Mentorship Matters In Yin Yoga – Dr. Karina Smith

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hi Yinies, and welcome or welcome back to a yin Yoga. Podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you’re new around these parts, welcome, if you are familiar, welcome back, my friends

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as usual, if you are familiar. If you’ve been loving this podcast and you have not yet taken the 3 min that it would take to offer me a 5 star review. Whether that be an apple or spotify, or a written review, an apple

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you can also leave comments now on spotify. I would be uber grateful for that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That really helps the algorithms to you know. Show this to more people, to more yin yoga lovers. So if you could take a moment to do that, that’d be swell

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and if you’re new around here, and you’re like, I don’t know if I like the podcast yet that’s okay. You can wait.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Alright. My friends, we have a guest episode today with Dr. Karina Smith, who is a return guest.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She was on the podcast in season 2 episode 5. Where we talked about Yin Yoga is not Chinese medicine. It’s a fantastic episode. You should definitely check that out.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And, by the way, dear listener, did you know if there are past episodes that you want to check out in the episode notes here, whether wherever you are, whether you’re on Youtube or you know, wherever you are

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Nyk Danu Yoga: on spotify on itunes

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Nyk Danu Yoga: there is a link that says, see all episodes at a glance. It’s just a little Google Doc, that I made as a way to keep myself organized with like which one was. In which season where are they? Blah blah. But then I thought, Well, why not make it available for you to view, so that if you are looking for specific episodes you can find them. So that is in the episode notes. Every week. You can click on that. It’s also great for those of you that are new. If you want to start

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Nyk Danu Yoga: binging. I know some of you like to binge the podcast once you find an episode, you like to go all the way back to the beginning and and listen or watch them all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I love you. That’s how I do it, too. When I find a podcast I like I’m, just like all right. I’m going all the way to the start. We got to start all from the beginning, and I just binge binge, binge, and some of you are a little bit more like a buffet style. Listener, where you’re like, what topic is this one on? Maybe I want to try a little of this, or maybe I want to try a little of that. So the Google Doc is great for either of you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So just know that’s linked. So if you want to find the Karina’s previous episode, or any other episodes that I may mention. They are in that Google, Doc.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s that. The other thing to mention, my dear friends, is a reminder that although I have the soul of a mermaid, I also have the mouth of a sailor, and that this is adult podcast with adult subject matter. So please act accordingly. If you have small humans around grab some headphones.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I wanted to just take a quick moment to shout out somebody who left me some feedback under the Youtube video. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you are listening on on spotify, you can leave me comments if you’re watching this on Youtube, you can leave comments. Apple doesn’t have comments, but you could always Instagram, me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: at Nick Danu, Yoga, or at Yin Yoga, podcast with your feedback, your thoughts, questions, quandaries. If you really liked an episode, your takeaways, all that, let’s keep this interactive. Yeah. So I know you’re out there. I’m not talking into the void, am I? You are really out there? Okay, so I wanted to just mention this one. This is from Yin with Katie.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Thank you for all the work you put into producing this podcast and sharing your knowledge with us. I leave each episode feeling more empowered and confident, to teach Yin authentically, staying true to its origins. Your time, effort, and generosity in sharing are appreciated.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Katie. Thank you. That’s exactly what I hope

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that I’m putting out there for teachers. So thank you so much for letting me know A that you are out there and B, that the podcast is helpful for you, that it’s been helpful. This is good to know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: All right, my friends.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m going to just read Dr. Karina Smith’s Bio. This one’s just from her website. And then the next time you hear from me I will be with Karina.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay? So Karina Smith is a Melbourne-based doctor of Chinese medicine and a Yin Yoga teacher, teacher, trainer, and educator

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Nyk Danu Yoga: after a lifetime of dancing and years of working on production, shows festivals. Yoga was an unexpected beacon of self-care and restoration.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This was a time when her relationship with movement shifted from performance, outcomes into something private and sacred that was there to nourish her mind and body.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It was only a year after commencing practice at the Australian Yoga Academy that she knew she wanted to do the Yoga Teacher training program that they were offering

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Nyk Danu Yoga: over the course of a year. Karina immersed herself in this training, diving deeply into the incredible rich offerings of this ancient practice

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to follow, she considered, to pursue her studies both internationally and in Australia. Her extensive sorry studies include 2, 350 h teacher trainings.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and has been fortunate enough to be a student of both Bernie Clark and Paul Grilley in North America.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: As a teacher. For more than a decade Karina has taught numerous studios in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia, including Yoga Flame, West Side Yoga. I’m not going to say this right estuary, and is currently a lecturer for the Australian Yoga Academy mentoring students and encouraging their teaching skills and development. That’s what we’re going to talk about today, dear friends, mentorship.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: In 2018 Karina launched her own 50 h yin and functional teacher training. This new offering was a chance to combine all of her collective learnings, both as a student and teacher of Yoga and as an emerging doctor of Chinese medicine and a fully accredited by Yoga Alliance, Australia. She continues to run her yin teacher trainings regularly in person and online, and now offers a module version of the course

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Nyk Danu Yoga: digitally.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Her love for Yoga revealed a deep fascination for the human body and anatomy, and this led Karina to pursue Chinese medicine. After graduating in 2019, she now runs her own clinic in Newport, Melbourne, Australia, which I wish I was closer to, so I could come, see her where she offers acupuncture, herbal therapies, Moxibuction, cupping treatments for her patient

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with a particular passion for women’s health. Through Chinese medicine. Karina aims to be able to support women, to have better relationships with their menstrual cycles and her combined loves of Yoga and Chinese medicine make up the yin and yang of her work, a desire to improve the health and lifestyle of her students and patients alike.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So there you go, my friends, that’s a bit about my friend, Dr. Karina Smith, and you will hear from us together in just a few moments.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hi, Karina, welcome back to a Yin Yoga Podcast.

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Karina Smith: Hi, Nick! So lovely to be here again.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So those of you who haven’t heard Karina’s previous episode, you must listen to that. You simply must

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I’ve already done your bio, and this will be a little bit more sort of fireside chatty than formal interview, which actually works quite well for us. We riff well together.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But before we get into that and today’s topic, do you want to just briefly let people know who you are and what you do? I’ve already read your bio, but just from your own perspective.

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Karina Smith: Sure. Thanks. Thanks for the invitation to come back on your amazing show. So I’m Karina Smith. I’m Melbourne based.

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Karina Smith: I got a few things in my toolkit, but I am. I’m a yin yoga educator. I have taught classes for years and years. I run teacher trainings, and I’m also a licensed acupuncturist. So I flow between those 2 places. And I run the home clinic and I see clients from my home practice.

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Karina Smith: And yeah, I’m very passionate about skeletal variation, as many of us are, and I’m very passionate about.

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Karina Smith: I really love personal development, which I think is going to be a great flavor

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Karina Smith: of what we’re going to be talking about today. So I love.

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Karina Smith: I love my own personal growth. I love seeking out things that help me find my blind spots. And

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Karina Smith: yeah, grow and lean into those challenges. And I also love supporting that space for other people, whatever they’re doing as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Brilliant.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Thank you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I noticed that Karina was offering mentorship now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I offer mentorship, and I thought this would be a really good topic, because I think that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: mentorship is something, in my opinion, that is so essential as a Yoga teacher and very rarely available.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I thought it might be nice for us to kind of just talk about that about our own experiences being mentored being mentees, and then also what we do and why we started mentoring and all that stuff. But before we do, I found a definition online that I thought was kind of cool.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So it says, a mentor is a relationship between 2 people where the individual, with more experience, knowledge, and connections, is able to pass along what they have learned to a more junior individual within a certain field.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the more senior individual is the mentor, and the more junior individual is the mentee.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The mentor benefits because they are able to lead future generations in an area that they care about and ensure that best practices. Sorry are passed along. Meanwhile the mentee benefits because they have a.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They have proven that they are ready to take the next step in their career, and can receive the extra help that they need to make that advancement

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that was pretty pretty accurate.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. So I think it might be neat to talk 1st about our own experiences being mentored. Wherever relevant before. We then talk about how we now mentor yoga teachers. So I’ll let you start

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what was what have been your experiences either with Yoga, or with your Chinese medicine, of of being a mentee.

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Karina Smith: Oh, my goodness, they’ve been amazing, and I have had many.

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Karina Smith: and I am definitely one of those people. That’s I’m kind of always tuning my eyes and ears for someone that’s got something great that I would love to learn about, that I know would help me grow so.

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Karina Smith: Yeah. Some of the people that I’ve found to mentor me have been coaches. They’ve been Nlp teachers. They’ve been other acupuncturists. They’ve been Yoga teachers.

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Karina Smith: But I also want to say that when I was doing my you asked me this off air, and I think I’d like to start with this when I was doing my Yoga teacher training my entry level Yoga teacher training whilst that training was phenomenal, and it went for a year.

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Karina Smith: There wasn’t a lot of extra mentorship available.

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Karina Smith: and the gap between finishing your Yoga teacher training and starting to teach can feel like a massive one for many people. In fact, as you would know very well, and listeners would know very well a lot of people put that off for ages because they put a belief in their head that they don’t know enough yet. How could I ever teach when I’m nowhere near as good as this teacher? There’s a lot of imposter syndrome.

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Karina Smith: and then it just takes longer and longer and longer for them to feel confident, to do so. So set up a few things for myself to help me bridge that gap

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Karina Smith: where I was teaching classes for donation before I finished my teacher training so that I already had that cog turning.

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Karina Smith: But after I finished my teacher training, I was invited to become part of the faculty at the place that I was teaching at the place that I was learning, which was great, and I said, Hey, I’ve got some feedback

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Karina Smith: from my experience. There really wasn’t enough practice teaching with feedback.

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Karina Smith: because that feedback was where people could ask the questions and be supported, and have that space to

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Karina Smith: have their blind spots brought to them in a really compassionate, supportive way. And so from from that point on, when I became faculty, I think I spent

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Karina Smith: gosh! Would have been upwards of 3, maybe 4 years almost every Friday night.

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Karina Smith: facilitating a practice teaching space for any of the people. That would, of course.

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Karina Smith: where they would come and teach a section of a class.

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Karina Smith: Like 20 min of a class.

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Karina Smith: and then at the end, we would have facilitated group feedback, and it was so powerful and so potent, and even to this day. Sometimes I hear from people and say, Oh, my gosh! Those feedback sessions were so good! It really helped me excel, and I could see that the people that came. The most

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Karina Smith: did really well, like the people that put in a lot of

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Karina Smith: yeah, I mean, I don’t know much more. I could spend this whole podcast talking about just my experiences of receiving mentorship. But I wanted to start with that. And I feel like you’ll have something cool to add to that as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So my 1st teacher training program was a 300 h.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And this is way back. When Yoga Alliance was barely a thing like they were kind of just in the background, but like nobody was paying any attention to them. So there was 200 h that was spread out over.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I believe it was a year

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then once we finished those 200 h well, partway through, we had what they called assisting and observing

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Nyk Danu Yoga: where, basically, we chose a teacher that we really that, you know, had a specialty, or that we resonated with where we wanted to learn more.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And for 25 h we were like essentially their assistant or their gopher, so we would sit at the front of the room with them, and we would, you know, take notes, and we would help clean up the class and do whatever it is that they wanted us to do. But it was in our program, and it was the 1st opportunity that we had to be at the front of the room

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Nyk Danu Yoga: observing a real live class, not a bunch of teacher trainees, which is key.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that was the 1st opportunity, and it was 25 h, and I think we were allowed to split it up between 2 and 3 people, and I think I did.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I did a back here.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Interestingly enough, that was foreshadowing that I didn’t know about A yoga therapist who specialized in back pain. I did with her, and then I also did some prenatal, not because I actually wanted to teach prenatal, but just so that I had enough information that if somebody came into my room I knew I wasn’t going to be doing something, you know, off

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that was while we were still in training, and then at the end, we were to pick a teacher who we really resonated with. And it was it was actually quite competitive. I mean there was enough teachers for all of us, but

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Nyk Danu Yoga: each teacher could really only mentor like 2 of us at a time. And so, if they only taught in the studio that we took our training in like once or twice a week. You kind of had to get your bid in early, you know, and so we had a opportunity to do 75 h after. And that was actually before we would get our certificate. So we had to do the 25 during, and then the 75 after, before we officially graduated. And I just remember that being

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for me the most amazing part of that was being at the front of the room and observing again, like I said, actual students.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for my other classmates. For some of them it was you know, to build up their confidence things like that. Right? So for me, I had already been presenting in front of large groups of people and small groups of people for many years before I became a Yoga teacher as a

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a hair color educator. So I wasn’t uncomfortable like taking the route. The see if the teacher, or like speaking or projecting my voice. But I was, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: really needing that kind of viewing the room

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and also sequencing help, you know, seeing what the teacher sequenced. Why did they put this there and then? This here, and you know, and and just the mass amount of people in the room, and how you could drop in one queue, and how it would land so differently for so many people. And this was before I took any of my kind of functional Paul grilly stuff. And so there was a lot of alignment queues, you know. That’s that’s gone by the wayside, obviously. But it was just a fantastic opportunity

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for me to observe, and then what she had us do is she would have us teach a pose to her group, and then a couple of poses, and then a couple more, and then by and then by the end she would inevitably need to sub at some point because she’d have to go do more training. And so one of her mentees would take over her class and that’s kind of how that mentorship went

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Nyk Danu Yoga: now I didn’t. Unfortunately, I wish I would if that relationship she was a lovely human. But it I’m just gonna say she blurred the lines between

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Nyk Danu Yoga: professional and personal. So I just got a little tmi with her, and so I didn’t end up

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Nyk Danu Yoga: going on with her long term, which was kind of my hope actually is that you know, I would mentor with her for the long term.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but it definitely I feel like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: gave me a bit of a leg up as far as

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Nyk Danu Yoga: just knowing how to set up a class, how to sequence, how to watch people, how to hold the seat of the teacher. All of that stuff that you don’t really get in teacher training and especially if you’re only teaching your fellow teacher trainees, because even if you screw your words up, they’re going to do the pose because they know it right. But when you’re doing, people who’ve like literally never done yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you say your words and you look around. You’re like, Hmm!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe I didn’t say that clearly, or hmm. I just said the wrong foot, or, you know, like it really be makes a big difference, I think, to have that that time at the front of the room before you’re you know. Expected to be getting paid for it.

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Karina Smith: Yeah. And then, when you’re teaching classes

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Karina Smith: like, I feel like a lot of my mentors were actually the students.

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Karina Smith: Because when you do start teaching, especially when I started big rooms full of of yin classes, lots of people in the room like 30, 40 people and watching what they do, watching what they don’t do, watching what choices they make. I’m rapidly getting.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Bingo!

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Karina Smith: And so I feel like a lot of mentorship happened from the teaching.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Karina Smith: But something that’s super helpful at the same time is to be able to then take that information and go and ask somebody like a senior.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

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Karina Smith: Right.

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Karina Smith: Hey? Now, I need to troubleshoot stuff. Now this happened, or I froze, or I didn’t know how to help this person. I just assumed everybody could come back into settle. Oh, this person had a knee injury, and I just panicked. Now to have that person come back to my class. What do I do? That’s sort of the space I’m interested in in terms of supporting people if they want mentorship help like more conversational, more working through stuff. And also

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Karina Smith: I feel like a big pace is mindset.

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Karina Smith: Mindset is huge, like the mentorship aspect that I’m really curious about for people is

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Karina Smith: what meanings are you making out of that? So if you’re in.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Like.

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Karina Smith: You’re watching something happen, and you’re deciding what it means. You’re going to be in your head. You decide that someone’s fidgeting because because they’re bored, or you decide that someone’s not listening to you because they’re disrespecting you. Or if you’re making up all of these meanings.

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Karina Smith: you’re just making up.

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Karina Smith: So how do you like? How do you remove yourself from meaning making and stay

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Karina Smith: present? Stay in your body? Stay out of that meaning, making space, which is hard, because we all do that all the time. We’ve all got an inner narrative all the time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And staying curious as opposed to assumptive about what you’re seeing. Yeah.

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Karina Smith: So curious. And and it’s not personal.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

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Karina Smith: Person.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 9 times out of 10, and I know Yoga teachers will hear this. But then it’s do you take this in? Do you take this to your classroom with you afterwards. 9 times out of 1099.9% of what you experience in your room has nothing to do with you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and like everything to do with what’s going on with that other human and their path and their experience. And now that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t hone our skills become more skillful, you know. Learn to hold space, all of that. Yes, but also, like you said, if someone’s fidgeting, don’t assume it’s because they’re bored right? That could be a nervous system response.

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Karina Smith: Yeah, we have no idea. Yeah. But the new student that doesn’t know that wants to do really? Well, that is already feeling a little bit nervous about their capacity or their skill set.

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Karina Smith: It’s a you’re much more vulnerable potentially to go into that headspace. And I think that’s where a mentor can be so supportive to give you that reassurance that you’re doing a great job. Here’s some back. Here’s some things to try, so that you can go in there and be

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Karina Smith: like more proactive and productive rather than

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Karina Smith: Oh, my! Gosh! If that person comes back again! That was here last week. I’m just gonna die because I don’t know what to do with them, and I hope I just never see them again.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think, too, the only other time that I experienced mentorship where and this was quite different, because was in my Yoga therapy program.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and by then I’d already been teaching for 15 years.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and and the the feedback was would be quite different. Because, of course, it’s like a it’s a different level. I’m not a new teacher anymore. I’m not in that place. And so I found that mentorship

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in some ways. There was 2 examples I’ll give one was really helpful, and the other I was like. This is at my point in my experience. This is a waste of my time. So one of the things that they did in that program was you were with a teacher, and you sat at the front of the room and same thing as I did in my 1st teacher. Training right? You.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you mill around, you help people where if the teacher says it’s okay, you know all trauma informed space and all of that. But you are taking notes about the sequence, and then you submit what the sequence was, and they check it over.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And that’s that now what they didn’t do. And they have now, I think, because of the feedback I gave them when I graduated

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Nyk Danu Yoga: was I spent all this time writing out a sequence that I did while I was doing my mentorship. You know, I wrote down their sequence in a Google Doc and sent it to them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But not once when I’m listing those poses. Did they ask me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: do I know why they put that there?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It was just literally like robotically list the sequence.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I remember saying to them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That doesn’t test my learning. That doesn’t test my knowledge. That doesn’t show me where I might lead, need to brush up, or where I’m maybe confused, or where I maybe don’t know yet. If you don’t ask me the why like, why was that post put in the sequence, you know. So I think they’ve changed that now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And when I was doing mentorship with them through their program, I kind of came up with my own questions, which included what they did. But I also added things like the why you know. Why do you think I put that pose in there. What is the function of that pose?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so that was the one. The other one that I experienced was through the just. The trauma informed module, and I love the way that she offered feedback, because, 1st of all, it was optional.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And this was just a 20 h module. We only had her for that one weekend. But we did do practice teaching. And she said, 1st of all, do you want feedback?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And you could say yes or no.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Do you want it now? Live with the group? Or would you rather me email it to you, which I thought was really really good because I feel like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, sometimes the problem with small group mentorship

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is that, again, teachers can feel kind of vulnerable or like, you know, they’re not doing it right, and everyone else has it all figured out and but when it’s 1 on one, I think that does take that away.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so those were my other experiences being mentored.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: let’s maybe fast forward a little bit to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because I know you’re offering mentorship. And I also offer mentorship. So let’s maybe fast forward to like that bridge between. Okay, when did we decide? This is something we need to offer

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you first.st

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Karina Smith: Yeah, yeah, I think I I think I decided to offer it because people asked me.

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Karina Smith: So I would have people saying, Hey, could you come to my class and give me feedback? And I had to think about my own boundaries, and that just didn’t feel super

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Karina Smith: conducive to my schedule and my time.

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Karina Smith: And so I don’t have a program per se. I just offer one on one sessions. So people could.

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Karina Smith: A series of those people could do a single session, and they are on zoom. So it is conversation

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Karina Smith: they could go anywhere like I’ve mentored people opening yoga studios. I’ve mentored people upgrading their yoga studios and just having someone to bounce business ideas off or class structure or building culture inside their studio with their fellow teachers.

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Karina Smith: I’ve mentored people that have just started teaching and just want to brush up on their anatomy. But I’m also mentoring some acupuncturists that live remotely around Australia and just don’t have access to community and want someone to riff with about systems that they’re putting into their business.

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Karina Smith: So it was more that connection point, and that and that people were asking me. And I thought, Okay, well, what’s what’s the way that I could offer this that feels organic and fluid without creating a full program.

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Karina Smith: And that’s what sort of evolved for me. So it’s pretty open and loose. I go with where people go. But I also did. I’ve done 40 h in Nlp

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Karina Smith: practitioner training, neurolinguistic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That must be so helpful.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Mentoring. Yeah.

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Karina Smith: Well, cause I’m just watching the language that comes out, and I’m tracking what people are doing with their eyes. And I’m tracking. I’m tracking for what they’re actually congruent in and what they’re not. So they’re telling me one thing, and their body is saying. Actually, I’m not on board with this. That’s a moment where I can lean in and say, is that really what you want to be doing? Or let’s let’s lean into that a bit more.

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Karina Smith: Again. These truths can come up, and these moments of honesty can come up, and what I’m really trying to do is just help people get clarity on themselves, and to be able to clear things out of their mind that they’ve been stuck on, or

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Karina Smith: had a knowledge gap, or just just want to field a question. So because a lot of the time people that are running Yoga studios, they don’t necessarily have.

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Karina Smith: like a network of people to talk to. Same with acupuncturists. A lot of acupuncturists are little islands.

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Karina Smith: They often work solo crack, or they work from home, and they’re not always working with other people to be able to say, Hey, what are you doing? How do you manage this? And

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Karina Smith: one of the things that I know I have to offer. That’s really valuable is my knowledge and my experience. That’s what I’ve provided.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: When you said studio owners, I was thinking, actually, even teachers, because even if you teach at a studio, you’re usually ships passing in the night like you don’t have

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like people that from the outside world think that Yoga teachers must just all hang out together, and it’s like, Good God, we can’t even get our schedules to line up like, you know. So it’s not the case I was very similar to you. So how mentorship started happening with me, and I should just say that I offer mentorship in 2 separate ways. So I am. I used to call myself a yin or sorry a yoga business consultant, but that sounded really cold.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I do not like the word coach at all. It’s just a personal like,

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, I just don’t like that word. And I think it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Everyone’s a freaking coach, and it also brings up like team sports in my head, and so like just the word coach just never resonated. So it took me a while to come up with the word mentor. So I mentor Yoga teachers with their business.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, because I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I started with nothing twice and rebuilt. So I have some not only boots on the ground. Experience rubber meets the road experience, but also have taken several online business courses as well. So I kind of have a little bit of both. So that’s 1 aspect, and then the other aspect is that I mentor yoga teachers. And so how it started was very similar with you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would go away to train with Paul Grilly. I would come back. I would be teaching, and then someone in my community would go, hey? Do you go for a training? Because you seem to kind of have this figured out, and I know you’ve been studying with Paul, and I didn’t have a teacher training at the time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and so what I decided to do was say, no, I don’t. But we could just do an apprenticeship.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: which is an incredible model.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, these people were already teachers. Just to be clear. This wasn’t like, I want to be a yoga. This was just for regular Yoga teachers to start to offer yin.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and the reason that I loved that model is because I was able to customize it according to them and their individual knowledge gaps and their needs as opposed to it, being sort of like a blanket

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Nyk Danu Yoga: thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I started doing that. That was actually how I 1st started training teachers in Yin was one on one apprenticeship model which I loved. And I still do offer that. It’s just not as common, because, of course, it’s far more expensive than taking a group teacher training because it’s 1-on-one time and support.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that is one way that I offer mentorship, and then the other way is through my business stuff. And that happened the same way. It was just a teacher coming up to me in my local community, saying.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You seem to have some stuff figured out. Can you help me with this? And you know this? When they started coming to me, was after I had already had my break breakdown to breakthrough moment in my business, where I was literally crying myself to sleep Easter weekend because I was

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Nyk Danu Yoga: broke, and yet meant to be teaching Yoga, and could not put these 2 things together in my head. And why aren’t they meshing? And you know that was sort of the impetus for me to dive deep into my own business and learning about business and building a business, and all of that. And then, once my teachers in my community started, seeing that go up, they were like, Hey, wait a minute. What are you doing here? What’s what’s happening? And so both of them

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Nyk Danu Yoga: came from

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Nyk Danu Yoga: teachers reaching out, and then me just figuring, you know, and doing it just kind of super casually. And then, you know, having the inevitable things come up where you’re like. Hmm! Like you said respect of my own time, my own self care. So it’s like, maybe I need to make this a little bit more formal, a little bit more structured.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Have some more boundaries around it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And yeah, I’ve been doing that for just well apprenticeship with you and teachers for over 10 years.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then my teacher training for probably the last 5 of like a formalized teacher training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then with the business mentorship. Same thing. It was right around year, 10 year.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: maybe around year 7 to 10 is where I started shifting my business. And that’s when people started coming to me going.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: wait a minute. What are you doing? Exactly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah. And so those are kind of the 2 areas that I help teachers with?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, some people would say, well, why, you know, why do the business stuff when you’ve already got the yin, and I’ll just be totally transparent that I believe that Yoga can change the world.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I believe that I can only reach so many, so many students. But if I can help other teachers expand their reach. Then that ripple effect is what I’m after.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But if people give up

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because they’re broke and they’re forlorn and they’re sad, and they just go back to their day job, or they never get to leave their day job, even though they really want to teach full time, because they just can’t figure out how to put this Rubik’s cube of Yoga business together.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then I’m not that I’m not on mission right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then there’s like students out there that they would have been ideally suited to help, that are just

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Nyk Danu Yoga: they’re never gonna meet. So that’s why I do it with the business stuff, because I really believe

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that every

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Nyk Danu Yoga: every yoga teacher, if they want to, should be able to do this full time and sustain themselves if they want to. Not everybody wants to

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, and have some organic food in the fridge and some organic cotton leggings, and be able to go on vacation and have a little money in the bank like this is not unreasonable, right?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then with the yin I mentor teachers that do want so usually, I only mentor teachers that have already taken my Yin training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Just so I don’t have to start it from scratch unless they’re doing an apprenticeship model where they’re essentially going through my in training one on one but after they graduate that program I do offer ongoing mentorship for people who are. Maybe they’re struggling with sequencing or like you said they need teaching tips or things come up in class where they’re like, oh, crap! I wasn’t prepared for that. And I love doing that. I think that’s just

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s so beautiful how that works and mine are also on zoom

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in the past. Most of them have been in Canada or the Us. And so there’s also, you know, people have texted me the odd thing. But I think I’ll probably have to come up with something a little better, like slack or something, so that I’m not getting texts at at all hours, while people have just had something happen in class, you know, because with my, with my add brain, if I see a notification, I can’t like not touch it. I have to like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah. So it’s best if I just don’t see them until I have the time carved out to look at them. But

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Nyk Danu Yoga: correct. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it’s been really rewarding. But I also remember at about year 10, when this started coming to me, me just thinking.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: wow! When did I come from like? How did this. How did I get from, like, you know, new teacher, to like new teachers coming to me like it was a very interesting transition.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I remember

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not feeling at all intimidated by it, actually feeling quite honored, but also a little surprised, because in my brain I’m like you. I’m very much like always learning, always growing like this was amazing. Oh, that’s amazing. I want to learn more about that. And so I sometimes forget to stop

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Nyk Danu Yoga: on the path and actually look back at how far I’ve come.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Until somebody does say something like, Hey, can I work with you? And then I’ll have to stop and go.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, I guess I do have some things to teach you, don’t I?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Who knew.

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Karina Smith: Yeah.

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Karina Smith: I love what you said. You’ve said a bunch of like so many fantastic things in there. But yeah.

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Karina Smith: one of the things that you said before, that, I think, is really pertinent, and I imagine this comes from the things you’ve learned from yin yoga, that the why, the intention.

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Karina Smith: I think when people start teaching super normal to do this and really common.

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Karina Smith: there’s a lot of you know, you’ve modeled yourself on your favorite teachers or your parroting, say.

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Karina Smith: but when you’ve got a sense of okay, well, why am I saying this my way? How can I find language? How can I find my language for this? And one of the things that’s really awesome about functional anatomy? And when you apply it to all kinds of Yoga, I think, is that you really have to be clear on

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Karina Smith: what you’re inviting people to explore.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And.

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Karina Smith: What they’re looking to find in their body. So your language completely changes. But I think it means for you as a teacher.

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Karina Smith: you’re so much more intentional about

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Karina Smith: like what it is that you’re asking people to explore rather than rules. And the stuff that’s not really the topic of today. But that was something that just stood out.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

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Karina Smith: Not to say.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Karina Smith: All of that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: No, but paring down your language what you do when you start teaching yen. And functionally, you just naturally have less blah blah blah all the time. So when you do that, you do have to really hone in and look at the language you are using.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because it is so much more sparse that it has to be more intentional to have impact, in my opinion.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, I mean, I and I’m constantly wordsmithing. You know. I mean, I’ve been teaching 20 years, and I still have a word right now that I say all the time when I’m teaching where I’m like, why, why why do I use this word? You know. That I’m currently trying to get rid of. It’s the word just

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I say, just put your foot here, just it’s like, Oh, it doesn’t need to be there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: A pause or an inhale would be far better. So. And of course you don’t realize these things really until you record yourself whether it’s audio or video. I I prefer audio, because then I can listen to it while I’m walking around and then listen to what you’re actually saying.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because it’s quite surprising actually to be like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: they use that word a lot.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I didn’t realize I used that word a lot.

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Karina Smith: You notice patterns, and you’re blind to your patterns until either someone points them out to you or you play it back and you go. Wow! I do use that word a lot.

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Karina Smith: Yeah, I’ve been really.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Meant to say, actually, yeah, yeah.

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Karina Smith: I’ve been really inspired lately. This is the 1st time I’ve ever done this. I’ve just recently I haven’t launched it yet, but I’ve created a level 2 in Yoga. Teacher training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yay!

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Karina Smith: Yay, and, as you would know, like level ones are obvious, are usually

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Karina Smith: content. Heavy theory going through the body, looking at the joints, all of that which is super important. But then I was like, Oh, I kinda wanna I wanna hark back to those days of

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Karina Smith: the the group feedback sessions because they were so good, and I absolutely love facilitating that space. And so.

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Karina Smith: This be a training that’s very much practical practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Teaching teaching skills, lovely.

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Karina Smith: Nl nlp. Like teaching people how to tune into their somatic intuitive responses, so that when they’re in the room they can stay congruent with themselves, and not get kind of pulled, pulled off by the kinds of things I was saying before.

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Karina Smith: So important, sorry to interject, but especially because so many Yoga teachers are empaths.

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Karina Smith: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That if we’re not careful we can get at the front of the room. Something can happen. And now we’re just. We’re enmeshed right? We’re not.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We’re not having that kind of compassionate

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Nyk Danu Yoga: distance that we can kind of stay in our own seat and be curious. And observe, because we’re too, caught up in either their emotions or our emotional response to their emotions, or whatever’s come up so super important.

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Karina Smith: And there’s something you said there around.

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Karina Smith: This is going to sound a bit heartless, but sort of caring too much.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yep.

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Karina Smith: Worrying about what’s going on for somebody, and then

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Karina Smith: kind of abandoning yourself in that moment for the narrative that you’re placing on somebody versus

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Karina Smith: the biggest thing I’ve learned being a yin teacher is just letting people have their experience. Maybe they are grumpy. Maybe they are restless. Maybe they hate this.

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Karina Smith: Oh, actually don’t know any of that. And if that is happening, that’s for them.

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Karina Smith: Their experience.

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Karina Smith: and it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m watching. I’m holding the space I’m back here I am observing. But how can I stay here and be regulated and not get involved.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: One of the ways that I found the easiest to find to bridge those was.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, if I see something coming up

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to address it to the group.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, like, you know, one of the challenges I find in my end practice is sometimes I get bored.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I just dropped the seed

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Nyk Danu Yoga: just in case, because I I like to normalize people’s experience. But I’m not going to rescue them from their experience, like I want them to know they’re not a freak because they’re bored in the Yin class, because probably half their classmates are too, especially if they’re new and think, oh, well, this practice just isn’t for me, because I got bored. You know, it’s like, well, yeah, boredom happens here.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. Without trying to rescue them from the boredom just normalizing the boredom. Just going. You know what some things that, and I only do it when I see it coming up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t give a whole speech about all the stuff that could come up in yin like emotions, and blah! Blah! Blah! I don’t do all that, but if I see it

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Nyk Danu Yoga: coming up same thing with an emotional response. I may say, you know, sometimes

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we get on our mats and we start doing yin, and then we start having an emotional release, and you know sometimes we don’t allow ourselves that still in quiet time to process. And so our yoga mat is, I often will joke and say that there’s 3 really good places to cry

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a good friend, or loved one’s shoulder a therapist couch or practitioners couch and your yoga mat. Those are the 3 places where you should feel like you can, just.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, sob if you need to, right

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so I do address it if I see it just to normalize it, because I feel like I don’t know where it is. It depends probably where you teach. But like the one studio public studio I teach at has a lot of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what I call vinyasa bunnies.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and so they’re used to a practice that is a little bit more flash and a little more sparkly showboat, and a little bit more cool sequence, and a little bit more pump and playlist

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Nyk Danu Yoga: than diving deep into themselves. They’re a little bit more used to external entertainment in the class as opposed to internal entertainment.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so sometimes, you know, if I see a lot of kind of that coming up. I’ll

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll just mention, you know, this stuff comes up. It’s part of the practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Some days. It’s here some days it’s not, and I just leave it at that, like, I don’t ever try to rescue anybody from their experience. But I do normalize it just so that people don’t think that they’re.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, the only one.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, especially with the mind. Everyone always thinks they’re the only ones with all the stuff going on in their mind, and everyone else is void of thoughts and completely, Zen, and they’re the only ones with the circus. It’s like, no, no, this is human.

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Karina Smith: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah, but it is. It is. I feel like a tricky

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a tricky Aha! To have as a teacher

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that like you said it. Not not. You’re not trying to sound like uncaring. It’s just that you don’t know that student’s life and their experiences.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And it’s not your job to fix that for them like that’s a that’s a boundary. That’s way beyond the scope of your practice, you know. 1st of all, most of you aren’t therapists, and even if you were, unless that person was paying you for therapy.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not, that’s not your job, you know. Your job is just to create a space where.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if stuff comes up, that’s okay.

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Karina Smith: And it’s a disservice to students if you’re

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Karina Smith: thinking that it’s your job to sort of keep everybody having a good time.

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Karina Smith: Cause like it’s a it’s a powerful moment if you go to class, and you are restless, or some things that you’ve been avoiding internally come up, and you’ve got to sit with it. Notice it.

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Karina Smith: and someone sort of hovering around trying to keep you happy, or it’s it’s intercepting something that you’re meant to be experiencing. And I think when teachers

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Karina Smith: and I’m sure you probably had these conversations on this show before, when teachers are able to really sit back and just

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Karina Smith: be in that role of space holder.

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Karina Smith: Which suits you best for that role.

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Karina Smith: There’s so much pressure off your shoulders to be

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Karina Smith: the perfect teacher, provide the most amazing class, keep it exciting every week. You don’t have to. You have to worry about any of that, not in a complacent way. But you’re actually just letting the student in. You’re not the one holding the walls open and keeping it amazing. You’re just there facilitating an experience. And if you can stay really grounded in that and stay grounded in yourself

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Karina Smith: present, but grounded in yourself.

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Karina Smith: Those classes are going to be so amazing for everybody, because there’s less

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Karina Smith: How do I say it.

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Karina Smith: There’s less tension coming from the teacher to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that your emotional reaction as the teacher isn’t now affecting the group as well.

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Karina Smith: Yeah, cause you know what that feels like, too, you can be in someone’s class. And you’re like, Oh, you’re trying so hard to give me the most amazing experience. You don’t have to do that. I’m good.

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Karina Smith: I’m good.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Or were the teachers so nervous and excited that now, like the whole room, is kind of getting revved up with them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yes, yes, it’s like.

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Karina Smith: Rotated.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, 3 episodes come to mind. The emotions, Indian, the one I did with Grace Temppany called how to hold brave space.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then recently I did. One called Yin Yoga is not entertainment. That’s also another one. If people want to listen to more on this this thread.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: did your mentorship offerings become like, did they start kind of you said they started just with people kind of asking. And then I’m guessing at some point you’d said, Okay, I need to kind of like, formalize this a little bit more, create a structure, create it like I did where I was just like we need some structure and boundaries around this instead of just, you know. Sure. Text me at midnight. You know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not that. Not that. No.

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Karina Smith: No midnight text, please it only became formal in the sense that I created an actual booking on my website. People could book into where they could pay for the session online. And it was scheduled. Sometimes that’s come off the back of somebody emailing me like, I had someone email me

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Karina Smith: recently who just said, Hey, Karina, I’m studying acupuncture. But I also would love to learn how to run Yin and PIN sessions. Would you please do a podcast on that. And I was like, I could.

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Karina Smith: But if you’re the like, maybe people would find that interesting. But if one person has come to me to ask about that. How about you? And I have a paid session.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Kind of thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then didn’t you turn that into a workshop? If I remember.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: then I was like, Okay, well, how about I do a webinar

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Karina Smith: People that are. I know who’s gonna be there. I’m gonna have actual faces there, and Q&A at the end, which is also an opportunity for me to see where the gaps are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, so for me.

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Karina Smith: As a businesswoman. That’s a valuable thing for me to do, because then I can. I’ve got a an amazing recording that I can pop

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Karina Smith: into a future project that I’m creating. Next year I want to create a a community portal.

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Karina Smith: But then I can listen to the questions and and think to myself, oh.

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Karina Smith: could I meet these questions with another session, where it’s high value? And there are people that I know exist that want to learn that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. My questions

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like the questions that I usually have somebody who’s an assistant in my trainings, and one of their jobs is to capture questions and put them in a Google doc for me, so that I can look back and go.

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Karina Smith: Market research.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Well, market research. And also, where are the holes like? If the same question keeps coming up? Obviously, I’m not being clear or something.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, my mine are a little bit more.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a little bit more. I guess you could say behind the wall, because I don’t, typically

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because one of the things people get for free when they join the business segment of my email list is my previous workshop. So you think you can niche.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And through my working with teachers over and over and over again. One thing I realized is that I actually don’t

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Nyk Danu Yoga: want to do business mentorship with people who are not willing to niche

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because we spend hours and hours and hours and so much time on, you know, fixing their website and all their social and la, la, la!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But it never really

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Nyk Danu Yoga: has the impact that they need or want, because we don’t know who we’re talking to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I’ve made that sort of like the base things like you have to be willing to niche. I can help you with that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But if you’re not willing to to do that then a different person.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then with my yin stuff. Now, an apprenticeship would be different, because that would be right from scratch any 200 h teacher that wanted to do that could. And then, with the Yin mentorship, they have to have already taken my program again, so that I know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what their kind of basic level of education is.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that you know, I can be more efficient. So mine isn’t so quite as you know, like, here’s a here’s a link to book. But I do do in my emails. I do. I do send it out. And I mention it, of course, to all my grads and all that stuff.

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Karina Smith: Having said that a lot of people don’t know that it exists because it’s just been there in the background. So.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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Karina Smith: And it’s somebody emailing me that’s heard, a podcast episode has stumbled upon a Youtube video and has done what I do with other people and gone. Oh, here’s someone I’d love to work with.

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Karina Smith: You just said something really interesting, and I wanted to speak to it, and it slipped out of my brain.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Was it about me narrowing the parameters of who I.

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Karina Smith: Yeah, yeah, it was. I just got back from a an extraordinary 3 day marketing and

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Karina Smith: like business strategy workshop that one of my friends, who’s got a huge background in marketing, and is also an acupuncturist who’s just like created a million dollar clinic in 2 years, was running for Allied health.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The Chinese.

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Karina Smith: Practitioners and Yoga teachers are very similar in the sense that

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Karina Smith: amazing at their craft. But no one’s really taught them business stuff, and such a shame?

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Karina Smith: Which kind of ties into all the things you were saying before about how important it is to help people with the skills so that they can help more people. But yeah, the thing that I really took away from that is that a lot of the time and this is relevant for everybody a lot of the time people are

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Karina Smith: working tactic 1st just scrambling to make a post scrambling to. But at the other end they haven’t really started being clear on.

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Karina Smith: What’s the tone of your Rand? Who are you talking to? And and if someone doesn’t have that clear which I love, that you’ve got that boundary around. If someone doesn’t have clarity on.

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Karina Smith: who am I talking to? And you’ll know that this is relevant for me because I’ve done your business course, taking me a long time to declutter, what’s Chinese medicine? What’s yin yoga

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Karina Smith: in yin yoga? You could be speaking to, you know, through an Instagram page you could be speaking to teachers. You could be speaking to people that love yin yoga. You could be speaking to one idea like you could just talk about skeletal variations. If you’re not clear.

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Karina Smith: then being mentored, it’s just too you’re too wide. There’s no, there’s no clarity.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I realized it with one gal I was working with who through our time working together, ended up with this gorgeous website.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And the homepage still didn’t say.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: who do I work with, and what do I help them with? It was still so nebulous, you know. We got her set up with an email server. We got this gorgeous website. I referred her to the website gal that I know and love. You know all of the pretty was there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but the depth wasn’t there, and it wasn’t, and it was because she didn’t want to dive deep with me. On.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Who do I serve? And what do I help them with? And there’s more to it than that. But that’s very the very surface for niching, because, you know, this isn’t a niching episode. But you know the who do I serve, and what do I help them with? Because so many Yoga teachers think that their niche is just the style of Yoga they teach. That’s like the least important part of it. That’s like a

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a contractor saying, well, this particular hammer.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this is the hammer I use right. It’s like people don’t care. Can you build me cabinets with that hammer like I don’t care about your hammer, you know. They want to know. Do do you know what I’m going through? And can you help me with that? And so that’s why I made that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And that’s why I also made the workshop that I used to charge for the free offer when people sign up so that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: there is something there for them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I always recommend people do it like go through it 2 or 3 times, because it’s lots of journaling. Lots of likes like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: heart prompts, because I think one of the reasons people have so much trouble. Niching is because they’re up in their head about it, and they’re not here in their hearts.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so I recommend they go through that 3 to 5 times, and then, if they need a clarity session.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: then they book with me, and that’s when we can start to, really.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because now it’s like, now, when I give you advice on things.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it’s gonna land for your people. Not just be this kind of oh, what a pretty website. But, I don’t know. Do they help people like me? I’m not sure. You know.

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Karina Smith: I feel like the common thread there between niching and mentorship is clarity and intention, and I feel that’s often what people are seeking from a mentor is. Oh, you look like you’ve got it together like people said to you. You look like you know what you’re doing. You look like you’ve got some stuff

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Karina Smith: I’m not entirely clear yet. That will come with time, but I’d love to. I’d love to connect with you someone who is and does to help me on where I am, whether that’s walking into class and knowing your role, walking into class and being connected to your why? Why am I, why do I love Yoga? Why do I want to teach today? What’s the

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Karina Smith: vibrational transmission that I’m holding in this room when I’m teaching this class, when I’m facilitating class, whatever it might be, because that can change the whole thing like, if you

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Karina Smith: are just really clear about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

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Karina Smith: Then a lot of that noise can disappear because you’re staying really connected to self.

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Karina Smith: Whether that’s marketing, whether that’s yin I feel like that’s a nice common thread for us.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, I realize it’s a small, well-selling book and a popular Ted Talk. But I just think you should start with why.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: always, yeah, always, always, always.

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Karina Smith: But we’re uni. We love to ask why one of my gripes is when you’ll appreciate this when you go to a class and someone. Let’s say it’s a flow class. And someone’s giving really panicky small minutia cues about stuff I’m like? That’s all beautiful. And what interesting things to explore! Why do you want me to explore that? What is it that you’re trying to have me.

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Karina Smith: Happen in my body, because I think the way you’re instructing me to explore it works great for you.

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Karina Smith: But if you could just give me the why, then I can find my way of getting there, because I don’t think it’s gonna work the way that it does for you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The function. I was warning my most recent group that we just finished this past weekend, and now they’re all doing their final assignments. And I was just saying that I said, You know I will warn you this whole why and functional approach that you’ve now just learned in your yin. It’s going to infect all your teaching.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Every time you write a sequence for your active class, you’re gonna be like, wait a minute.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Why am I putting this post here. What is my intention? Why am I putting this one before this one? And you know, yeah, yeah.

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Karina Smith: And it will affect your ability to participate in other people’s classes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, unfortunately, unfortunately, yes, I don’t go to a lot of public classes simply for that reason that I’m just the whole time. I’m like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: okay, well, that sounds good for your body, but I don’t have your body. And like, if I followed your directions I would not be getting the same results that you’re expecting, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Well, I know I don’t have you for much time, and I know you and I could talk for like 9 and a half hours hours. But maybe let’s I know time just goes like that. Let’s maybe wrap it up with

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what are your

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Your options, I guess, for mentorship.

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Karina Smith: For people to connect with me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Karina Smith: Yeah. Well, at the moment people can email me, I have a link on my website where people can send me like a contact form. If they wanna ask me a question 1st and see if we’re the right fit. Well, they can actually just go straight to my virtual booking

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Karina Smith: clinic. I’ve got an in person clinic, and then I’ve got a virtual clinic that I run on Mondays, Australia, time, and they can just book a 1 on one mentoring session with me.

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Karina Smith: and then they get a zoom link, and then we just meet but people are very welcome to email me first, st if they want to give me a rundown of what’s going on and what they want support with, and I can either

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Karina Smith: let them know that I’ve got something that will be helpful, or I can connect them with someone that I think would have a better skill set for them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And I, you know, I was just gonna say at 1 point that you know, I also still have like, well, he calls himself a coach, so I’ll use that word, even though it makes me barf in my mouth a little. I also have a coach who’s been in this industry for years and years and years and years and years, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: even when you know all the things to do, having outside eyes on your business because you can’t be so objective about it like you said you just took this big marketing training. Even people who help people with their business

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Nyk Danu Yoga: need some outside odds. So this is this is key, you know, to be able to

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to see something from the outside, as opposed to kind of get being so enmeshed in it that you can’t kind of see. You know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the water from the the shoreline. You’re just like you know.

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Karina Smith: Yeah. And sometimes you just need someone to kind of call bullshit on you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, I call them gentle, loving smackdowns. Yes.

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Karina Smith: When people are sort of, you know, all over the place, and you can just clearly cut through it

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Karina Smith: to get through the weeds and the confusion, and ask them a really pointed question for them to go. Oh.

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Karina Smith: oh, I thought I was doing all of this stuff, trying to serve everybody trying to do everything for everyone. But really

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Karina Smith: I’m not happy doing that. I don’t want to be doing.

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Karina Smith: and just to throw them a button and go, hey? You don’t have to. What do you want to do? What lights you up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The analogy I often do with Yoga teachers with their business is that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think of our businesses as like a house.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and right from the land you buy, you know, if you were to just buy land to what the house looks like, how big it is, how small it is! Each of us is going to be different.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: right? Like my perfect little dream house might not be the same as yours. And so we get all these messages, though, that we have to be doing the reels and doing the this and doing the that. And like, we have all of these things that we’re like, just so busy trying to keep up with algorithms and trends. And what this teacher I know is doing, and that teacher is doing. And I should probably be doing what they’re doing, that we have to just kind of stop and settle

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and like you said, Go, but what do I want?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What is my, why, and then build out from there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, so that we don’t have little clones of each other out there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But everyone’s really kind of, you know, marching to the beat of their own drum and attracting the people that are like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: right into what they’re doing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Karina Smith: Beautifully said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and for myself. If you are looking for business mentorship, you just can get on my website.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Nick daniel.com. There’s 2 buttons, one that says, students, one that says teachers, if you click teachers, then there’s 2 more business mentorship or yin Yoga training click there, join the email list. Then you’ll get the free niching workshop and you’ll be able to get in touch with me there if you need more support.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then for Yin mentorship. That is, at this point, unless you want a straight up apprenticeship, which would be like going through my training privately, one on one I do you could reach out if you want more info on that but if you’ve taken my training and you want more, then just reach out and I hook you up with a link

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for mentorship for ongoing mentorship.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I think it’s also worth mentioning, too, that you know you had mentioned that you always still have mentors, especially. I know you’ve got countless Chinese medicine mentors that you’ve really loved and nerded out from. And I’m I have as well, currently, not at the moment. Don’t have anybody that fits that bill just yet. But I

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I see something happening in the future with that that it’s it’s always going to be.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I feel like, if you’re the kind of person who’s always learning and growing and expanding, you’re always going to be looking for support.

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Karina Smith: Yeah, it’s actually part of my business model to

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Karina Smith: remain in contact with mentors of lots of different kinds.

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Karina Smith: And then to be, you know.

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Karina Smith: supporting people that are behind me as well as part of a chain. So to me, that’s part of my value system as well. That kind of connection to community and passing on what I’ve received. So it’s very important.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, beautiful. I agree. The giving back is is key. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. Well, thank you again for coming

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and chatting with me about this

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is there anything I forgot to ask you about that you’d like to share.

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Karina Smith: I don’t think so. I feel like we’ve covered some good ground, and it’s been such a good conversation, and I really hope that people that are listening to this.

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Karina Smith: that it calls to them, and they can reflect on their own growth, and

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Karina Smith: whether they actively seek out something from this episode or not to just

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Karina Smith: stay open to all the resources that you’ve got around you, because mentorship can actually show up in really interesting places as well, you might actually find that a mentor

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Karina Smith: has nothing to do with the field that you work in.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s too.

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Karina Smith: Someone who’s figured something out

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Karina Smith: and is really good at problem solving, or is really good at making money, or is really good at networking, and that’s a skill that you would like to have. That would also feed into. Whatever the thing is that you do. So just open yourself up to wherever your next support and guidance is going to come from, because it might come from somewhere really unexpected.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Very true. Yeah, I know. For example, my.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll call him a coach, even though again I’m rolling my eyes inside. He’s not a yoga teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: He’s a he’s a i’ll just call him out. He’s Tad Harkwright marketing for hippies

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I’ve been had, you know, been part of my orbit for

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Nyk Danu Yoga: right from the beginning, when I was 1st as a yoga teacher like I don’t understand. Why am I teaching 15 classes a week and living paycheck to paycheck like that’s kind of when I was 1st exposed to him, and he’s just been in my orbit ever since, and he’s not a yoga teacher. So I always, of course, have to then translate it into like Yoga speak. But you know he’s a hippie. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: there’s that part.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But yeah, I think I think it’s gonna be an ongoing thing for me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: both both mentee being mentee and being mentor.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 2 sides of the same coin. Almost yeah, beautiful.

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Karina Smith: Thank you so much for being on today, Nick, this is so good as always.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Thank you. And yes, when I, those of you who don’t know trying to get Australia and North American time zones to match up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s a special kind of thing right there, and so.

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Karina Smith: We did it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We did it we did it, but next time I’ll wait till I’m on a teaching break between semesters so that I can hang out with you in the evening, which will be a normal time of day for you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so thank you for logging on a little early for me

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I will talk to you very much soon. Of course I’ll put all your info in the show notes so everybody can find you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, friends, that’s it from me and Karina, for now until the next time. And for those of you we’ll see our proper goodbyes in a moment. Those of you listening or watching? Bye, for now.