Working in Yoga

This one is a personal conversation between friends.

Shannon and I have a hard conversation together, and talk about how you can have conversations with friends too.

This is one of my favorite conversations ever, and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*There are a lot of ways to have a hard conversation.  But don’t take for granted the powerful act of having hard conversations with your friends.  Friends are folks with whom you prioritize your connection over self-serving things.  People you are friendly with, don’t hold the same weight.  

For example:  you can be friends with your cousin.  But the relationship you should have with your boss is “Friendly”

*Hard conversations, and social justice conversations, belong in yoga.  There is a lot of discourse in our industry around this, and amazing folks like Anjali Rao have been on the podcast talking about this very thing.  But consider also this: if yoga can be a process of knowing yourself and knowing others, then hard conversations are a part of that.

*Consent in conversations is an absolute must.  Everyone needs to be consensual for conversations to flourish–and pushing other people into conversations, or expecting everyone to respond to things that are top of your mind isn’t appropriate.  These conversations can be had in yoga spaces, but only when everyone is an enthusiastic yes.  We all have more fun when that happens.

*Change happens in the quiet.  I know I have said that before, but it is worth repeating. If you want change to happen don’t just show up shouting.  Show up to write the permit, arrange the transport, and apply for the grant.  

*What is your relationship with social media?  As I said, I use social media exclusively for business.  I have primarily yoga conversations on quite literally all of my channels.  But maybe you use social media differently.  Please make sure you are conscientious about it, and don’t feel pressured to perform on social if that isn’t how you show up.  

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Find Taylor Casey

How we train the next generation of yoga teachers is one of the most important conversations I think we can have as an industry.

This series on the podcast has covered a lot of ground talking to experts from all over the world about their thoughts on YTTs.

And this, our final interview, is with a person whose expertise is in the actual training of teachers.

Leslie Pearlman is on the week, and what she has to say is the best.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*How many times in this series can I say this?  But yoga studios train, a lot of the time, because they need teachers who work like they do.  Who understand their point of view in  yoga.  It isn’t because they need the money, necessarily.

*Being a great yoga teacher does not mean you are a great teacher trainer.  Leading people through trainings is a skillset that is different than being a person who is amazing at leading a class.

*Transferable skills from training to be a yoga teacher to doing other things in life are something we don’t talk often about.  But really, the things you learn about teaching yoga are things you can take out in your real life. You will be a better communicator from teaching yoga—and that can happen in all places in your life.

*Who are you being?  As the yoga teacher and space holder?  This is such a good question.  How do you show up when you are teaching yoga?  Leslie identifies this as a crucial question—and I think she is correct.  We need to be intentional about who we are as a teacher, and who we are in life as well.

*The phrase “listen to your body” is a setup for failure without the accompanying skills of learning how to do that skillfully.

*Mentorship matters.  Leslie talks about an ascension model in her studio:  essentially—where are your people going to go next?  And I think mentoring skillfully needs to be part of the future of our industry.  Do you need a mentor?  Could you be a mentor?  I want to talk a lot more about this on the podcast in 2025, so stay tuned.  We are going to get into it.

*Hybrid teaching is the way of our future for so many things.  What skillsets do you need to improve to be more comfortable in this way of teaching?

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One perspective I wanted to make sure we had during this conversation series around YTTs was the longtime trainer and studio owner.

And I could not have gotten a better match than Stephanie Adams. Stephanie started SAYF, or The Sustainable Asana Yoga Foundation—and has been training folks for over a decade.

Stephanie has lots of wisdom to share from her years of teaching and training, so take a listen to find out more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*What do we think about Stephanie’s point about trainers needing to teach their own material?  She is the first person who I have heard say this outright–and I agree with her.  If you are invested enough in the act of training other yoga professionals, shouldn’t we require that you make your own content?  Do you agree or not?  Let me know!

*Pre-recorded-only trainings are a challenge for us as an industry–especially if you take this job seriously.  I have now contacted ½ a dozen “online-pre-recorded” programs to ask if they would talk to me about how they measure the outcomes and skillsets of their students, and while I came close, nobody actually would speak with me.  

*Spending time training together is a little bit of magic, let’s just say that now.  And I sometimes think we don’t appreciate what Stephanie calls a “life pattern interrupt” can do for the nervous system, the brain, and the heart.  We do that, friends.  In fact, it might be the best thing we do when we offer those sorts of experiences to other people.

*This is another great point Stephanie made, which is an offshoot of what I have been saying for this whole series.  There is not a ton of money to be made in studios when we train.  And a lot of our experienced trainers have moved on to other parts of the profession because they are more financially lucrative.  This is a shame.  We need our best and brightest training for the next generation of yoga pros–don’t you think?

*Teaching online is a new skill set we didn’t need to train folks for prior to 2020.  We need to have MUCH more discussion about what the best practices are for yoga teaching online, and I am looking forward to it in the future.

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Have you ever wondered how on Earth we got here?

How did we get 200 hours? Who started all this?

Amara Miller has the answers. Take a listen.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Knowing where we can go to in the future depends greatly upon understanding our where we came from.  The Yoga Alliance started in 1999 as a solution to a problem, and was not initially set forth to monetize yoga in the way we see today.  So treating them as an evil eye organization right from the start simply isn’t true.  The original intent landed more in the realm of making sure that students were safe and assuring people were somewhat well trained as yoga teachers.

*Nobody could have been prepared for the influx of money into the yoga industry that happened in the late 00s and teens.  We simply were not prepared to professionalize and deal with the money that all of a sudden was flowing around as things like ‘yoga pants’ became part of the American cultural lexicon.

*Did you know that the Yoga Alliance approved 100% virtual YTT programs as of this year?  What do you think about this?  Good, bad?  Something different?

*Because it was incredibly contentious in creating yoga teacher standards through the Yoga Alliance, the group of organizing people decided to work through an hours model vs. a core curriculum model.  

*Counter culture played a significant role in getting us to where we are today as an industry.  A lot of folks, myself included, loved the idea that yoga was outside the box and not everyone participated.  I have, in real life in the last 24 months, been on calls with people who were still reminiscing about what it was like to practice in NYC in the 90s next to Madonna and Sting.  Yoga was, where the cool kids were.  And that attitude informed how we organized ourselves, and I think still does today.

*Finally, lets talk about unions.  For those of us who are North America, have you ever thought about what it means to be unionized?  Or to help start a new professional organization?  I want to plant these seeds how so that when it is time for us to collectively organize ourselves again we can come together with fresh ideas and mindsets.

RESOURCES

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There is so much to dive into in regards to teacher trainings.

How long do we train for? Is our system working for us?

Are teacher training and deeper learning the same thing?

Should I run a “social justice” focused teacher training?

Anjali and I get into it all. Take a listen.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Training is a huge responsibility within the industry.  And we often have challenges that we need to address when we decide to run teacher training.  I have said this before on this series, but many times, people train because they are looking for qualified candidates to work at their studio.  Are these ideal conditions for training?  I don’t know, but it certainly isn’t the “my yoga studio can’t make it without training” story we are often telling amongst ourselves.

*I am SO glad Anjali brought this up.  Training yoga teachers and deepening your knowledge of yoga are not the same thing.  They should not be in the same program.  We need to offer a diverse menu of yoga knowledge enhancement options in our yoga studios–not just only group classes and YTTs.  I cannot say this enough times.

*So Anjali said something that I want to highlight.  It is this idea that a deep yoga practice is something you should “enjoy”.  She is right, a lot of yoga is groundbreaking and uncomfortable.  While the changes you create as a result of a deep yoga practice can be highly beneficial and enjoyable, the process is hard.  And we should be saying anything different.

*Hey friends.  I know saying things like “social justice” is a great way for you to attract certain people to your doorstep.  But there is disrespect at best, and danger at worst when we use the phrase social justice like a marketing term.  People deserve better.  The black, queer, and disabled communities we support deserve better.  Please stop. Thank you so much.

*There is no checklist that makes you a good white person in yoga.  I am sorry if that is news.  But the willingness to have discussions, unpack your own privilege, and as Anjali asks “what else are you doing?” is a great place to start.

*This is another one of the things this series has mentioned constantly.  Mentorship.  If you are an experienced teacher please consider how you can mentor the next generation of yoga teachers so they can have a nurturing and supportive environment to learn the skillset of teaching yoga.

RESOURCES

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Why does it seem like nobody tells us what we got right?

Our culture, inside and outside the yoga space, seems to thrive on constant critique and “constructive criticism”.

But what are absolutely nailing?

I have an idea.

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Let’s talk fundamentals this week.

How can we improve our training, both individually and as an industry?

I find it super helpful to ask pros in other fields how they train, and what they are seeing in their movement profession—so that is what I did.

I asked Pilates instructor, studio owner, yoga teacher, former professional dancer, and altogether rad human Hannah Teutscher how she trains.

We got into the thick of things talking about creativity, building a box so you can think outside it, and more.

Take a listen.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Teacher training can be a good source of revenue, yes.  But, to all those who think that yoga studios train to keep their doors open–in large part, we don’t.  The hourly wage that most of us make training vs. working on other things or in our businesses is not what folks perceive it to be.  

*Lots of businesses train because they need workers.  This leads me to a primary question I want to answer in this series: what does it take for us to level up our expectations of trainings? and how should trainings work in general? Essentially, as I say in the podcast, we need to build a box.   HOW do we uplevel the industry’s training standards in such that way that only the people who are truly invested in trainings and feel called to serve the industry in that way sign up for shepherding the next generation of yoga teachers into our profession?

*Here it is: pedagogy again.  How do we teach people how to command a room?  Good question, eh?  How do you command a room yourself when you are teaching?  Is that a teachable skill?

*We create an atmosphere in a room when we teach.  As Hannah said “every good story has a beginning, middle, and an end.” and that is how most of us structure our classes.  But for those who are new to teaching we need to build a structure others can follow within how we teach.  What is your structure?  How do you think about teaching a class?

*OHMYGODITISNTJUSTUS!!  I don’t know why, but I found it very comforting that we are not the only movement modality that struggles with professionalization and standards.  There is something more to this thought process, and I would be curious what you think.  Why do movement modalities, in particular, struggle with this?  As I said, dentists aren’t out there questioning their scope of practice–they get that their gig is teeth.  Why do we struggle in this way?

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What do we need to actually know about anatomy?

Is sequencing really important?

Are there hard and fast rules about alignment, or is it all just a style preference?

Take a listen to my conversation with Erin Ehlers to find out.

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Yoga Teacher Trainings.

What do we love? What can we do without? What are we missing?

I asked two absolute gems of yoga professionals, Theo Wildcroft and Harriet McAtee to answer that question. They’ve collaborated for their new book The Yoga Teacher’s Survival Guide, and this conversation is a deep dive into what we love and need more of as we train yoga pros.

You’ll want to listen to every minute.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

*Friendships are important, and professional friendships are a sweet treat in our lives.  Whom have you met in your yoga teaching journey who has become an important part of your life?  If you are missing that aspect of your yoga professional practice make sure you find the time to connect locally or regionally through a workshop, continuing education course, or conference, or festival.  

*PEDAGOGY!!  It is a major theme throughout this series.  We aren’t teaching people best practices for how to teach.  This is a major challenge when you run into yoga teachers who don’t know how to run a room effectively, are unsure how to bring their own thoughts to life in a respectful and appropriate way, and make us look sloppy as a profession.  So please, consider not only what you teach in your yoga classes, but also how and why.

*If you aren’t being responsive to the people in the room whom you are with you, that isn’t teaching.  That is live-action repetition.  Now I think there is a place for that form of yoga performance or facilitation, but a skillful teacher is responding to the people in the room in real time with options, suggestions, and guidance.  This isn’t just yoga teaching, this is true of teaching anything.  YouTube can replace us if all we are is repetition.  However, if we can answer the call of our students, even if they all have different needs, that is the best of teaching.  

*Accountability discussions are critical to how we operate within our industry space. Not only should we hold ourselves accountable, but we should also hold the institutions that represent us accountable.  We all get better if we own what we need to improve upon and look to our community to help shift in the right direction.

*Yoga exists in the world, and as a result can be used to reinforce oppressive systems like hetero-normative patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism.  Our investment in deconstructing those systems for *ourselves first* is our primary action not to be part of this challenge.

*Yoga = Union or Yoga is a liberation practice are two “lost in translation” ideas within our modern yoga space.  Liberation from life is different than liberation from the landlord, (unfortunately, if you ask me but whatever).   

*How can you draw in more subtlety and simplicity to your teaching?  That is a question we can all ask ourselves.  If you normally teach 25 or 30 poses in a class, what does a class look like if you only teach 12 but discuss nuance and experience within that frame?  How can you still teach “yoga” if you aren’t so reliant on the constant movement of quick-paced asana?

*Language matters.  How we speak about our poses, our body experiences, somatic movement, and the words we use to make people feel comfortable and interested in their bodies and brains is important to consider. Ask yourself If they make sense, if they are welcoming, and–and this one is one we don’t talk about a lot, if they are clear and easy to understand and process for others.

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So many of the tasks we consider to be difficult in business are just building, maintaining, and creating boundaries around our relationships.

Our marketing is a relationship with the people who follow us.

Our managing is relationship building with our teams & colleagues.

And the law helps us create boundaries around our relationships.

This week on the podcast Cory Sterling talks about things we should think about, legally speaking, when we talk about both retreats and yoga teacher training programs.

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