Working in Yoga

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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Working In Yoga Website

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Erin’s Website

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Midwest Yoga Conference

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.

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

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Buy The Book

Harriett’s Website

Theo’s Website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

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.

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

Cory’s Website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

There is something special when we take folks out of their own lives and to a new place.

This week on the podcast I got the chance to talk with The Himalayan Institute’s Ransom Hare, who runs their retreat program, and we had the best time chatting.

Ransom talks to us about what they do to get alleviate all those travel worries and jitters that folks have when they travel, what our role is in their experience, and so much more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*When traveling, you are creating an experience for your students who come with you.  So thinking about how you build that for folks who are traveling with you is key.  As Ransom said, the Himalayan Institute utilizes tech before their trips to get through the awkward conversations that happen with folks where they don’t get to know each other, and this is just one of many ways you can do this.  It could be encouraging people to write everyone else a letter, meeting online, or having some “get to know you” questions passed around before the trip.  

*I love that the HI uses online platforms to connect people who are coming together for a travel experience.  This is so innovative, and I think we can all take note of this idea and find our own version of it for travel and conference experiences we are creating.

*Energy exchange is something I talk about a lot in real life when I am chatting with people about business.  In an ideal world, we are putting in the same amount of energy as our clients & students–so we put in effort to get them into our business and on our retreats, and they meet us with your financial resources, time, and effort.  Keep this in mind when you are doing “customer service” in experiences.  Have you put in the appropriate amount of effort to match your clients or students?  Is the reverse true?  

*Figuring out how to manage tension is a big topic in yoga, business, travel, social justice, and other spaces.  How are you able to be the calm and manage your own tension in times when your students are feeling frustrated or ill at ease?  This is something I actually think we don’t train for enough–can we respond to our clients, students, and co-workers with calm and ease; or is our habit to offset our tension to make other people feel badly?  

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

Himayalan Institute’s Website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

Have you ever been curious about presenting at a conference?

Wanted to know what event planners are looking for, want you to know, and what to steer clear of?

Amy Zellmer, conference coordinator and owner of Midwest Yoga + Life Magazine answers all this and more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

*The best part of event planning is that you get to hang out with other people who have the same job that you do.  This is one of my favorite things about conferences and festivals.  

*Themes are useful, especially if you are trying to curate a specific kind of experience for people  While having a theme is not required, it does help with decision-making.  

*If you are the organizer visualize how the flow of the event is going to go, and then reverse engineer how to get there.  You need to know your target audience, how they are going to move in the space, and what kinds of vendors you will have–if any, and where they will be set up.. 

*Want to present at a conference?  Here are the best tips: make sure you completely fill out the forms, and bring a little bit of yourself to the application too–details are important.  Organizers are looking for creative folks who are bringing something different than what they would normally see at a typical studio event.

*Put something personal in your bio, because that makes people feel like they know you a little bit better.  

*Being a participant in the event that you are teaching in also makes a big difference.  If you are introverted like I am, I totally understand if you are flinching right now–but conferences are the time to interact and connect.  When you go home, have your heavy blankets and dark room ready–you will have fun chatting and participating all weekend long, I promise.

*And finally, Pitching for magazines are similar to pitching for conferences.  Follow the instructions, have a catchy pitch, and meet your deadlines.  The thing is this: if you are easy to work with there is a huge advantage for the event coordinators.  You’ll get asked back, and that’s the goal.

RESOURCES

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Working In Yoga Website

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Amy’s Website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

Admit it, you’ve probably at least thought once or twice about taking your yoga students on a retreat.

Where would you go?

Costa Rica? Puerto Rico? California? Italy?

Maybe somewhere closer for you like a state park or nature sanctuary.

This week we chat with travel expert Heather Horrell about what it takes to organize wellness travel, what trends she is seeing, and so much more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

*Wellness travel is booming right now, and looks to be for the foreseeable future.  If travel is a part of your business plan or career dreams, consider really diving into what that dream might look like in reality.

*The guilt about selling this ideal of the epitome of wellness while also not being a part of it anymore is something I think is a huge issue within our industry. “You are selling something you no longer are” is something that Heather said that really resonated with me.

To me this is akin to hearing spiritual leaders describe a crisis of faith.  And it is totally normal.  See out guidance or take a break if you can and need to.

*Studios are great places to foster wellness travel and community.  I know so many studios that have retreats, within their country and internationally, as a part of their offerings.

*Being more local is going to be a trend this season, and I suspect for the next couple of years.  If you are conscious of folks’ pocketbooks and the accessibility of travel for most people, I understand that–Heather and I both agree that this is a big discussion.  But seeing if you can host events that are more easily accessible by car or train is a good option, and also having discounted rates, sponsored spots, and other opportunities for discounted rates (like volunteer spots) are great ways to make your adventures more accessible to lots of people.  

*Creating experiences is another theme throughout this series.  In the last of this series I talk with the lead for the travel team from the Himalayan Institute, which has had a long history of travel tourism as an organization.  If this topic interests you, take notes from our guests this season, Heather, Amy and Ransom about how you can create experiences for your own community.

*Finally, start small!  You don’t need to book that trip to Costa Rica right away, you can take a trip to a Botanical Garden near you, that cute little tourist town an hour away, or rent some cabins in the woods for the night.  There are so many ways you can create community and connection while traveling, and you don’t need to go far.

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

Heather’s Facebook Group

Heather’s Website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

8 Guests. Tons of words of wisdom. A mini-lesson on white supremacy.

That’s what I call a series.

This episode takes clips from each episode and guides you through the small changes, experiences, and big-picture ideas that made this series so special.

A huge thanks to all of my guests: Dr. Shyam Ranganathan, Ann Swanson, Colin Hall, Daniel Simpson, Steff Gallante, Pooja Virani, Tristan Katz, and Colice Sanders.

Y’all are the coolest people I know.

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

EXTRAS

White Supremacy Culture website

I had a question that was bothering me.

From episode one of this series (w/ Dr. Shyam Ranganathan) I have been asking and chatting about how we are holding our own activist and change-maker selves to perfectionist standards.

So decided to end this series with an expert here to answer that question.

Enter Colice Sanders to the chat. The covers so much about the history of white supremacy, why it matters, and brings up new things for us all to think about.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

*Langauge matters.  I am a huge fan of defining terms, and Colice is too.  Making sure you are precise in your definitions and terms can help communicate, clarify, and overall understanding.  Colice defines a lot of terms for us in this podcast, so take note and use those terms wisely.

*White supremacy and white culture is something we rarely talk about.  It manifests in our culture in things like individualism vs. collectivism, perfectionism, hoarding of power, and other ways.  Colice goes over the whole list, and take a listen back and take notes.

*Awareness.  We are aware.  This is one of my favorite points she brings up.  Often we justify being unkind to people, especially online, for the sake of awareness.  Consider that awareness isn’t the issue, but our lack of focused and impactful action especially in our communities that is where we are truly missing the mark.

*Using perfectionism to police each other in yoga and social justice space is just the worst.  If you have ever felt guilty or shamed for how you show up remember two things.  1. They aren’t the cops.  And even if they are we don’t talk to cops.  2. Perhaps someone said something that you do need to think about, so don’t dismiss all critique out of hand, but take a few moments to separate what you need to learn from what made you feel bad.  

You are not a bad person if you are learning, and the fact that you are learning also doesn’t give other people carte blanche to shame you into submission about your thoughts and feelings.  Both of those things can be true at the same time.

*Colice’s example about social-justice-focused tourism and missionary work was so spot-on.  We do this sort of travel and tourism in the yoga space, so let’s rethink our “good intentions” and consider giving people a meaning and purpose that extends beyond doing one thing for a short period and then going back to our regular lives.  We can support people locally, be environmentally conscious at home, and support folks who are unhoused in our communities all the time–and yoga spaces can become hubs for those things to happen.

*Moral superiority seeps into a lot of our lives.  How have *you* felt morally superior in ways that have been detrimental to your health and life?  I have said 100 times this season that I love to be right, which is moral superiority’s younger cousin.  It is worth a moment’s thought about what makes you feel superior—food? Movement? Spiritual calm? As good as any of those things can be, they can also take a turn into making us feel better than other people in a way that harms and doesn’t help.

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

Colice’s Website

White Supremacy Culture website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

Marketing in the yoga space makes me actively cringe sometimes.

When I venture outside my very tightly curated algorithm, I find a whole world of matching athleisurewear sets, “quick tips for the best down-dog”, handstand tutorials, and a whole lot of things that don’t make me think of the rich and nurturing practice of yoga that I have come to love.

But is that what we need in order to market ourselves in this current yoga space?

Tristan Katz slides into the chat with the best marketing advice ever. I can’t wait for you to hear it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Marketing and experiences need to match.  If you are marketing your business or studio, make sure there is congruence between the two.  Nobody wants to come into a yoga class or space thinking it is one thing and getting another.  And if you feel like you need to do things in order to market your business that aren’t exactly “you”, well you don’t.  I promise.

*Everything we do that communicates with our customers is marketing.  The signs, the social media, the value statements–that is marketing.  When you talk about how hard it is to run a business, or get students, that is also marketing.  I am big fan of the idea that marketing is like trying to get laid.  Make sure there is enthusiastic consent in all things and marketing and business get a lot more fun.

*Check boxes to be a good person from anyone is marketing.  Consider using stories and relating to people instead of the “5 ways to improve ” type strategy that the 2010s made so popular online.  

*Please consider marketing like building Relationships vs. trying to make transactions.  There are a lot of things you could quote from marketing terminology, for example the “know, like, & trust factor”, but essentially it is just nicer to build relationships than it is to see people as transactions.

*Finding your voice as a teacher is a lot like finding your voice as a marketer.  Start with asking yourself the question, “is there something I am always talking about?” regarding yoga and see where that thread leads you.  It is an excellent place to start.

*We’re not selling widgets, this is yoga and we should be approaching marketing yoga with as much grace, joy, and humanity as we approach everything else.  

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

Tristan’s Website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

This is the conversation I didn’t know I needed.

Productivity is such a huge part of who we are, and that feels like it goes double for those of us who work for ourselves, which is a lot of us in the yoga space.

So Pooja Virani is back, and she and I talk all about what it means to be productive.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

-Perfectionism and Productivity are both facets of white supremacy.  As I said in the podcast, we will cover this more extensively in a couple of weeks, but for now just know that while the term “white supremacy” may seem like an intimidating term it is really just a system that puts one ideal, person or way of being above the others.  

-Who are your rest role models?  Our sponsor, Sunlight Streams has an entire blog asking this question and it is a good one.  Who do you look to when you are thinking about people who have a good balance between productivity and rest?

-All of us, seriously all of us, struggle with the balance of feeling like you need to always be doing things–or feeling guilty because we aren’t doing the things.  I know I can’t say this enough times, but especially in the wellness space we need to be cognizant of the fact that we hold ourselves to a higher standard than we hold other people.  Let’s instead pour ourselves the largest cup of grace that we can and understand that while we have the skills and knowledge to do more, that we are human.  

-Look.  It is okay to be sick of yoga.  We are so desperate for boundaries around yoga as your job/yoga as your practice in this profession.  What we seem to espouse is something that most people can’t actually achieve.  It is normal to get sick, and we are normal people.  I realize that optimal health is our goal, but people get colds. 

-Progress does not have to happen in only one way.  That is my favorite quote of Pooja’s in this episode. I think it is important to highlight this idea as we go forward to create the profession we all want to be a part of.  Our career paths are different.  Our objectives, ideals, and production is different.  But we are all in service of Yoga.    

-You are already doing enough.  Full stop.  No exceptions, no reasons why not. One of the marketing campaigns I started at my studio in the month of February was “You already got an A+ for the week” and we are doing it every Monday morning.  This was inspired from a conversation I had with a teacher at the studio, where we realized we all just need to hear that we are already doing A+ work, and you don’t need to grind hard all week to get it.  

-Our industry can come together to model a better way of working, I truly believe this.  We are equipped with tools that other industries don’t have. We already talk about physical and mental health and mindset in ways that other jobs and businesses don’t.  So lets commit to figuring out healthy ways for us to work and be productive.  It doesn’t need to be perfect.  

RESOURCES

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

Pooja’s Website

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Sunlight Streams Blog

Sunlight Apothecary

EXTRAS

White Supremacy Culture website

Nap Ministry