Dear Yin Yoga Teacher- Please Shut Up

 

YYP-2 dear Yoga teacher please shut up

[00:00:00] Hi Yanis and welcome back to a Yin Yoga podcast. just a heads up if you’re watching this on YouTube and did you know, dear listener, that you can watch these full unedited videos on YouTube? It’s true. There’ll be a link somewhere, wherever you’re listening to this in the notes. But if you are watching this on YouTube, I have some notes again to keep me on track.

 So if you see me looking up and down, that’s why. So welcome to those of you that are new around here. Welcome to a yoga podcast. I’m your host, Nick Danu. I am a yoga therapist, yin yoga, teacher, trainer, yin yoga, business mentor. And I also teach the general public as well. And we’re going to do a bit of a solo episode today on a topic that, I see comes up a lot, , from teachers, but I also have experienced it in other yin classes.

So we’ll get to that in a moment. [00:01:00] But before we do that, just a heads up as well. If you are new around here, you can expect some adult language probably. So make sure if you have small people around you take a moment to grab some headphones. Now, and before we get into today’s episode. I just wanted to briefly mention my Yin training.

If you’re not aware that I have at the time of this recording, it’s a 60 plus hour therapeutic yin yoga training. It could be longer by the time you’re listening to this. I have a feeling it’s just going to grow and grow. And I wanted to just share a little bit of feedback that I got from one of my recent graduates on the training.

So this is from Anna Marie Keck and she says, I had some yin training in my 200 hour training. This course was much different. Now I have a very different perspective about the efforting in air quotes required or not [00:02:00] in yin, but I’m also more knowledgeable about sequencing and constructive rest, and I feel ready to teach yin yoga.

What I liked most about the course was the clarification of what yin is versus stereotypical views of yoga in general. For example, a student not being able to achieve a pose due to bone structure, not because they don’t practice enough. My biggest takeaway was the role of anatomy and interoception in yin yoga.

I would recommend this training to other yoga teachers. I wish we had more class time. One more weekend? I was sad to have the training end. as you are when you finish a good book. Thank you so much, Anna Marie, for your feedback. And I always wish that they were longer too. Can we just keep going forever, please?

Okay, so let’s talk about today’s episode. Today we are going to talk about talking, [00:03:00] how much talking to do in your classes. And what to do when you’re a newer teacher to yin and you feel this extreme discomfort when you’re not talking and you feel the need to fill the silence and why that’s probably not a good idea and some things that we could do instead.

Okay. So let’s get into today’s episode about talking in yoga. So when we are a yoga teacher that was trained in a more movement based form of yoga, which a lot of people start there and then find Yin. And so we often have said in other episodes, we tend to bring our suitcases or our baggage with us from whatever training we took into our Yin practice, right?

We take those things with us. And in a more movement based form of yoga, there is a little more talking that is needed, for sure. Although, although I will say, probably still too much talking, even in those forms of yoga. But there is more talking needed because you are guiding [00:04:00] people more quickly from one thing to the next thing.

So there needs to be some words to get them from A to B. In a yin form of yoga though, We are not moving quickly from one post to the other. So there’s a whole bunch of the words that you would normally use in a movement based practice that don’t actually need to be there.

When we’re a teacher that has moved from a movement form of yoga into a quieter form of yoga. There can be this awkward feeling about all the silence. There can be a discomfort with not talking as much and allowing space for quiet exploration. Sometimes this comes just from it being a habit from having taught a more movement form of yoga.

Sometimes this comes from the teacher’s own discomfort with quiet. So if you [00:05:00] as a teacher are not comfortable in quiet, how are you going to lead a space? where you’re asking other people to settle into quiet. So questions you could ask yourself as a teacher is how much time do you spend in quiet or in meditation practice?

Do you have a meditation practice? Learning to sit with and witness your own discomfort with silence. will help you here. Sometimes we talk too much because we’re nervous. So I did this. , even though I’d been teaching in for many years, I was moving my teaching into a new format and I started teaching, I’m no longer doing these, but some professional quality videos for an online platform.

And because I was super used to teaching rooms of people, I wasn’t used to teaching a video and because of a little bit of that uncertainty or nervousness with Instead [00:06:00] of being in person where I would talk a little and then I would look out at the room to see how my words had landed and is anybody uncomfortable, does anybody anything else need to be said, etc.

But when you’re teaching a video camera, you don’t have any of that. And so there is a video that recorded of me, where I’d say in the beginning that it’s an intermediate practice and that there’s going to be large spaces of silence. And then I proceed to prattle on through the whole fricking video. So I’m certainly not saying I haven’t done this.

We have to understand why we’re doing it and what we can do about it. So that’s another reason why teachers tend to kind of blip blip blip blip through the whole thing. It’s just nervousness. Sometimes it can be excitement with all the things you know, and wanting to share all the things. And so you overwhelm people with information.

So if it’s not a workshop, don’t need a lot of information. Sometimes this comes up when you start teaching and you [00:07:00] notice that little thing that’s kind of hard to put your finger on, but that there’s a vibe in the room. There’s a vibe of discomfort or tension. Maybe one or more student is really having trouble kind of settling into this more still quiet practice.

And there’s a lot of looking around the room and sighing and, you know, checking their watch and that kind of thing. So sometimes it’s the vibe of the room that Kind of causes us to feel like, Oh, I need to address this. I need to talk. And also sometimes the problem is that as teachers, we can somehow feel like we have to make everyone in the room comfortable, but that is not true. It is not your job, dear yoga teacher, to make everyone comfortable. Even if you’re teaching a trauma informed style of yoga, it is not your job to make everyone feel comfortable. [00:08:00] It is impossible for you to make everyone feel comfortable. So just take that burden off your shoulders.

It is not your job. None of that is true. Yoga in general, and especially yin yoga, is uncomfortable, especially if you’re new to it. But guess what’s on the other side of discomfort? Growth. People do not grow and heal and change and evolve as humans unless they first come up against a wall of discomfort.

And I’m talking about physical pain here to be very clear. I’m talking about mental emotional discomfort with the quietness in the space that has to be experienced in order for students to get on the other side of it. And so if you cut that process short, by as soon as they’re uncomfortable, filling that space with words, you’re never [00:09:00] allowing them to get to the other side of that discomfort.

And the other side of that discomfort is where the growth and the healing is. That is where the evolution is. It’s on the other side of our comfort zone. And so as teachers, we can think that we want to take this time in this class, these quieter classes like yin, because we feel like we have to make everyone comfortable.

And we feel like we need to fill the silence. We try to come up with a boatload of inspiring quotes or full on Dharma talks so that there isn’t silence in the practice. And I’m going to argue that when you do that, you are actually stealing from your students. You are stealing this experience of growth and healing that comes from the silence.

And so your intentions are good. Your intentions are pure. You want to make everybody happy. You [00:10:00] want to make everybody comfortable. You want them to love your classes so they keep coming back and they keep practicing yoga. I get it. I get all of that. But if you don’t allow a certain amount of discomfort, there’s no growth, there’s no healing.

And so if you talk through your whole class, you are stealing the opportunity from your students to dive deeper into their own experience, their physical, mental, and emotional experience.

So resist the urge to collect a boatload of inspiring quotes or come up with a Dharma talk. Now, if you’re doing a specific workshop on a theme, then there might be. Some Dharma talking that you want to do in the beginning, or if maybe you’re practicing with a group of experienced in students who no longer need the whole, Hey, here’s what happens in yin yoga, the new to yin speech, right?

You’re practicing with established people, maybe you can plant a few [00:11:00] seeds at the beginning. But then we have to drop into silence. So you might be hearing this and you might actually be like, Oh crap, I never occurred to me that I am taking an opportunity from my students away for their own growth and healing.

It probably didn’t occur to you because you were so busy trying to think about how to make them comfortable. So for example, a silly but clear example. When we’re learning to walk, as small people, it’s pretty fucking uncomfortable. We fall down, we scrape our little knees, we smack on our hands, we fall, we’re awkward, we’re ungraceful, we’re uncomfortable, and yet, we don’t just go, oh, well, that was uncomfortable.

I mean, I guess I’m not gonna learn to walk. No, we get up, we keep walking. Now imagine if a parent were to rush in there and go, oh, oh, oh, oh, sweet child. [00:12:00] Learning to walk is uncomfortable. You don’t need to learn to walk. I’ll just put you in this little thing with wheels so you can just motor around without ever having to learn to stand on your own two feet and find the balance to walk.

The idea is ludicrous, right? None of us would do that. And yet we’re doing that in our classes. We’re rushing in when a student feels uncomfortable going, Oh, sweet thing. Here, here, here, here. Just listen to my voice. Listen to my voice. Listen to my voice. Then you don’t have to settle into your body. You don’t have to notice that your mind is racing.

You don’t have to feel your anxiety. Just listen to me. This is what’s happening when you don’t allow for quiet. Okay. So. Then, what do we do when we feel uncomfortable as a teacher? We’re at the front of the room, we’ve got our practice, and we’re feeling that rush of the discomfort rising because it’s quiet and you don’t know what to do with yourself.[00:13:00] 

Well, there are some, some techniques that I’ll give you in just a moment that you could use. First, I want to say, though, I want to be really clear that I’m not saying that we don’t address the fact that silence and discomfort are part of this practice with our students. I actually think that’s incredibly skillful to mention that to say to our students, especially if there’s a lot of new folks to Yin, Hey, we’re going to have quiet time in this class.

And if you’re not used to quiet time, that can be uncomfortable. And you might notice that your mind is doing this and that and all the other things, right? I’m not saying that we don’t do that. That’s a great idea, actually. So I’m going to do this as a little bit of an example, just here live with you.

Two examples here. I’m going to stop talking for a brief amount of time and just notice what comes up for you.[00:14:00] 

Okay. That was less than one whole minute of silence. And I will bet you, especially those of you listening, because you didn’t have the stimula of watching my face. That there was a moment there where you were like, Oh, this is uncomfortable. Is something wrong? Did the recording stop? Why isn’t she talking?

Right? So there was a moment of discomfort. With the fact that I just suddenly stopped talking in an audio format. Here’s another thing to demonstrate how we could use this in our classes. Okay. So now what I’m going to do is, dear listener, I’m going to pause and stop talking [00:15:00] for a moment so that we can explore silence.

And then I’m going to tap my singing bowl as a way to bring you back out of the silence. So in a moment. You’re not going to hear from me for a bit.[00:16:00] 

Okay, was that different? Did you notice a difference between just sudden silence with no sort of introduction or [00:17:00] framework or noting of it in advance on my part, and then the difference between knowing that there was going to be silence because I told you we’re going to have silence and then I’m going to bring you back out with the bell.

It might have still been uncomfortable, especially in an audio format. These pauses. But I’m guessing that it was a little bit easier than the first one, one, because you’d already experienced the first one and two, because you knew what to expect. So this is why, especially when you have new students, brand newbies to yin, you can mention that, I’m going to do a little introduction into this practice so that you know what to expect.

And then we’re going to move into silence. So that they know what’s coming. You’re not just like talk, talk, talk, and then dead silence. Now I have done a whole episode on the mind and how we can guide our students with the mind and yin. So I’m not going to go into that in this episode, but I will link it in the show [00:18:00] notes.

And I’ve also done a whole episode on emotions as well. That one also might be helpful for you. As a teacher, if you’re listening to this and you want more practical tools on what we can do in these situations where the students might be, you know, just racing minds and or there might be an emotion coming up and you as the teacher are uncomfortable with it.

So, again, there’s this tendency to fill that space with a bunch of inspiring quotes or Dharma talks, and I would encourage you not to do that. But what do we do in the moment as a teacher when you feel that internal pull inside of you, that little knot that says, Oh, I need to say something. I need to get chatty.

I need to fill the space with words. Here’s what you can do. First witness that. Just sit with it and notice that, ah, okay. Coming up [00:19:00] within me is a desire to speak because I’m feeling uncomfortable. So just naming it, sitting with it and resist it. Ask yourself questions. Why am I so uncomfortable with silence?

Why do I feel the need to talk right now? Are my words truly going to contribute to this experience in this space? Or would maybe allowing the students to have their own internal experience be a bigger gift that I could offer them right now? So sitting with it, And witnessing it, resisting it, and then questioning yourself, because the only way to understand the why you feel this way and know what to do about it is to actually be curious enough about it to notice it.

Just like in a Yin pose, when you know, somebody is in a seated forward fold, you might be directing them to bring their [00:20:00] awareness to the fact that there’s sensation in their hamstrings perhaps. You can do the same thing at the front of the room, dear teacher. I am feeling this discomfort, this pull to start talking and talking and talking.

And I don’t want to do that. And I’m trying to work on that. So what can I do instead? Sit with it. Ground yourself. I like to place my hands on my heart. I find that very grounding. Feel free to borrow that idea. Witness it. Notice. Ah, okay. This is coming up again. Here I am feeling the need to start talking and then witness that.

Sit with it and resist it. Okay, so that’s first. First, you have to notice that it’s happening. You have to be able to sit with it and not do it and resist it, and then question it. Why am I doing this? And then here’s a couple other techniques that you could use, one personally that I do, and then one that I have a colleague that mentioned.

That they do. Okay. So you’ve, you’ve [00:21:00] noticed this tendency. You’re at the front of the room. You’re noticing that you want to talk. You’re trying to resist it. You’re trying to question it and it’s still there and you’re really struggling. Here’s one thing that I like to do. If you’re not familiar with the practice of Metta, sometimes called loving kindness, although loving friendliness would be more accurate.

This is a Buddhist practice. And again, this is not going to be a whole episode on Metta. We’ll have one in the future, but you can Google that, but Metta is our wishes for ourselves and for others for wellbeing. Right? So what I do often, especially if, when I check in with my students, there was a lot of.

emotional content coming up, maybe people were grieving or they were feeling really anxious or just, , people are really struggling is that I will sit at the front of the room silently, place my hands at my heart when they’re all in their pose and they’re getting comfortable and there’s time ticking away.

And I will look at each student and I will silently think to myself as I look at them,[00:22:00] soft eyes, just moving from student to student. May you be healthy. May you be content. May you be at peace. May you be free. Those are my favorite metaphrases. There’s a bunch, again, a little internet research.

You’ll find some. Then I look at the next student and I say the same thing to myself again and again for each student. Then when time’s up, I bring them out, I bring them into another pose and I start off where I left off. Okay. So that’s something that I personally do in my practice because I believe in the power of meta.

I think it’s a beautifully soft, yet intensely profound practice. So if you feel like there’s something you want to do, especially if you tend to be that codependent person, that helper, that fixer, that I want to rush in on my white horse and save the day because somebody’s sad [00:23:00] again, listen to the episode on emotions for more on that.

But if that is your personality type and it is for a lot of us, it’s why we became teachers. Then meta might be a good practice for you to feel like you’re doing something, but you’re not ruining their quiet experience. You’re letting them have that growth and that transition time. If you have a mantra practice that you use, if you don’t have one, then this probably isn’t for you because mantra is something that really should be studied properly with a teacher.

But if you have a mantra that you use, you can just silently say your mantra to yourself in your mind and in your heart while your students are in silence. So those are two that I’ve used. One that a colleague of mine has told me about is that they actually count their breath, which is a meditation technique.

Breath counting is one of the concentration techniques that often happens in meditation. So inhale, exhale one, inhale, [00:24:00] exhale two, inhale, exhale three, et cetera. You do that while the time is ticking on and then you bring them out, you bring them into their next pose. If you notice that urge to come up again, I’m back to your breath.

I like to bring the breath awareness to the belly because I find that’s more grounding. So as you’re doing that counting, notice the rise and the fall of your belly. So those are just a couple little snippets of things that you can do when you feel that thing arising. So first we have to acknowledge it.

Oh, I’m feeling uncomfortable. I really want to talk here. The silence is making me uncomfortable. Why is that? Sit with it. Resist the urge, question it, witness it. This is the beginning. And then if you’re still struggling, maybe you can bring out this meta practice, a silent mantra or breath counting. The more you get used to the silence, the more you practice this, the easier it [00:25:00] gets, I promise you.

It gets so much easier to the point now where I’m like, God, can I just get to the quiet as quick as possible when I teach? If I have new students, I do do a little bit of talking about, Hey, this is yin yoga. Here’s a few little things that you might want to know and what you can expect. And now I’m going to move into quiet time.

And here are some things you can do with your mind. Again, the episode on the mind will give you more on that.

So can you have quotes or poetry? Sure. I usually have one small reading that I do fairly early into the practice, so as soon as I’ve gotten them through the whole Nutayin speech, I’ll share that quote or piece of poetry, and then I share the same one at the end of practice when they’re in their last shape before Shavasan.

I’m not a fan. of sharing quotes while people are in Shavasan, because words are heady, meaning language pulls you up into your head. So they’ve spent all of this time, you know, [00:26:00] settling in and now they’re going to do their final stillness practice, which hopefully is in quiet, not with music. Again, allow Shavasan to please be this gift of silence, even if you use music in your yin classes.

And I did a whole episode on that one as well. So I’ll link that one. I don’t care if you use music or not. There’s a lot of nuance I discuss in that episode, but I do want to say that I’m a strong believer that once Shavasan hits a couple of moments of talking to them while they settle in, while they’re fidgeting and getting their blankies and stuff just to get them to ground in and then please some silence until you’re ready to bring them out.

Lose the music. Don’t share a quote in Shavasan. There’s my probably unpopular opinion on that. Here’s the thing culturally. We desperately need quiet time, and we don’t get it. We’re constantly plugged in. Those of us that live in cities, ugh, I mean, God, it’s [00:27:00] constant, the noise. This is why people go to the ocean or the woods, to unplug from the world, from the noise of the world.

And because we don’t do it often, because we don’t do this quiet unplugging often, it can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. And especially for the generations that are younger than me, because y’all have grown up with smartphones. So you’ve literally don’t have a time in your memory of your young life or adult life of a time where you weren’t always plugged into a thing.

And so this can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. And that’s why it’s so important. This quiet time is vital for us to hear from our body, from our heart, from our intuition. How can we hear our [00:28:00] soul’s calling in our heart’s whispers if we never get quiet enough to hear them?

Healing and transformation happen in the quiet. Understanding ourselves, our experiences, and our processes happens in the quiet.

As a yin teacher, I want to get to the quiet part of my class as quickly as possible because that is where the magic lives. When our students have a time to drop into their body. They may notice little things about their body that they hadn’t noticed before. Some of these things might actually require medical attention.

People are always so busy in the process of being a human doing and not a human being that sometimes there’s a little niggling, naggling thing happening in their body that they don’t even notice until it’s gone quite far before they get [00:29:00] attention on it. When you allow for space in your classes for quiet, then your students get a chance to notice their body’s nudges.

Ooh, this feels tight. This feels sore. They get to listen to their mind. They get to notice. Oh my God. It’s like a fricking circus in here. I didn’t know that my mind was like this. And guess what? It’s probably like this all the time when I’m out in the world doing my life. I just didn’t notice it because I was not being quiet and observant.

And when they can start , noticing in your class that their mind is sort of run in the show. That they’re always thinking, planning, list, writing, analyzing, ruminating, criticizing, storytelling, judging, itching, bitching, twitching, and all the things, then they notice it when they’re not. On the yoga mat in their world,[00:30:00] 

when students have time to sit quietly and just be with themselves, they start to hear their hearts longing and the little whispers of their soul. They have the time to process the things in their life that maybe they need to pay attention to, whether that be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.

So I want to get to the quiet as quickly as possible. Again, there is skill in if you have new students to saying, Hey, here’s a heads up about Yin. At some point in this class, I’m going to move into quiet. Here’s a couple things you could do with your mind. Again, listen to the episode on the mind for that.

And then, dear yoga teacher, I say this with so much love, shut the fuck up. Let them have their quiet. Do not take this gift away from your students. It is [00:31:00] crucial to their healing, to their growth, to their life. For many of our students, they get no quiet time during the week. And then the one time that they could have quiet time, they’re listening to us prattle on the whole time.

Don’t take this gift away from your students. Dear yoga teacher. I say this with so much love. It’s not about you. It’s not about your discomfort with the quiet. It’s not about you wanting to look like a sparkly showboat who knows all the things and has all the best inspiring quotes and the best Dharma talks.

When you were leading a group of students, it is not about you. It is not about your discomfort with silence. It’s not about your agenda. It is about the students. So do [00:32:00] not take this gift of quiet away from your students and learn when it is time to shut the fuck up and be gentle and compassionate with yourself.

Because it’s hard to do and it will take practice, but I promise you, if you start allowing more and more space. And you really check in with yourself in the ways I mentioned , earlier in the episode of, you know, checking in with yourself, whoo, I feel like talking, why is that what is going on here, it will get easier.

And eventually, you will start to really relish and enjoy and love this quiet in your class. This quiet might even start to infiltrate the other styles of yoga that you teach. You might notice when you’re teaching your Hatha or your Vinyasa class that when people are taking five breaths in something that they’re actually just going to hang out in quiet

instead of you talking the whole time or [00:33:00] saying inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Maybe you can allow a little more space in your other styles of yoga as well for quiet, especially in Shavasana.

There is a peace and a serenity that envelops a yin yoga class. That is actually palpable, like you can feel it if you can get still and quiet. I almost think of it often like a dense fog sort of rolls into the space. It’s so thick that you could sort of slice through it. And this serenity and this piece that envelops a yin class is only possible in the quiet.

And when you get comfortable, As a teacher with the quiet, which takes practice and patience and self compassion. There is a peace and serenity that envelops [00:34:00] a yin yoga class that is palpable. And for me, it’s my honor to teach that, to witness that, and to experience that. Okay, I think that’s enough talking about not talking.

I know that this is probably a challenging episode for some of you. Having a senior teacher tell you to learn to shut the fuck up probably ruffles a few feathers. But I also know that there’s so many of you that struggle with this. You want to have more quiet, but you’re just so uncomfortable and you don’t know what to do.

And so for those of you teachers, I hope that this was helpful. Okay. until we meet again, bye for now.