Deepening Yin: The Power Of Props In Yin Yoga

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yenes, and welcome to a yen. Yoga, podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you’re new around here, welcome.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you are familiar, welcome back

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Nyk Danu Yoga: today’s episode with my guest, which will be Eddie D. Hilster, will be a little bit different.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Addie has been on the podcast before we talked about mindfulness in Yen Yoga like what actually is mindfulness? How could we use that in our classes and in our practice?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so she’s a return guest? I think she might be

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the 1st return guest, actually.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: during the course of getting to know Addie, I have learned that her and I have a very similar opinion

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Nyk Danu Yoga: on props and yen Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. And today’s episode is going to be a little bit more like a fireside chat as opposed to a

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a formal interview, because I’ve already interviewed Addie, and I will link that episode in the show notes. So if you want to hear her whole

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Nyk Danu Yoga: origin story to Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and her training and kind of the mindfulness, aspect of of her practice, and how she uses that in Yen, and she also gives you some great tips as teachers on mindfulness. And Yen Yoga. So we already have that episode. So today will be a little bit more casual, a little bit more of like a jam or kind of riffing back and forth a little more fireside chat on

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Nyk Danu Yoga: whether or not you can, should or would use yoga props

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in a Yid Yoga practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so she’ll be joining us in a moment. But before we get there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: dear listener.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I just wanted to share a little podcast love with you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This is by Bonnie F. 1, 0, 8,

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Nyk Danu Yoga: amazing podcast thank you for this. Podcast I am a true lover of all things. Yin.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: my favorite to practice and my favorite to teach.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: My training is also based on the trainings of Paul Grilley.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: my instructor. I learned from him as well. And it’s great to hear you speak

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Nyk Danu Yoga: of the practice from this mindset.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: All that being said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I so highly recommend this podcast to anyone.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Thank you so much, bonnie.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for that feedback.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: my friends, if you are not new here, if you have listened to several episodes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you’ve been enjoying this podcast and you’ve been getting a benefit from this, podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: please, would you, if you have not

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Nyk Danu Yoga: already 1st of all, make sure that you are subscribed or following

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in spotify or apple, or wherever you do that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’ve already done that, would you please take a moment to leave a 5 star review

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Nyk Danu Yoga: on spotify. It’s just stars on Apple. You could do 5 stars or and or a written review.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would appreciate

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Nyk Danu Yoga: all of that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: also, if you’re like, yeah, Nick, I’m already following. I’ve already offered a review. Then, thank you. You’re amazing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe if you don’t mind, take a screenshot of this episode or your favorite and just share it in your Instagram stories, and then tag me with at Nick Dana Yoga, or at Yin Yoga, podcast so that I can share the love.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would be super grateful for that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: One more reminder, my dear friends. If you are new around here, or just as a reminder that although I have the soul of a mermaid, I also have the mouth of a sailor, and that these are adult

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Nyk Danu Yoga: subject matter and adult language will probably happen.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: probably only on my part.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So if you have small people around, take a moment just to go ahead and grab some headphones. Now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: okay, I’m going to read Addy’s bio

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then the next time after this that you hear from me, I’ll be with Daddy.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So Addie Dilster is a mindfulness, meditation teacher and a certified International Association of Yoga Therapists, Yoga therapist.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Her passion is teaching movement practices that unlock mindfulness skills

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and helping students gain traction on their meditation practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that they can be present for their lives.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yin Yoga is one of the main modalities that she practices and teaches, and is an excellent doorway into embodied meditative stillness.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She’s now based in Vancouver, Washington, in the Us.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And she previously owned and operated a community Yoga studio in Los Angeles, California for over 5 years.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She’s a dedicated practitioner of Buddhist insight meditation.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and has accumulated over 4 months of silent retreat practice over the years.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She’s a graduate of the mindfulness, mentor training with Jack Cornfield and Tara Brock.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the Insight LA. Mindfulness facilitator program.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and the 2014 2015, Mindfulness.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yoga and Meditation Training program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: which is a program dedicated to weaving together traditions of Hatha Yoga and Buddhist meditation.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She studied Yin Yoga

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with Bernie Clark.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Paul Grilley, and Sarah Powers, and she is currently participating in the Chigong teacher mentorship with

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Mimi

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Kyo de Mer. I hope I said her name, right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Addie is the founder of the move to meditate class library. She’s the host of the move to meditate, podcast which I have been on as a guest.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And she offers yin yoga teacher trainings with a mindful and therapeutic emphasis.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s

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Nyk Danu Yoga: my friend Addie.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And again, she’s been on the podcast before. So if you want to hear her journey story to coming to Yoga, how she found Yoga, how she found Yen all of that is in the former episode.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Today’s episode will be a little bit more of her kind of, and I riffing back and forth on

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Nyk Danu Yoga: whether or not we should use props in Yen Yoga. So the next time that you hear from me I’ll be with Addie.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hi, Eddie!

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Hey, Nick, so great to hang out with you today.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I know this is going to be so fun.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I love these ideas of kind of having these more conversational episodes, these kind of what I what I call like fireside chats, or you know, tea at the table with your your Yoga friends. So I’m super stoked that we can let this interview just be kind of casual and free form, and.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): This is like a Yen Yoga podcast after dark.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Like we stayed up late chilling on the couch, and we’re just chatting all things, yen just ripping.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I’m the one who kind of sparked this. This invited this idea with you, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: just from knowing you from me, being on your podcast and you being on mine and us just connecting in the the Dms and things like that. I know that you are as much of a fan

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Nyk Danu Yoga: of yoga props as I am.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so when I was thinking about doing an episode on props, I was like, well, I mean, I could do it solo, but it’d be way more fun to do it with somebody who’s also prop obsessed.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I think that that’s a great idea, too, because I have done at least one episode about that myself, and I’ve been talking about it for years, but it’s great to have backup. And another voice who’s having that conversation with me? Because

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I don’t think this is quite as true as it used to be, but there were times when I would get a lot of pushback about the notion of props and Yin yoga. So just having another teacher with me who’s who’s saying similar things and saying Yes, props props are welcome in Yen Yoga. It makes it just less my solo voice where where people might assume. I’m just going rogue, and putting all these blankets into their yen poses as if.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Very odd.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Part of the practice. Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, I’ve I haven’t experienced it in person.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with teachers or teachers in my training. But I have seen it a lot in these Facebook groups where it’s like, you know, in Yen, we don’t use props, and I’m like, Excuse me, sorry

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: other than in

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Nyk Danu Yoga: groups like that?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: certainly. Paul never said that. In fact.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): No.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, you go to one of his trainings, and people are just pulling out all the cushy things and doing their thing, and they’re using the props to make the poses their own, and he’s never walking around going.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Block. Do you really need that bolster like I I don’t know where this.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Where do you think this idea comes from.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Well.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I guess 2 main things come to mind, and one

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Addie deHilster (she/her): is the basic.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): the basic problem of trying to define Yen Yoga, which is sometimes difficult to do in a short elevator speech. And what a lot of people default to is! Well, it’s kind of like restorative, yoga. But Dot dot Dot.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and one of the things I think that’s gotten mixed up in that is, people think well, restorative. Yoga is all about these props and the the blankets and the bolsters and the pillows, and so yin, yoga is not that.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and you and I both know, and I know you’ve you’ve tried to clarify this many times. But yen, that is not the way that yin and restorative are different from one another. They are distinct styles, but it’s not about the equipment.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Right.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and then the other piece, I think

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Addie deHilster (she/her): you know, may have come from like some of the earlier books and things that came out with yen, and that wasn’t depicted with a lot of props. It was.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: -Hmm.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Depicted with the pictures being very simple

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and not having access to maybe study in person with some of the leading teachers. People didn’t realize that props like would be used and integrated, and until more and more detail and more information came along the way later.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I’m I’m with you because I was surprised when I 1st started hearing people say that that props weren’t part of yen or pushing back. I did have people kind of do push back sometimes when I was leading trainings. Not as much now, but you know, 5, 6 years ago, 7 years ago. It was a thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Was surprised because when I took my Yen Yoga training with Bernie Clark in like what would have been like 2,011

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I was pretty new out of my. I was a couple of years out of my 200 h, and in my 200 h we did not really use a lot of props. I mean, they were around and they were. They were okay. They were welcome. But we didn’t really develop a lot of skill with them.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and that yin training with Bernie is where I really 1st started getting introduced to skillfully using props.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Interesting.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So like using them in different ways and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So Mississippi.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): And with specific bodies, so that totally didn’t compute for me when people were like props aren’t part of yen, yoga, I was like, excuse me, Yen Yoga is where I learned about props, so.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Thing.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): so weird, right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I mean for me, like I was already because my 1st training was I younger, based.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I was already a prop ninja. Long before I ever even heard the word yin

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I think I think you’re right. I I was thinking about it, too, when I was thinking I was like, well, where did this idea come from? And I wonder if it was the fact that in the Og. Books there’s narrow a prop insight

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Nyk Danu Yoga: of of yin books. But I would say, though, that if you look back at almost all of the and of the Yoga books

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in that era there’s narrow profit.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I think so.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: For our younger. So if it’s not in a younger book or a restorative book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you just don’t see props. And so people, I think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: maybe, of the assumption that props are only for those practices.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so to me, this also hits on a bigger conversation, which I’ll probably have on the product at some point about accessibility.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you are a Yin teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you understand skeletal variations, and that we’re not all one size fits all, and we’re not all the same.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how can you not use props

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to get people more comfortable in their shapes like it just is like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, yes, sure, I could give that person another pose, but I could also just put a block under their knee, and now they’re comfortable, and now they can do the post like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it it. To me it just seems like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if we were to say

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we don’t use props in yin.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then we’re saying that only people with a huge range of motion in their skeleton, and that are naturally flexible, get to practice. Yet.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): A 1,000%. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Ridiculous.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, there’s something very ablist in saying.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): we assume that you should be able to do this entire style of Yoga with no prop support.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Else you can’t do this style of yoga

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Addie deHilster (she/her): like that’s messed up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I think also that is messed up.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Slide into that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m not into that either. And I think also

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Nyk Danu Yoga: there’s this idea. And I I think it’s changing now. I think, with the younger teachers that are kind of coming up, or at least from what I have seen, it is

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but one of the things I’ve noticed about a certain generation of teacher is that they have this idea that we use the prop

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Nyk Danu Yoga: until

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we can air, quotes to the full posts.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Oh, boy!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right that the prop is just that it’s just a prop

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Nyk Danu Yoga: don’t get. Don’t get attached to it because we’re now gonna

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Nyk Danu Yoga: take it away from you at some point, you know, and I think this comes with that whole ridiculous idea practice, practice every you know everything’s coming. It’s like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: no, I can tell you right now. It does not matter how many times I practice shoulder stand.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I will never be adept in that post because of my limited bone structure. And so

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Idea, that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We use the props only, for people who air quotes can’t do the full pose.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): My gosh!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, that’s just such an old way of looking at it. And it’s definitely not a functional

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Nyk Danu Yoga: perspective.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I think again, this comes to aesthetic looks, aesthetic versions of poses versus functional poses. Because if you’re teaching from a functional perspective, like what is the point of this pose in the sequence.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then you’re gonna add prop, so that the person could do the pose because the function is the important part, not what the post looks like.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, I have like 10 avenues to go down from, like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Do it.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Said, but like

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I haven’t, I am experiencing practice. Practice aging is coming. So you know I use more props now than I needed when I 1st started practicing Yin, because my body is getting older and it’s changing. And

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Addie deHilster (she/her): you know, I

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I just need more support in certain ways.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So I’m experiencing, experiencing the exact opposite of that paradigm that the longer you practice, the less

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Addie deHilster (she/her): you’re going to need these props like prop as crutch.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Like, in.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Not that it’s I’ve gotten more sensitive to what my body needs, and I’m meeting my body as it is as it changes, and as I age, and so using the props skillfully, is part of that of part of being with myself in the present moment, and being with the reality of what my body needs, and not making a judgment out of that.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So you know, the prop isn’t is not a crutch. There. It’s it’s a way of actually, you know.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): being honest and being with what is true in the moment.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So I think there’s, you know, there’s a lot of like

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Addie deHilster (she/her): these external reasons why

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Addie deHilster (she/her): we might resist using props. And we can talk, too, about internal reasons that people resist using props because I think it can really go into some deep places, you know.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): But that’s you know. That’s 1 of the things that came up for me when you said that. You know that whole thing about

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Addie deHilster (she/her): using the props until you don’t need them anymore.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): When is that right?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I would say, and I am definitely aging. I’m at the time of this recording 51. Now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would say that actually hasn’t been my experience that I need more now that I’m aging. However, when I 1st started doing yoga, I was so tight like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I was like ex body builder like could barely move things tight. So I would say, I’m probably a little less reliant on props now, simply because the years of Yoga has actually opened me a bit.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But again, when it comes down to skeletal structure or injuries even, you know there are certain poses I will not do without a prop, because I know my back’s gonna hate me for days. If I if I do, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so part of it is accessibility. And again, you brought up this this term of of being able list of assuming that as a Yoga professional that, like everybody, can just do these poses if they just keep practicing hard enough.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s a very young attitude. By the way, folks, is pushing, efforting, striving, competing goal, orientated, obsessed with what the pose looks like. Thing that’s not a yin thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So there’s that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I also.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I went and did my 1st teacher training with Paul.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And you know, if you look at Paul’s Og. Books.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. There’s not a lot of like props, and there’s not a lot of upper body stuff, even frankly, for that.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Patrick.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so then I went home after that 1st 100 h, and then started practicing things, and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what I noticed in my own body

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as a former hairstylist and ex body builder, is that like I had so much tightness in like my neck, my trapezius, my shoulders, my rumbaids, my deltoids like this whole upper half of me was like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: tight.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I just kept longing for that yin feeling in those areas. And so I started taking

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what I knew from my younger training ways to do poses in a supported way with props

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and other just other shapes, and making them yin like. So you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we could say

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what would be Eagle Arms, I guess, in Hatha. So it’s like, Oh, okay, well, this is really effective for me. What would happen if I did that for a longer duration of time in a yin way. And Whoa, wow! That was when I mean, I just started experiencing so much transformation in my body.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What would happen if I did like a supported version of fish, where I put a block under my head and one in my upper back, and I laid there over that 4 min at a time. And for anyone right now who’s thinking? Yeah. But then that’s restorative. Oh, no, no, no, that is not restorative, believe me, I’m feeling a ton of sensation and opening, and when I do fish on blocks, right? So.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and maybe I can direct folks to if they’re like. I’m still confused about yen versus restorative, because it’s kind of beyond the scope of this one. I have a whole episode on that. I’ll link it in the show notes, and I’m sure you’ve got content about restorative to that. You can add.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for me, I started experimenting with the props

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Nyk Danu Yoga: mostly when so I was using some of them

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with Paul in my yin practice, especially with hamstring stuff, because tight for me. And to just get more comfortable in the shapes when I was in training. But then, when I came home and started thinking.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how could I experience all of these benefits that I am from the waist down with yen in my upper half, and that’s when I really started diving even more into using props.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so now, even in my teacher training and in my own practice, there are poses that I include in my yen repertoire that you can’t do without props, because.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Is the prop.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Is making the pose.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Making the shape.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): This is one of the things I have always appreciated about Paul Grilley and the whole ethos of Yen Yoga for people who were really studied with the sort of originators

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Addie deHilster (she/her): of the style is. It’s not very dogmatic. There are principles that are guiding principles, but it’s also like a living body of work like it’s open to continue evolving. So when he published that 1st book with that certain small repertoire of Yen poses, he wasn’t saying, this is the definitive set of all yen poses ever, you know. He encouraged people like you and others to go off and like invent

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Addie deHilster (she/her): their own yin poses, just using the principles that he outlined, and you know, to experiment and use them as a way to get to know your own body and what it needs.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So I love that. And I have always appreciated that about him as well as you know, to touch back on what you said about the functional approach.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): because, like that whole notion of use, the props until you don’t need them like

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Addie deHilster (she/her): no amount of stretching changes the shape of your joints. So if you have a hip joint that doesn’t have much external rotation.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): You know. You’re always gonna need that block underneath your knee in that hip opener pose. You know you’re not gonna like outgrow that or outstretch that somehow. So you know, that’s just that whole piece on skeletal variation and working with the joints that we have. That is a huge contribution

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Addie deHilster (she/her): from Paul Drilley. And when you really understand that, you, you know, like, okay, I have

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Addie deHilster (she/her): 3 choices here. I guess one is, do the pose and suffer. You know. 2 is, do a different pose, and 3 is, add a prop, and do this pose in a way that actually works for my body.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): cause they’re just. We can’t do some things in a yin like way without that support.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And there are people that are kind of just before our generation of teachers that are little more older, a little more experienced than we are that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, have done things like, Oh, I don’t have much external rotation in this hip, so I’ll just keep pushing into it. I’ll keep cramming into it. I’ll just keep forcing into it, and they’ve got hip replacements now. So.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s not what we want.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah. And it seems like there was a time in the Yoga community where it was very hush! Hush! To talk about.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Injuries and things, and sort of an expect, almost a magical belief system of like how Yoga would heal the body or pushing through pain was part of transcending your physical limitations and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Some kind of spiritual way, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s gonna make you one with God or something.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah. So I think we’ve gotten a little more grounded and realistic about some of that, and a lot more transparent about those conversations, which is, is a big.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): you know. Positive thing, you know, with all bows to those

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Addie deHilster (she/her): teachers who had such dedication. You know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. But I mean th. That’s part of their learning journey, too. Right?

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally we learned from them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And they learned from them, you know.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They they learned at some point. Oh, gee! Maybe being forceful with my bone structure. Probably not the smart way to practice, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah. So I think yes, I think you’re right. I think it was. Maybe some of the Og books at the time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Bernie does have some props in his and in his videos.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Don’t think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t know, and I don’t have it handy. I don’t remember.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s somewhere around here. Sarah’s book having a lot of prop options, either. She doesn’t.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yellow and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Her video.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): On, the.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Ops, yeah, yeah.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Has a little, and I know she definitely mentioned using them, encouraged them like in the text of the book, and I pointed it out to people when there was.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You’re like, and even like.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I remember once, like I was on a retreat that Sarah Powers was teaching, and I was doing a pose like I want to say, maybe it was like Butterfly seated butterfly forward fold, and I had a block.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): My forehead, and she came around and kind of tapped me on the shoulder and handed me like a

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Addie deHilster (she/her): circled up a blanket, and was like, try this, it’ll be even softer, so you can melt into the pose instead of the hardness of that block that is giving you a subtle kind of.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): you know, feedback. So not only did she encourage me to use the prop, she refined the way I was using the prop.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Understanding that this the prop could contribute to the yin-like softening that.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): As needed in the pose. So

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Addie deHilster (she/her): so this whole thing about the yin yoga, the founders of Yin Yoga don’t use props is just incorrect.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): 100%.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You heard it here? Well, maybe not first, st but you heard it here from 2 of us.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Another thing that I think

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Nyk Danu Yoga: people don’t realize, maybe about Paul is that you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the last time I was there I asked so many good questions. Cause I, you know, had been going for years, and then started teaching and training teachers. And so I had all these great questions, of course, and I asked him and Susie why, in the book and in the manuals there isn’t really a lot of upper body stuff.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and their answer was

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Nyk Danu Yoga: very simple, but also very interesting in that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Susie just said, well, we just felt like in our body, it’s not really needed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so but this is. But if you think about this, these are long-term Yogis

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Nyk Danu Yoga: who’ve been doing yoga for most of their life, they’re not the average student that most of us have.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Over a computer and has all of this like upper body tightness, right? Like they’ve been.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m sure they do some computer work. But you know, they’ve been mostly using their body, moving their body in in healthy ways for their whole

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Nyk Danu Yoga: teaching career.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And they are pre, you know, everyone being on social and everybody being stuck to zoom, and you know, and so I mean it kind of made sense, I was like, oh.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I can see.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: How the 2 of you

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Nyk Danu Yoga: maybe don’t need that. But I can tell you I do. And I could tell you my students definitely do, and you know, and so they were like. But you know, as always with those 2, they were like. But I mean we love that, you know you all are, are introducing upper body things like you should. You should do that if that’s helpful to you and your students right, which is always their attitude of just like well, yes, if that makes sense for you, please do that.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Think, yeah. And you made me think of like one other piece where I think maybe people have gotten tripped up is is just like misunderstanding some of

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Addie deHilster (she/her): when Paul, when I’ve heard Paul talking about the skeletal variation idea like, I remember being in a workshop one time where he was teaching this, and I think he was talking about swan pose, Aka pigeon, and Hatha Yoga, and he was like, if you don’t have enough rotation in your hip to have your leg position that way. Putting your butt up on a pillow isn’t gonna change that.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): And so some people heard, okay, no pillows.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Is not what he was saying.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The telephone game once.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, he was saying. He was saying, your bone structure is not going to be changed by a prop. He wasn’t saying, Don’t use the prop right? So I think that has been heard wrong a few times, and in fact, like on a break, I went up to ask.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and he was busy. So I asked, you know, and Susie was co-teaching with him, and I asked her, I was like, you know, a lot of people hear that kind of

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Addie deHilster (she/her): remark, and they think props aren’t part of Yen Yoga, and she goes. Oh, no, no, no, no, it’s not like that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So, you know, we couldn’t be more clear. It’s not coming from them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The telephone game and for those who are listening, and because I know it’s got other names, I think maybe on the Us. And Canada. It might be the telephone game, but I think it’s something else somewhere else.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Describe it. If you were ever as a child sitting in a circle, and then the teacher or the you know camp counselor, or whoever it was, whispers something in one student’s ear, and then tells them to whisper it to the other, and then they go down the circle like that. So eventually the 1st

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Nyk Danu Yoga: person hears back

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what they were, what they had said, and realizes that it’s nothing like what they said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I think a lot of times. What I hear of in yin groups as like hard and fast rules

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Nyk Danu Yoga: are an example of the telephone game having gone wrong where it’s like like in that example like you just said some people heard

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Nyk Danu Yoga: don’t use a prop, and Swan pose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and what you heard was

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Nyk Danu Yoga: using a prop in swan pose isn’t going to change your bones.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s very different.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s very, very different. Yeah, like, use the prop if you want.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but don’t use it thinking that somehow that’s going to someday. Make this pose

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Nyk Danu Yoga: again. It’s this idea of. We’re not using the prop to. Then yank it away at some point.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We’re using the prop so that you can settle into gravity instead of being tense and tight and kind of subtly resisting the pose because you’re so uncomfortable

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to me anytime you can bring the ground up, and again, practice. If the body is not on the ground by using a prop, all it does is it just allows our body to settle into the earth more.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Which then everything can soften, and then you can actually practice yin in this, you know, soft, relaxed way, and hold it for the duration without being like oh, how much longer, how much longer.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, because

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Addie deHilster (she/her): that’s muscular propping, right? So like, if you don’t allow your body to have the external support, it needs to be in that pose.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Internally, you’re gonna create that propping. So it’s bracing, muscular bracing. That’s your body’s gonna protect you right? You’re not gonna be able to relax and do that pose in a yin like way, and what we mean by that is like we generally try to relax the muscle engagement and do yin poses more passively.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Right, because that allows us to have a different experience, and it changes. You know some of what is happening to our tissues when we’re in the pose, and it allows us to hold the pose for a longer period of time in a sustainable way.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and to manage the amount of sensations that we’re experiencing and where we’re experiencing them. So the props enable all of that and this precision, you know that we we may want to have, as far as where we’re targeting in the body when we do oppose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m so glad you brought up the precision.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because I can use myself as a very clear example.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: In one of my knees. Well, I hyper extend in both of my knees the only place that I have any of that but in one of them, if I’m doing, let’s just say half butterfly, and then I go to fold over my leg.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m gonna get such a strong pulling and discomfort behind my knee that I won’t be able to continue to fold over it. Enough that I’ll actually feel the stretch in my hamstring totally, or in my spine

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or my back, which is the points like the 2

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 2 ways you could maybe do. I mean, we could argue. There’s a million ways to do half butterfly, but I’ll keep it simple. And say.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): As in that’s like the forward fold like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. So if you’re doing like.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Us, and a.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. Exactly. One leg out straight, one leg.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Bent, and you’re folding over your front leg.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The intention likely is to either target your hamstrings.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or maybe your spine, if you’re open enough in the hamstrings that you don’t feel that, but in my body all I get is a pain in the back of my knee, so I’ll very simple fix, for that is, I roll up a blanket, and I stick it under the back of my knee. Now I can fold forward without that pain, and actually get into my hamstring in my spine.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): You cheater.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I know. Right?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I was kidding.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That is not likely to ever change.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Because I mean, I’ve been doing this for I don’t know how many years, and it’s always that way on my right side.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so why would I? Why would I insist on removing the blanket which allows me to actually do the shape and actually feel the intended areas of the pose.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And back off like, why would I back off, feel nothing in my hamstring, and just sit up vertically and hang out there? Because I think I can’t use a prop.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It just that doesn’t make any.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): You’re not gonna get anywhere with that Nope, and like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hanging out similar.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Example, like picture. Someone comes to your class, and they’re they’re a dude

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Addie deHilster (she/her): who has tight hamstrings. I mean, there’s women there’s there’s all genders who have tight hamstrings, but I have so had so many, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Of me to.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): And with tight hamstrings in my class.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and sometimes they’re the most prop resistant at first, st unless they unless they don’t know anything about Yoga, and don’t you know, don’t have all these preconceptions which can be helpful? But so, if it’s like that person whose hamstrings are so tight that if they try to sit up in staff pose like they’re gonna go into a forward fold. They can’t even sit up where their legs are at a 90 degree angle to their torso, so they can’t

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Addie deHilster (she/her): do a forward tilt of the pelvis from there at all. They can’t do a forward fold from there. In fact, they’re rounding and leaning back and struggling just to sit up right?

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So they’re not going to get a hamstring stretch that way. Period. They’re just getting the plex or workout. They’re getting an ab workout right? And so, you know, I can choose to put them up on a couple of blankets, or maybe a bolster put, you know, wind up a blanket to put underneath their knees, and maybe help them start to get a little bit of that interior pelvic tilt.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and then we start to actually touch those hamstrings, you know, or I might put them on their back and have them a little bit away from the wall and lean their heels up on the wall, so their back can actually not be, you know, so stressed by this. And they can, you know, get that same shape

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Addie deHilster (she/her): at a different

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Addie deHilster (she/her): orientation to gravity

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Addie deHilster (she/her): and actually get a hamstring stretch

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Addie deHilster (she/her): because they are not going. It’s not going to change for them. The problem isn’t being addressed.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): If we won’t use props or won’t use any tools to help shift them out of that

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Addie deHilster (she/her): pattern that they’re stuck in.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. I would actually say that from my experience.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: most people, even people that are maybe a bit more open in their hips or their hamstrings than kind of the visual that you were painting.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: are not able to sit up straight well, and have their pelvis tip on the when they sit on the floor.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Without at least one blanket.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Without at least a blanket.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Or yeah, I I would say that the majority of bodies that I see.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And maybe Yoga teachers might be saying, Well, that’s not my experience. But I would actually, unless you’re teaching like Super bendy folks.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in which case, you know, party on with yourself.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but actually look at their pelvis, the angle of their pelvis, and how much lumbar curve they have when they’re sitting on the floor, because, from my experience, most students do not have that little tip of the pelvis forward, or any lumbar curve showing up when they’re sitting flat on the floor. And so now you’re asking them to round their spine forward when they can’t even move their pelvis like it. Just

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, I’m.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): That’s the foundation of a forward fold. So that has to be addressed first, st before you could even think about

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Addie deHilster (she/her): anything else. Right? Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, and then.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Not going to work as.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s also, I think, for me, and in my own practice, and I and I see this with students. So, for example.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: here’s another example. If someone’s got knee issues

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Nyk Danu Yoga: they can’t do dragon.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Which is like the lunge right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right like they can’t do a low lunge with their knee on the ground, and.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We don’t know about what I call baby Dragon. Some people call Lazy dragon. It’s got a million names. I’ll describe it for those who weren’t clear, laying on your back with either a block or a bolster under your sacrum, and then hugging one me in and extending your other leg out straight.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): I call that upward facing dragon.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, like, if.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, got it?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Just took that shape and flipped it upside down. It’s dragged.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s dragon.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know. But if you don’t know that, or you don’t allow for prop usage in your class, so what about that person who has a knee injury, do they just not get to do that post? You just tell them, oh, just take child’s pose, which, by the way, is exactly the opposite action of what everyone else is doing. And so

400
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I just think that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, when we can use props.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we can make things accessible for people with injuries or tightness, and it and I guess that may be the very flexible Yoga teachers probably hear this and think that we’re taking away the stretch. We’re not taking away the stretch. We’re actually making this stretch possible

403
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Nyk Danu Yoga: for that body. Right? That it’s it’s a no bueno. Otherwise they don’t get to participate. And so.

404
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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, I think that that one, or even if it’s not an injury. So, for example, I will choose in my own practice what I call

405
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Nyk Danu Yoga: what did you call it? Bait? I call it Baby Dragon, and you call it.

406
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Addie deHilster (she/her): Upward, facing dragon.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Upward facing dragon.

408
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ve heard recline dragon, you know. Lazy dragon.

409
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Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s Bridge.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Data. Yes.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Bridge pose crossed with need a chest pose, but it’s also like a lunge, so.

412
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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So for my body, just because of the way I’m built, because I have a generous lumbar curve

415
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Nyk Danu Yoga: and a bit of a wonky knee. So if I do dragon, I actually find it

416
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Nyk Danu Yoga: not a good pose to access my hip flexors. I don’t feel it.

417
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Nyk Danu Yoga: Unless I am coming into such a strong version that now I’m being tortured with my back, knee, and my arms, and everything else.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): And it’s not. It’s using that yin losing the yen spirit. That point.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Exactly. It doesn’t feel like a yin pose to me because I have to do such a a strange, contorted, deep version of it to feel anything that now I’m in a younger version of it, whereas if I flip over and I put that bolster under my pelvis, it very subtly puts my pelvis into a little bit of a tilt opposite direction, and then, when I hug my knee and I’m like, Hey, hit flexers nice to meet you so.

420
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Nyk Danu Yoga: and my partner is the opposite. He has like no lumbar curve, hardly like. And so for him, if he does

421
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Nyk Danu Yoga: my version, he doesn’t feel anything in his hip. Flexors. But dragon is brilliant for him.

422
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Nyk Danu Yoga: So again, this comes down to teaching functionally right, if we know that my intention of this shape is, I want to access their hip flexors

423
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Nyk Danu Yoga: that. And we, if we allow props, it opens up doors

424
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Nyk Danu Yoga: to so many different body types.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah. And I think one of the things you have to get used to in learning to teach this way

426
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Addie deHilster (she/her): is that everyone in the room is not going to be doing the same thing.

427
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Addie deHilster (she/her): and that at 1st that sounds daunting like this is going to be complicated. If I’ve got 10 different versions of the pose going on.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): But it’s it’s not that bad, you know. Actually, in time you get comfortable with that. And you realize you don’t necessarily have to go over and micromanage each person doing that. If you give a few skillful options

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Addie deHilster (she/her): they’ll choose for themselves, and and students learn pretty quickly, like what works for them. If they’re encouraged to experiment like that, they learn pretty quickly and like. In fact, my students got so creative like they made up prop combinations I never would have thought of, and.

430
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Nyk Danu Yoga: To.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Things that I ended up teaching others and putting into trainings. Because I’m like.

432
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Addie deHilster (she/her): I never thought of tilting the bolster like that brilliant.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): So I think we underestimate our students sometimes and think we’ve got to just do it all ourselves. So we’ve got to know everything as the teacher.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): But I think it’s more like, we just have to create the right container and the right environment for people to do their own practice collectively. And it’s okay if we’re doing different versions of things, and there’s not one right way to do that pose.

436
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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I think that sometimes I actually did see this recently from a a new teacher who’s feeling

437
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Nyk Danu Yoga: in I saw her in the in one of the Facebook groups. She’s feeling a bit overwhelmed, I think, with

438
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Nyk Danu Yoga: a as a new young teacher like, how do I show the pose well enough so that they understand what we’re doing, and then talk them through them all the different variations, and then like not, eat up the whole class time, and the way I do it is

439
00:41:47.630 –> 00:41:51.499
Nyk Danu Yoga: other than one pose. Maybe I give 2 variations.

440
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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know. It’s like you could do this. You could use this and this, and then

441
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I pause. And I see where everyone’s at.

442
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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And if I need to add more.

443
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I add more, as the people that are that are doing good are settling in. Then, I say, if this still isn’t working for you, you could try this or this, but I’m doing it while they’re in the shape. So.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally.

445
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think sometimes teachers think that they have to do the full show and tell

446
00:42:15.590 –> 00:42:16.600
Nyk Danu Yoga: before.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Full pose, breakdown.

448
00:42:17.800 –> 00:42:20.770
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, before they even get the students in. And sometimes.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): No.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: For me sometimes, that is, is a bit useful. If if it’s a newer student and it’s a post where they’re going to go lay down, I’ll say. Just hang on a second. Let me show you a couple of options.

451
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Nyk Danu Yoga: But usually anyone who’s got experience is already in the post before I finished my 1st option. You know.

452
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Nyk Danu Yoga: and, like you said, I have had so many students

453
00:42:39.730 –> 00:42:45.239
Nyk Danu Yoga: do versions of poses that I never would have thought of

454
00:42:45.600 –> 00:42:49.360
Nyk Danu Yoga: like in a million years. I never would have like been like

455
00:42:49.530 –> 00:42:50.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: I just look at. And I’m like.

456
00:42:51.390 –> 00:42:59.867
Nyk Danu Yoga: Wow, that’s really cool like, it wouldn’t have worked for my body. But now, like you said, I get to add that to my repertoire of like, here’s another option.

457
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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so

458
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think maybe the reason that but maybe both of us were confused is our we’re confused by this whole. No props thing.

459
00:43:11.478 –> 00:43:17.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: Is is partially based on our training because we both trained with these Yin teachers, and

460
00:43:17.440 –> 00:43:23.669
Nyk Danu Yoga: that there’s never been a statement ever that you can’t use a prop. So I really don’t know where it comes from, unless

461
00:43:23.680 –> 00:43:27.160
Nyk Danu Yoga: that people saying that are literally basing it on the books.

462
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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s the only thing I can think of, because if you’ve trained with any of these teachers.

463
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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s no

464
00:43:34.670 –> 00:43:36.769
Nyk Danu Yoga: anti-prop sentiment there.

465
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I know of a colleague. I’ve heard her share this story.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Dr. Karina Smith, if you’re listening to this shout out

467
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Nyk Danu Yoga: I remember watching a video of her sharing a story where she was in a Yin class and was getting into her zone and had her props and was all set up. And then the teacher went around and started saying, Okay, now it’s time to remove the props.

468
00:44:04.260 –> 00:44:06.110
Nyk Danu Yoga: I know again.

469
00:44:06.630 –> 00:44:07.400
Addie deHilster (she/her): Didn’t.

470
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Nyk Danu Yoga: Shit.

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Addie deHilster (she/her): Know that.

472
00:44:09.420 –> 00:44:17.420
Nyk Danu Yoga: Right. How do you know it’s time for that student to remove that prop like again, though this has got to come from that place of

473
00:44:17.790 –> 00:44:25.089
Nyk Danu Yoga: this sort of goal orientated young attitude of now we want you to go deeper, so I’m going to remove the prop.

474
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Nyk Danu Yoga: The prop might not have been keeping them from going deeper. In fact, it might be allowing the depth in that post.

475
00:44:32.030 –> 00:44:34.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: Because they can take that big sigh of relief and

476
00:44:34.960 –> 00:44:38.719
Nyk Danu Yoga: release and relax into it so.

477
00:44:39.200 –> 00:44:53.640
Nyk Danu Yoga: And that could be, I mean, and I think I think I remember her saying in the video that that was it was almost traumatizing to be like, wait a minute, you just you’re gonna come and take my nest away like, I just got this all set up. And now I’m just getting into it. And now you’re gonna like yeah, it.

478
00:44:54.320 –> 00:44:59.580
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think, as teachers. We really need to watch that we’re not again practicing our yin yoga with a

479
00:44:59.620 –> 00:45:01.489
Nyk Danu Yoga: a sense of a young attitude

480
00:45:01.560 –> 00:45:02.669
Nyk Danu Yoga: right like the.

481
00:45:02.670 –> 00:45:04.949
Addie deHilster (she/her): So easy for that to creep in.

482
00:45:04.950 –> 00:45:06.040
Nyk Danu Yoga: So easy.

483
00:45:06.090 –> 00:45:09.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: The goal of the pose isn’t to someday air quotes. Do the full pose.

484
00:45:10.210 –> 00:45:10.570
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

485
00:45:10.570 –> 00:45:13.659
Nyk Danu Yoga: The goal of the pose is, are you feeling it in the intended area?

486
00:45:14.280 –> 00:45:15.520
Nyk Danu Yoga: If so, well done.

487
00:45:16.170 –> 00:45:17.440
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, you know exactly.

488
00:45:17.440 –> 00:45:18.130
Addie deHilster (she/her): Luckily.

489
00:45:18.130 –> 00:45:18.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

490
00:45:18.780 –> 00:45:24.419
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly, and I think that brings up like 2 other pieces that I think that props

491
00:45:24.460 –> 00:45:28.160
Addie deHilster (she/her): really address, and one is like using props

492
00:45:28.440 –> 00:45:32.010
Addie deHilster (she/her): is a great way of making the yen practice more trauma informed.

493
00:45:32.610 –> 00:45:44.630
Addie deHilster (she/her): You know. 1st of all, because choice is huge in a trauma informed. Yeah, yoga class right? Exactly letting people have agency over their own body, and choose what version of the pose works best for them.

494
00:45:44.650 –> 00:45:50.250
Addie deHilster (she/her): Right? It also can provide comfort or privacy, or grounding, or containment, or.

495
00:45:50.250 –> 00:45:51.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: Garden.

496
00:45:51.020 –> 00:46:08.999
Addie deHilster (she/her): Support in so many different ways that I think really enhances the trauma informed quality of a yen class, along with many other things like the environment and the teacher’s presence, and the words, and the queuing, and all of that. But the props are part of that, I think an essential part of that.

497
00:46:09.250 –> 00:46:14.389
Addie deHilster (she/her): and the other piece is what the props do for our nervous system.

498
00:46:14.430 –> 00:46:18.200
Addie deHilster (she/her): You know that the way that the props

499
00:46:18.410 –> 00:46:31.939
Addie deHilster (she/her): help us to find safety. This, like nervous system level of safety. I don’t even mean injury, prevention, but, like our nervous systems, perception of safety that allows a deeper release.

500
00:46:32.220 –> 00:46:49.250
Addie deHilster (she/her): And truly like our nervous system. Our brain is a huge part of what controls our flexibility, and it will put the brakes on you if you’re pushing too hard. So like this. Sign. If you’re watching the video of this, you can see on the back of my room. You can’t read it from there, but it says, slow as the new fast.

501
00:46:49.570 –> 00:46:50.210
Nyk Danu Yoga: Love it.

502
00:46:50.210 –> 00:46:58.660
Addie deHilster (she/her): Which I used to say in yen class, and what some of our students made a sign for us for the studio at 1 point. And that’s you know.

503
00:46:58.760 –> 00:47:14.850
Addie deHilster (she/her): the irony of things is like you think you can push your way into more flexibility or into your goal. But truly, like slowing down and working with your body and working with your nervous system. You will get there faster. You will get there, and you will get there in a better way.

504
00:47:15.640 –> 00:47:19.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think that there’s often some confusion sometimes between

505
00:47:19.740 –> 00:47:22.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: what we need to do if we’re trying to strengthen

506
00:47:22.730 –> 00:47:25.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: versus what we’re trying to do if we’re trying to release or stretch

507
00:47:25.860 –> 00:47:29.270
Nyk Danu Yoga: right? So if I’m trying to strengthen my arms.

508
00:47:29.500 –> 00:47:37.599
Nyk Danu Yoga: then yes, I do want to push myself a little bit, maybe to hold the plank pose longer than I feel comfortable, right? Cause I’m trying to get stronger.

509
00:47:38.410 –> 00:47:43.820
Nyk Danu Yoga: But if I’m trying to stretch my arms, if I’m trying to get more flexible.

510
00:47:44.010 –> 00:47:47.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: then the more I can back away from that

511
00:47:48.920 –> 00:47:56.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t even like using the word edge, but I’ll use it in this case back away from that edge of night. Now it’s causing discomfort and get into that

512
00:47:57.270 –> 00:47:59.489
Nyk Danu Yoga: point where it’s the middle way.

513
00:47:59.700 –> 00:48:01.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: right where it’s.

514
00:48:01.320 –> 00:48:16.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I think sometimes. And I can already hear it’s it’s like, I’ve developed this weird psychic sense of hearing Yoga teachers in my brain. When I do these, I can already hear some Yoga teachers thinking that all of this prop talk is making these poses easier and restorative, and again.

515
00:48:16.870 –> 00:48:17.790
Addie deHilster (she/her): Necessarily.

516
00:48:17.790 –> 00:48:26.340
Nyk Danu Yoga: If you do not understand the difference clearly between you and restorative, we will put links in the show notes to resources for you, but

517
00:48:27.590 –> 00:48:33.229
Nyk Danu Yoga: allowing some sense, just enough softness in a shape that somebody can settle.

518
00:48:34.350 –> 00:48:44.419
Nyk Danu Yoga: Into. It means that they’re more likely to be in their parasympathetic nervous system, that relaxation response which you were just talking about, which means their body is going to go.

519
00:48:44.920 –> 00:48:46.559
Nyk Danu Yoga: Wow, okay.

520
00:48:46.860 –> 00:48:56.120
Nyk Danu Yoga: okay, I can let go here. Things things are good. Things are alright. Everything’s safe. As soon as you start to cross over that line into that pushing, striving, efforting.

521
00:48:56.190 –> 00:49:02.540
Nyk Danu Yoga: Now you’re starting to move into that sympathetic nervous system. And one of the 1st things that’s going to happen is your body’s going to tighten up

522
00:49:02.650 –> 00:49:06.670
Nyk Danu Yoga: because it’s trying to protect itself from injury.

523
00:49:06.670 –> 00:49:07.520
Addie deHilster (she/her): For action.

524
00:49:07.520 –> 00:49:11.040
Nyk Danu Yoga: Or or get ready to fight flight freeze, you know.

525
00:49:11.490 –> 00:49:12.390
Nyk Danu Yoga: So

526
00:49:12.720 –> 00:49:14.090
Nyk Danu Yoga: if we want.

527
00:49:14.110 –> 00:49:20.220
Nyk Danu Yoga: I always say this in my in my classes, that actually in yen less is more

528
00:49:20.850 –> 00:49:21.700
Nyk Danu Yoga: so.

529
00:49:21.800 –> 00:49:24.959
Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe don’t do such a supported version. You feel nothing

530
00:49:25.110 –> 00:49:26.739
Nyk Danu Yoga: that would be restorative.

531
00:49:26.740 –> 00:49:27.100
Addie deHilster (she/her): Right.

532
00:49:27.100 –> 00:49:35.490
Nyk Danu Yoga: But also don’t push yourself so much that you’re grimacing, and you’re holding your breath, and your mind is racing because those are all signs that you’ve switched over

533
00:49:35.670 –> 00:49:37.649
Nyk Danu Yoga: out of this parasympathetic

534
00:49:37.690 –> 00:49:43.350
Nyk Danu Yoga: relaxation aspect of your nervous system. And you know I often joke, too. I’m like

535
00:49:43.540 –> 00:49:53.069
Nyk Danu Yoga: it’s not as sexy and flashy, but like, can we talk about the middle way here? Can we talk about moderation, or what I think Bernie calls like the Goldilocks principle, right?

536
00:49:53.070 –> 00:49:53.780
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly.

537
00:49:53.780 –> 00:49:56.699
Nyk Danu Yoga: Pretty much just for too little. Yeah, just.

538
00:49:56.700 –> 00:49:57.810
Addie deHilster (she/her): Sweet spot.

539
00:49:58.030 –> 00:49:58.650
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

540
00:49:58.790 –> 00:50:01.790
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly exactly, and

541
00:50:02.340 –> 00:50:25.209
Addie deHilster (she/her): that also brings me to this whole piece about like managing sensations, because this is one of the distinctions with Yin and restorative, like restorative, is very, not sensation seeking. It’s very mild, if any stretch, it’s more just like restfully opening the body. This beautiful, juicy way that I also love.

542
00:50:25.270 –> 00:50:45.899
Addie deHilster (she/her): But yeah, and we allow more sensation. That doesn’t mean that it needs to go to a hundred out of 10 on the intensity scale. Right? That’s not what we’re going for. We’re going for, you know, for out of 10, on the intensity scale, or something in that zone where, yeah, we can feel that we are

543
00:50:45.900 –> 00:51:00.539
Addie deHilster (she/her): inviting some change in the body. But in this really sweet and gradual and friendly way that we can sustain over that 3, 4, 5, 6 min that we’re going to be in the pose.

544
00:51:00.670 –> 00:51:04.909
Addie deHilster (she/her): Right? So if we go to that like

545
00:51:05.600 –> 00:51:31.980
Addie deHilster (she/her): nuclear level of sensation all the time, we’re probably going more towards disregulating the nervous system. And it’s gonna become our sole entire focus. So we’re not gonna get some of those more rich like emotional benefits or the mindfulness practices, or even feeling the subtle energy flows of the pose. Right? We’re not gonna get all of that. If if our attention has to fully just be on this

546
00:51:32.040 –> 00:51:34.590
Addie deHilster (she/her): super strong sensation that we’re

547
00:51:35.080 –> 00:51:37.960
Addie deHilster (she/her): we’re gravitating towards in every pose.

548
00:51:38.380 –> 00:51:42.499
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, totally. You can’t practice introception if you’re struggling.

549
00:51:42.750 –> 00:51:43.860
Addie deHilster (she/her): Right like you.

550
00:51:43.860 –> 00:51:45.730
Nyk Danu Yoga: Can’t go in and be like. Hmm!

551
00:51:45.930 –> 00:51:51.760
Nyk Danu Yoga: What’s going on in my body right now? How is my mind? What are my emotions doing? If you’re like, I can barely hold myself up.

552
00:51:51.760 –> 00:51:53.380
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, yeah, exactly.

553
00:51:53.380 –> 00:51:54.060
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

554
00:51:54.420 –> 00:51:55.290
Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah.

555
00:51:55.930 –> 00:52:02.909
Nyk Danu Yoga: huh? And then also, I use a bunch. I I have a bunch of shapes that I use, that you can’t even do without props

556
00:52:03.400 –> 00:52:07.274
Nyk Danu Yoga: like supported fish, a supported heartbed

557
00:52:07.920 –> 00:52:11.430
Addie deHilster (she/her): A back bend on a bolster. Right? Yeah. That’s yeah. Requires a bolster.

558
00:52:11.430 –> 00:52:12.340
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, exactly.

559
00:52:12.720 –> 00:52:14.549
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I will say.

560
00:52:14.630 –> 00:52:19.140
Nyk Danu Yoga: and now this might might get me some eggs thrown at me in the Yin community.

561
00:52:19.140 –> 00:52:19.480
Addie deHilster (she/her): But then.

562
00:52:19.480 –> 00:52:29.350
Nyk Danu Yoga: If I haven’t, I know you’re ready for it. I have a choice in my class between getting someone to do a heart bed. So, sitting in front of a bolster, laying their spine on the bolster.

563
00:52:29.440 –> 00:52:32.589
Nyk Danu Yoga: opening their arms out to whatever degree is comfortable for them.

564
00:52:33.000 –> 00:52:35.449
Nyk Danu Yoga: If I have a choice between that and Sphinx pose.

565
00:52:36.220 –> 00:52:40.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m going to take heart bed all day every day, and here’s why

566
00:52:41.000 –> 00:52:45.540
Nyk Danu Yoga: you are still getting that sweet little lumbar compression that you’re getting in Sphinx.

567
00:52:45.540 –> 00:52:45.860
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

568
00:52:45.860 –> 00:52:48.209
Nyk Danu Yoga: But you get to Multitask.

569
00:52:48.240 –> 00:53:07.750
Nyk Danu Yoga: depending on where your arms are placed. You might also be lifting your ribs gently away from your waist. You’re spreading your ribs, you’re opening the heart and the chest in the front of the shoulders, depending on where your arms are placed. That’s just the front body, and then on the back body. All of that tight muscles and fascia are reshaping themselves around that bolster shape. So

570
00:53:08.040 –> 00:53:09.819
Nyk Danu Yoga: it’s a multitasker.

571
00:53:10.060 –> 00:53:31.600
Nyk Danu Yoga: whereas Sphinx is pretty much lumbar for most people, and then also trying to get comfortable on their arms and find the version that works for them. So if I want to pose in my my sequence where I want something for their lumbar. I want to support that lumbar curve. I want a little gentle compression in their lumbar. I can get that in so many other ways, with so many other poses, that also have

572
00:53:31.810 –> 00:53:33.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: other extra benefits.

573
00:53:34.100 –> 00:53:40.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: especially for those that you know sit at a desk and round forward all the time.

574
00:53:40.760 –> 00:53:41.490
Nyk Danu Yoga: I just.

575
00:53:41.490 –> 00:53:41.930
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

576
00:53:41.930 –> 00:53:49.590
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s a far bigger service to my students to give them heart bed, or maybe supported fish, you know, on blocks.

577
00:53:49.730 –> 00:53:55.690
Nyk Danu Yoga: and they’re still going to get all of those benefits of that sweet backbend, but they’re getting all the bonuses as well.

578
00:53:55.690 –> 00:53:58.030
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, it’s like 4 for the price of one.

579
00:53:58.030 –> 00:53:59.439
Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally yes, I.

580
00:53:59.440 –> 00:54:00.530
Addie deHilster (she/her): I say to myself.

581
00:54:00.530 –> 00:54:00.850
Nyk Danu Yoga: It was.

582
00:54:00.850 –> 00:54:01.340
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah. The best.

583
00:54:01.340 –> 00:54:08.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: If you have time for ¥1 yoga pose a day, get thyself a bolster, and do heartbre every day. If you just have 5 min a day.

584
00:54:09.100 –> 00:54:09.880
Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s it’s a.

585
00:54:09.880 –> 00:54:20.899
Addie deHilster (she/her): Choice. Yeah, I agree. And I do like Sphinx. And I do choose it sometimes because I I think sometimes there’s it’s beneficial to like be on our front side like be prone on the belly.

586
00:54:21.520 –> 00:54:41.439
Addie deHilster (she/her): But I agree like there’s a restfulness of laying back on the bolster, and I love to teach reclining butterfly like that, and I know for sure there’s people who’ve seen that in my yen class and got this is restorative class, because it’s kind of like the quintessential restorative pose, too.

587
00:54:41.810 –> 00:54:45.599
Addie deHilster (she/her): But that doesn’t mean it’s not also a yen pose. Right? That’s.

588
00:54:45.600 –> 00:54:45.950
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

589
00:54:45.950 –> 00:54:49.929
Addie deHilster (she/her): Warrior twos and Iyangar pose. It can’t be in a stronger pose.

590
00:54:49.930 –> 00:54:51.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Right! Ridiculous.

591
00:54:51.470 –> 00:54:52.929
Addie deHilster (she/her): So like you’re ready.

592
00:54:52.930 –> 00:54:53.400
Nyk Danu Yoga: Ridiculous.

593
00:54:53.400 –> 00:54:59.340
Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s both, it’s both. And if you were to look at it as far as like the meridians you’re addressing, like

594
00:54:59.380 –> 00:55:04.829
Addie deHilster (she/her): most of them, right in reclining butterfly cause you, if you do like.

595
00:55:04.830 –> 00:55:07.639
Nyk Danu Yoga: Butterfly you’re getting, I think, pretty much all of them.

596
00:55:07.640 –> 00:55:11.610
Addie deHilster (she/her): Pretty much all of them, like all of the ones for the inner leg, you know.

597
00:55:11.770 –> 00:55:13.680
Nyk Danu Yoga: All of the ones on the inner arm.

598
00:55:13.680 –> 00:55:17.089
Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally up the front of the torso. You.

599
00:55:17.090 –> 00:55:17.460
Nyk Danu Yoga: On, the.

600
00:55:17.460 –> 00:55:19.980
Addie deHilster (she/her): Batter in the back, you know.

601
00:55:19.980 –> 00:55:20.420
Nyk Danu Yoga: To, the.

602
00:55:20.420 –> 00:55:23.970
Addie deHilster (she/her): I mean, you’re maybe not getting a lot of gall bladder meridian on the sides. But you’re.

603
00:55:23.970 –> 00:55:29.379
Nyk Danu Yoga: Little bit because of the bolster spreading your ribs and lifting your ribs away from your pelvis. So.

604
00:55:29.380 –> 00:55:29.890
Addie deHilster (she/her): And is.

605
00:55:29.890 –> 00:55:30.300
Nyk Danu Yoga: Especially.

606
00:55:30.300 –> 00:55:30.799
Addie deHilster (she/her): Out of there.

607
00:55:30.800 –> 00:55:32.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: And especially if you bring your arms up overhead.

608
00:55:33.670 –> 00:55:34.469
Addie deHilster (she/her): You could.

609
00:55:34.470 –> 00:55:35.130
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

610
00:55:35.130 –> 00:55:36.439
Addie deHilster (she/her): So, yeah.

611
00:55:36.440 –> 00:55:38.648
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s the great meridian multitasker.

612
00:55:39.090 –> 00:55:39.505
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly.

613
00:55:40.470 –> 00:55:48.650
Addie deHilster (she/her): Look, we have to be efficient these days, right like we don’t have an hour and a half to do yen class. If we have time to do one pose right?

614
00:55:48.810 –> 00:55:50.519
Addie deHilster (she/her): You might want to be strategic and.

615
00:55:50.520 –> 00:55:51.770
Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s the one I usually tell people.

616
00:55:51.770 –> 00:55:52.110
Addie deHilster (she/her): In life.

617
00:55:52.110 –> 00:56:05.839
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s like, if you have 5 min a day and everyone is. Everyone has 5 min a day. You might have to scroll less or watch one less Netflix show. But like everybody’s got 5 min, you know. So I’m like, this is the one you know, to start your practice.

618
00:56:08.680 –> 00:56:20.559
Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, I I guess. And again, I could just hear that teachers are probably thinking, well, then, you know, how do I? How do I know as the teacher. If the student is doing a restorative version

619
00:56:20.930 –> 00:56:22.499
Nyk Danu Yoga: or a yin version

620
00:56:22.870 –> 00:56:25.059
Nyk Danu Yoga: well, you don’t unless you ask them.

621
00:56:26.125 –> 00:56:26.460
Addie deHilster (she/her): And.

622
00:56:26.710 –> 00:56:30.029
Nyk Danu Yoga: What might be restorative and super gentle for me.

623
00:56:30.190 –> 00:56:34.469
Nyk Danu Yoga: especially as someone with like a gifted lumbar curve, right like

624
00:56:34.540 –> 00:56:44.069
Nyk Danu Yoga: what might be super restorative and easy for me, where I don’t feel any stretch, for even someone like my partner, who has less lumbar curve would be a

625
00:56:44.140 –> 00:56:46.829
Nyk Danu Yoga: an active backbend, even if he’s on props.

626
00:56:47.330 –> 00:56:48.350
Nyk Danu Yoga: so

627
00:56:48.880 –> 00:56:59.239
Nyk Danu Yoga: you might not know unless you ask them. And this is why you just communicate with them. If you, if you’re looking at your student, and you think they’re in a version that’s I’m going to do. Air quotes here to prompt

628
00:56:59.390 –> 00:57:04.819
Nyk Danu Yoga: where it’s burgeoning on restorative, and it’s no longer yin ask them what they’re feeling and where.

629
00:57:04.820 –> 00:57:05.560
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

630
00:57:05.560 –> 00:57:10.912
Nyk Danu Yoga: And if they’re like, Oh, I’m feeling a stretch here. I’m feeling compression here. Then they’re not doing restorative. Yoga.

631
00:57:12.280 –> 00:57:16.730
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, you might be surprised what they’re feeling. And

632
00:57:16.900 –> 00:57:24.309
Addie deHilster (she/her): again, you know, going back to like letting people have their autonomy. If they’ve come into the pose this way and this feels good to them today.

633
00:57:24.640 –> 00:57:54.549
Addie deHilster (she/her): then does it? This might be the heresy thing. But like, does it really matter if they’re doing restorative or yen like, are the Yen police gonna come into the studio and like sound, the alarm for this person is comfortable in their pose and like, who knows what they’ve been going through in their day today, and why they came to your class like what and what they need from that class. Is not you coming over and being like well, now, you know, really in Yen Yoga to do the style.

634
00:57:55.440 –> 00:57:56.540
Addie deHilster (she/her): Really.

635
00:57:57.250 –> 00:57:57.930
Addie deHilster (she/her): this guy.

636
00:57:57.930 –> 00:58:01.619
Nyk Danu Yoga: Comes from both of us being yoga therapists.

637
00:58:01.900 –> 00:58:02.570
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, from a.

638
00:58:02.570 –> 00:58:08.120
Nyk Danu Yoga: Training, you know. I often say I have lots of students that will show up for my class.

639
00:58:08.140 –> 00:58:16.379
Nyk Danu Yoga: They’ll get into heart bed. They don’t leave the whole class. They get in. They stay, they fall asleep. Maybe eventually they roll over.

640
00:58:16.670 –> 00:58:19.540
Nyk Danu Yoga: I have 0 problem with people doing their own.

641
00:58:19.540 –> 00:58:20.210
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

642
00:58:20.380 –> 00:58:25.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: In the room as long as it’s not disruptive to the group. So like, if someone starts doing a flow practice in my in class, I will say.

643
00:58:25.870 –> 00:58:28.440
Addie deHilster (she/her): Want to go over and do a head stand. And that’s probably a problem.

644
00:58:28.440 –> 00:58:29.599
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m going to say, let me.

645
00:58:29.600 –> 00:58:30.290
Addie deHilster (she/her): I need you to.

646
00:58:30.290 –> 00:58:32.894
Nyk Danu Yoga: Keep the energy level down here, you know.

647
00:58:33.660 –> 00:58:38.049
Nyk Danu Yoga: but otherwise, yeah, if they’re not disrupting the group, and they’re choosing to do

648
00:58:38.170 –> 00:58:57.560
Nyk Danu Yoga: different poses or different variations, or hang out in some longer, or come out earlier. God forbid! You know I’m fine with all of that now I do. Usually, if people keep coming out early, repetitively, especially if they’re newer to yen, I’ll usually touch on like, are you coming in? I won’t say it to them specifically. But to the group, you know.

649
00:58:57.920 –> 00:59:01.030
Nyk Danu Yoga: Make sure that you’re not actually coming in too deep.

650
00:59:01.400 –> 00:59:01.760
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

651
00:59:01.760 –> 00:59:12.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: I keep feeling like in every single pose. I need to come out early, like. Of course we don’t want you injuring yourself. Please listen to your body. But if it’s happening in every pose, it’s probably that you’re doing a version that’s too strong. And could you.

652
00:59:12.630 –> 00:59:13.820
Addie deHilster (she/her): Starting with too much.

653
00:59:13.820 –> 00:59:15.499
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, could you do less

654
00:59:15.620 –> 00:59:18.612
Nyk Danu Yoga: and allow yourself to kind of settle

655
00:59:20.040 –> 00:59:21.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: But yeah, I just.

656
00:59:22.540 –> 00:59:24.263
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m so glad that we did this.

657
00:59:24.510 –> 00:59:25.660
Addie deHilster (she/her): Me too. I.

658
00:59:25.660 –> 00:59:26.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe we.

659
00:59:26.020 –> 00:59:32.860
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah. Like to hear that when I’m like, does it matter if it’s, you know, restorative, really, really? And I know, like.

660
00:59:32.930 –> 00:59:59.219
Addie deHilster (she/her): they don’t like to hear that, because, like we are trying, I understand, like the desire to have some fidelity to the style or the lineage, or to be respectful of like what you were taught, and to try to like, have some container around that. And if if the classes advertises Yen, it should be in class like. I totally agree with that, but only to the point. I will not interfere with a student’s autonomy in order to enforce that. You know.

661
00:59:59.220 –> 01:00:00.820
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, we’re not policing them.

662
01:00:00.820 –> 01:00:21.649
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that part is on the teacher and the choices you make in how you teach the class and what you offer in the class and what the foundation is for those decisions and the principles that it’s based on. That’s what makes it a yen class, not policing like the props that the students are using.

663
01:00:22.280 –> 01:00:31.269
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then I would also, just to go even deeper. With that I would challenge a teacher who feels that way to ask yourself, why did you become a Yoga teacher

664
01:00:32.630 –> 01:00:40.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: like? Did you become a Yoga teacher to like blindly follow rules and be kind of a drill sergeant? Or did you teach Yoga, because

665
01:00:41.050 –> 01:00:48.449
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know how much of a benefit Yoga has been to you, and you want to offer that gift to your students, because if that’s the case, which is why I did it.

666
01:00:49.700 –> 01:00:50.550
Nyk Danu Yoga: then.

667
01:00:51.170 –> 01:00:58.610
Nyk Danu Yoga: focusing more on holding a brave space for your students and teaching a classroom where people feel comfortable

668
01:00:58.620 –> 01:01:04.969
Nyk Danu Yoga: enough to have agency, and to make their own choices, and God forbid, perhaps even fall asleep.

669
01:01:05.030 –> 01:01:06.129
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know.

670
01:01:07.470 –> 01:01:23.040
Nyk Danu Yoga: If if what you, if what you came into wanting to be a teacher with is, I want to help my fellow humans heal, and I want to do it with this gift of Yoga which helped me heal, and I have fallen in love, which is probably 90% of teachers that I’m talking to right now.

671
01:01:23.040 –> 01:01:23.860
Addie deHilster (she/her): Absolutely.

672
01:01:23.860 –> 01:01:27.400
Nyk Danu Yoga: If that is really your intention, if that’s your bigger, why

673
01:01:27.580 –> 01:01:29.000
Nyk Danu Yoga: then, like you said.

674
01:01:29.130 –> 01:01:36.509
Nyk Danu Yoga: does it really matter if on that day that particular reclined butterfly is slightly less yin

675
01:01:36.820 –> 01:01:39.460
Nyk Danu Yoga: and a little more restorative for that one student

676
01:01:39.800 –> 01:01:41.160
Nyk Danu Yoga: probably not, in fact.

677
01:01:41.160 –> 01:01:41.570
Addie deHilster (she/her): Probably.

678
01:01:41.570 –> 01:01:45.999
Nyk Danu Yoga: Doing that student a service by just letting them do what they need to do in that moment.

679
01:01:46.350 –> 01:01:46.700
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

680
01:01:46.700 –> 01:01:48.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: I always tell my students

681
01:01:48.670 –> 01:01:51.279
Nyk Danu Yoga: I do not care if you follow my sequence.

682
01:01:51.870 –> 01:01:54.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: If you are feeling wounded.

683
01:01:54.500 –> 01:01:59.650
Nyk Danu Yoga: and you’re thinking of skipping Yoga, because you’re just not sure you could do the things

684
01:01:59.810 –> 01:02:04.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: just come. I don’t care if you lay on your mat like. Just come, if you want to come.

685
01:02:04.980 –> 01:02:10.860
Nyk Danu Yoga: be in the community, be in the space. Take the time out of your schedule for yourself.

686
01:02:10.870 –> 01:02:15.250
Nyk Danu Yoga: and I do not care what that looks like. I don’t care if that’s dragon or an app.

687
01:02:15.720 –> 01:02:16.900
Nyk Danu Yoga: Really I don’t.

688
01:02:17.130 –> 01:02:18.170
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s up to you

689
01:02:19.540 –> 01:02:20.290
Nyk Danu Yoga: I love it.

690
01:02:20.290 –> 01:02:20.850
Addie deHilster (she/her): But.

691
01:02:21.100 –> 01:02:26.400
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think it would be cool. Let’s just maybe start sharing some final thoughts. And then I have a question that I want to ask you.

692
01:02:26.400 –> 01:02:28.359
Addie deHilster (she/her): I have a couple more questions for you.

693
01:02:28.360 –> 01:02:32.980
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, good. Let’s do it. So why don’t you? Why don’t you shoot with some questions.

694
01:02:33.220 –> 01:02:39.319
Addie deHilster (she/her): Well, okay, there’s kind of 2 topics I want to hit before we stop. One is

695
01:02:41.080 –> 01:02:42.819
Addie deHilster (she/her): when you choose.

696
01:02:43.190 –> 01:02:51.780
Addie deHilster (she/her): When you get to kind of the end point of usefulness of props. And instead, you just decide, let me teach this person an alternate pose instead.

697
01:02:51.920 –> 01:03:03.720
Addie deHilster (she/her): like, maybe we could talk about that decision point a little, and the other thing I would want to talk about is like some of the internal reasons that students may resist. You.

698
01:03:04.230 –> 01:03:06.959
Addie deHilster (she/her): And where that comes from.

699
01:03:07.396 –> 01:03:08.269
Nyk Danu Yoga: Good stuff!

700
01:03:08.737 –> 01:03:10.960
Addie deHilster (she/her): What do you want to talk about first? st

701
01:03:10.960 –> 01:03:13.669
Nyk Danu Yoga: Let’s do the 1st 1 1st cause. I think it’s a little simpler.

702
01:03:13.670 –> 01:03:14.659
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, it’s a little more

703
01:03:15.480 –> 01:03:16.960
Addie deHilster (she/her): straightforward. Right? Yeah.

704
01:03:16.960 –> 01:03:19.099
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. So when do I decide?

705
01:03:19.640 –> 01:03:26.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, do I just keep propping and propping and propping this person, or just give them something else pretty quick. Actually, I give them something else

706
01:03:26.800 –> 01:03:31.439
Nyk Danu Yoga: like I’ll give them a couple of prop options, and if it’s just not a fit for their body.

707
01:03:31.570 –> 01:03:34.730
Nyk Danu Yoga: if I’m teaching this from a functional perspective.

708
01:03:34.990 –> 01:03:42.500
Nyk Danu Yoga: then the point of the pose is to get this area of their body. That’s more important than what pose they’re doing it in.

709
01:03:42.500 –> 01:03:43.650
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly.

710
01:03:43.650 –> 01:03:51.959
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so here’s a common example that we, I’m sure all teachers have have had someone’s in sleeping swan aka pigeon. They get knee pain.

711
01:03:52.937 –> 01:04:13.670
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, yeah, I can come and like, move your knee a little more to the center. How does that feel? Okay, now, let’s try putting some support under your hip. How does that feel? What if you stay up on your hands and you don’t fold forward? How does that feel? Okay. Now my 5 min are done. When I could have just said, You know what this is, not the most knee friendly pose. Let’s get you to flip on your back, and I’ll show you a different version.

712
01:04:13.670 –> 01:04:14.300
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly.

713
01:04:14.300 –> 01:04:16.070
Nyk Danu Yoga: Like. Wouldn’t that just make way more sense?

714
01:04:16.120 –> 01:04:17.759
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m not attached to

715
01:04:18.530 –> 01:04:22.989
Nyk Danu Yoga: what I’m what I’m doing is trying to get them to feel something in their hip and butt area.

716
01:04:23.020 –> 01:04:26.129
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, what shape they’re in while they do it. I can’t just like.

717
01:04:26.130 –> 01:04:28.980
Addie deHilster (she/her): 4 or 5 ways to do that. It doesn’t have to be swan.

718
01:04:28.980 –> 01:04:30.360
Nyk Danu Yoga: A gazillion ways right?

719
01:04:30.360 –> 01:04:31.080
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yes.

720
01:04:31.752 –> 01:04:37.110
Nyk Danu Yoga: And depending on like. So, for example, in my most recent teacher training.

721
01:04:37.563 –> 01:04:41.690
Nyk Danu Yoga: I had one student who doesn’t have a lot of internal rotation.

722
01:04:42.130 –> 01:04:44.440
Nyk Danu Yoga: I won’t say her name, but when she hears this she’ll know.

723
01:04:44.440 –> 01:04:45.159
Addie deHilster (she/her): Don’t worry about her.

724
01:04:45.350 –> 01:04:51.450
Nyk Danu Yoga: She doesn’t have a lot of internal rotation in her hips, and so if she does deer as a hip opener, so front leg at 90 degrees.

725
01:04:51.450 –> 01:04:51.850
Addie deHilster (she/her): Mmhm.

726
01:04:51.850 –> 01:04:52.620
Nyk Danu Yoga: Like back.

727
01:04:52.620 –> 01:04:53.760
Addie deHilster (she/her): And wheel.

728
01:04:53.760 –> 01:05:00.639
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. If she does that pose, all she feels is discomfort in her back hip.

729
01:05:00.920 –> 01:05:03.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: and she actually can’t even get comfortable there.

730
01:05:03.520 –> 01:05:11.920
Nyk Danu Yoga: So, you know, I said, well, does it make a difference if you put a block? And she’s like a little bit, but not much. And I’m like, well, if the point of that pose is the front leg.

731
01:05:13.470 –> 01:05:18.424
Nyk Danu Yoga: then why do I need to keep someone in deer when I just say, Well, try, Swan, or.

732
01:05:18.700 –> 01:05:20.069
Addie deHilster (she/her): That back leg out. Yeah.

733
01:05:20.070 –> 01:05:25.509
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, lay on your back or 2, square or shoelace, or you know the multitude of other shapes.

734
01:05:25.680 –> 01:05:30.000
Nyk Danu Yoga: So I don’t take very long. I’ll give maybe a couple quick.

735
01:05:30.050 –> 01:05:41.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: What about this? What about this? And that’s if they’re just not comfortable. I might pull it out a little longer if they’re in like pain, like if someone’s.

736
01:05:41.180 –> 01:05:42.120
Addie deHilster (she/her): Experiences immediately.

737
01:05:42.120 –> 01:05:45.299
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s like, No, we we don’t need to do that. We don’t play that way.

738
01:05:45.380 –> 01:05:49.900
Nyk Danu Yoga: I would also like to. Since I’m using that example, point out that again.

739
01:05:50.290 –> 01:06:00.050
Nyk Danu Yoga: teachers will assume that flipping on your back and doing what some people call figure, for I have the needle thread the needle, dead pigeon dead swan! I’ve heard it called a million things I call.

740
01:06:00.050 –> 01:06:01.250
Addie deHilster (she/her): Never heard that one.

741
01:06:01.250 –> 01:06:01.629
Nyk Danu Yoga: But I just.

742
01:06:01.630 –> 01:06:02.890
Addie deHilster (she/her): I like that.

743
01:06:02.890 –> 01:06:04.290
Nyk Danu Yoga: Kind of figure, 4 shapes.

744
01:06:04.290 –> 01:06:05.150
Addie deHilster (she/her): So many names.

745
01:06:05.150 –> 01:06:11.209
Nyk Danu Yoga: Most people will have an idea when you give someone that option instead of Sleeping Swan for their knee.

746
01:06:11.560 –> 01:06:13.120
Nyk Danu Yoga: Don’t assume

747
01:06:13.200 –> 01:06:15.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: that that’s a air quotes easier.

748
01:06:16.170 –> 01:06:17.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: gentle.

749
01:06:17.400 –> 01:06:19.980
Nyk Danu Yoga: or less strong. Hip opener.

750
01:06:19.980 –> 01:06:21.110
Addie deHilster (she/her): Not necessarily.

751
01:06:21.110 –> 01:06:23.769
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s in my body, it is exactly the opposite.

752
01:06:24.230 –> 01:06:27.530
Nyk Danu Yoga: So once again, if I get into pigeon a case one.

753
01:06:27.640 –> 01:06:35.979
Nyk Danu Yoga: I have a really good amount of external rotation and very open in my hips. So the position I have to crank myself into to feel that

754
01:06:36.380 –> 01:06:43.830
Nyk Danu Yoga: now I’m uncomfortable. Now I’m pulling all the bolsters and the things, and I’m still fidgety, and I can’t quite settle. But as soon as you flip me on my back.

755
01:06:44.490 –> 01:06:51.806
Nyk Danu Yoga: and I can do it that way. Now I can use hold onto my leg for a while, and if that eases up I can just baby cradle my leg, or I can use like open.

756
01:06:52.010 –> 01:06:52.990
Addie deHilster (she/her): Wall, yeah.

757
01:06:52.990 –> 01:07:00.339
Nyk Danu Yoga: Right. And now I actually get that sweet, deep release and the hips that other people are getting in swan in a way that I’m comfortable.

758
01:07:00.570 –> 01:07:03.419
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so it’s actually a stronger pose for me.

759
01:07:03.570 –> 01:07:07.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: So I just wanted to point that out again, because I think teachers always think that these

760
01:07:07.570 –> 01:07:13.169
Nyk Danu Yoga: alternatives. Air quotes for those of you who can’t see me. That we’re doing are to make things easier.

761
01:07:13.170 –> 01:07:25.180
Addie deHilster (she/her): No, it’s just another pose. It’s another variation. It’s not better or less than it, anyway. And I agree 100% with everything you said, and I would add, like

762
01:07:25.530 –> 01:07:32.769
Addie deHilster (she/her): when I see that we’re adding so many props that now the pose is getting really cumbersome or unstable.

763
01:07:32.900 –> 01:07:34.790
Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s better to go to.

764
01:07:34.860 –> 01:07:36.080
Addie deHilster (she/her): you know, like

765
01:07:36.180 –> 01:07:58.170
Addie deHilster (she/her): I do. I have made up versions of dragon pose where I make a ramp with a bolster, and I do the lunge over that. I rarely teach that in a public class, because, like just to like, make that work for everybody, it is very complicated, and it involves like a whole lot of props. That’s not that practical. So it would be. Make much more sense to do the baby dragon right like.

766
01:07:58.480 –> 01:08:01.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: That might be a fun thing to do if you were teaching a teacher training.

767
01:08:01.510 –> 01:08:03.059
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, to give them when I bought it.

768
01:08:03.060 –> 01:08:04.640
Nyk Danu Yoga: Or a work, or a workshop.

769
01:08:04.940 –> 01:08:05.540
Addie deHilster (she/her): Something, but.

770
01:08:05.540 –> 01:08:07.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: And the average blank report. Yeah.

771
01:08:07.260 –> 01:08:08.660
Addie deHilster (she/her): No. Yeah.

772
01:08:08.660 –> 01:08:11.810
Nyk Danu Yoga: In the average class. It’s like, No, Nope, I know nobody got time for that now.

773
01:08:11.810 –> 01:08:22.020
Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s too. It takes too long, and it could be unstable. And the other piece is like when the student starts to feel like everyone’s watching because the teacher is spending.

774
01:08:22.020 –> 01:08:22.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

775
01:08:22.510 –> 01:08:25.901
Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s just me, and I’m kind of embarrassed. I’m getting frustrated.

776
01:08:26.210 –> 01:08:27.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Out on the 5 min. Hold.

777
01:08:27.470 –> 01:08:39.219
Addie deHilster (she/her): I’m not having the experience anymore. Right? So it’s better to just give them that alternate pose. Yeah. And like, for example, one, this would come up with a lot is like saddle pose.

778
01:08:39.229 –> 01:08:40.805
Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm! Which I don’t.

779
01:08:41.200 –> 01:08:42.140
Addie deHilster (she/her): That often.

780
01:08:42.149 –> 01:08:44.451
Nyk Danu Yoga: Me neither. For the same reason, probably.

781
01:08:44.779 –> 01:08:48.979
Addie deHilster (she/her): Because it takes like a pile of props to make that work for most

782
01:08:49.719 –> 01:08:51.629
Addie deHilster (she/her): general population. Human beings.

783
01:08:52.220 –> 01:08:53.060
Addie deHilster (she/her): Right.

784
01:08:53.250 –> 01:08:56.049
Nyk Danu Yoga: And there are some that it still will never work for because of.

785
01:08:56.050 –> 01:09:01.930
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly because of their knees. And so like I, if I’m gonna teach that if I have a

786
01:09:02.100 –> 01:09:05.310
Addie deHilster (she/her): I have the determination like, I want to teach this today

787
01:09:05.359 –> 01:09:08.050
Addie deHilster (she/her): before we even try to go into that.

788
01:09:08.370 –> 01:09:16.189
Addie deHilster (she/her): When we do our little couple of warm-ups or little kind of cat cows and things we’re doing, not to warm the tissues, but to

789
01:09:16.640 –> 01:09:19.639
Addie deHilster (she/her): get into the body a little bit, and to sort of

790
01:09:19.760 –> 01:09:27.219
Addie deHilster (she/her): start to feel the body, and to give my teachers eyes the chance to see some bodies moving before they commit to these long Yin holds.

791
01:09:27.560 –> 01:09:35.839
Addie deHilster (she/her): I’m going to have them go into child’s pose for a moment or 2, so I can look around and see the ankles and knees.

792
01:09:35.840 –> 01:09:36.340
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

793
01:09:36.340 –> 01:09:37.412
Addie deHilster (she/her): So I will know.

794
01:09:37.680 –> 01:09:38.040
Nyk Danu Yoga: Weren’t.

795
01:09:38.040 –> 01:09:57.660
Addie deHilster (she/her): Who doesn’t have the ankle flexibility, who isn’t able to bend their knees that deep because that part of the body is in basically the same shape without as much, you know, weight and gravity. And so I’ll know who’s gonna really struggle if I try to teach saddle. And if I’m like, oh, it’s 8 out of 10 people. We are not doing that today right.

796
01:09:57.660 –> 01:09:58.680
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s your favourite

797
01:09:59.410 –> 01:10:01.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: alternative for that area. Then.

798
01:10:01.360 –> 01:10:10.490
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah. And I love talking about this because I find, like, when I teach this, this is the thing people have trouble with is like figuring out what is the alternate pose.

799
01:10:11.610 –> 01:10:26.419
Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s not child’s pose. That was my test pose right? It needs to be a pose. So if if the point of saddle, which is like souped Virasana. Right? It’s when you’re you’re kneeling and you lay. You’re laying back the point of that is to stretch your quads

800
01:10:26.590 –> 01:10:31.139
Addie deHilster (she/her): and your hip flexors, and maybe a little bit up through the belly right.

801
01:10:31.140 –> 01:10:32.854
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, maybe a little lumbar compression.

802
01:10:33.140 –> 01:10:39.379
Addie deHilster (she/her): Little lumbar compression. Right? What other pose can you get that in? That’s the question you ask yourself.

803
01:10:39.500 –> 01:10:48.829
Addie deHilster (she/her): Right? So that could be what I call cat tail pose. I think Bernie Clark calls it cat pulling its tail, and I just shorten that to cat tail.

804
01:10:48.830 –> 01:10:49.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: Cat, tail too.

805
01:10:49.720 –> 01:10:54.630
Addie deHilster (she/her): Cattail. So that’s like great quad stretch that’s far more accessible for a lot of people.

806
01:10:55.100 –> 01:11:02.779
Addie deHilster (she/her): Or if they can’t comfortably bend their knee that deep and hold hold their knee there, I would go to Baby Dragon.

807
01:11:03.520 –> 01:11:08.849
Addie deHilster (she/her): You know, cause that’s not exactly the same, but it’s a straight leg pose that could give you some good quad stretch.

808
01:11:08.850 –> 01:11:09.230
Nyk Danu Yoga: Mmm.

809
01:11:09.230 –> 01:11:12.369
Addie deHilster (she/her): That hip, flexor stretch and front body opening so.

810
01:11:12.720 –> 01:11:17.930
Nyk Danu Yoga: So my favorite is to do, get them in Sphinx, and then use a strap to pull their legs.

811
01:11:18.590 –> 01:11:20.709
Nyk Danu Yoga: So like, hook their ankles, and then they can. Yeah.

812
01:11:20.710 –> 01:11:21.400
Addie deHilster (she/her): And straddling.

813
01:11:21.400 –> 01:11:26.969
Nyk Danu Yoga: On either side of, so their arms are in sphinx, but they’ve got the strap in their hands. It’s looped around.

814
01:11:26.970 –> 01:11:27.890
Addie deHilster (she/her): Try that.

815
01:11:27.890 –> 01:11:31.239
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then they can decide how tightly they’re bringing their feet in.

816
01:11:31.820 –> 01:11:32.340
Addie deHilster (she/her): And there’s.

817
01:11:32.340 –> 01:11:39.450
Nyk Danu Yoga: Pressure on their knee, and then they can decide. Okay, does this feel good for my knee? And you can do that with both legs or individually.

818
01:11:39.710 –> 01:11:42.469
Addie deHilster (she/her): Oh, you know what I have done similar to that is like,

819
01:11:42.810 –> 01:11:44.909
Addie deHilster (she/her): yeah, young pose of

820
01:11:44.980 –> 01:11:47.730
Addie deHilster (she/her): Donor Asana bothos.

821
01:11:48.090 –> 01:11:52.619
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Where you’re holding the strap, and your feet are in it, and you’re kind of like lifting up. Yeah.

822
01:11:52.620 –> 01:11:53.669
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. So they’re just.

823
01:11:53.670 –> 01:11:54.979
Addie deHilster (she/her): Without the lifting up.

824
01:11:54.980 –> 01:12:00.629
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. So for teachers who are trying to visualize this, you just get them to lay on their belly like they would do sphinx.

825
01:12:01.110 –> 01:12:01.580
Addie deHilster (she/her): We have to.

826
01:12:01.580 –> 01:12:08.679
Nyk Danu Yoga: Help them with their strap, because it is a little hard to last. Sue your own feet, so you get them in Sphinx and you get them to just bend their knees even to 90 degrees, which.

827
01:12:08.680 –> 01:12:09.270
Addie deHilster (she/her): Safer.

828
01:12:09.270 –> 01:12:21.399
Nyk Danu Yoga: For most people, and then you put a strap around their ankles and you hand one end of the strap to them in their hands, and now they get to decide how far in they’re bringing their feet towards their bum.

829
01:12:21.410 –> 01:12:31.159
Nyk Danu Yoga: So you’re still getting that little compression in the low back, and you’re still getting the quad stretch, but in a way that they have total control over how much.

830
01:12:31.160 –> 01:12:33.980
Addie deHilster (she/her): They don’t have their full body’s weight

831
01:12:34.060 –> 01:12:37.489
Addie deHilster (she/her): bearing down on those joints. That makes a big difference.

832
01:12:37.490 –> 01:12:44.400
Nyk Danu Yoga: My other favorite is to I teach a post called Mermaid, which is laying sideline over a bolster in your waist.

833
01:12:44.510 –> 01:12:52.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: and sometimes I’ll get people to hold their head up in their hand sort of like they’re laying on their side as a teenager watching TV,

834
01:12:52.300 –> 01:13:09.039
Nyk Danu Yoga: and then reach for their top leg with their hand. So it’s sort of like hat tail, but there’s no twisting. It’s like direct sideline, and I’ll get them to do that for a while, and then release the leg and continue into the side bend of mermaid. It’s the other one that I’ll sometimes do, but I mean satellite.

835
01:13:09.040 –> 01:13:11.769
Addie deHilster (she/her): See, we had, like 4 or 5 options there.

836
01:13:11.770 –> 01:13:12.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: Right there. Yeah.

837
01:13:12.990 –> 01:13:24.208
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, because honestly, saddle is like I might do that in my own personal practice. But it’s not that practical for teaching a group of the from the general public, because it’s just difficult.

838
01:13:24.520 –> 01:13:37.369
Nyk Danu Yoga: For me saddles difficult because, and I have a different version of saddle, but it would require way. Too much explanation, so we’ll skip that. But for me saddles difficult personally, because not my knees, but because of my feet.

839
01:13:37.733 –> 01:13:58.219
Nyk Danu Yoga: So I have a really high arch and a really high instep, and so my bones of my feet are just like digging into the floor. Now I am lucky that I am an internal rotator, so if I put a little block under my bum. I can just turn my feet out, but most people can’t do that and there are options with like rolling up a blanket to make space in the front of your ankle. But again.

840
01:13:58.830 –> 01:14:01.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: But the time you noodle around with all that

841
01:14:01.200 –> 01:14:03.499
Nyk Danu Yoga: with for this poor student everyone else.

842
01:14:03.500 –> 01:14:04.059
Addie deHilster (she/her): In that way.

843
01:14:04.060 –> 01:14:11.809
Nyk Danu Yoga: Been there. Everyone else is completing their pose, and they haven’t got in. So I’ll usually try one thing, and then I’m just gonna give them a different pose.

844
01:14:11.810 –> 01:14:18.919
Addie deHilster (she/her): If I am going to teach that, and the way I would teach it in teacher training is, I start from the most prompt, and we always start.

845
01:14:19.010 –> 01:14:23.610
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yes, on a blanket under our shins a blanket rolled under our ankles.

846
01:14:24.190 –> 01:14:40.749
Addie deHilster (she/her): A bolster ramp behind us, and we start like Stage One. Lean back to your hands. How are you doing possible stage? You can stay in stage one, but possible stage 2. Lean back to that bolster ramp. How are you doing? You can stay here, or you could take one of the blocks. Away go one stage lower.

847
01:14:41.280 –> 01:14:45.370
Addie deHilster (she/her): But stage lower and one stage lower, and most people get off

848
01:14:45.770 –> 01:14:49.000
Addie deHilster (she/her): the exits along the way, and maybe.

849
01:14:49.000 –> 01:14:50.079
Nyk Danu Yoga: Your own adventure.

850
01:14:50.080 –> 01:14:52.169
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly so, and then.

851
01:14:52.170 –> 01:14:59.250
Nyk Danu Yoga: The other one for some people with me. Stuff is you could. If your blanket isn’t too thick, you can also put it behind your knee pits.

852
01:14:59.760 –> 01:15:00.420
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

853
01:15:00.420 –> 01:15:18.410
Nyk Danu Yoga: As people bend back, and that sometimes creates some space in the knee joint and take some of the pain out. But again, I do all of this stuff in my teacher training. I’m not going to do all of this in my 75 min drop in class like good God, no, I’ll just say, Hey, flip on your side or flip on your belly, and I’m going to give you a strap.

854
01:15:18.550 –> 01:15:20.949
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know it’s so much easier.

855
01:15:21.260 –> 01:15:21.910
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

856
01:15:22.090 –> 01:15:28.440
Nyk Danu Yoga: So yeah, that’s how it answer that question kind of like one prop alternative. And then I’m gonna move them into something else. Yeah.

857
01:15:28.440 –> 01:15:51.639
Addie deHilster (she/her): I’m I’m glad we’re talking about this, because, like once you get, once you realize like what you can do with props, it’s really cool, but it can get kind of over complicated, and you don’t. Wanna you don’t wanna just be like building blanket forts with everybody, every class like and making it about the props and making it super super complicated cause. That’s really. I don’t think that’s what people need.

858
01:15:52.010 –> 01:15:56.709
Addie deHilster (she/her): And it’s also like, I’ve been teaching so much more online. And people don’t have all of these.

859
01:15:56.710 –> 01:15:57.300
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

860
01:15:57.300 –> 01:15:59.409
Addie deHilster (she/her): So it’s, you know. It’s not.

861
01:15:59.410 –> 01:16:00.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: Keep it simple.

862
01:16:00.190 –> 01:16:00.930
Addie deHilster (she/her): To call.

863
01:16:00.930 –> 01:16:07.729
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, because if you want to encourage them to practice at home, and they know that it took 4 blocks and 2 bolsters for them to get into that pose.

864
01:16:08.270 –> 01:16:11.580
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, whereas if I just say, grab your bathrobe, tie

865
01:16:12.900 –> 01:16:16.889
Nyk Danu Yoga: so much easier. You know, loop that around your feet and hold that you know.

866
01:16:16.890 –> 01:16:22.972
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, it’s like we’re saying, Use the props. But we’re not saying, Make your life very complicated and.

867
01:16:23.970 –> 01:16:27.810
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I don’t need a whole wheelbarrow full of props for each pose. Yeah.

868
01:16:27.810 –> 01:16:31.549
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly, and not all yen poses require a prop like you don’t have.

869
01:16:31.550 –> 01:16:32.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: Somebody, sir.

870
01:16:32.310 –> 01:16:34.690
Addie deHilster (she/her): Props where they’re not needed. It’s just.

871
01:16:34.690 –> 01:16:35.040
Nyk Danu Yoga: Order, in.

872
01:16:35.455 –> 01:16:35.870
Addie deHilster (she/her): Know.

873
01:16:35.870 –> 01:16:38.330
Nyk Danu Yoga: I wanted to touch on what you just said

874
01:16:38.340 –> 01:16:41.730
Nyk Danu Yoga: about starting with the most prompt version.

875
01:16:41.850 –> 01:16:44.120
Nyk Danu Yoga: So this is something I also do.

876
01:16:44.768 –> 01:16:51.969
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I shifted my way of teaching that I don’t even know how many years ago now, when I started really focusing on being accessible.

877
01:16:52.490 –> 01:16:55.120
Nyk Danu Yoga: The other reason I did that is because I

878
01:16:55.160 –> 01:16:58.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: generally taught a lot of people that weren’t flexible.

879
01:16:58.440 –> 01:17:02.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so, if I taught, like the strongest version first.st

880
01:17:02.610 –> 01:17:20.300
Nyk Danu Yoga: Then, no matter what I said after that about you could use this block, you could do this block. People were pushing and white, knuckling it and struggling to try to do the air, quotes fuller version, deeper version, flexible version of the pose, whereas when I start with the simplest version.

881
01:17:20.640 –> 01:17:30.409
Nyk Danu Yoga: and then add on from there. I’ll notice that most people stop in the simple to moderate range. Very few people are going to continue on.

882
01:17:32.350 –> 01:17:36.930
Addie deHilster (she/her): Agree. And I think that when we always start with this

883
01:17:37.310 –> 01:17:42.850
Addie deHilster (she/her): full expression of the pose, or whatever we’re creating, we’re setting up a hierarchy.

884
01:17:42.850 –> 01:17:43.270
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

885
01:17:43.270 –> 01:17:59.179
Addie deHilster (she/her): Where here’s the A plus version, and then some of you might not be able to do that. So here’s the like B minus version. Here’s the d plus version, you know. So when we’re working with props like we really have to be conscious of like eliminating that hierarchy

886
01:17:59.220 –> 01:18:05.769
Addie deHilster (she/her): leveling the playing field. So these aren’t like, here’s the idealized version of the pose.

887
01:18:05.840 –> 01:18:16.870
Addie deHilster (she/her): This is just the template. This is the basic version. This is the archetype of the pose, whatever you want to call that that’s that’s more neutral. And here’s another variation. And here’s another idea. And here’s another option.

888
01:18:17.080 –> 01:18:17.290
Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

889
01:18:17.720 –> 01:18:19.440
Addie deHilster (she/her): So they’re all equal.

890
01:18:19.440 –> 01:18:21.149
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, because the point

891
01:18:21.420 –> 01:18:23.200
Nyk Danu Yoga: is the function.

892
01:18:23.200 –> 01:18:23.635
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

893
01:18:24.338 –> 01:18:25.410
Nyk Danu Yoga: What it looks like.

894
01:18:25.510 –> 01:18:28.080
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, it’s defunctional again.

895
01:18:28.500 –> 01:18:29.800
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly.

896
01:18:30.120 –> 01:18:31.719
Nyk Danu Yoga: What was the second question.

897
01:18:31.720 –> 01:18:47.562
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, I think that actually kind of segues us to it. It’s like, let’s talk about some of the internal reasons, some of the conditioning that we bring with us that can make us resistant to using props. And I can start on that like I think.

898
01:18:47.900 –> 01:18:49.600
Nyk Danu Yoga: Teacher, or as a student, or both.

899
01:18:49.600 –> 01:18:56.959
Addie deHilster (she/her): Well, maybe it both. But I’m thinking of the students in particular, but like, you know, that fear of like being embarrassed or being

900
01:18:57.040 –> 01:19:01.890
Addie deHilster (she/her): not doing it as well as others, and like that comparing mind that can come up.

901
01:19:02.050 –> 01:19:02.210
Nyk Danu Yoga: Like.

902
01:19:02.210 –> 01:19:03.610
Addie deHilster (she/her): That’s part of it.

903
01:19:03.900 –> 01:19:05.989
Addie deHilster (she/her): But I think there’s also

904
01:19:06.354 –> 01:19:10.750
Addie deHilster (she/her): we’ll, you know there’s 2 more. I kind of want to name the the whole, like

905
01:19:11.280 –> 01:19:14.250
Addie deHilster (she/her): I have to be doing the most to get the benefit.

906
01:19:14.684 –> 01:19:15.119
Nyk Danu Yoga: Thus!

907
01:19:15.680 –> 01:19:18.819
Addie deHilster (she/her): Have to be working hard to benefit.

908
01:19:19.080 –> 01:19:27.269
Addie deHilster (she/her): you know. That’s a very young attitude, and it comes so it’s just we have such strong, like capitalist conditioning around productivity.

909
01:19:28.100 –> 01:19:38.890
Addie deHilster (she/her): That we even bring into a space like our Yoga practice. This is a good place to peel that layer, you know. Peel those layers back a little bit.

910
01:19:39.330 –> 01:19:45.610
Addie deHilster (she/her): and the other one is like how hard it is for many of us to ask for or receive help

911
01:19:46.168 –> 01:19:50.150
Addie deHilster (she/her): or support, or to admit we might need some help.

912
01:19:50.930 –> 01:19:51.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Aye, so.

913
01:19:51.470 –> 01:20:05.789
Addie deHilster (she/her): Struggle with that like, I know this is a place I’ve worked on. That is my willingness to use help and support and props in my Yoga practice to say like, Oh, my God, it’s okay. You don’t have to have it all together like you can

914
01:20:05.860 –> 01:20:07.779
Addie deHilster (she/her): lean into this bolster.

915
01:20:08.710 –> 01:20:11.634
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I think for me, I haven’t had

916
01:20:13.580 –> 01:20:23.570
Nyk Danu Yoga: I haven’t been resistant to using props in my practice, just because I was weird that way, and I younger. But in my life I’ve had. I’ve had trouble asking for help. Yes, so I understand that

917
01:20:24.270 –> 01:20:25.230
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think

918
01:20:26.570 –> 01:20:32.059
Nyk Danu Yoga: so much of this can be solved with when we’re talking about our students with 2 things.

919
01:20:32.410 –> 01:20:35.610
Nyk Danu Yoga: one like you said, demonstrating

920
01:20:35.850 –> 01:20:39.579
Nyk Danu Yoga: the simplest version, the most supported version first.st

921
01:20:40.160 –> 01:20:42.380
Nyk Danu Yoga: Now they’re not feeling like.

922
01:20:42.650 –> 01:20:43.650
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh.

923
01:20:43.770 –> 01:20:45.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: well, you didn’t pass so.

924
01:20:46.883 –> 01:20:47.430
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know.

925
01:20:47.430 –> 01:20:49.070
Addie deHilster (she/her): Here’s the remedial version.

926
01:20:49.070 –> 01:20:52.779
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, it’s like everybody, everybody. Let’s start here.

927
01:20:52.830 –> 01:20:56.899
Nyk Danu Yoga: How’s that feel in your body? Here’s what I’m hoping you’ll feel, and where.

928
01:20:56.980 –> 01:20:59.640
Nyk Danu Yoga: if that’s not happening. You could try this.

929
01:20:59.940 –> 01:21:05.290
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s still not happening. You could try this so, and I never use words like you could go deeper.

930
01:21:06.180 –> 01:21:10.099
Nyk Danu Yoga: Right? Because I again, then it’s all goal orientated. It’s just.

931
01:21:10.630 –> 01:21:16.049
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, you’re not feeling this one. Well, what if we try this? And so I I start everybody in.

932
01:21:16.100 –> 01:21:18.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: The. So the more supported version.

933
01:21:18.970 –> 01:21:20.729
Nyk Danu Yoga: Then just add on

934
01:21:20.870 –> 01:21:26.473
Nyk Danu Yoga: verbally, if, or or with my actual presence, if they are confused.

935
01:21:27.190 –> 01:21:28.740
Nyk Danu Yoga: if they aren’t feeling it

936
01:21:29.990 –> 01:21:31.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: so it takes.

937
01:21:31.930 –> 01:21:35.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: I feel like that takes out this idea

938
01:21:35.390 –> 01:21:40.139
Nyk Danu Yoga: that there is a complete version of the pose that everyone’s going to do. And now we’re down.

939
01:21:40.140 –> 01:21:40.510
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

940
01:21:40.510 –> 01:21:41.549
Nyk Danu Yoga: It from there.

941
01:21:42.384 –> 01:21:48.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s 1 thing. And then the other thing is, I think that’s a really good opportunity for education for your students

942
01:21:48.960 –> 01:22:12.289
Nyk Danu Yoga: to be like, Hey, one of yen yoga superpowers is deep fascia. And did you know deep fascia does not respond the same way that our muscles per se do. And so when we’re working with this tissue, we need a different approach. We actually need to do moderate amount of sensation. So we’re in our parasympathetic nervous system, and we need to do longer holds and relative stillness.

943
01:22:12.290 –> 01:22:22.390
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so whatever we need to do with our body and our props in order to to get there. That’s what’s gonna give the secret magic superpowers of Yen.

944
01:22:22.450 –> 01:22:28.440
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s not like a more active practice. Where, if you’re trying to get stronger. You want to push yourself a little.

945
01:22:28.890 –> 01:22:35.559
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s the opposite. And so actually speaking to the fact that what they think they’re doing with the tissues of their body

946
01:22:35.720 –> 01:22:53.829
Nyk Danu Yoga: is different in yen, and how they’re actually kind of shooting themselves in the foot. Really, if they’re not approaching a yin pose in a yin way, you know, and I’ll often joke. I mean, I’m I’m like, I mean, you can do it. You want to see your practice. You want to white knuckle it through this whole thing here. But if you leave, and your hamstrings don’t feel anymore open.

947
01:22:53.880 –> 01:22:59.459
Nyk Danu Yoga: that’s on you, and I’ll just say it like as a joke. You know, it’s like back away to get more.

948
01:23:00.010 –> 01:23:09.940
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, yeah, it’s that communication piece. And that education piece is huge. And I think it can even come through in like these little ways that we interact with people like

949
01:23:10.160 –> 01:23:27.849
Addie deHilster (she/her): going over to someone with a blanket, because, you see, like their knees kind of holding itself up in that butterfly right and just going. Hey? Would you be interested in trying this little blanket injury or knee just for tonight? I think you might like how it feels, and if you don’t want it in a minute from now you can get rid of it.

950
01:23:28.210 –> 01:23:28.540
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

951
01:23:28.540 –> 01:23:29.468
Addie deHilster (she/her): And just say that.

952
01:23:29.700 –> 01:23:30.610
Nyk Danu Yoga: Similarly, yeah.

953
01:23:30.610 –> 01:23:36.650
Addie deHilster (she/her): They’ll try it, and then they’ll be like blanket forever from this day forward. Yeah.

954
01:23:36.650 –> 01:23:50.590
Nyk Danu Yoga: I usually go up and say, Hey, I have a spiety sense about. I might make you more comfortable here. What if we tried this. Now, if that doesn’t make you more comfortable, please ignore me and just do what you’re doing. But if this, if this makes you more comfortable, let me know.

955
01:23:50.630 –> 01:23:52.629
Nyk Danu Yoga: So it’s it’s actually an inquiry.

956
01:23:52.720 –> 01:23:56.039
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m not saying, I know this will make you more comfortable. It’s like.

957
01:23:56.090 –> 01:23:58.690
Nyk Danu Yoga: I have an idea. Why don’t we try this.

958
01:23:58.820 –> 01:24:03.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: communicate with me. Does that feel better? If not, let’s let’s lose it, you know.

959
01:24:03.870 –> 01:24:28.060
Addie deHilster (she/her): And that’s what it’s all about is like that dialogue cause, I think like, when I 1st started learning about all of this a long time ago, like I started out in my head with like, there’s the propping for butterfly. There’s the propping for the Suka Badakonasana. There’s like there was a way that you set up each pose, and that’s not it at all like there’s no one right way. There’s like a million ways. So it depends on.

960
01:24:28.060 –> 01:24:32.719
Nyk Danu Yoga: You said Recline Butterfly, I mean, I can think of at least 5 ways right off the top of my head that you.

961
01:24:32.720 –> 01:24:33.120
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, I-.

962
01:24:33.120 –> 01:24:33.970
Nyk Danu Yoga: That.

963
01:24:33.970 –> 01:24:40.160
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly even just 5 starting points, and like within that different bodies will need different refinements.

964
01:24:40.770 –> 01:24:49.009
Addie deHilster (she/her): So. So I think that that just opens it up where you know it’s a dialog, and it’s like, Well, what are you feeling? Do you feel like you could relax a little bit more

965
01:24:49.060 –> 01:24:54.719
Addie deHilster (she/her): in your shoulder if it had just like an inch more of a blanket support underneath of it?

966
01:24:55.120 –> 01:24:57.450
Addie deHilster (she/her): You know. Try that, see what that’s like.

967
01:24:58.100 –> 01:24:59.460
Addie deHilster (she/her): How does that feel?

968
01:24:59.700 –> 01:25:00.330
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

969
01:25:00.570 –> 01:25:02.629
Nyk Danu Yoga: so it’s curious. And it’s open

970
01:25:02.660 –> 01:25:05.070
Nyk Danu Yoga: right? It’s like you’re you’re just

971
01:25:05.489 –> 01:25:08.080
Nyk Danu Yoga: you could just kind of jam in with the moment.

972
01:25:08.080 –> 01:25:08.570
Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s right.

973
01:25:08.570 –> 01:25:13.909
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s like, hey! What if we tried this? How does that feel for you? That work for you? Good, if not, please ignore me.

974
01:25:14.426 –> 01:25:17.390
Addie deHilster (she/her): You might not need it tomorrow, like you might be.

975
01:25:17.390 –> 01:25:21.189
Nyk Danu Yoga: Our bodies are different every single day, every single day. Yes.

976
01:25:21.190 –> 01:25:21.580
Addie deHilster (she/her): Exactly.

977
01:25:21.580 –> 01:25:36.090
Nyk Danu Yoga: I often say that also to my students, especially the ones that are experienced. But they’re in a dropping class, and so they’ve had to hear me do the whole nudine speech. And they’re like, I just want to get into my pose, I’ll often say, like, you know, can you practice today with beginners, mind.

978
01:25:36.150 –> 01:25:42.900
Nyk Danu Yoga: because I can promise you your body is if you’re being really observant and curious. It is not the same today as it was last week when you were here

979
01:25:43.420 –> 01:26:00.170
Nyk Danu Yoga: like, how much have you slept? What’s your nervous system like? How hydrated are you? Where’s the moon? If you’re you know, if you’re someone who’s menstruating like, where are you on your cycle? If you’re someone who used to Menstr and doesn’t anymore, where are you on that cycle, like everything, could be different from one day to another about a pose.

980
01:26:02.430 –> 01:26:03.440
Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally.

981
01:26:04.100 –> 01:26:07.839
Nyk Danu Yoga: Is there anything else you really wanna touch on? I have a couple of ideas for closing, but I don’t.

982
01:26:07.840 –> 01:26:15.210
Addie deHilster (she/her): I mean, I think we’ve covered a lot of ground, and it’s clearly something we can both talk about at length. But.

983
01:26:15.210 –> 01:26:15.580
Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally.

984
01:26:15.660 –> 01:26:19.049
Addie deHilster (she/her): Why don’t we go? Go ahead to your next questions.

985
01:26:19.320 –> 01:26:27.980
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay? So one is kind of more of a let’s riff on this briefly, and then the other one is a question for you, I figured, would be a fun closing question.

986
01:26:28.463 –> 01:26:29.270
Nyk Danu Yoga: For us

987
01:26:29.290 –> 01:26:38.330
Nyk Danu Yoga: to share. Now I can also hear. See! I can hear students in my head, teachers. I can hear their voices. Yeah, but my studio doesn’t have props.

988
01:26:38.330 –> 01:26:39.360
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

989
01:26:40.210 –> 01:26:40.809
Nyk Danu Yoga: What do we.

990
01:26:40.810 –> 01:26:41.690
Addie deHilster (she/her): Sad.

991
01:26:42.050 –> 01:26:42.769
Nyk Danu Yoga: I know, but.

992
01:26:42.770 –> 01:26:43.260
Addie deHilster (she/her): Well.

993
01:26:43.260 –> 01:26:45.450
Nyk Danu Yoga: Those of you who aren’t watching the video.

994
01:26:45.530 –> 01:26:50.550
Nyk Danu Yoga: If you could do. Emoji sat eyes. Both Eddie and I just did it at the same time it was like, Oh.

995
01:26:50.550 –> 01:27:07.999
Addie deHilster (she/her): We felt a deep sadness, I mean, and I realized like that actually might be different now, like post pandemic, because the whole, the cleaning protocol burden on the studio is much greater, and I owned a very small mom and pop studio myself, and

996
01:27:08.040 –> 01:27:15.060
Addie deHilster (she/her): was like I didn’t have a washer and dryer in there like what am I? How am I supposed to clean all these damn blankets? You know.

997
01:27:15.450 –> 01:27:19.939
Addie deHilster (she/her): So you know it might be that you

998
01:27:20.290 –> 01:27:25.219
Addie deHilster (she/her): you get a wholesale account with a prop supplier, and you encourage your students to

999
01:27:25.230 –> 01:27:31.129
Addie deHilster (she/her): purchase their own props and put them in a big bag and bring them with them just like they do their yoga mat.

1000
01:27:31.410 –> 01:27:32.330
Addie deHilster (she/her): you know.

1001
01:27:32.510 –> 01:27:36.520
Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s very few studios, I would say from my experience that have 0 props.

1002
01:27:37.150 –> 01:27:37.550
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1003
01:27:37.803 –> 01:27:44.399
Nyk Danu Yoga: Even I used to even be the yin to the young at in a strongest duty that was teaching at, and they still had some probably.

1004
01:27:44.400 –> 01:27:45.420
Addie deHilster (she/her): And straps right.

1005
01:27:45.420 –> 01:27:46.979
Nyk Danu Yoga: They even had bolsters and blankets, but that.

1006
01:27:46.980 –> 01:27:47.350
Addie deHilster (she/her): Was, the.

1007
01:27:47.350 –> 01:27:50.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: Did offer a restorative class for like moon days and stuff. But.

1008
01:27:51.667 –> 01:27:54.970
Nyk Danu Yoga: Even in, like the hot studios that I’ve seen.

1009
01:27:55.000 –> 01:27:58.570
Nyk Danu Yoga: they usually have blocks and a strap.

1010
01:27:58.680 –> 01:28:02.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And if it’s a hot studio. They’ve also got towels.

1011
01:28:02.660 –> 01:28:04.079
Addie deHilster (she/her): You can use the towels.

1012
01:28:04.080 –> 01:28:16.119
Nyk Danu Yoga: Towels are great in place of like. They’re not going to be as as much as a bl as a blanket or a bolster, but they’re better than nothing. And so yeah, if you’re a teacher listening to this, and you’re like, yeah. But my studio doesn’t have props. Well.

1013
01:28:16.210 –> 01:28:20.390
Nyk Danu Yoga: yes, the range of poses that you can choose from will be smaller.

1014
01:28:20.850 –> 01:28:27.820
Nyk Danu Yoga: and your ability to make these things as accessible for as many bodies will be smaller.

1015
01:28:27.820 –> 01:28:28.430
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1016
01:28:28.430 –> 01:28:30.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: That is just facts.

1017
01:28:31.520 –> 01:28:33.839
Nyk Danu Yoga: What you do with that information

1018
01:28:34.200 –> 01:28:45.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: that’s up to you. Maybe you do order a few things and you ask this the the this like. Maybe you take it on yourself to invest in some props, and you put them in a rubber made thing. And you say to the studio. Can I just hide these under the desk.

1019
01:28:45.870 –> 01:28:47.109
Addie deHilster (she/her): Store, these here.

1020
01:28:47.110 –> 01:28:47.880
Nyk Danu Yoga: Them out, or made.

1021
01:28:47.880 –> 01:28:48.200
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1022
01:28:48.200 –> 01:28:53.509
Nyk Danu Yoga: If you drive and they’re in the back of your car, anyway. No problem. I don’t drive. But so that’s problem for me.

1023
01:28:53.510 –> 01:28:54.120
Addie deHilster (she/her): But he, you know.

1024
01:28:54.120 –> 01:28:59.789
Nyk Danu Yoga: So if you drive to your class, I mean there’s nothing wrong with having a little kit in your car that you can bring.

1025
01:28:59.790 –> 01:29:02.009
Addie deHilster (she/her): Help you unload your car and bring them in and.

1026
01:29:02.010 –> 01:29:09.760
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, or, you know, say to the students, like most students can afford a strap in a couple of blocks that’s pretty cheap everywhere.

1027
01:29:09.760 –> 01:29:10.230
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1028
01:29:10.230 –> 01:29:15.150
Nyk Danu Yoga: Boosters and blankets and things that starts to get a little bit more pricey and a little bit less convenient. But.

1029
01:29:15.150 –> 01:29:17.443
Addie deHilster (she/her): They can bring a towel from home like.

1030
01:29:17.730 –> 01:29:18.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: From home.

1031
01:29:18.310 –> 01:29:19.420
Addie deHilster (she/her): I was trying to.

1032
01:29:19.420 –> 01:29:20.969
Nyk Danu Yoga: Hotels totally.

1033
01:29:21.200 –> 01:29:26.066
Nyk Danu Yoga: So I just wanted to mention that because I could, I could hear that somebody is gonna be saying. But.

1034
01:29:26.700 –> 01:29:27.090
Addie deHilster (she/her): Studio.

1035
01:29:27.090 –> 01:29:28.300
Nyk Danu Yoga: Have props and.

1036
01:29:28.300 –> 01:29:29.360
Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally. And yeah.

1037
01:29:29.360 –> 01:29:29.690
Nyk Danu Yoga: Is, that.

1038
01:29:29.690 –> 01:29:31.050
Addie deHilster (she/her): Do they have walls?

1039
01:29:31.150 –> 01:29:32.330
Addie deHilster (she/her): Because.

1040
01:29:32.330 –> 01:29:32.750
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

1041
01:29:32.750 –> 01:29:35.959
Addie deHilster (she/her): They’re not glass, you know that that’s a problem. But.

1042
01:29:35.960 –> 01:29:36.970
Nyk Danu Yoga: Walls are great. Pro.

1043
01:29:36.970 –> 01:29:43.839
Addie deHilster (she/her): Walls are a great prop, and also in a pinch. If the floor is clean enough, or if you have extra mats, roll up a yoga.

1044
01:29:43.840 –> 01:29:44.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

1045
01:29:44.830 –> 01:29:49.790
Addie deHilster (she/her): Roll up. The yoga mat can be like the bolster behind your back in heart bed, you know.

1046
01:29:49.790 –> 01:29:50.610
Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally.

1047
01:29:50.610 –> 01:29:54.056
Addie deHilster (she/her): The rolled blanket under your knees. I have a whole class

1048
01:29:54.450 –> 01:29:59.190
Addie deHilster (she/her): in my class library that’s like yin with just a mat, and it’s a rolled up yoga mat.

1049
01:29:59.190 –> 01:29:59.829
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh! What a great.

1050
01:29:59.830 –> 01:30:00.280
Addie deHilster (she/her): Perhaps.

1051
01:30:00.280 –> 01:30:01.869
Nyk Danu Yoga: What a great video for you to do! Wonderful.

1052
01:30:01.870 –> 01:30:06.270
Addie deHilster (she/her): Pandemic era went because I was like people are at home trying to practice, and they don’t have any.

1053
01:30:06.270 –> 01:30:10.490
Nyk Danu Yoga: I did a whole video of Don’t have blocks. Here’s what you can swap it with.

1054
01:30:10.490 –> 01:30:11.020
Addie deHilster (she/her): Don’t have.

1055
01:30:11.020 –> 01:30:16.169
Nyk Danu Yoga: Strap. Here’s what you could use. Don’t have a bolster. Use this instead. I made a whole video on that, too. Yeah.

1056
01:30:16.170 –> 01:30:16.590
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1057
01:30:16.590 –> 01:30:17.240
Nyk Danu Yoga: Reason.

1058
01:30:17.400 –> 01:30:23.017
Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally. I had people using empty Tupperwares, you know Tupperware containers as blocks.

1059
01:30:23.450 –> 01:30:23.899
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know so.

1060
01:30:23.900 –> 01:30:24.870
Addie deHilster (she/her): Make a great, but.

1061
01:30:24.870 –> 01:30:28.500
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, if you’re doing it like a triangle, and you need a little boost from the floor.

1062
01:30:28.500 –> 01:30:29.020
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1063
01:30:29.020 –> 01:30:29.949
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, but yeah.

1064
01:30:30.514 –> 01:30:31.000
Addie deHilster (she/her): Folks.

1065
01:30:31.000 –> 01:30:31.420
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

1066
01:30:31.420 –> 01:30:32.889
Addie deHilster (she/her): Whatever you’ve got.

1067
01:30:33.150 –> 01:30:43.549
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And and you know, you start with what you have. And then, you know, students can invest as their budget allows. Like, I had students that didn’t buy a bolster until they’d been zooming with me for over 2 years.

1068
01:30:43.770 –> 01:30:48.080
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then finally, I emailed out, by the way, y’all, I have a discount code

1069
01:30:48.220 –> 01:30:48.770
Nyk Danu Yoga: view.

1070
01:30:48.770 –> 01:30:49.689
Addie deHilster (she/her): That’s awesome, you know.

1071
01:30:49.690 –> 01:30:54.950
Nyk Danu Yoga: So it’s like, and that’s another thing you could do as a teacher is reach out to your favorite one and say.

1072
01:30:54.950 –> 01:30:55.310
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1073
01:30:55.310 –> 01:31:11.620
Nyk Danu Yoga: Do you have a code that you like an affiliate code so much that, like I get paid for it, although I do now, I just finally realized that was even a thing. But I’ll even when I send out that email to my students, I’ll say, here’s my affiliate code. If you use this one in the same discount, I’ll get a kick back. Here’s a non affiliate code.

1074
01:31:11.740 –> 01:31:13.919
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, they can be a discount, though. Yeah, they choose.

1075
01:31:13.920 –> 01:31:16.270
Addie deHilster (she/her): They want to support you, but you want to be clear about it. But.

1076
01:31:16.270 –> 01:31:20.985
Nyk Danu Yoga: I want to be transparent because affiliate marketing feels a bit odd to me still. But

1077
01:31:21.580 –> 01:31:32.409
Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, that was something I just wanted to touch on, because I know I’m gonna have somebody thinking, yeah, but my studio only has straps. My studio only has blocks. And so yes, don’t forget about a wall.

1078
01:31:32.450 –> 01:31:38.539
Nyk Danu Yoga: We can’t go into all that now, because times a ticking, but like a wall, a wall is an amazing prop.

1079
01:31:38.540 –> 01:31:40.989
Addie deHilster (she/her): You can do a whole wall in class like.

1080
01:31:40.990 –> 01:31:41.520
Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally.

1081
01:31:41.520 –> 01:31:45.776
Addie deHilster (she/her): Whole class, never leaving the wall, and people will love it and want you to do it every week.

1082
01:31:46.310 –> 01:31:53.479
Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally, and then the last thing I thought might be kind of fun for us in closing is to play the little game of

1083
01:31:54.090 –> 01:31:57.900
Nyk Danu Yoga: if you could only bring. Let’s say you’re going away on a retreat.

1084
01:31:58.870 –> 01:31:59.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: Vacation.

1085
01:31:59.490 –> 01:32:02.929
Nyk Danu Yoga: Addie, and you can only bring one prop for your practice.

1086
01:32:03.010 –> 01:32:04.090
Nyk Danu Yoga: What do you bring in.

1087
01:32:04.997 –> 01:32:06.970
Addie deHilster (she/her): This is interesting.

1088
01:32:07.230 –> 01:32:12.889
Addie deHilster (she/her): I was just on retreat, and I brought massage balls, because that’s kind.

1089
01:32:12.890 –> 01:32:14.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh!

1090
01:32:14.180 –> 01:32:18.090
Addie deHilster (she/her): Something that helps when you’re doing a lot of sitting meditation. And you’re getting kind of

1091
01:32:18.210 –> 01:32:19.550
Addie deHilster (she/her): a key.

1092
01:32:20.850 –> 01:32:25.509
Addie deHilster (she/her): that’s interesting, because I’m going to assume that where we’re going is going to have

1093
01:32:25.520 –> 01:32:27.829
Addie deHilster (she/her): some towels and some blankets

1094
01:32:28.060 –> 01:32:30.260
Addie deHilster (she/her): and some bed pillows

1095
01:32:30.440 –> 01:32:32.669
Addie deHilster (she/her): that we could bring in.

1096
01:32:33.140 –> 01:32:34.380
Addie deHilster (she/her): and

1097
01:32:34.430 –> 01:32:41.129
Addie deHilster (she/her): you can do yen without a mat like I’m not. Gonna I’m not gonna bring my Matt, if that’s the only

1098
01:32:42.559 –> 01:32:43.549
Addie deHilster (she/her): choice.

1099
01:32:45.060 –> 01:32:46.590
Addie deHilster (she/her): So

1100
01:32:46.600 –> 01:32:48.320
Addie deHilster (she/her): I might bring a strap

1101
01:32:48.490 –> 01:32:53.050
Addie deHilster (she/her): like that. Packs easily, you know, can roll it up, put it in the suitcase.

1102
01:32:53.610 –> 01:32:54.230
Addie deHilster (she/her): but you could.

1103
01:32:54.230 –> 01:32:57.960
Nyk Danu Yoga: Bring whatever one you want. You’ve got the room in your luggage. It’s just.

1104
01:32:57.960 –> 01:32:58.310
Addie deHilster (she/her): Okay.

1105
01:32:58.310 –> 01:32:59.250
Nyk Danu Yoga: And bring one.

1106
01:32:59.430 –> 01:33:02.890
Addie deHilster (she/her): I don’t have to worry about. My mortgage is going to cost more if I have to.

1107
01:33:02.890 –> 01:33:04.059
Nyk Danu Yoga: No, some luggage barrier.

1108
01:33:04.060 –> 01:33:04.629
Addie deHilster (she/her): It’s just like.

1109
01:33:04.630 –> 01:33:05.600
Nyk Danu Yoga: Name it over there.

1110
01:33:05.600 –> 01:33:06.320
Addie deHilster (she/her): Okay.

1111
01:33:06.320 –> 01:33:06.750
Nyk Danu Yoga: One.

1112
01:33:07.180 –> 01:33:17.570
Addie deHilster (she/her): It would either be the bolster because of its particular shape and density, and you know it is the best better than a pillow off the bed

1113
01:33:17.690 –> 01:33:31.580
Addie deHilster (she/her): or strap, because that’s easy. And I like really long straps. I use the 10 foot long straps because they’re the most versatile. Yeah. So. And that’s gonna beat like the bathrobe tie or the scarf.

1114
01:33:32.130 –> 01:33:34.239
Addie deHilster (she/her): although those are pretty good sub-ins.

1115
01:33:34.720 –> 01:33:39.359
Addie deHilster (she/her): So that’s a great question. Yeah. So I guess I will go with either strap or bolster.

1116
01:33:40.780 –> 01:33:43.579
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m gonna go with bolster all the way. Bolster. Yeah.

1117
01:33:43.580 –> 01:33:44.380
Addie deHilster (she/her): Bolster.

1118
01:33:44.500 –> 01:33:49.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: I most of my like my yin personal Saturday morning. Yin practice, for example, is like.

1119
01:33:50.380 –> 01:34:00.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think, the 1st 3 quarters of it are bolster, bolster, bolster, bolster so for me for sure, bolster, because, like you said, wherever I’m staying probably has a blanket and towels.

1120
01:34:00.580 –> 01:34:07.539
Nyk Danu Yoga: I only really use blocks in my in practice. If I’m doing like supported fish, I could do other things for backbens with bolstering.

1121
01:34:07.975 –> 01:34:08.410
Addie deHilster (she/her): So.

1122
01:34:08.410 –> 01:34:12.179
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, for me definitely bolster. And in fact, every time I’ve studied with Paul

1123
01:34:12.340 –> 01:34:23.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: I have checked luggage just to bring my prop. So I have like my, you know, my one with my clothes, and I just get them to get laundry to do them halfway through. But like I’m making sure I got me a bolster.

1124
01:34:24.256 –> 01:34:27.579
Nyk Danu Yoga: For sure. So yeah, for me, it would definitely be bolster.

1125
01:34:29.059 –> 01:34:29.799
Addie deHilster (she/her): Like that

1126
01:34:29.910 –> 01:34:37.350
Addie deHilster (she/her): thinking, too like, if I was going on a meditation or tree, they probably have Zafus, so I could kind of use those as a bolster.

1127
01:34:37.350 –> 01:34:39.369
Nyk Danu Yoga: Does change things. Yes, if I knew.

1128
01:34:39.370 –> 01:34:39.710
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1129
01:34:39.710 –> 01:34:41.890
Nyk Danu Yoga: Sure there was Zabutans and Zafus.

1130
01:34:42.350 –> 01:34:43.320
Nyk Danu Yoga: You might be. Yeah.

1131
01:34:43.320 –> 01:34:44.360
Addie deHilster (she/her): Away without that ball.

1132
01:34:44.360 –> 01:34:46.149
Nyk Danu Yoga: I might bring my bricks instead

1133
01:34:47.140 –> 01:34:48.410
Nyk Danu Yoga: by 2 bricks. Yeah.

1134
01:34:48.890 –> 01:34:50.860
Addie deHilster (she/her): Depends on where you’re going.

1135
01:34:50.860 –> 01:34:54.029
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, but if it was just like I’m going to a beach vacation.

1136
01:34:54.640 –> 01:34:58.530
Nyk Danu Yoga: Probably don’t have anything other than a blanket. I’m going bolster.

1137
01:34:58.760 –> 01:34:59.910
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, that makes sense.

1138
01:35:00.520 –> 01:35:02.000
Addie deHilster (she/her): I like that question.

1139
01:35:02.630 –> 01:35:03.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: Possum.

1140
01:35:03.550 –> 01:35:04.820
Nyk Danu Yoga: This was so fun.

1141
01:35:05.190 –> 01:35:07.829
Addie deHilster (she/her): I know. I think we covered a lot.

1142
01:35:07.830 –> 01:35:08.570
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

1143
01:35:08.570 –> 01:35:10.669
Addie deHilster (she/her): I had a great time talking about this

1144
01:35:10.910 –> 01:35:11.480
Addie deHilster (she/her): so, but.

1145
01:35:11.480 –> 01:35:11.980
Nyk Danu Yoga: Of course.

1146
01:35:12.333 –> 01:35:13.040
Addie deHilster (she/her): For the.

1147
01:35:13.040 –> 01:35:17.570
Nyk Danu Yoga: Those of you who don’t know. We’re both going to use this episode in some way, shape or form.

1148
01:35:17.740 –> 01:35:21.280
Nyk Danu Yoga: and so we will link to the show notes to the other show notes.

1149
01:35:21.280 –> 01:35:21.750
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1150
01:35:21.750 –> 01:35:23.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: And the other person, and all that good stuff.

1151
01:35:23.660 –> 01:35:26.760
Addie deHilster (she/her): Whether you’re hearing it on Nick’s podcast or on my podcast

1152
01:35:27.030 –> 01:35:27.680
Addie deHilster (she/her): yeah.

1153
01:35:27.680 –> 01:35:29.534
Nyk Danu Yoga: All the links will be in the show notes.

1154
01:35:29.740 –> 01:35:36.470
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, do you have any offerings that you want to highlight that might be relevant to this topic?

1155
01:35:36.470 –> 01:35:50.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, look how smart you are being business minded so ye yes, I do. I have a 60 plus hour therapeutic again, training one of the big focuses of that training actually is accessibility and propping. That’s something. I am a bit of a

1156
01:35:50.220 –> 01:35:54.890
Nyk Danu Yoga: a ninja or queen depending on who you’re talking to with props.

1157
01:35:55.680 –> 01:36:01.109
Nyk Danu Yoga: and when this comes out, if you’re listening to it, live, which I realize you may not be

1158
01:36:01.480 –> 01:36:14.390
Nyk Danu Yoga: my next round will be in the spring, because the fall round will have already begun, or just about to be done. And you can always get on the wait list, though the link to get on the wait list is just below. You can

1159
01:36:14.530 –> 01:36:26.049
Nyk Danu Yoga: click that, get on the wait list because I let people on the wait list know 1st when registration opens, and there’s also an early registration discount for the 1st 5 folks that only people on the wait list get so.

1160
01:36:26.050 –> 01:36:26.650
Addie deHilster (she/her): Hmm.

1161
01:36:26.650 –> 01:36:30.809
Nyk Danu Yoga: And you get other yin goodies from me along the way, like podcast episodes and videos. And

1162
01:36:31.110 –> 01:36:34.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: here’s a cool piece of music, I found, and you know all that stuff.

1163
01:36:34.530 –> 01:36:35.640
Nyk Danu Yoga: How about you sweets?

1164
01:36:36.050 –> 01:36:45.849
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah, I actually have a course I created a few years ago. That’s a really focused course just on this topic of Yid poses plus props.

1165
01:36:45.850 –> 01:36:46.610
Nyk Danu Yoga: Love it, he.

1166
01:36:46.610 –> 01:37:02.069
Addie deHilster (she/her): 8 h on demand. Course, you just do it in your own time. And it’s videos of lectures on similar topics. What we’re talking about here and breakdowns of the poses and some of the Gajillion ways. You might use props in those poses.

1167
01:37:02.160 –> 01:37:21.199
Addie deHilster (she/her): So that’s on my website. And I am. I haven’t been teaching this year. I didn’t am not teaching like of my full Yan Yoga foundations training. I took a break from it this year because I’m working on writing a book about teaching mindful movement.

1168
01:37:21.500 –> 01:37:34.109
Addie deHilster (she/her): And really, you could call that movement based mindfulness. You know, this way that we can center mindfulness skills the meditative aspects of practice

1169
01:37:34.320 –> 01:37:35.600
Addie deHilster (she/her): in movement.

1170
01:37:35.900 –> 01:37:41.640
Addie deHilster (she/her): So I’ll just throw that out there for any Yoga teachers who are listening who are interested in

1171
01:37:42.170 –> 01:37:54.239
Addie deHilster (she/her): making that the mindfulness, aspect of their teaching stronger. Hopefully, my book will be coming out when I finish it. But I also have a training around this. So that book is kind of the like the training manual for

1172
01:37:54.250 –> 01:37:59.989
Addie deHilster (she/her): the training that I’ve been teaching for a few years, and that one starts up again in October. So.

1173
01:38:00.280 –> 01:38:05.449
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so if you are listening to this, on my, podcast. A yen Yoga, podcast. I will have a link.

1174
01:38:05.820 –> 01:38:08.460
Nyk Danu Yoga: I will get a link from you for that video.

1175
01:38:08.660 –> 01:38:09.010
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1176
01:38:09.010 –> 01:38:13.279
Nyk Danu Yoga: About the 1st one, and then also to your new next training.

1177
01:38:13.280 –> 01:38:18.719
Addie deHilster (she/her): Cool, and I will do the same link to your your full. You have like a comprehensive Yeah.

1178
01:38:18.720 –> 01:38:27.799
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, it’s like a 60. It’s about 60 h with me, and then probably about another 20 ish 25, depending on the person. By the time you do like

1179
01:38:27.830 –> 01:38:29.050
Nyk Danu Yoga: homework stuff. So.

1180
01:38:29.050 –> 01:38:29.700
Addie deHilster (she/her): Yeah.

1181
01:38:29.700 –> 01:38:30.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

1182
01:38:30.310 –> 01:38:31.140
Addie deHilster (she/her): Totally

1183
01:38:31.360 –> 01:38:34.930
Addie deHilster (she/her): perfect, yes, so many good resources.

1184
01:38:36.020 –> 01:38:39.770
Nyk Danu Yoga: So many good resources. Thank you so much for doing this. This is so fun to

1185
01:38:40.340 –> 01:38:45.330
Nyk Danu Yoga: to just like, have this be a little more informal and kind of like a jam session.

1186
01:38:45.650 –> 01:38:50.250
Addie deHilster (she/her): Pleasure. Thanks for coming up with the idea for this, and asking me to do it.

1187
01:38:50.250 –> 01:38:54.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Awesome. I will do our proper goodbyes in a moment when I stop the recording, but

1188
01:38:54.820 –> 01:38:57.880
Nyk Danu Yoga: for those of you listening or watching bye, for now.

1189
01:38:57.880 –> 01:38:59.400
Addie deHilster (she/her): Thanks! So much for listening.