The Language of Yin – A Conversation with Gabrielle Harris

🎤 Interview (gabrielle Harris) with Nyk Danu Yoga
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Hello. Today we are going to be talking to a special guest, somebody that is very well renowned and much beloved in the yin yoga community.. Gabriel Harris is coming in to talk to us about her book, , the Language of Yin. , That’s just one of her books, but that’s one we’re gonna focus on and also theming and how we can get started with theming and.

All of the things around theming and sequencing, as well as getting to hear a little bit about her journey to yoga. So my friends, if you have the book Language of Yin and you love Gabriel Harris, you’re gonna love this episode. If you don’t have it yet, , maybe you’ll want to by the end of this episode.

All right. Stay tuned for more.

[00:01:00] Welcome to a Yin Yoga podcast. I’m your host, Nick Denu, certified yoga therapist, mentor of yoga teachers, yin yoga, teacher trainer, and total yin yoga geek. If you have a crush on yin yoga. And are ready to dive deep, then you’re in the right place here. Myself and my guests will discuss all things in yoga, including anatomy, philosophy, traditional Chinese medicine, meditation, Taoism, teaching tips, and so much more.

You can expect these conversations to be long format, informal, lo-fi, and delightfully imperfect. So whether you are a yoga teacher or a yin yoga student, I welcome you to the [00:02:00] inside.

Hello Yuni and welcome or welcome back to a Yen Yoga podcast. Before we get into the interview with, Gabriel Harris, I just wanted to mention a couple of things. First and foremost, a thank you to, , Karen Kaufman. If you’re listening. Thank you, Karen., Some of you may not know ’cause I don’t really like talk about it, but in the episode notes.

There’s a link that says if you wanna support my work on the podcast, and it just goes to PayPal. Um, and Karen did so thank you. So if you’ve been really appreciating this podcast, if it’s really helped your teaching and you want to show your appreciation in some sort of monetary way, that is always there for you, just click on it and, you know, buy me a coffee.

Just helps with,. Some of the costs , of [00:03:00] doing the podcast, not including my time, of course, but the additional costs. And, uh, of course, no pressure at all. If money is tight, don’t do it. , Or if you’re just newer on here and you’re like, what? Why is she asking for money? I’m not asking for money, but if you should feel so inclined, that link is always in the episode notes.

, You can click on it and it just takes you to PayPal. And there you go. , Thanks Karen, for showing your appreciation for the pod. The other thing I wanna mention before we get into,, Gabriel’s, bio is that this is an adult podcast with adult subject matter and adult language. So if you have small ones around, now’s a good time to grab some headphones.

. Gabriel B began her student life when she was initiated into transcendental meditation at the age of nine. This planted a seed and bloomed again later in life when she committed to studying yoga in depth. Over the last 20 years, [00:04:00] Gabrielle or Gabrielle, she said she’s okay with either pronunciation.

So I’ll alternate, has delved into the myriad of paths including Aveda yin, somatics, myofascial release, and yoga philosophy as the teachings bloomed in her. They were brought to life by her two books, the Language of Yin and the Inspired Yoga Teacher. The award-winning books have become a staple in the yoga teacher training worldwide and are a source of inspiration for teachers and students.

Her latest book, which is not quite out yet, but will be soon, lessons in Meditation is due to be published shortly, and of course we’ll hover back on for that. Gabrielle blends many sources of inspiration and practices into her. Alchemic training and teaching. She inspires to remind all those who cross her path that they have all they need to carry the teachings into the world.

She continues to unravel the mystery of yoga through her daily Writing. [00:05:00] Writing, sorry, study and practice. And she’s based in New Zealand where she leads trainings, immersions, and workshops worldwide. So that is a little bit of a formal bio of my guest. Gabrielle Harris, who the next time that you hear from me, I will be with Gabrielle.

Audio Only – All Participants: Hi Gabriel. Welcome to a Yin Yoga podcast. Hi, Nick. So nice to be here from New Zealand. Yeah, I’m excited to have you on. I’ve had your book for, I don’t honestly even know how long you’ve had it since I wrote it,, like a long time. one of the reasons I wanted to have you on, but also there’s a bit of a bugaboo in my mind lately about newer teachers and theming and sequencing and, you know.

Their struggles with it. And so I thought, well, who would be a good person to talk to about this? And then right away you came to mind. [00:06:00] Oh, so I re I recently reread your book, . Okay. So for those of you on YouTube, you’ll be able to see it, but if you are not on YouTube, I will put a picture of me holding it somewhere in the episode notes or in the podcast, , image.

Um, so yeah, I’ve had this for, I don’t even know how long That’s 60 years because yeah, that’s how long it’s been out. Six years. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I just thought this would be a lovely thing to chat about. , I. Since theming and sequencing and stuff like that is kind of one of your zones of genius, but who better to have on to talk about some of these things.

But before we get into all of that and your book, I would love to know how you found yoga and what, what then sparked you to become a teacher? Yeah. [00:07:00] Well, um, I actually had a little head start on teaching because I’ve been a teacher all my life and tesol, so teach in English to speakers of other languages and a teacher trainer.

So I always had that background in teaching. Um, but in terms of the yoga, how I came into that, I was pretty much into fitness and I’d go to the gym a lot and I, I became involved in, . I guess a group fitness program, which was similar to yoga. It was a Tai chi, yoga based, , group fitness program, which I trained up in and got qualified and taught the group classes.

And then, um, by coincidence, , the studio that I was at, , they decided to, um, move into hot power yoga. It was a gym. I was in a gym. And so they opened up the studio and then they brought over a teacher trainer and hot power yoga. And I thought, oh, that sounds good. I’ll jump on that [00:08:00] course.

And, and that’s where it all started. But actually, I, I was thinking back to that’s the arsana side, right? And I was thinking back to yoga where it really started. The root I think was, was when I was quite young. I was nine and. Our family decided to go through the transcendental meditation.

Inducement, . And so at nine, yeah, I was induced into, to tm. , I was given, a mantra and yeah, and I practiced a little bit, but I was pretty young. But that, that seed was always there, I think for yoga to sprout. Yeah. So I, I kind of stumbled into it. And the odd thing was, I had to then start teaching straight away.

So we opened the studio, and the next week I, the ink wasn’t even dry on the certificate. I had no idea what we were doing. , I was given immediately 10 yoga classes to teach, so I [00:09:00] was thrown in the deep end. So that’s the, , the teaching side of it. , But in terms of the hot power yoga, I found it.

I’m a little older now, I’m in, in my sixties, and this was, , I was 45 , when I trained, and I found it very draining actually. . I’d have to come home and have a, a lie down. , So at the studio that I worked at, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we could have it, some gentle classes?

And I started investigating yin yoga and in New Zealand at the time, really it wasn’t a thing, it was like, what is yin yoga? You know? And I suggested we put these classes on the timetable , and teachers just started teaching them actually with no training. And I thought, well, wouldn’t it be good if we could have training in it?

So I, wrote to Paul Griller and I said, look, would you like to, , come to New Zealand and do a teacher training for us because we are teaching it and , we dunno all the ins and outs of it. He was so [00:10:00] polite and he wrote back and said, you know, I’m a bit busy, but maybe he, you know, suggested some of his other teachers.

And so they started coming and over the next seven years or so, I hosted, quite a few of the teachers here in New Zealand and Yin . And that’s really the journey of it for me. Yeah. So just a couple things to tease out there. Did you say that you went right from I just got my teacher’s certificate to opening a studio?

Did I catch that right? It was opened by another person, so I was just working. But you just landed 10 classes a week, like right from the get go? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s a lot right from the start. Thank goodness you had a previous teaching background because that definitely would’ve given you a bit of a leg up as far as, , being okay standing in front of a room and understanding how to project your voice and, , knowing how to watch people and see if they’re understanding what you’re saying.

Well, yeah. I think, um, the, when I [00:11:00] became a better teacher was when I did the yin training. Mm-hmm. Before I was just like a little puppet on someone’s string Right. Mimicking, producing. And I didn’t even know, the y training was, is liberating, you know, that the students know that when they do it, it’s very liberating because it.

It opens the doors to a, a new way of looking at things, and we just step out of that whole dogma of, , prescriptive sequencing, prescriptive, , cues , and it, and we see things differently, I think. So that’s when I became the better teacher, I think. So would you say that your first teacher training before you found yen, was it one of those styles where it is quite scripted?

Like you say this Yeah. And then you, okay, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you would be, yeah. You’re parenting essentially kind of what it, what it is that they tell you. Yeah. Yeah. Parenting. But I think all new teachers have to do that to start with. Yes. ’cause you just have, to find your [00:12:00] voice. And the only way you can find your voice is to be comfortable with the teaching aspect of it.

So to do that, you just really have to get through and know that the first few classes, even the first year, are, they’re not gonna be that good. I you, you are just gonna get better. You’re gonna get better. So, yeah. Yeah. And I don’t understand, I think it’s funny that you mentioned that. I don’t understand why it is, and maybe it’s that sometimes yo new yoga teachers are comparing their beginning to someone else’s middle of their career and they’re like, oh, I’ll never be like that teacher, or blah, blah, blah.

It’s yeah, in 20 years with hard work and dedication, you will actually, I think they mean as comfortable or as like as, yeah. Qualified or, you know, there’s so much imposter syndrome that comes out with new teachers.

And uh, you know, it just takes practice and dedication and commitment and repetition and looking at what you, looking at your mistakes and going, okay, let’s not do that again. Um, you know, just like any other livelihood, you know, for sure. [00:13:00] So then you were teaching at this kind of power yoga place. , What yin training did you bring in?

Who did you bring in? Anybody I know. Um, so the first one is, was Muriel. Sebastian. Okay. Yeah. I, my reputation only, don’t know personally, but yeah, yin and then, Joe Barnett. Oh yeah, Joe. He came about 75 times. The poor guy. He’s such a great guy too. He is. We became good friends. And, he led all the trainings here, so I was very lucky you were in good hands.

Yeah, definitely. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. But, uh, you know, COVID stopped all that, so, um, it’s funny, isn’t it, how we get flying into it, and I’d been, brought up by these stars, all of them, all of the yoga stars had come here and it, and then they all stopped coming because of COVID and. It was like, oh, okay, well now I’ve gotta step up and

you [00:14:00] just talk about imposter syndrome. Well then I’m back in that, that, , I’m not as good as these people. They, you know, they’re talented. They know a lot. And so I had to deal with that myself. So it’s not just new teachers that get it. Yeah. So I did a, I did my first yin training in New Zealand and, I had to deal with all those fears as well again.

Mm-hmm. But now I’m doing them here. Yeah. So that, that’s where I am now doing the teacher trains here. Yeah. I think sometimes. So you, you were started doing your yin trainings out of an, out of necessity. Thanks, COVID. , But also in a sense, thanks COVID, you know, because who knows how long it may have taken you to step into that role.

If you were able to just kinda keep going as was what you just people in? Oh, well, I wouldn’t have, yeah, I wouldn’t have because it’s much safer to, not to, and this is something I probably mentioned about the book too. [00:15:00] It’s much safer to color inside the, the square. . And when I, before I wrote the book, , I, I made a commitment to write a little Facebook post every day for a year.

Smart. And yeah. And that was so safe and to then stop, I had to stop doing that so I could write the book. And there’s a lot of fear in, in putting yourself out there. And this is the whole thing with teaching. It’s a form of putting yourself out there. It’s public speaking, which is up there with, , fear of death.

So, yeah. I think for me, one thing that makes. You know, being in front of people or deciding to train teachers or any of that easier in my life, the reason I, I’m just one of those where people who doesn’t have imposter syndrome, but I think it’s because I don’t expect to know everything. Like, I’m totally okay with going, you know what?

I don’t know, [00:16:00] but let me look into that. Whereas I think a lot of times people think they have to be like an, they have everything. They have to have an answer for every question. They have to be like an absolute, , expert. Whereas I always just think I’m gonna share what I know and what I don’t know.

I’ll try to research and that’s all I can do, and so far it’s working. But COVID shifted that for me as well.

And so then I started doing it on, on my own as well. So it, even though I had been doing trainings, it was like, oh, well now that I can create this from scratch, like, Hmm, now what?

You know. So, yeah, again, growing pains, I call them. Yeah. Ah, yeah., Yes. So let’s talk about the book, the Language of Yen. I know you’ve written other books as well, and we can touch on those. on those , in a bit, because , the main focus of the pod is yin.

First of all, I wanna say the book is absolutely beautiful, and I wanna be honest with you, when I first read this book, , I [00:17:00] kind of skimmed it. And the reason that I picked that I started reading it, is because I was mentoring somebody, who really loved your book. Part of mentorship was she would record herself teaching, she would send it to me.

I would, , get back to her and. While she was working privately with her client, she was literally reading something from your book as if it was a script. And I just remember thinking this is a private session. Should you not, you know, be catering to this individual, should you not be using your own words.

It kind of like, I threw me off there and then I, I did start reading the book and, I can remember back way back to when I was a brand new teacher and I remember, and I left my teacher training. The two things that I didn’t feel like we covered well enough were sequencing or like, how do I actually like put a class together now and anatomy, which is how I ended up discovering Paul Grey’s, was a DVD at the [00:18:00] time, and how I approached it because, you know, I really didn’t understand when I graduated.

Why did you put that warrior before that warrior? Like why did you sequence this here? And, , et cetera, et cetera. And I would say I was, I was theme light, meaning like I then a guided meditation and also I would think about the sequence as well,

But, so how I learned to sequence and how to create classes was by watching a shit ton of yoga videos. At the time, there wasn’t like, uh, YouTube wasn’t really like a thing. There wasn’t the yoga stuff all over YouTube. There wasn’t, I think they were called yoga today.

I don’t know if they’re even still around, but they used to have classes. So I would watch them, I would take out DVDs, I would practice the sequence, I would write them out, and then I would be like, Hmm, what didn’t I like about that sequence? Okay, what would I put in there instead? Maybe I didn’t like the order, I’d switch this up.

And so that is essentially [00:19:00] how I learned to sequence was through watching, writing it down, practicing it in my own body, and then going, Hmm, move this, take this out, blah, blah. And then I would present it to the group, and then I would still go back with my little, this is back before iPhones and iPads and things.

And so mine were all printed on like little pieces of paper in those clear protective sleeves, and so I would take it out after class for a few moments and I would also make notes on it as far as, , this went too long, you know, change this. So that after I had done this sequence, with myself a few times, and then with other bodies.

I would also tweak it, what worked well, what didn’t work well, et cetera, et cetera. The amount of hours that I spent learning to do this,, way more hours probably than my actual teacher training was, before I felt comfortable, sequencing, , and coming up with classes.

That being said, then a few years later, I had an experience where I’d [00:20:00] forgotten my class plan and I had to wing it. And I must say, unless it’s a workshop, I actually don’t do themes and sequences anymore. I do always have something in mind. And we can talk a minute more about that, , in a few moments.

So yeah, I found that it was, it was just interesting. The one thing that I loved in your book, and I missed the first time I read it, so I’m glad that I reread it. . You do actually spend time in the beginning of the book talking to teachers about how to learn to do this for yourself. And I think that’s what I missed the first time I read your book.

I thought to me, like to me, by my friend and the girl I was mentoring, it was presented to me as like, here’s a manual for new teachers so they don’t have to learn how to sequence and theme themselves. And I was like shocked and horrified. , But then when I start reading it again, I was like, oh no, that’s, yes, you offer some sequences, some themes, et cetera, but you’re also telling [00:21:00] people like, this is how you do this.

This is how you learn how to do this for yourself., You’ve got teaching considerations, use of language, . During the class, after the class stages of a theme, et cetera. And I think I kind of missed that part when I first looked at your book. So just, you know, wanted to give you a shout out for that because I just thought it went right into like, here’s here, borrow my, borrow my, my hard work and just, you know, copy me.

So that I really appreciated. And, , it came to my attention not that long ago, , that this is just getting even worse with AI and stuff. But before we get to all of that, , what made you wanna write a book? What, because it’s, I mean, I’m, I am in the process of wrapping my head around how I’m gonna write one.

Like, I’m, I’m literally in that stage of like. How do I take all the things that I have now and organize them in such a way and then string them? Yeah. Yeah. So what made you decide to take on this insane [00:22:00] process? , So I had lots and lots of train trainers come to New Zealand and I had, lots and lots of notes that I’d taken.

Like you, you’d, you know how we all have those yoga notebooks and then we mm-hmm. Write, yeah. I had a pile, huge pile and I set out to put it to, to try to make sense of all of the stuff I’d written. And that was the genesis of it, to just order the stuff. And then when I looked at it, I thought, oh, this could be a book, it could be bigger.

So I started to expand on it by bringing in some themes that I liked and, and that that’s how it started. It didn’t, I didn’t start out try to book. I started out to order my notes. Yeah. I’m actually in that phase as well. I, yeah, two large binders I’m looking at right now. One is all my yoga therapy training and my previous yoga certifications.

And one is all my Chinese medicine studies [00:23:00] and yeah. I’m looking at them right now, doing the same thinking. I gotta go through those and make some sense of those somehow. Yeah. Otherwise I just sit, they, , so that was how it began., And then I discovered that it, you know, it’s like a yoga practice as well.

, The process of writing it requires, , practice, you know, abi you have to have dedication and commitment to. To carry it through. So that’s a big part of it. But I enjoy it, you know, that’s, I just, I love it. I love, , I’m an English teacher. I love words. I love putting words together and.

So it’s so like a natural fit almost. Yeah. It’s just, yeah, it was a natural fit., So I wrote that and then, , I said, oh, this is finished. I banged it down and showed my partner and he went, oh, might need a little bit of, uh, you know, uh, ing tweaking. So like another year later, , because I have all the ideas and the creativity, [00:24:00] but I don’t have the, what is it, like the metal element, you know that mm-hmm.

Order. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and it’s self-published. Correct. All my books are self-published. Yeah. I What made you decide to go that route? I’m curious. Well, I don’t even, well, I dunno, any publishers, and the thing with self-publishing is it’s a project, it’s self project. No one is telling you how to do any of it.

And I like that self-discovery thing. You also then have to learn how to, you have to get it edited and you have to learn about design. You have to learn about putting it onto Amazon. So there’s a lot of things that you need to learn. And I quite enjoyed learning all that. , And you have to learn to market it because one of the other things a publisher will do is, you know, they have staff that’ll help kind of promote it.

But when you do it, it’s like, and I know, I know that a lot of yoga teachers are so uncomfortable, kind of like [00:25:00] selling their wares, so to speak, or like talking about themselves and their work. And so how was that for you promoting the book and like, that’s fine. Not something that I had to sell actually.

Because at the time I wrote it, there wasn’t really a lot on the market. Gotcha. It kind of filled a gap. So we, , I’ve got beautiful Bernie’s book and then there was mine and they’re almost like a nice pairing. So often, people bought Bernie’s book, they’d buy mine as well to get that Yeah.

The, the seeming side of it. Um, so yeah, and then I just continued to write and I think showing up in some way every day. , And I believe this for yoga and for writing and for life, that you need to somehow touch upon it every day in some way. And I think that helps to sell things ’cause people know that you’re there and you’re dedicated.

Yeah. I often have teachers ask how, , how do you get so much done? I’m like, I put it in my schedule. [00:26:00] No, you just, you do it. Yeah. Like you, you carve out the time and you say, this is the time that I will do said thing. And if you don’t do that, it won’t ever get done because we all have long to-do lists of all the things work-wise.

Not to mention our household, not to mention our family commitments of things that, could always pull us away if we’re not committed or dedicated. There’s, they’re just ha you just have to carve out time and sit down and do it. Yeah. Which is not easy. So hats off to you. , I call it the non-negotiables.

So there are, in my life, there’s some non-negotiables. One is I go for a walk every morning the other one is I sit down and I write every morning and I do a yoga practice every day. , They’re non-negotiables. So people in my life know that’s. Yeah. It’s like cleaning my teeth. It’s just part of who I am, and then everything else can happen from there.

But I, [00:27:00] I feel if you phrase it that way, then it becomes, it’s not a task it’s your life, becomes a practice. Exactly. So, yeah. Yeah. If you’re, if you’re a yoga teacher, you should decide what your non-negotiables are in terms of teaching and practicing yoga, I think.

Agreed. Yeah. And I think, , having some flexibility, like you said, you decide what are your non-negotiables? ’cause I know, depending on what stage in life you’re in, whether or not you have children, whether or not you’re a full-time teacher, part-time teacher, like so much of that can change,

I noticed that there’s a fair bit of yang in your book, which really struck me in a yin book, so I’m wondering why you decided to include the yang aspects as well.

, It bridges into Daoism, really. . In Daoism, , there’s two, two sides to everything. There’s the yin and the yang, and these two sides, they, they dance [00:28:00] with each other and they create a kind of polarity. And the balance of the two elements creates what we know as the dao the path

or the way or the center. And everything in life has a yin and a young aspect to it, if you think about it. And , that’s where you see that in the symbol. There’s a little, you know, black.in the white Ted drop shape. Mm-hmm. So, and these two elements that they’re always at play in our life.

And I think, and , I have, heard before teachers say that if there’s young in a class, it’s not a pure yin class. But I’d to argue against that, by saying that if you don’t have any movement, any young, any, , a young aspect in a young cast could be a breathing exercise, or it could be movement with a body.

It could be all sorts of things, [00:29:00] but it’s always in comparison to the yin, the stillness. So my argument would be that if you didn’t have any yang, then what is the yin? Right. But don’t you think that you could have yin and yang both in your life, in harmonious doses, but not in the same practice? Mm-hmm.

You definitely could. Yeah. And, and that, that’s the a that’s the argument for, for why yen is becoming so popular because we are young in our lives. You know, I like to lead people gently into yin., My opinion, and it could be right or could be wrong, but when people come from work or whatever and they’re frazzled, it’s quite jarring to, to put in a person who goes to maybe a yin class once a week straight into a yin pose.

So I always feel a little bit of something, a little bit of movement can settle the body and the mind a little quicker. So there’s lots of reasons to have your young in a [00:30:00] class. I mean, if you are a super stiff person,, it might help to just. Get a little bit more fluidity or fluency in the body before you settle into yin.

And if you’re super flexy, um, you might need a little bit of y towards the end of the class to pull the body back together. So there’s also physical reasons, um, but generally I just personally, I like to have a little bit of a, in a class, , for the contrast. And so, but you still call them yin classes?

Yeah. And it’s not a lot of movement. I mean, yeah. , And on my trainings they did a lot of the, we would’ve done that, the golden seed and Yeah. Some movement. Yeah. , But they wouldn’t have called that yin, that would’ve been the yang, the yang section, you know? Mm. Um, and sometimes same thing with our trainings with Paul.

You know, we would do the golden seed or any of those kind of things. Um, sometimes as a [00:31:00] standalone practice with no yin. And then sometimes, you know, we would then slowly move into, into yin and sometimes the opposite. Sometimes we would start in yin Yeah. And then we would end up standing. But they, but they always called them like yin yang blends, you know?

Oh yeah. Okay. Oh, don’t, don’t get me wrong. I, it’s, that is a different, that’s a different approach. , I think what you’re saying is in a pure yin class, do I have y young movement? Is that mm-hmm. Is that your question? Yeah, yeah. Very little. Yeah. Like it would be shoulder circles or wrist circles or, , knees to chest in and out breathing.

It’s not, I’m not doing sun gentle, kind of like just therapeutic mobility stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I’m not doing the sun salutations that, that is yin yang style. So I hope I didn’t confuse anyone, but No, no, that’s good for clarification, for sure. Yeah. I find that in my classes, I know what you mean about sometimes people are, they come in and they’re in a certain state, [00:32:00] nervous system wise that a little, it’s for some bodies it can make it hard to drop right into, to yin.

I do a good dose of , breath work and guided mindfulness in constructive rest as , the antidote to that energetic state before we start making funny shapes of our body. But you’re right, I think that needs to be whatever way you do it, whether you do it through breath work or gentle movement or the way I do.

, That when people have just especially if they’ve just left the workday and they’re kind of like they’re revved up that you need to find a way to bring them into a state of kind of, I don’t like to use the word balance, but like in a state of just openness and softness before we start moving into Yeah.

The gym with activity. Yes. That’s the word I was looking for. Thank you. And also don’t forget, I’m teaching in a gym. Ah, they’re expecting that yes, I’ve got people coming to the classes that are, they’re fired up. Yeah, that makes sense. But yeah, in terms of sequencing, you need to start with the grounding. Yeah. You need to [00:33:00] get people to connect just to being in that room, , to feel that And to arrive, yeah. Yeah. To arrive. , And then you can move into like, there’s more centering practices and then into the body of the class and then into the cool downs and stuff.

So you do need to have a little bit of a, in terms of sequencing that, that curve of moving through your class. So however you wanna do it , is, I’ve been surprised how many teachers don’t start with any kind of a. Deliberate conscious kind of grounding and centering. It’s like they’ll get people in child’s pose for four breaths and be like, okay, let’s go.

I’m like, whoa, not enough. Not enough. You have to, people have to be called back home , to their bodies. Yeah. Before they can receive anything. Yeah. Otherwise they’re just go, everything’s so up in the air, you know? Everyone lives in the air, they live in the cloud.

It’s that quote from, I can’t remember. Mr. Duffy lived a long way from his body. So means, oh yes. We do, we [00:34:00] live apart, we, we like treat our bodies a little bit like vacation homes. We, we don’t visit them very often. Ooh. Good quote. This whole practice is about making the home permanent and, um, remembering that.

So we, I think it’s really important that, that teachers start with grounding. And then we got through that, allowing them to arrive in the space and then to slowly start to settle into their own being before you start pulling out your fancy poses. It’s a good plan. When you started out, , you would, you talked kind of a style that was kind of fairly scripted, and then as you started moving into learning yin, that’s when you said that you, you feel like you really started to hone your chop, so to speak, as a yoga teacher, because you, you would have to come up with your own sequences, your own words, your own, you know, ways that you do things.

, What was that process like for you? Um, part A of the [00:35:00] question, and then part B would be, so when you were new to then. Teaching yourself how to sequence and theme, what did that look like for you? Like how did you, you know, I described mine of watching hours and hours and hours and hours of video footage.

Practice, practice, practice, write notes, try it out, you know, repeat, repeat. But I’m curious what that process was like for you. When I first started to step out of what I’d known for seven years, I was frightened. It was, I required a lot of courage because I was now gonna start bringing in stuff to a class that people we, they’ve never heard of, they’ve never practiced.

That was really difficult transition for me to step out of the prescriptive yoga teaching into my own style. So what I did to start with is I just did a little bit each class. So if I wanted to do a mudra, I’d just do one mudra. If I [00:36:00] wanted to do a different type of movement, I’d just add that in and slowly I started to filter in my own stuff and then it became my own stuff eventually.

So it was a long process. It wasn’t overnight. Mm-hmm. And it took a lot of courage and bravery to step into what I wanted to teach eventually. And I, I knew at the time that students were gonna go, what the hell is going on here? This isn’t power yoga. I knew all that was gonna happen. Students, some students didn’t come back, but a lot of students stayed and it progressed from there.

So you will lose students when you start to step into your own teaching. Just know that that’s fine. They, they just are not ready for your brilliance. And then mm-hmm. Just carry on doing what you’re doing. So that’s, I think, answers the fir first part. It was, it was difficult. Um, and then what was the second part?

How did I, before we get to the second part, I just wanna highlight what you just said there that you. , You did it in [00:37:00] like what I call bite-sized doses, right? You didn’t show up and be like, okay, here is a class that I have created from scratch and I will now somehow teach it. You took like one little thing and then when that became less scary, you did two little things and three little things and, and it built upon itself.

I think that’s gonna be very helpful for teachers who are really struggling, with kind of finding their own voice as a teacher, finding their own sequences, their own themes, their own ways that they like to practice and, and teach., That it doesn’t need to be all at once, you know? Yeah. It was the same for me when I went away and studied with Paul Grille and realized that like 90% of the so-called alignment cues that I had learned actually didn’t work for everybody.

I didn’t go back and try to like completely rejig the way I was teaching. I just promised myself that I would let go of one alignment cue per, [00:38:00] per post kind of thing, or per day, you know, so maybe I wasn’t gonna be prescriptive about where the knee should be in Warrior two. Maybe I was just gonna say, bend your knee, you know?

Um, do you feel like a warrior? Do you feel like you’re too splayed out? Do you have, feel like you have your strength? Like I, I just turned it in the one pose, you know, I took one little thing out and then added my own in. So I hope that teachers that are struggling with this will learn and hear that, that like, it’s a process and , it’s slow.

It’s slow. It’s, and it, yeah. Yoga is, is slow medicine, you know? Yeah. There’s no hurry. And I think you answered the second part of that, which was, uh, how would you recommend teachers get started? You just answered it with your own experience slowly. Yeah, exactly. , And the. , The playground is your mat.

You need to be on the mat and play around. And just like you said, the most important thing is seeing how it feels in your body. It’s not gonna feel like that in everyone’s body, but at least that will [00:39:00] give you an idea of what’s gonna work and what’s not possibly gonna work. And you’ll notice where the, sorry, you’ll notice where the holes are and where things aren’t smooth and aren’t connecting if you’ve played with it first.

I like to think because I was trained in the hot power yogurt, it’s a slightly vinyasa based class. I also like to think of Y as a vinyasa because of, you know, vinyasa means to place carefully and it has arama. Arama means a sequence in order. And if I think about for those of that you are trained in vinyasa, you’ll know.

What, how it works generally, but I like to think of young classes being like that as well. You can build up to a peak po, a peak pose, , and then go down from there. So it’s like a bell ca, a bell curve, sequencing. It’s interesting, I always think of them more as a circle, like the symbol itself that we start here and then it process this Yes.

And it circles back on each on [00:40:00] itself. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, oh, that’s a good way. Yeah. Because, uh, if you took a bell curve and you joined the Yeah, yeah. More like a, or more like a mandala or like a, or like the symbol itself, you know, that it starts, it starts here, but it also meets back there. Yeah, that’s right.

That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. , one thing I have noticed. I am, I’m worried about for the next generation of teachers, is an attempt to shortcut that process rather than find the courage, start slow, know that it’s gonna take time, that you’re gonna make mistakes, that it won’t be perfect, and that you might lose students because they just really wanted the, juicy playlist and cranking thing that you were doing before.

And to be okay with that. And I, what I have been experiencing and noticing is that there’s a new generation of teachers that don’t seem to be either understanding that [00:41:00] is the process. Like just knowing that , this is, it will not happen overnight. And that are, they seem to wanna , jump ahead of that process somehow.

They’re not. I’m generalizing, but I work a lot with new teachers. They’re already thinking they should be where we are as far as comfort level with that goes. So instead of going through that whole process of excavating it in themselves, they’re just copying. And we have to pair it a little bit in the beginning when we’re new teachers.

Of course you don’t have your own words yet. You’re a brand new teacher. Eventually though, you will hear yourself say something and go, Hmm, is that actually what I mean? Or is that the best word for that? Like, this will happen with practice and and stuff like that. But you have to be willing, I think, first to understand that is a process that needs to happen.

And I think what I’m noticing is that there’s a generation of teachers that don’t think that that needs to happen, [00:42:00] that think that being a yoga, and maybe I’ll make a line here between a difference between a yoga instructor and a yoga teacher. That there’s so many that say they’re a yoga teacher, but they’re really actually stuck in yoga instructor mode and just borrowing, you know, whether it be a, an exact sequence from a book like yours or another material or, I often joke with my teacher trainees that, their assignments are all sequences.

This is why most of their homework assignments are sequences because I just know this is such a hard thing for people. And I give them a bit of a formula and I help them through it, and I, , we move things around and I ask questions and get them curious. But, , one thing I always joke about is that, and I will notice, by the way, if you take one of the sequences we’ve done together and put it as your homework assignment, like, I’ll notice if you take one of my sequences, but that has happened and I feel, I I know that also I’ve seen on, I’m in yoga teacher Facebook groups and I’ve seen there’s a whole generation of newer [00:43:00] teachers that are using AI to sequence and theme their classes.

Like they’re not doing the learning, the growing, the screwing up the ad-libbing the, the study, the practice on their own to learn to be able to do this skillfully with some ease and some confidence and some love. Um, and they’re just typing it into, whatever AI tool and that’s spitting out a sequence and that’s what they’re taking to their class.

And it, it equally, , horrifies and shocks me. , And so this is just a worry that I have about our industry. And I thought that, talking to someone like you about this, who has spent so much time around theming and sequencing , and really honing your craft in that way. But what your thoughts are on that.

And if a teacher right now is listening and they have been using ai, how can we wean them off of it? So, well, AI is only going to give you [00:44:00] as good as what you give it. So, um, the thing with this career is a career, and you’ve mentioned a couple of things you, you’ve mentioned about being a us and a teacher, or, I mean, sorry, a guide or a teacher.

Um, is that we are, I think we are teachers.. I, this is where I come from. I’m a teacher, so when I go into a class, I wanna teach something. Sure. It could just be, I wanna teach you to relax, but also it could be, I wanna teach you to understand more the workings of your mind, or I wanna teach you that not all our bodies are the same.

Whatever you wanna teach them, that is what you need to go into the class with. And also if you, if you’ve gotta teach something, you’ve gotta understand it yourself first. So you have to learn, you have to study. Now, if you wanna shortcut the process and sidestep it and grab sequences [00:45:00] off the internet or whatever you are doing to get yourself through, that’s fine, but it will suck the life out of you eventually.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because teaching yoga is a beautiful, creative process. I’ve got so much joy out of thinking about. How to put something together or the philosophy behind a pose or it, it lights me up so it lights my classes up and it makes me a much better teacher. Now, if I was not doing that,

I wouldn’t last. Yeah. I just wouldn’t, I don’t think I would last. So , if you are dedicated and you wanna be in this for the long game, you need to start understanding that this is, as we said, it’s a process , and start at the beginning. Never be afraid of small beginnings. They’re very important.

So the first thing that I would say to the teachers about sequencing is if you are new, a new teacher [00:46:00] and, and you’re a little fearful, and, and that fear is making you look towards others or, or machines, robots, to give you what you think you’re missing. The first thing I’d say is keep it really simple.

Find a sequence that works well and repeat it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. One thing about being a power yoga teacher is we talk from a set sequence. Now that drive me insane after a year, we had to do it for a year, but what it did do is it freed me up to learn more about all the working parts of that sequence.

It freed me up to add in philosophy, it, to weave in, theming because I didn’t have to think about the sequence. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now, it it, students never gonna remember your sequence. They will not, if you, if you do it [00:47:00] the next day, they will not remember it. And also you are not the same teacher, and there’s that beautiful.

You know, no, no person steps in the same river twice because they’re not the same person and it’s not the same river. So you can repeat the same sequence if you are starting out, and then you can start to threaten all your other flourishes. So you don’t need to keep looking, don’t stop looking outside of you.

This is the big yoga teaching for, for, for what? It it is that you already know. You, you already know enough to run a beautiful class and I know you do. So that would be my first piece of advice. And also, I think the other thing that is often lacking with newer teachers is their own practice. And I think this is part of the reason that they feel so kind of intimidated and are reaching outward for other solutions because they haven’t actually played with it in their [00:48:00] own body.

Mm-hmm. Um, and to me, that’s where it all comes from. You know, any words that I have that I use come from me describing, you know, after I’ve done something many times, it’s like, okay, how would I explain what I’m feeling now in my body? , And that, that’s how I wordsmith. Not, of course, that all words will end with all people.

That’s impossible. But, um, I think that those are, , the two keys that tend to be missing is home practice, and then this sort of gentle, compassionate curiosity that you need with yourself in order to create sequences. And I love that you said use the same sequence. That’s essentially what I was doing when I was, you know, watching a video, writing down a sequence, taking things out, adding things in, practicing it myself several times.

Then I would take it to class. Then I would go, okay, what didn’t go well? I ran outta time, , didn’t have enough poses, whatever, this should have moved up here. I [00:49:00] would go and take that paper and like rejig it, and then I would keep those so that, you know, I always had an arsenal of sequences that then I could get more creative with theming and adding meditation and adding these other things to them because I had That’s right.

I had a framework. Yeah. Already. That’s right. A framework. You need a framework and, and you, you need a, you need a crammer, so you need to know the general way a class should run. Yeah. You mentioned that. , Grounding, centering body of the class. Cool downs, you know. Yeah. Cool downs. Um, so, so you don’t need a lot actually.

That’s the other thing. I think sometimes people are trying to put too much in and that’s why they get overwhelmed. It’s like simplify. Yeah. So why are they trying to put too much in? I don’t know. I think that I agree. I think, I think that, yeah. Tell me your theory. It’s fair. Yeah, because I was [00:50:00] the same. I was, I was like, I wanna give all of these people in this room everything they want.

Well, that’s impossible. That’s totally impossible. So I have this little saying, you know, a little bit of what they want and a lot of what they need. Yes. And a little bit of what they want is the, you know, the happy poses that they all love and a lot of what they need is all the other stuff that I wanna teach them.

Yeah. Yeah. I have what I call a class recipe. , When I do my drop in classes, I don’t have a set sequence anymore. But if you’re listening to your teacher. Please don’t start that way. A recipe, I guess is a good analogy. What ingredients I subtract and add will depend on what is in front of me in the day. But that I always have that framework or that recipe there that I know that I wanna hit a forward folding action.

I wanna hit a backward bending action. I wanna twist, I want something lateral. , I have a recipe there and then I can add to it. And I, one [00:51:00] thing I have found with the teachers that are my students that I work with, is that having a recipe of their own doesn’t have to be mine has really made that like so much easier for them to think about sequencing, right?

Because it’s like. Otherwise, there’s so much that you could include, as you said, and then we overstuff it and then it’s , oh, I don’t have any time and two minutes shall lesson. , , a recipe where, these key ingredients need to be there, but then what you add in and take away or spend more time on, that’s where the creativity comes in.

What little sprinkles are you gonna add or flourishes to your class. Yeah. , And just that it’s not easy, you know, takes dedication and practice. The unfortunate truth.

The unfortunate truth. , One thing also I wanted to touch on was,, what do you do? ’cause I know you’re quite themed when you show up to a class. Whether it’s what’s going on in the world or what’s going on with you, or what’s going on with one of your regular students, or [00:52:00] whatever the situation may be, where you realize, Hmm, maybe the theme I had planned isn’t quite gonna land.

Mm-hmm. Do you allow yourself like another one in your back pocket, or do you just trust that you can add and remove things on the fly? How do you handle that? Yeah. So to be honest, any yoga class you teach, something’s not gonna land with someone. Mm-hmm. Whether it’s something you say or it’s a pose or it’s a theme, there’s always gonna be, it’s not gonna, it’s not a one size fits all, so you need to accept that, that’s, , part of teaching and I made that mistake a lot when I was a new teacher.

Like, I would come in with a sequence and then there’d be some flashy person up the front doing handstands, and I’d be teaching to that person. Mm. So I’d be teaching to the strongest person in the class, like, oh, now I’ve gotta have, you know, add in a whole lot of crunchies [00:53:00] or something, you know, to keep that one person happy.

Or the other mistake I made is , I would over help the weaker person. Mm-hmm. So what I’m saying is I was teaching to the extremes, but you could extrapolate that for theming as well, and that you come in with a theme and it’s not gonna land with one person just as I came in with a sequence, and it might not be enough for the person who wants a lot more.

So you, I think you need to accept that your themes or your sequences or whatever aren’t gonna land with everyone. So that’s , the first part to that question. Now, in terms of. Them not landing. Do you mean like being stir up too much emotion? Or, . Dogma, you know, don’t wanna hear anything like chanting.

Is that what you mean? No, I , so for example, this happens often for me where , I’ll have a particular quote in mind, for my yin class and then I do an actual check-in where everyone just says their name and a word or phrase to [00:54:00] summarize how they’re doing. I do get a bit of a spidey sense before people talk.

Like I’m energetically sensitive as to how people are doing. But let’s just say I had a reading that was quite, , joyful and a little bit sort of butterflies and pixie dust ish. Mm-hmm. And there’s just been some huge tragedy in the world. And I come into the room and the feeling of the grief in the room is like in my bones.

Uh, I’m gonna throw out that. Quote. I mean, luckily I have a whole iPhone full , of poems that I can just be like, while they’re centering for a few minutes, be like, mm-hmm. Not this one today. And then , I’ll roll into something that, that maybe speaks a little bit more to the truth of where they’re at and also the fact that’s okay.

My, my big fear is always that, , when there’s these darker more trying times, that the last thing I wanna do is come across Pollyanna or spiritual bypassing or not meeting people where they are., And of course no poem or quote is [00:55:00] gonna land with everyone in the room, but I just mean there are times where there’s almost like a universal feeling of grief, of fear, of whatever it is, , that I may maybe wasn’t prepared for earlier in the day.

And then I get there and I’m like, okay, this is what’s happening. So how can I speak to that or how can I, yeah, it’s an interesting question.. Can I ask you a question back? Yes. , That you, oh, well, first of all, you’ve gotta read the room, right? Mm-hmm. Um, so you do have , to get a sense of what’s happening energetically, but can I ask, the question I wanna ask you is, you know, sometimes you come into a yin room.

I have other classes as well, and everyone’s like lying down. They look like they’ve all just passed away, and they, , you get a sense that they don’t wanna move. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That, that feeling. Would you ever make the first post something energetic? Like, get ’em to stand up? No. Okay. Well, that’s interesting because , that’s a technique called [00:56:00] disruption where you, I don’t do it very often, but , it is a thing where you read the room, you see that they’re very low in energy.

Yeah. And then you. You switch the energy by doing something more energetic and vice versa. If they’re all, I’ve been into rooms where they’re chat, chat, chat, chat, you know, like they’re all mm-hmm. Like, and, and the disruption is , to bring them into stillness meditation. So yeah. So there is that technique.

And if you talk about that in terms of your quotes and things, I think the question you’re asking me as you come into a room, you see there, there’s been a tragedy or something that’s, and, and you’ve got this, the Pollyanna quote about everyone just being happy and getting on with their life. I think your question is, do I, do I read that?

Was that right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I guess the question is how much do you dog yearly stick to the sequence that you’ve got, and how much do you come in, read the room and [00:57:00] go, let’s just change a couple things here. Yes, you do have to do that. Yeah. You do have to read the room , and change things, , but if you keep things in your plan, if you keep things generic in terms of your, , how can I phrase this?

So you’ve got a quote and it’s a little bit up. You can still thread that into a room that has down a downbeat to it, because this is back to yin and yang, right? You, you may not want to do it. It may not seem right, but then it may also work because , you cannot have joy without sadness.

Like this is yin, the theory of yin and yang. If we just say that. Life is suffering like the Buddhists say. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which is kind of a mistranslation, but yes, it’s a bit of a mistranslation. Yeah. , [00:58:00] It’s only suffering because of the great love or whatever , we’ve had that we’ve lost.

Yeah. I think what I mean with the quote is not so much that like, I’m gonna read something dark and depressing. That’s not at all what I mean, but I’m gonna read something that at the beginning meets them where they are, but then by the end sort of turns them around back into like bigger picture. You know, every, everything will work out or take the dress you need or whatever it is, rather than, something that’s just really light and effervescent.

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Audio Only – All Participants: I just know this from my own experience. When I’m dealing with, for example, anxiety or any mental health stuff, the absolute worst thing somebody can do is come in and try to silver lining that, right? Like, first they need to meet me where I am, and then they can hold my hand to, okay, here’s where you are, but also let’s go on a journey here.

Don’t forget this too, but I wouldn’t start there, like I, I [00:59:00] really do feel like meeting people where they’re at, , yeah, you are. Right. And then, and then moving them through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree. I was, I guess my argument was that you can’t exclude something because you are trying to Yeah.

I can’t put it into words. No, I know what you mean. And, but what I’m saying with my readings is I’m not excluding, I’m just starting with where they are. And then bringing them to Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s part of reading the room, you’ve gotta Yeah. Start where they are. , Yeah. And you have to make some calls, you know, fairly quickly.

Yeah. And , there’s times I share reading and nobody comes up after and asks me for it. And there’s other times where like half the room is like that poem you shared. Can I get a copy of that? So like you said, you’re never gonna land with everybody all the time. But I just note I’ve worked with a lot of teachers that, , they’ve got their sequence, they’ve got their theme, and they’re so excited about it, and then something goes awry in the room [01:00:00] and they’re so thrown off,, by it that they, that it causes almost like a panicked state in them.

And that’s very much the way I was, the very first time that I had to sequence on the fly. It was because I had created my beautiful sequence and forgotten it at home and hadn’t taught yet that week and was like. And as an anxious personality type was like, oh crap, what am I gonna do?

It was fine. I made a request class. I asked people, what’s sore? What’s tight? What’s your energy like? , I had sequenced and written and practiced enough. This is why practice, practice, practice, practice, practice and , do your sequences is so important because even though I didn’t have it there on paper, I had it in my cells.

And so even though my anxiety brain was causing me to be like, uh, what am I gonna do? I can’t do this. The deeper wiser part of me was like, Hey Nick, you know how to sequence. You’ve been doing it for several years [01:01:00] now. Just take a deep breath, check in with everybody and whatever comes will be fine. And, the feedback after that class actually was , that was the best class I’d ever taught them.

So I’m just saying that for any teacher who does show up and feels like, oh God, the yoga mats been pulled out from underneath me , you know what I think,

there’s so many ways to kneel and kiss the ground, isn’t there? Mm-hmm. I think if you, in any situation when you’re teaching, if you can answer the question, why did I do that?

Then, then yeah, it’s gonna be fine. Yes. Like, if someone coach you said, oh, why did you do bridge pose then? And you’re like, well, I don’t, it’s just like, it seemed like just felt like it. Yeah. Yeah., If you don’t have an intention for why you put where you put where it is, even if it’s not perfect.

Mm-hmm. Um, you don’t have a sequence. Mm-hmm. So , if you come into class and it, [01:02:00] the mood’s a little bit down and then you decide to do legs up the wall, and then someone said, why did you do legs up the wall? Well, I did legs up the wall because I wanted to reverse the flow of energy in the class. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It’s just knowing why you do it and Yeah. Why you do something. And that’s one of the, and that’s kind helped you a lot. And that’s one of the biggest gifts I think of yin, is that when you learn the functional anatomy of the poses, you also learn what is the function of my sequence? You know, like it mm-hmm.

When you start to see things through a functional lens of the, why did I do this? Why did I put it here? What was its intention? Then that comes into all aspects of your teaching. Yeah. And ing ing Yeah. Setting intentions at the beginning of the class. It, it covers everything. So we are not interested in, in the aesthetics.

We, we’ve heard this so many times. We’re interested , in the, function, the why. [01:03:00] So that goes to the Yeah. Question that the why of, yeah, the why of your pose and the why of why did you put that pose there and the why of everything. Mm. Everything starts with the why. Yeah, it does. And, yeah, it’s important.

So that would be another piece of advice I’d give to teachers of their sequencing. And, and you know what the reason it doesn’t, it just needs to be your why. It doesn’t need to be mm-hmm. The universal why. So yes. We can’t know those for everybody, obviously. The reason I wanted to mention that, , to talk so much about that is because, I just know that so many teachers, have expressed that to me.

They show up, what they have planned isn’t gonna work. And now they’re like, but like if you show up for a class and what you’ve planned isn’t gonna work, put [01:04:00] the students into Shavasana or constructive rest and pull yourself together. Yes. Don’t, don’t take some breaths. Yes. Yeah. Just, just, just leave them there.

Uh, and, and just have a , it’s fine. No one’s gonna know. I’ve had so many very odd things happen to me in yoga classes that I have not been able to deal with, and that’s my technique. Mm. Yeah. I would say the same. And that is what I did that class that I was describing, where I realized as I was pulling my tea and other things outta my bag that, oh crap, it was sitting on the kitchen counter.

, That’s exactly what I did.,, I did that. I just sat, took some deep breaths and was like, okay, like this is one yoga class. It’s not the end of the world.

And you’ve been writing all these sequences out, you know how to sequence. You have to just calm down and trust the process a little. Exactly. And the students aren’t gonna know. [01:05:00] No, they’re not gonna know you’re nervous. They’re not gonna know you’ve got your sequence. They’re not gonna know. So you don’t need to draw attention to any of that.

You just Yeah. Walk in there and you put them in your BART and you pull yourself together and then something good will come out of it. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Beautiful. I think that’s a wonderful place to begin to wrap it up, actually. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. But I would like you to talk before we do, um, I’d like to hear you.

Talk a bit more about, ’cause you have this wonderful book, the Language of Yin, but this is not your only book. No, I went, I thought, oh, that was fun. I’ll write another book. So I did , the actual young vision, it’s called the Inspired Yoga Teacher. It follows a similar format to that., Okay. It’s more for Vinyasa or Power Yoga or ha , teachers.

And I’m just, I’ve just got my third book to the editor. This, , just come back. It’s called, lessons and [01:06:00] Meditation, which is a bit more, guided meditations for teachers a little bit. We’re looking forward to that about how to, how to teach meditation actually, because I feel, that was something I was never trained in.

Mm-hmm. Yes, yes. Agreed. I was trained in it, but yes, I know what you mean. Most it’s left out of most teacher trainings. Yeah. Yeah. And I wanted to, , bring students, teachers back to the memory of what yoga started off as. Yeah. Would you have an e, TA for that? An estimated date of, , October.

Hopefully it’s coming out. Yay. Okay. , But why don’t we, , just while I remember Nick, , forgot to mention this before, is why don’t we do a book giveaway as well. Sure. So for your students so you can think of how you wanna do that and, I can send out , a book to ha whoever went wins it.

Yeah. , One, one thing I’ve done in the past, which I think ’cause [01:07:00] you’re on Instagram mm-hmm. Yeah. Is we can do it, we can do it that way. So when people, . We’ll, I’ll put y’all, we’re just coming up with this right off the cuff, so we’ll put all the details in the post. But, , if you don’t follow me on Instagram at Nu Yoga or at Yuni Yoga Podcast, what’s your handle on Instagram?

That’s my name, Gabriel Harris Yoga. Okay. So, uh, follow us and we’ll have some details under the post, but I think, , an Instagram kind of contest is a nice way to do it. Yeah. Where they share and tag and all the things. So yeah. , Thank you for that. That’s very generous. So we’ll put, , details about that, , in our posts.

So more details on that later. Uh mm-hmm. So follow us and then you’ll see that and that’s a great idea. , So this is book three. I’m really looking forward to that book. I’m so worried because people keep saying, I’m really looking forward to it. And, , yeah. Oh, no, I think for me, because if your [01:08:00] expectations low, no, but I think for me, the, at the point in my teaching career where I’m at now, like, I really don’t need to read another Asana book.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I, I want to, if I’m gonna spend my time reading a book, I want it to be on the, the quieter, more neglected aspects of the practice. Yeah. Yeah. That’s just where I’m at as a person and as a teacher. So that’s why I’m really looking forward to it. I’m like, Ooh, a whole book of meditation.

Goodness. That sounds awesome. , Now I do have some little questions that I like to do as a wrap up for the episode. Okay. Yeah. They’re like fun questions. , So just first thing that comes up, some of them are slightly deep.

Most of them are fun. , The first question, coffee or tea? , Tea. Tea. I’ve got a coffee here, but if you had to choose tea. Yeah. Okay. , Favorite ice cream flavor? I don’t eat ice cream. Um, chocolate. [01:09:00] Okay. But it would be chocolate. Oh. Can never go around with chocolate. One thing people often get wrong about me.

Oh, I don’t know. , One thing people get. Oh, they think I’m really outgoing. Hmm. I get that too. Yeah. , Do you have a pop culture vice, like a movie series or a book series or a Netflix something or other that you’ve binge on? Oh, the white Lotus season four. I’m waiting for it. Awesome. Uh, finish this sentence.

When I’m not practicing yoga, I am in my garden. Ooh. Lovely. Or walking. Lovely. One weird fact about you. I really love chickens. Really? Do you have chickens? I had a lot. Yeah. Oh, I’m getting there. I was [01:10:00] afraid of them for a while because I had one bad experience where they kept following me and pecking at my feet, but I’m fine with them now.

Oh no. They’re such good pets. Yeah. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. Mm-hmm. A hundred percent. One thing I wish people knew about yin yoga,

um, I don’t, one thing I know, it’s like you don’t need to be flexible to do yin yoga. Lovely. Is there anything that I forgot to ask you that you would like to add? Uh, no. I think we did a lot. Yeah. Awesome. I just wanna thank you, Nick, for doing these podcasts. It’s, it was , a hole in the market and, um, thank you.

It’s been, yeah, great for a lot of people and, I always put my students on to listen to you for homework. Thank you. Thank you. I put my students on to listen to for homework as [01:11:00] well, because if you wanna review this topic, listen to episode, , oh, that’s a good idea. Yeah. , . I was always in the, , yin yoga network group or any of those Facebook groups answering questions about yin and I would spend a good amount of time doing it and I was like, well, it’s not a waste of time.

’cause I helped help the people that read it. But it would be nice if like more people could get this answer. And that’s kind of where the podcast came in. , and that’s, so, if that’s exactly how the yoga process works, right? Yeah. These little things come up like this and we take the chance and we take the next step up and that’s how we get to where we are today.

So yeah. , To finish off, I think that’s a beautiful way to finish that. Yeah. We’re all on this path and no one path is right for anyone, but just keep walking it. Mm-hmm. Courageously and compassionately. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for this this was lovely. , We’ll say our proper goodbyes in a moment once I stop record.

But for those of you [01:12:00] watching or listening, bye for now. Bye-bye.

For those of you who stick around until the very end, thank you. If you love this podcast, I’d be grateful if you gave it a review. It really helps other yin yoga lovers find it. If you’ve already given a review, would you consider sharing a screenshot in your Instagram stories? And don’t forget to tag me at Nick Danu Yoga or at Y Yoga podcast so I can share the love.

Before I sign off, some gratitude first for you, the listener, for spending time with me today. Big gratitude and deep reverence for my teacher, Paul Grille. Thank you to Fred Westra for the Hang Drunk Samples. You can hear more of his music by clicking the link in the show notes. A big thank you to my [01:13:00] beloved for mixing the intro and outro tracks, and until we meet again.

May you be well, may you be content. May you be at peace. May you be free.