding their money back.
If Farmer has only good things to say about the Public Works Department, she is less impressed with the actions of the Consumer Affairs Council.
“I really believe that when a person is in a position of power, they need to be so careful, because they can make or break someone without understanding the full picture”, she observes. “You know it could have taken us down”.
Torey is referring to a series of incidents and a meeting involving the Consumer Council which ultimately resulted in them posting a notice on their official website stating that the business was in fact not going to open, a claim she strongly denies was ever the case.
“They made it out that we were going to take their money and leave”, she says. “The rumours that we weren’t going to open were being fuelled by the Consumer Council. I can’t honestly say why they did that”.
At the time of the first and only meeting with the Consumer Council, Farmer recalls that only a handful of members had asked for their money back. In response she explained to them the delays and asked them to be patient.
“At the meeting, I was speaking in English, and my attorney was speaking Portuguese to a translator who translated into Chinese”, recalls Farmer.
“Then I found out later that Alexander Ho speaks English, so I tried to call him and set up a meeting to work things out”.
Those requests fell on deaf ears, and instead the Consumer Council gave Farmer 15 days to present evidence to show what she was doing with her clients, any correspondence she had sent, and details of the free classes she was going to offer.
“But before the two week term was up, they issued a press release to the print media and TV, and asked people if they had complaints to please come to us and we’ll help you take them to court and we’ll do whatever we have to do”.
From this came around 60 complaints, although a second press release from the council claimed the number was over 100. Interestingly, of those 60 complaints, Torey says that some 30 of those people are now enjoying classes at Universal Yoga, and some of them were even taking part in the free classes being offered in a studio in Taipa, during the delay period.
“We have been offering our members free classes in Taipa since April 15”, notes Farmer, “and even though we opened on May 27, we didn’t start charging membership until June 15, so we are trying!” she adds.
These troubles behind her, Torey is now looking forward to achieving her goal for the centre, which is to create a positive difference in peoples’ lives.
Universal Yoga currently has four studios in operation with a total of six to come on line by the end of the year, and covers a staggering 26,000 square feet, one complete level of the Macau Square building. Classes run from 7am to 11pm to accommodate nearly any timetable. The centre offers meditation classes, and has a qualified osteopath, as well as a VIP area, steam room and sauna, and planned retail store.
There are classes for pretty much any taste. From gentle yoga to jiu-jitsu, the Brazilian martial art form of Capoeira to Bollywood style Indian fusion dance, and even hip hop break dancing classes, Universal offers it all. And the list goes on: hot yoga, yoga therapy, power yoga, something for every level.
