Yin Yoga For Athletes – Tiffany Cruikshank

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Meeting Tiffany Cruikshank

Most of you might already be familiar with Tiffany, a well-known name in the Yoga universe. With her extensive background as an acupuncturist and Yoga teacher, she’s the perfect guest to discuss a unique blend of practices: Yin Yoga for athletes.

Why Yin Yoga?

Yin Yoga is often praised for its ability to enhance flexibility and range of motion. For athletes, it offers a gentle yet profound complement to their high-intensity workouts. Tiffany emphasizes that Yin Yoga stretches muscles and profoundly impacts recovery and mental preparedness.

Tiffany shared fascinating details about Yoga Medicine. Her initiative focused on using yoga as a therapeutic tool backed by scientific research. This is particularly useful for athletes who want to maintain their agility and performance while preventing injuries.

Yin for Mind and Body

It might surprise many that Yin Yoga, with its slow, meditative poses, can be a game changer for athletes. The practice aids mental clarity, and recovery, proving that stillness can translate into greater strength and stability in their sport.

Facing Skepticism

Despite its benefits, some athletes remain skeptical about Yin Yoga due to misconceptions about stretching and performance. Tiffany tackles these myths head-on, explaining that any temporary performance “deficit” is outweighed by the long-term benefits of recovery and stress reduction.

A Personalized Practice

Tiffany encourages athletes to embrace Yin Yoga as a personal journey, engaging with their body’s needs and limitations. It’s not just about pushing limits; it’s about nurturing the body intelligently.

Final Thoughts and a Call to Action

I’ve always believed in the power of Yin Yoga, and watching athletes experience its benefits is truly rewarding. Whether you’re looking to supplement your training with calming practices or to explore a new avenue of self-care, consider giving Yin Yoga a try.

And remember dear readers, you can always reach out with your own stories or questions about Yin Yoga or any other yoga-related topics in the comments below.

Feel free to share this post, and let’s keep spreading the love for Yin Yoga!

00:00 Welcome and Introduction
00:34 Engaging with the Audience
02:26 Teacher Training Updates
04:58 Podcast Love and Feedback
07:02 Introducing Tiffany Cruickshank
09:33 Tiffany’s Yoga Journey
18:07 Discovering Chinese Medicine
25:01 Working with Nike
28:02 Founding Yoga Medicine
35:40 Yin Yoga for Athletes
43:39 Exploring Myofascial Release in Yoga
44:12 Debunking the Cold Tissue Myth in Yin Yoga
46:13 Balancing Flexibility and Resistance in Yin Yoga
47:47 Yin Yoga for Athletes: Benefits and Considerations
50:07 The Role of Connective Tissue in Athletic Performance
54:31 Integrating Yin Yoga into Athletic Training
59:02 Practical Tips for Teaching Yin Yoga to Athletes
01:02:38 The Importance of Consistency and Compliance
01:04:47 The Mental and Physical Benefits of Yin Yoga
01:10:23 Final Thoughts and Resources

Yin Yoga For Athletes with Tiffany Cruikshank – Listen

Yin Yoga For Athletes with Tiffany Cruikshank – Watch

Yin Yoga For Athletes with Tiffany Cruikshank – Read

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hi Yinies and welcome back to a yin 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 a familiar welcome back

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Nyk Danu Yoga: today, we have a guest episode, some guests. I’m really excited, actually to

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to host. Many of you have probably heard of her. Her name is Tiffany Cruikshank. She’s fairly well known in the Yoga verse, so you may have heard of her.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And what we’re going to talk about today is yin Yoga for athletes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So stay tuned for that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Some of you may know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that often I will put out calls for questions that you may have.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so I want to be able to keep the podcast fresh. I want to be able to make sure I don’t ever run out of content ideas. And so I’ll often reach out. You know whether it be on a Facebook group or right now, like I am here and say, Hey.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you have ideas for future episodes, if you have questions or thoughts that you would like me to dive into as long as they are yin yoga related, or yin yoga adjacent, then

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Nyk Danu Yoga: please let me know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you are on Youtube watching this, you can let me know in the comments below.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you are on spotify. There’s also comments now on spotify so you could let me know below.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you are listening to this on Apple, you could just get at me, either via my website.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in the contact, form, or you can reach out to me on Instagram, Nick, Danu, Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or at Yin Yoga. Podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and just let me know what are the topics you would like me to cover.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So this was one of those topics, yin yoga for athletes, somebody requested. Now I’m not an athlete.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I used to competitively bodybuild. But

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that was a long time ago, long before I discovered Yen. Nor am I an expert in this area, and so, of course, I do what I do.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If I don’t have the answers, I will find someone who does, and I will bring them on for you. And so that is why I invited Tiffany Cruikshank to come and talk to us today.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so we’ll hear from her in just a few moments before we get into all of that though, my dear listeners

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Nyk Danu Yoga: number one reminder.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But this is an adult podcast with adult subject matter. So if you have small people around

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Nyk Danu Yoga: grab, some headphones. Now there could be subject matter or swearing. So just make sure that you are prepared.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I also wanted to quickly talk about

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Nyk Danu Yoga: my teacher training, which has changed. If you’re listening to this live.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that would be like sort of winter 2025.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I will have just increased the length of my training, which will be coming up in the spring of 2025. If you’re listening to this later, you can just click the show notes to see when the current dates are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s a link there that says, Get on the wait list. That’s where you can learn all about the training

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and get on the wait list.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I just wanted to mention that it’s going to be longer, all said and told. It’ll be about a hundred hours.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know you have some assignments. And also, I think it’s like 78 h, if I remember my math correctly with me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then the rest is homework assignments. And you know, watching videos and things like that. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you are interested in learning more about that, whether you need or want an additional in training, because you know, very common to do more than one

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or whether you’re new to Yin, and you really want a solid foundation to start. I would invite you to check it out

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Nyk Danu Yoga: again. The link is in the show notes. Just click the one that says, get on the wait list. You can read all about the training there, and if it feels like a good fit for you, if you’re like, oh, this sounds intriguing, whether it fills in some holes from other trainings that you’ve had, or whether, as a newer teacher to you, and you’re feeling like this would be a good foundation. Then, please, at the very top. Look up way up on that page.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s a button there. You can push and enter your name and email, or you can look way down on the bottom, and you could also enter your name and email there and then you’ll be on the wait list

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Nyk Danu Yoga: on the way to the Ope. To me opening up registration. You get other little free goodies from me

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like these podcast episodes in your inbox.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know invitations to practice with me, both free and paid. You also get other little nuggets that I’ll send like videos and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: video practices and things like that along the way. And then, when registration is open.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you will get first.st Crack! The wait list gets 1st crack at the registration before I start blasting it out

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Nyk Danu Yoga: everywhere on the internets.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if that sounds intriguing to you. Click the link, check out the training, see what it covers, what the commitment is, and if it’s a good fit, please add yourself to the wait list, even if you’re not looking at doing it for this next round. Still, add yourself to the wait list.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because then you’ll be on the wait list for the next round or the next round whenever the time is right for you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The other thing that I wanted to quickly do was just read a little podcast love.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This one was on Youtube.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And it’s from Geraldine, f, 8, 2, 5, 1. Thank you. Geraldine.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: she says, I love this. I’m from a half a background and about to start my 200 h training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I have done some yin classes which I loved, and I want to do and learn more.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: From this one podcast. I learned more about Yin than I did in all of those classes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I love the free and easy, yet informative way in which Nick shares her knowledge.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Thank you, Geraldine.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I love getting your feedback.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s another thing, my dear friends, if you are a regular listener.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you have not offered me a 5 star review on spotify or apple. I would be super grateful if you’d do that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and on apple. You can also do a written review. So if you’d like to do that instead or in addition, I would be super grateful

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you’re watching it on Youtube. Same thing. You can leave me a comment below. Let me know, and then I’ll probably read it at some point on the pod.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: those are some of the many places that you could let me know your feedback. You could also just

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Nyk Danu Yoga: message me on Instagram, or, if you happen to be in a Facebook group, a Yin Facebook group that I’m in. You could let me know in the comments. So wherever you can get at me. If you have podcast love that you’d like to share, I would be super grateful to hear that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That really helps to keep me supercharged to keep going with this podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: even though it is a fair bit of work.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay? So all of that sort of housekeeping.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then

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Nyk Danu Yoga: another thing. You could do, dear friends, if you’ve already done all this, if you’re like. I’m already subscribed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ve already commented. I’ve already left a review. Is you could share it with a friend.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Do you have a yoga teacher friend who either teaches yin or is yin curious? Maybe you could share an episode with them

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that would also be awesome, and I would be super grateful.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, my friends, with all of that being said, let’s just quickly get into Tiffany’s bio.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So Tiffany Cruikshank, LAC.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: MAOM. Is the founder of Yoga medicine.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a community of Yoga teachers focused on using science and research with traditional yoga practices

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to serve the medical communities with a mission to help people thrive and live their best lives.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Tiffany is also an acupuncturist with over 20 years experience and a specialty in sports, medicine, and orthopedics.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She created the acupuncture and Chinese medicine program at the Nike World Headquarters Wellness Center and served as the acupuncturist and Yoga teacher

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Nyk Danu Yoga: at the Nike World Headquarters. For over 6 years

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Tiffany’s position is empowering Yoga teachers and patients with tools to enhance their function performance and appreciation for life.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She has taught Yoga for over 28 years, and has trained 15,000 teachers worldwide to understand the inner workings of the body

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and individualized Therapeutic Yoga practices.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Tiffany is also the founder of Yoga Medicine, Seva Foundation.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a non-for-profit that works to fight human trafficking and sexual exploitation in India

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Nyk Danu Yoga: through efforts in education and entrepreneurship.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She’s written 2 books, runs the Yoga Medicine, podcast which is a great podcast by the Way, y’all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and post new Practices Weekly on Yoga Medicine online.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Tiffany has graced the cover of over 15 magazines and is regularly featured

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in prominent publications, such as Prevention, Webmd, Huffington, Post, New York Times, Yoga Journal. Women’s Health, Marie Claire, good Housekeeping Reader’s Digest Men’s Health, La Times and others.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So the next time that you hear from me I will be with Tiffany.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hi Tiffany, and welcome to a yin Yoga podcast.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Thanks for having me nice to be here.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, my pleasure. As soon as the topic came up about yin yoga for athletes. I thought of you

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because I followed your career. Oh, gosh! Probably for a long time, because I’ve been teaching a long time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I know about your work with Nike and with athletes. And so I just thought

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you would be the ideal person to come on and talk about these things.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but before we get into the topic du jour. I know that Yoga teachers love to hear other Yoga teachers origin stories.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So if you don’t mind sharing maybe a little bit about how you found Yoga, you got into yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and we’ll start. Maybe there, if that’s all right.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, I love it. I was.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It was in the nineties. So there was really no Internet. But I was. I was 14, and well, actually

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): rewind a little bit. I was a little bit of a troublemaker, and my parents, I had, you know, had a lot of issues kind of finding my way as a teenager, as I think most people do as teenagers. It’s a challenging one

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): to navigate

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and I was home from this kind of wilderness rehab. I guess you could say rehabilitative training for teenagers who were struggling, and, I guess, for troubled teens which really changed my life in other ways, but I just remember at the time I was driving, and I wasn’t driving. My mom was driving, and there was this little wooden sign, and it, said Yoga, with a phone number. And it was right near our house. And finally, one day I just remembered the phone number.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and I was just really intrigued by it, and which is kind of intriguing, too, when you see, like a little sign that just says Yoga and a phone number. And that’s it. Yeah. So I started going to. It was at a chiropractor center, and I remember I was 14. So at the time everyone seemed really really old compared to me, and they were probably they’re probably my age now, who knows? But they seemed like they were in their sixties or so at the time.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and then he asked me to come and practice at his house, and I didn’t really know it at the time, but it kind of

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): turned into more of an Ashtanga practice, and that really intrigued me. I grew up really athletic, so the physicality was always really interesting to me, but I think

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): there was always something more that I was missing. I grew up also, playing really competitively complaining tennis and other athletic endeavors, and I think the hardest part for me was always the mental component which I also struggled with as a teenager, and Yoga gave me a refuge to be in my body, to explore the things, to sit with the awkward things, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I think more importantly, to have a relationship that developed that had a lot of different legs to it and things to study over the years and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): when I I got sick of high school and I graduated early, I did my, I graduated when I was 16. I went off to college, and when I went off to college there wasn’t really there wasn’t Internet. There also wasn’t

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): yoga studios don’t really yoga studios, and where I went for college. There wasn’t really much yoga, either. So I decided in my summertime before I went I was going to become a yoga teacher, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I remember calling my teacher, and at the time, too, and asking him. And the other end of the phone line was just like Silent. I don’t know if it was because I was 16 years old, or because I had only been practicing for a couple of years, both

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): both could be likely alarming. But yeah, he didn’t really give me any any help, unfortunately, at the time. And so I just ended up going to the one that fit in my summer schedule, which was really the only option, anyway. So and then it evolved quite a bit from there. Of course.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Do you remember? I also come from the angsty rebellion, teenage

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Nyk Danu Yoga: side of things. Some of it has not left do you remember what it was about? Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that like, were you pretty much hooked from that 1st class? Or did it take some time to kind of have its way with you?

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I think I was. I mean I don’t. I didn’t really know much about it yet, but I was definitely intrigued enough to keep going back. I mean, I think any of us who go to our 1st class we don’t really know the depth and breadth of yoga enough to really

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): completely fall in love with it. But you fall in love with something, and then I think that’s you know the thing that over the years that kind of that thing evolves and changes, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): if we’re open minded enough to it, I believe that the practice practice, if we’re practicing for decades, should evolve with us in many ways, you know. So, yeah, and yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Those of you who can’t see me. I’m nodding ferociously. Yes, yes, totally as someone who’s now in my fifties. It’s definitely no longer the same as what it once was. For sure.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Like you might.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: In all the best ways. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And you can’t look back at it in my twenties, like I loved the arm balances and the handsands and all that, and you know it’s easy to look back and be like oh, that’s you know not what I do now, but I do think it served a place for me then, you know, it was more about discipline and dedication, and it it really served an important purpose which would not, would not be very good right now for me. Yeah. And I.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think that that’s what keeps

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Nyk Danu Yoga: us long term practitioners is the fact that there is so much room for evolution in this practice.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know. Otherwise, especially when we were young and too cool for school, we would have done all the fancy things and been like, anyway. Now what you know. But there’s so much more to learn, so much more to do, that it’s like a lifelong

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Nyk Danu Yoga: path. Really.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, and it evolves based on, you know, your own needs and your capacity to listen and adapt. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): yeah, I think all of that is interesting.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s so interesting that you were 16. That’s so young, so I can understand why he was a little like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is this a prank. Am I being punked? You know it’s like.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And and I had a good relationship with him. After that, I think when I ended up running some of my own first, st like official teacher trainings. He would teach portions of them as well. He’s he’s now since passed. Unfortunately.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh!

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): But he was a part of my life after that as well. So it wasn’t like a it wasn’t like a split, but.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And I don’t blame him for being shocked at a 16 year old.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know, approaching him in that way so.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, and I think, I also had a similar idea about yoga with you and and age, you know, like, I actually went very reluctantly to my 1st class. I kind of got bribed by some friends to go, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the stereotypes I had about yoga were my mom’s hippie friends with like some long braid and Birkenstocks, and like, and I was so punk that I was just like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I was in a full adult at this point, like I already had a previous career before this. But I was just like, Why would I want to go do that like, you know? And I had done competitive bodybuilding, and I had run. So it’s not like I was like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not wanting to use my body. I just thought like nothing about that appeals to me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But then I went to my 1st class and was immediately hooked, because what I didn’t realize is the nervous system aspect, and I had always had anxiety, although I didn’t

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Nyk Danu Yoga: call it that, then took me a long time to actually say, Oh, this is anxiety. I had no idea. But yeah, it was. It was interesting to be like. And same thing. I would go, and most of the people were even then, and I was in my thirties. Most of the people were significantly older and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: definitely more granola than I was.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It’s funny, because I relate to that in a different way. I relate to the kind of rebelliousness and the outsider, the misfit, and, like

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): My parents were very Christian and very conservative, and I was the hippie. And so for me, I was like the problem, child, and the black sheep, and like, you know, the the thing they couldn’t figure out and and it’s funny that the normal for you was the hippie side of things. But.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That was the only example of Yoga I had seen, you know. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And I think for me the yoga was the coming home to the thing that we could all relate to. And the funny thing was my mom actually went to a few of those 1st classes with me, I mean. She dropped off, of course, when I was invited to his house and doing Ashtanga there, but

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know she was practicing a bit with me at the a few times at the beginning, and you know I do think it’s something that we can all relate to if we can

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): allow ourselves to lean into it a little bit. I mean, even though we might think some of these things are weird. I remember he had a crystal ball at the time when I 1st started going

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): that to me was like magical. That’s the sound of it. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean, I don’t really use them much anymore personally, though I love them. But you know I think we all have

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): ties into things that we can relate to or not a little bit more than others sometimes, but

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and that’s always been really important to me, knowing that I think

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know my parents background as being, you know, I grew up in this mentality of the cult era in the nineties that my parents always thought I joined a cult, and we’re always afraid for me. And so I think, as I was creating a lot of my Yoga classes, and then eventually, teacher trainings. I always had this awareness of them in the back of my head, of like wanting to be open to any religion, to any viewpoint, to anybody who had an interest in it, because I do think there’s so much of yoga that that can

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): tiptoe over that religious line, and I do think it’s important that there is something really important there that can be applicable to everyone.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Agreed, agreed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you did your teacher training. And then you went off to college. What did you study in college?

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): So I knew when I was in the wilderness program I really fell in love with, but not only surviving, but also there was an herbalist who would take me out on plant walks and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I just really fell in love with plant medicine. And this idea of healing in our environment and having everything we need, our environment. I went home, and I would. I made everything I remember. I even had like a deodorant I made. That was like this powder that I would rub on, and it would just like fall off. But I loved it, and it was the worst of the time. But you know I made everything that I could from scratch and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): anyways. So then, when I finished up my high school, I wanted to. I really wanted to study herbs and herbal medicine, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I was hoping to find that. But unfortunately there really wasn’t anything like that I was hoping for, maybe some ethnobotany or something, but I ended up doing my pre-med. I looked at going into Ayurveda, or naturopathic, or all you know, I looked at Western Medicine a little bit, too.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): but then I was teaching Yoga in Tucson at U of A, and I went to teach at a studio there that I loved, that had an acupuncturist.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And so I started apprenticing with him.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and fell in love with the art of Chinese medicine, and I actually.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I found a way to weave it into my undergrad. So my my undergrad was medicinal plant biology, actually. And so I got to do all the pre-med and nutrition, and a little bit of herbs and some apprenticeship with him. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): yeah, and that kind of like sparked my interest working. He was also a Zen monk, and so he was really interesting to me, and kind of sparked my interest in the art of Chinese medicine and acupuncture.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Wow!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You found some. Very.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You had some very Kismet teachers already on your journey. Hey? Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I feel like it. I feel really grateful. I mean, we all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): To the people we need. I think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, so did you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Did you then take some more formalized Chinese medicine studies like at A were there were there? I mean, I don’t, depending on where you are in the world. Was there even any Chinese medicine colleges where you were.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah. So when I was finishing my undergrad, I knew I wanted to go into Chinese medicine. So I went and looked at a whole bunch of schools drove around. I drove, I mean, there were a ton in California, of course.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Of course, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And the one there was one in Arizona at the time. That wasn’t very good. It was pretty new, so I didn’t really look at that one, but then I looked at one in Portland and a few others, and I fell in love with the one in Portland, because they had a really strong herbal medicine program, and most of them really strongly weighted acupuncture. But this.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Weighted herbs and acupuncture. So that was really important to me, which is funny, because I actually actually don’t use herbs that much anymore. But but it was a big part of my training, and something I was interested on, but eventually, when I got into school, fell in love with acupuncture, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): having grown up, being an athlete, really fell in love with sports medicine as a specialty, and working with athletes and injuries and orthopedics, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and it fit really well, because I was teaching a lot of yoga still, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, Yogis are really invested in their bodies and in in their well-being, and.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): So they’ve working with athletes. But also Yogis has always been a big kind of core demographic of mine of treating patients, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean, I love working with Yogis because they’re so invested in their well-being. I don’t have to like some other acupuncturist spend, you know, a half of my job as trying to like be their cheerleader and get them to do certain things. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah, I know that herb tastes gross. But yeah, yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Is high. It was just really nice. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, yes, I’ve always found that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t know if I mentioned to you that I studied Tcm. For not quite 3 years.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I saw that. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, and then realized that I actually it was in Tnt techniques and therapeutics as I was needling that, I realized.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But I actually didn’t want a needle

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like I loved getting the needles. I love the medicine, but like actually, every time I went to needle, I wanted to put my hand there instead.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It was this real like kind of Aha! Moment for me, and so where I’ll be taking that is, into medical Qigong, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: hands on, you know. But I absolutely adore Chinese medicine. And I’m such a Chinese medicine. Nerd, I’m always like reading the things and learning and listening to all the podcasts. And you know, it really felt to me, Chinese medicine felt like home.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like, even in my very 1st foundations, class

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Nyk Danu Yoga: listening to basic Yin Yang theory, you know, and my student friends like scratching their heads at me going. But of course this makes perfect sense.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, just.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): But yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Made sense to me. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I can totally resonate with that, too. And I you know I was when I was apprenticing with the acupuncturist. I was reading all the books, like the web that has no weaver in between heaven and earth, and all like the introductory books. And so I came in, and, like already had a really strong appreciation, and so many other people were so brand new to it as well. And so I can appreciate that. I agree. I feel like it has always

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): felt like home, and I think it’s really brilliant to go and get that depth of Chinese medicine theory under your belt and then be able to take it into something like medical Qigong, which which luckily is getting more attention because it is a really powerful and potent and something

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): really cool because you can use it online.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah, I know.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You need to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I only had one medical Qigong treatment, actually, and I was expecting it to be. And it was a student clinic. Actually, from the the gal. I’ll probably be studying with

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I was expecting it to be like acupuncture, like, I was like, Okay, I’m gonna have the accu high for, you know. 90 min, 2 h, and then I’ll go for a walk. I’ll have a nice tea while I’m

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Nyk Danu Yoga: enjoying that, and then I’ll I’ll get down to studying, so I guess I was still in acupuncture school.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I was like not there for the whole rest of the day. I was just like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: what is this miraculous bubble I’m in like? It was like too high times 10,

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Nyk Danu Yoga: which was interesting, because at the time, while she was, you know, bringing her fingers to points and whispering things to me. I’m always a person who has one foot in the woo and one foot in the skepticism.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and the whole time I was like, what are you even doing? You’re just like whispering stuff, and I could tell you had coffee an hour ago, and you’ve got your thumb on this point, but like what is that? And then, after, when I got off the table and went out into the world, I was like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Whoa.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, okay, that was a lot in a good way, like I felt amazing. But

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Nyk Danu Yoga: no studying happened that day.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Went to the park and wandered in the trees and drank tea instead. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It’s a pretty serious endeavor, and I think I mean used so much in China, and has so much interesting research and information on it that we don’t really know about as much, or pay attention to as much here. But yeah, I hope it gets more

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): more support here in the us because I love Qigong. I think it’s such a great, powerful practice. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so you finish acupuncture school. When did you cause? I know from your history, and they will all know, because I read your bio that you started working with Nike at some point. So how did that happen?

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I was like a year out of school, surprisingly well, no, I was. I guess I was 2 years out of school, so I was, I opened my own clinic. I had it ready. Everyone else was like waiting for their, you know, boards to come through, and all of the licensing to come through. I had already rented my space like the we got everything in November, and I like rented it from day one, so I could get everything set up, so I literally started my clinic as soon as I.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m ready to go. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And I had all these patients from Yoga. You know I loved working with Yoga students, you know, being able to help them get better they got better, quicker, too, was was really fun, because they responded so well, and word of mouth just kind of spread like wildfire. So I really enjoyed having my own clinic for a while, and then I

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): got turned on to this doctor in New York, who was a. He worked with a lot of the celebrities there, and I was actually dating someone in New York. So I ended up moving there, selling my business, moving there. And we’re having this great opportunity, though, to work with. He’s from South Africa, and he had been doing acupuncture for 30 some years. He’s an Md. Who also does Frank Lippman. He does acupuncture and yoga, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): it was just such a great opportunity to get to learn and be in a different environment. And so I did that for a little bit.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and then eventually I was interested in coming back to Portland, and I was reaching out to some of my friends who worked at Nike, and they just happened to be looking for an acupuncturist. And so I flew in and did like 2 or 3 interviews.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): So I’m like 2 years out of school and got the job. And yeah, I loved it. I mean what I learned later. I eventually became really good friends with the woman who hired me, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): the thing that she really loved was that I was. I made it really relatable. And that’s kind of what I’ve always done is, I think it’s so important to speak to people in

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): language that’s meaningful to them. You know we we do intakes, we do an evaluation. And so you collect that information. I know a lot about this person. So if I can convey that in language that’s meaningful to them, that’s really different than me, just talking about Tcm concepts, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but for some people that might mean using Tcm concepts and words and for others, it might not so much, but I think it creates what I think of as like these healing maps this road back to health. And I think it’s really important for the nervous system, for the brain, for you know that that healing.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Journey to have that and to be able to have that clear communication. So yeah, so I was there for 6 or 7 years. I created their program. Eventually I hired some people and left. But I had a lot of fun there treating a lot a lot of patients, and again having a great opportunity working with other healthcare providers.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): In this really beautiful holistic wellness center, and then also being able to tap into all these people who were like 8,000 people who worked there at the time, and they could just block it out of their schedule and walk on over and get acupuncture it was like, and their insurance covered it. It was like this kind of a dream world for an acupuncturist.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Said hmm.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I was just someone who specializes in sports medicine. It was also ideal. So it was definitely a wonderful part of my my history that I learned and grew a lot from.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Cool.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And when did Yoga medicine come to be? Which is, of course, your

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that’s the umbrella that you do all of your things under.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah. So it was not too long after Nike. So I did actually move back to New York. I was married in Portland, and I got divorced, and when I got divorced I decided to leave and go back to New York

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and just really contemplating things that when I was in Portland. I would refer to a lot of other healthcare providers, and they were all really interested as as an acupuncturist and a Yoga teacher, I guess, but they were all really interested in Yoga, and you know Portland is kind of like a really

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): interesting

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): of its own as well. But at the time, and even now it’s it’s kind of negligent to refer someone to Yoga. They could end up doing handstands. They could end up chanting, they can end up doing yin, they could end up doing a million different things. One or 2 or 3 of those might be really helpful, and one or 2 or 3 might not, and so.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I really wanted. I found in my own practice that my patients who were Yoga practitioners did seem to respond and get better, much faster. And so I started giving my patients who weren’t yoga students what I called yoga prescriptions, which was really just one or 2 simple things that they would do on their own, and I found it really helpful to help with their outcomes as well.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And so I started integrating more and more of that into my teacher trainings. And eventually, I just really wanted to create a transparent system for the medical providers to be able to get on

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): type in their Zip code find someone near them and really be able to see exactly what they’ve done. So Yoga medicine really specializes in East and West. So training our teachers, both like you said in the western understanding of the body, and science and research.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): as well as respecting the tradition and our own experiences, which you can’t deny, and having a place where those 2 can live together, and then really just making it transparent so they can see like, Oh, I have a shoulder patient. This person’s done the shoulder module. So making a really easy referral site for

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): clinicians, for healthcare, you know, healthcare systems as well, and anyone who wants to find a Yoga teacher. So that was about 10 years ago. I just realized we had our 10 year anniversary and I. It passed and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Congratulations.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Get links.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It sounds like your regist, like the teachers that have gone through your programs and then are on your kind of your registry. There.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That kind of sounds like what a lot of us as Yoga therapists wish that the International Association of Yoga Therapists was doing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But they’re not

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, that’s a whole can of worms. Right now that organization.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, I’ll see.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That for some other time.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean, I’ve always been on the fence about joining it. My issue is just as a healthcare provider. It’s not a medically licensed and regulated profession. So for me, the term therapist is

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): a little bit of a hot spot, and so we made we have ours. It’s just called Yoga medicine therapeutic specialists. So it’s really clear.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And to me, it’s all about being clear to the people who want to use it like your students don’t really even know what those things mean. But if I can be clear about what it is, I’ve done this many hours, and I’m a therapeutic specialist, you know.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): versus.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I like that therapeutic specialist. That’s that’s good. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, yeah, thank you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Unless I’m talking to other teachers. I never say I’m a yoga therapist. I say, I teach therapeutic yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It just seems like people understand that. But when you say you’re a yoga therapist, they’re like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, but I don’t need counseling. I’m coming from my back. It’s like, No, no, no, it’s you know.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Or they assume you’re a healthcare provider, which right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Don’t think we should facade as that. I think the healthcare providers like that has pros and cons to it as well. Like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, I don’t wanna be one.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Be in my.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I like don’t wish it, because it has a lot of hard things you have to deal with as well like insurance, and like I don’t know. I mean yes, it would be great to have that for people who can’t afford it. But

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): for Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The other way.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Not. There’s other ways help people who can’t afford it, for sure.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But yeah, it sounds like that’s a really good system for your grads to be able to and for the and for healthcare providers. Because that’s the same thing I said to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I was talking to my chiropractor the other day.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you know, he had said, you know how reluctant he was to just tell people to go to Yoga, and I think he was expecting me to talk him out of that opinion, and I was like. Oh, no, you absolutely should not like you should you should meet with and connect with a few

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yoga professionals that you can vet, that you can source

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that you know their area of expertise. You know what they’re really help good at doing, and that you should refer to them, not

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Nyk Danu Yoga: your your patients. Oh, you should go try Yoga, because you I mean.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we don’t know what kind of yoga they could end up in.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yes, and I think as a teacher, I think one of the hardest things is to know our limitations like, I’m really clear in our trainings. We’re not trying to replace healthcare. We’re not trying to replace their medical provider, because there’s no way we could have that same understanding that a doctor has, and they can do that. What they need is us to fill the, to bridge and fill the gaps in between, and to hold their hand and support them, and really help them understand what’s happening in their body, and navigate the whole process and experience, and and to give them all of that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Doctor’s not going to give them like, Hey, you’re anxious. Try breathing like this, you know, like all of those things that you know, that they’re they’re not going to get elsewhere.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Well, the things, too, that Yoga can be really helpful with, and you know we don’t necessarily need to facade as their healthcare provider, and I think sometimes with Yoga teachers it can be dangerous. We get to know a little bit, and then we feel like Yoga is a cure-all, and it’s not, I mean, there’s still a really important place for

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): other other providers, whether that’s an Md. Or a naturopath, or a homeopath, or a chiropractor, you know whatever that is, we we all. I really believe that every one of those things, or Qigong prep master like

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): they all have their important place, and none of them are going to heal everyone. So we all have to work together, and as a.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, as a team.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Human. I have to keep trying to navigate that and find what’s helpful for me. And I think that’s why Yoga is really the foundation, because it gives me the body awareness, the owner’s manual to help navigate the system, and hopefully the like. The push to empower me, to also navigate that system.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, I would say from my experience, the newer the teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the more they think they know, the more they think they can help, and the longer you’ve been teaching the more you’re like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, no, I have a lane, and it’s right here, and when somebody you know it’s funny in my classes I used to finish with. If you have any questions, just let me know, and I just assumed they would be yoga questions. But no, I would get. You know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: they think I’m a physiotherapist. They think I’m a nutritionist. They think I’m a Thera and I. So I’ve now specified. If you have any questions about our Yoga practice today, please let me know, and then I always

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the joke.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. Not a therapist, not a physiotherapist, you know, you know, and anytime someone comes, and it’s like I’ve got this thing going on here. What do you recommend? I’m like I recommend you go to Physio

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Nyk Danu Yoga: when they tell you what’s going on, then you can come back to me, and maybe I can help you with things.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah. And what most people don’t realize is that getting people to the physio at the right time can really help with that progression. And then most people are lucky if they get through maybe 10 weeks of physio or so, and then they’re kind of, you know, they’re given some things to do. But a lot of times there’s still a lot that needs to be done in most cases, and that’s the place, I think, where Yoga can be most effective. They’re trained

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): to work in that 1st acute phase, you know, the 1st 10 to 12 weeks where you know, it really needs to be specific, especially if they’re post-surgical, or you know, they’ve had an acute injury of some sort. That 1st initial phase is so important, and only they are trained in all that specificity. But there’s so much that’s

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): not attended to, even with the best physical therapist, because of time limitations and insurance limitations, you name it. And also just because, again, we’re all kind of trained with our, you know, our bifocals on of the specific things that we can see and that we work with, because we all specialize a little bit. You can’t. Not so.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, I agree.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So when did you? When did you kind of stumble across yin in your yoga journey?

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I’m like, I feel like yin’s 1 of those funny that we just taught did our Yin teacher training? And you know, people always ask about the history of it. And it’s such a funny thing, because Yin is really a modern form of Yoga, and I don’t really remember.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yes, and no.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean in the nineties. I didn’t hear anyone talking about Yin, because.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, Poly Zinc was doing it in his garage with like.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): 4, people, yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, I want to say it was probably like

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): 2,005 ish or something that I became interested in it. I was still doing a lot of Ashtanga at the time, so you know, it was still kind of like

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): a side a side part of my Yoga practice for.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 7 days.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You know. And I was leading these teacher trainings. I actually

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): what year was this? I don’t even know what year, what this was, but I actually herniated my own disc, and I have a lot of theories on. Why, that was I completed 4th series of Astranga, which is ridiculous. If you look at it at, you know. 4 or 5 Am. In the morning every day, and then I would spend all my day the rest of my day hunched over patients putting needles in.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And then I teach at night, usually as well, and you know all the things. So

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): who knows? There’s a lot of reasons behind. Why, that might have happened, but for me it was such a great push

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): to. I was teaching Vinyasa and Ashtanga at the time. Mostly I don’t really think I was teaching

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): yin yet. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It really was a push for me to actually bring all of my sports medicine background into my yoga. Tommy Joyce passed away somewhere around. This time, too, I want to say it’s a little hazy now. If that was before or after I herniated my disc, but

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): so it was also me like finding a new way, a new place, and I was almost, I think I was coming up on being 30, turning 30, you know. So, my body, it’s strange to think of that as being a changing point for your body, because it feels so young now. But you know things were changing, and I was working a lot. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and so I started bringing more of this kind of therapeutic lens into my teaching my teacher training, and involving more yin and restorative and meditation, and pranayama and things, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I think I think it wasn’t until, like

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): 2,000 early 2,010 s. That I started leading like trainings on. Or maybe

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I don’t know 2,012 or so.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Just because there was a need for it, you know. No, there wasn’t a lot of. There weren’t a lot of offerings at the time, you know. If you could go and study with like Paul Grilly, you know, or Bertie Clark.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Great, but you know that was about it, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That. Yeah. At that time it was pretty much just Bernie, Paul and Sarah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for me, I, you know, I’m always the go as close to the source as you can person.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s not always possible, especially now, as as

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as I get older as a yogi, you know, some of the sources have passed on. So you know. But yeah, I went I went straight to to Paul Grilly, and was just like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I will keep coming here.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But I think this might be a good time to transition into yin and athletes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe some of the pros some of the cons.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I have a couple of questions that are top of mind that I can interject as as you go, or I can start with those. If you’d rather it’s totally up to you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a lot of pros and cons, I mean top line.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You know, the 1st thing I think everyone thinks about yin for is range of motion and mobility. I think it’s a really great one for a lot of other things as well, but I think a lot of times. That’s what brings people to it. And I will say, you know, I think certain sports are drawn to it more than others as well as

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): certain levels of athletes. I find a lot more fear. I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of professional athletes over the years, and I do find a lot more fear and skepticism in the professional level, because of a lot of the fear around stretching and.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): performance deficits, which is, I guess, the main con around it is, you know, with the static held stretching

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): there are known performance deficits. And I’ll start with the caveat. That stretching research is the most challenging research to look into. You can find a research article to support anything you want to support or deny anything you want to deny.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And so you really have to look to these meta-analyses. And you know, big overviews to be able to see. You know what? What are the big takeaways? And one thing that is really evidence based in the stretching research is that there are performance deficits. When we have these static held stretches, these passive static stretches. And I mean, if you really dig into the research, what you see is that the performance deficits are pretty small, and so.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Temporary. From what I understand.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Temporary and temporary for sure. Yes, yeah, I’m definitely getting there, too, but they’re very small 1st off. So really, really only meaningful, probably to a professional athlete, or someone who’s like trying to go for a Pr. And really competitive, you know, for people who are just athlete, like I consider myself an athlete. Still, I play a lot of tennis, and I’m in fairly competitive, but not to the point that I would worry about that. But

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): yes, it’s also temporary. So the bigger thing is that we don’t want to do it right before our sport. So.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You know, the easiest thing is just not doing it before it is temporary. What we also see in the research is that when done in combination with a full warmup. Most of that performance

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): diminishing that’s happening has been neutralized. So with A with, You know, you might do some Mfr. Maybe you’re doing a dynamic warm up warmup, or a sports specific, warmup or cardiovascular warmup, you know, with these things a lot of those performance deficits are neutralized. So I mean which again, if you’re a high, level athlete, you’re doing all those things. But I also think

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): the issue with a high level athlete is also just time, because you are doing all the things. Yeah. So there’s different issues for different, I think, level of athlete. But I will say the biggest thing, though there are many other things that draw athletes to you, and that they can benefit from that we can talk about. The biggest one is usually range of motion, mobility, training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So just for anybody who’s who’s, you know? Going? What do you mean? Performance deficit? Let me let me summarize, and you let me know if I’m wrong.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that it can create like a temporarily, a bit of a a weakness

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in the body like they’re not. They’re not gonna have as much power.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah. And it’s mostly related to power. Think like jumping. Your jump height might be a tiny bit less

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): gotcha.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): So again, for, like most of us who are weekend warriors or casual athletes, maybe even casual, like I’m competitive, but I still consider myself a casual athlete. I’m not definitely not my livelihood for us casual athletes. It’s pretty insignificant, but I still think we want to put it in like.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know, the whole context of what’s the best time and place to put it in our routine, and.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You know, I think the best time, because of one of the other benefits is probably post sport and the other benefit being really it’s and I’m sure you’re obviously well familiar with this, but its effects on the nervous system for recovery.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And as an athlete, recovery is the name of the game, and especially in professional athletes, it’s all about injury, prevention, and recovery and and mental game, you know, I mean, obviously, everyone’s training as far as they possibly can, for, like physical performance, everyone’s doing all the things. But if you can recover better if you can prevent injuries if you can train your mental performance. Those are like, really the game changers in professional athletes now. And so I think one of the biggest things that’s opened up for athletes is its capacity to enhance recovery.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): meaning that when we go from training, whether that’s just, you know. Maybe you just go to the gym, or maybe you do a really vigorous Yoga practice. Or maybe you have a sport that you’re competing in.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): There’s a natural arousal of the nervous system that happens to help us rise to the occasion, and sympathetic activity is not a bad thing, but we really want to be able to ebb and flow and come back down. And so for athletes, the quicker I can get the nervous system to come back down to get into that recovery mode. This is where our parasympathetic, where we rest, digest, nourish, heal, repair.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): the more impactful I can be, the quicker my recovery can be, I can get back to training. But there, you know, there is some recovery that’s required to do that. And so yin is just such a great way of training recovery, I think, though I also think you know myofascial release which I use a lot in Yoga is equally good, so I usually just find the one that people like best.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Or a combo of the 2 is even better. Yes, yes.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Well, I try not to overwhelm@firstst But yes, yes, do.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): He-hee!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So. Yes, definitely. I think that the whole nervous system, aspect, and that rest and recovery

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Nyk Danu Yoga: such a sweet spot for yin there!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. And there’s this

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Nyk Danu Yoga: trying to think of how to say this without outing anyone in particular.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There tends to be in a certain camp this obsession

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with doing yin Yoga only on cold tissues and.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): One.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This is a bit of a bone to pick for me, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I have a feeling. What has happened is, you know, the telephone game, and I think anyone who’s trained teachers has been had fallen victim to it at some point. I’m sure all of us have had somebody come back and say, well, you said and and go. That’s not at all what I said, actually, you know. So the telephone game. And when little kids, when we were sitting in a circle, and you’d whisper in someone’s ear, and then they would whisper, and by the time it gets back to you like what I didn’t say that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so this could be

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Nyk Danu Yoga: being overstated in Yin circles because of the telephone game. It could just be. They hear something in a training. Now they get dogmatic about it, and now yin can only be done on cold tissues, which I always find quite hysterical, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: defying cold like.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m Canadian.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I also live on a little island off the West Coast. So what kind of cold are we talking here? If someone lives in Florida, and they ride their bike to their yin class, and then they do yin. Well, their tissues aren’t cold.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, or even if they walk.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Shifted.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Live somewhere like Florida, whereas someone like where? Where I’m from. Originally Alberta, you know, Rocky Mountains real winters, you know, when I walk to a Yin class that would be done on cold tissues, you know. So so that was my thought. You know, the longer I do this, podcast the more when I’m talking to someone I could hear like, Yoga teach. Not literally. I’m not losing my mind. But I can hear other Yoga teachers like little. Yeah. But yeah. But coming into my brain.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh, gosh!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I know. And so one of the ones that I was hearing when you were doing that is like somebody’s going to say, Okay, but if an athlete’s using yin as their rest and recovery, but now they’re doing it on warm tissues. But isn’t yin yoga done on cold tissues?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Isn’t that the rule.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, I, this question comes up a lot. I feel like someone always asks this one in a Yin teacher training for us. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I. My theory is for me. It’s more about

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): appreciating that you do want some resistance in the tissues that resistance and tension will say, tension isn’t a bad thing that we’re looking for some of that tension. We’re looking for some of that resistance, and it’s not necessarily that we’re trying to get rid of it. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I think for me it really is very 2 different populations I want. I think people who are really flexible

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): tend to be drawn to yin because they get endorphins, it feels good, it gives them some temporary feel. Good sensations, however, do they need it? There’s probably better ways to spend their time potentially. Is it bad? You know, we could debate on that. But for them, absolutely, I think it’s better to do it. Maybe.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Fold.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): The cold cold is such a weird phrase. But, like right, I know.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): warming up either temperature wise or exercise wise. We’re.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We’re not talking ice packs here. People.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yes, not talking ice packs. No, but because they are more flexible. Some of these people who are more flexible, and I’m not talking hypermobility. I actually think yin is probably one population.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Hypermobility is probably one population that doesn’t really respond well to gin. Personally, I think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I agree. I think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think I think someone who’s hypermobile can practice again. But they really need to work with a teacher who has a deep understanding of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: of what that means.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and can continually encourage them to back off and notice some of the other aspects of you, and other than physical sensation in your body like, can you feel the air on your skin? What is your mind doing? Like all of the other awesome aspects of you, and that never get talked about, because people are always talking about the tissues. You know.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yes, however, I think there’s just some easier ways to work with it right like if they love yin. Yes, if you work with a teacher who knows what they’re doing. You can find a way to embrace it, and yeah, and utilize it to enhance proprioception more than anything. But I think. Let’s just not on the hypermobility spectrum, but just people who are more more Bendy in general. Yeah, they probably benefit from

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): doing it without warming up and preparing because they get a little more resistance, which we want, however, for athletes struggling just to get into a position where they can relax, struggling to set themselves up struggling to like

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): get there. I think, having some warm up, can be great, and considering everything we talked about about recovery and nervous system, it just makes so much sense to do it afterwards. And so, you know, I think it kind of depends on the person, you know, and really understanding the mechanism of what’s happening and why we’re doing it, and what it’s affecting. And and then it just makes more sense to just say, Do it cold.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I mean.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Isn’t really that meaningful to me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And it’s so vague, so vague, I know in my own practice other than a couple areas of my body. I’ve never been a flexible person like I’ve always been the opposite body type, you know, sturdy and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, when I do a morning in practice, which isn’t that often I prefer to do it in the evening, but when I do a morning practice with my partner.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that’s our Saturdays. I still have a hot bath. 1st the

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Nyk Danu Yoga: thought of like rolling out of bed in my, you know, kind of sturdy, tight body type, and then just going right onto the mat and trying to do yin like I’m not going anywhere quick, like I’m just gonna be like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 90 degrees. And there’s my hamstrings, you know. So for me. I love to have like a warm, you know, a warm shower or a warm tub, maybe drink some warm tea, and now I’m ready, you know to like, get into my yin practice, whereas if I was going to do a movement practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would. I wouldn’t. That wouldn’t be the concern. I would just start slow with gentle warmups, and then I would, you know, get let my movement slowly pick up as I went.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Think this is why it really has to be. You know, this is the therapeutic portion we’ve been talking about is like to me. Therapeutics means it meets the individual. And you know that could be that could be Ashtanga, or that could be chanting, or it could be it could be a million things. Mfr, it could be Yen. It could be

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): a lot of different things. But it’s something that meets the individual. And so I mean, this is just a great example of that. I’ve always been on the more flexible side. And for me, I actually, now that I’m playing tennis a lot like I actually really love Yen more because I can feel more. I feel the resistance. And

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and I think this is the other key point for athletes, too. Is that my goal isn’t necessarily with athletes to increase range of motion, like some of those adaptations are actually positive and so and necessary. Yeah, and so.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Another sport, for sure.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): What we want to do, though, is maintain range of motion. So we know that, like 3 days or so after training our collagen deposition peaks as a response to training, collagen synthesis increases. And so it’s really important because it allows this connective tissue matrix to be better and stronger and better at transmitting force.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): However, like in the medium term like that’s really great. The tissues are adapting to respond to demands. It’s an intelligent and responsive system in the connective tissues. It’s it’s brilliant the more you study it. But at some point it can create so much of that connective tissue as a response to training that it can also limit range of motion. It can predispose to injury. So you know, really, for athletes, when we talk about mobility and range of motion. What we’re trying to do is

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): maintain range of motion. There are some times where we want to recapture, and we might have to do a little extra things extra to recapture that, especially with injuries. But most of it’s maintenance. And so it’s why I love Yoga for athletes classes, because it’s really like yoga for tight people, you know, so they’re not looking around the room and expecting to like lay on their belly and pigeon pose, which I don’t think anyone should do anyways Indian

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): personally, because I can do that, and I don’t. And I, you know, when I 1st started doing yin, I used to approach it like that, and honestly never felt worse. And so

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and there are reasons for that. Like we understand, we now we understand so much more about the connective tissues. We really can understand the system, the what, why and how it happens, you know, but with athletes, I think just having that mentality of. I’m not necessarily trying. I might gain some some range of motion, but I’m not necessarily trying for that. What I’m trying to do is maintain range of motion, but also keep the connective tissue healthy, because we know now that

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): most of the time this is probably where injuries are happening. There was a big research article right before Covid that came out in 2019 by Jan Wilkie, a really well respected fascia scientist.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Called. Is it all about the fascia, and

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): they were looking at calf strains which are really thought to be muscular in the sports medicine world, the orthopedic world.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and what they saw when they took the microscope to it was that only 12% of them were actually just in the muscle. And so it kind of exploded. This new idea of, you know, in sports medicine. This idea that

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know a lot of these injuries are actually probably happening in the connective tissue. And so, you know, I think one of many reasons. Another of many reasons why Yen is so beneficial for athletes is this ability to help support the health of the connective tissue, and so

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): going into it with this mentality of not like trying to push and force your range of motion, but finding a way to get in and relax and stay and be still allows me to really capture more of these effects that we’re starting to see in the research. They’re not really evidence-based yet. But these, this idea, that static.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): more long held static stretches, can potentially have an anti-inflammatory effect. Anti fibrotic effect, can really help support the health of this connective tissue, and we know there’s a lot of immune cells in the connective tissue. So I think, thinking about it as an intelligent layer and approaching it that way, approaching it as maintenance, as kind of supporting the health of these tissues can

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): in and of itself just completely change how you approach a yin practice, and for me

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): completely changed how I felt after it. And yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And you know most, there’s always exceptions. Of course, I would say, maybe gymnastics and certain athletes like that might be falling into that more hypermobile as opposed to. They’re strong as well. But but most athletes typically, if you think of them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: they’re they’re sturdy and strong and tight, and you know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so in that way, I think, like you were saying such a good complementary practice for their training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I have heard people say, and I can kind of understand this, too, that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know athletes can tend to be a bit type, a personality.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and that sometimes they’re not a good candidate for yin because they’re not doing anything.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I always thought that was interesting, though, because to me and again, one of the most undertaught aspects of yin

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is the mental component, and I think every athlete understands being in the zone, so they understand

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the mind, and how the mind can also really help their performance. And so, as a teacher, if you can just translate that into their yin practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, how do we work with our mind while we’re here

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and what effect our mind can have on this practice?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then what the benefit of that might be

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for their you know, when they’re not in there in practice, you know. So any thoughts on that, because I just thought somebody was like, Oh, it’s not for athletes, because they’re too, type A, and I was like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, it’s still use your words to let them.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Some of the benefits. Maybe.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I think it’s pretty hilarious, too, because I think if you say that you have to say that about all of Yoga, because, you know. You see this in the Asana practices as well, you know. And again, why, I think a yoga for athletes class is helpful. So you’re not looking around at the girl, touching her toes. You know who does yoga every day versus the the runner, you know, who can barely get their hands to their shins or their knees, you know. So it changes your expectations. And that was part of why

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mentioned, too, like, I think, for athletes, it’s really important not to think about it as just increasing your range of motion, because then, that that drives the push and the competition.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And I think it’s important to speak to that too. If you’re teaching athletes like this is not your sport.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): This is not your sport.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Recovery. Yeah, you’re.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Here to support your sport, so you know, like don’t take more out of the thing, don’t I mean.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know your energy is a currency. And so we’re there to like.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): build ourselves back up. That recovery mode is actually where the growth happens. It’s where our we build more mitochondria. Everything is happening in that recovery mode, not necessarily in the training mode. And so it’s really important to not be competitive to not ask a lot of your body to appreciate this as a tension system that’s supporting you. That’s distributing force, that’s, you know, allowing you to be powerful.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): But now you’re coming to it as a way to support it, and and give it some love and nourishment and support. And I love the mental side, too. I mean, I think there’s such a big part of it as well in sports and yoga in life. There’s so much you could do just right there. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I mean, when you’re you’re in a pose for 3 to 5 min. There’s lots of time to work with your mind.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and what stories your mind might be telling you about your experience in your hamstring, or whatever the case may be, you know. But I think our it’s our job as as teachers, and there’s such a.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I have whole episodes on this, so people can go back and listen to them. But there’s

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Nyk Danu Yoga: there’s such a fine line between using our words to address what we see happening in front of us in a kind of very I do it in a very to the whole group, casual, often with self, deprecating humor. Way to kind of get my point across.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. Like, if you see someone white knuckling it, thinking that they’re not doing the pose unless they’re reaching their foot.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. Address that like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: don’t just assume. Oh, it’s not for that person, because there’s no there’s no growth there then.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for that human.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Well, and I think we have to just assume that everyone’s on their own journey, like we’ve all had those people like in a class. If you have a class of 30 or 40 people, especially in an active, like a Vinyasa class, there’s always one or 2 you can say whatever you want, but they’re going to push as hard as they can like, whether it’s Mfr. Or Yin or Asanas, and

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01:01:24.840 –> 01:01:29.970
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): in my experience my way of dealing with. That is education, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, me too!

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Planting those seeds. But sometimes, for some people like I’ve had some of those people in my class had like a year later they’d be like

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Whoa! They’re like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, really, they’re like, Have you been saying this the whole time? And you’re like, yes, yes, I have.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You never know, like, maybe it was just what they needed then, you know, maybe they were tuned out, or maybe who knows? Like I can’t try and understand their story and everything. I see them for an hour, a week, maybe, or maybe it’s even an hour a day, maybe, but like it’s so small compared to the rest of their life. I can’t pretend to assume that I know the story and everything else, so I would just assume, you know, like.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): take it or leave it. You know I’m here as a teacher. I’m offering these things, and everyone’s gonna have their different way of connecting with it, maybe for them that was relaxing. Maybe it took them a year to learn how to relax. You know. I mean.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah. For me. It’s always like you, said education. And then I use humor. And if neither of those work, then I’m like, Well.

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01:02:26.070 –> 01:02:28.679
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I wish I were funny. I would. I would love to be.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I don’t know if I am able to just tell it.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Joke.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But I don’t know if I actually am, but I just usually use myself as an example. So, for example, I might say something like. And this is a true story. So it’s you know. I remember being in a

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a really, you know, weekend long Vinyasa workshop, you know, with a well-known teacher, and I’m not flexible in my hamstrings, and I remember for the 1st time in my life I folded forward in January, and I actually managed to grab my foot.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and that was it. I wasn’t kinder. I wasn’t smarter. I wasn’t sexier, I wasn’t richer.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Just put my fingertips on my foot, you know. And so that’s what I mean by like, I’ll just use my own example and be like, you know. Really, yes, this doesn’t mean anything. Yeah.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Learning how to learning how to do handstand doesn’t keep you from being an asshole.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Certainly not, no, certainly not, no.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh, funny!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you talked a little bit about maybe some of the challenges of temporary.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know performance with you. And is there any other like

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01:03:33.580 –> 01:03:38.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: things that you think maybe might not be a good fit for you and an athletes? Or is that pretty much.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean, that’s the big one that we know of now. I would just say, I think for me the bigger challenge with athletes when I’m working with them is more just time. I do think there are so many things that yoga, and not just yin, but yoga as well, can be helpful with

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01:03:53.130 –> 01:04:01.450
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): when I’m working with a group of athletes, whether that’s 1 in particular or a team, you know, or just a group class that’s more general.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): The bigger issue is time, you know. So if I’m working with a team, I’m usually asking them. You know, what are your goals? If it’s recovery, if it’s mobility, you know, definitely going to do it in practice and have all these qualities that we’ve talked about, and, you know, really invest in just kind of slowly educating them over time and and helping to get them to, you know, empowering them with those tools over time.

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): But there are so many other great things that Yoga can do. I mean the mental side of things. Meditation. The pranayama is also a great nervous system. Regulator met Mfr. Is such a great one, too. We can work with pain and range of motion and not have performance deficits with myofascial release or Mfr. And then

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): athletes, you know, cross training is everything, and and most athletes do some cross training. But I think Yoga has some really interesting ways to cross train tissues that other modalities don’t, and we do see some of it bleeding over into other fitness modalities. So there is some crossover now which I think is good and fine. But

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Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know, I think there’s a lot of ways that Yoga can help an athlete. So it’s like, are they working with an injury? Are they trying to work on performance, or mobility, or recovery, or inflammation, or, you know, more preventative? Or is there some specific thing that they’re working on like a part of their body or specific movement. You know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Say.

505
01:05:16.990 –> 01:05:17.630
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Maine.

506
01:05:17.800 –> 01:05:28.689
Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’re a yoga teacher listening to this, and it’s mostly teachers. I have the occasional just nerd who nerds out. But it’s usually teachers. You know, if this is an area where you want to, you want to specialize

507
01:05:29.038 –> 01:05:37.091
Nyk Danu Yoga: Indian for athletes. Well, 1st of all, you should probably look up some of Tiffany’s trainings because I got nothing for you on that and

508
01:05:37.460 –> 01:05:47.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: knowing the athlete that you’re working with, and what their particular sport is doing to their body would be key as well. Because, like you said, there’s only so much time.

509
01:05:47.970 –> 01:05:55.820
Nyk Danu Yoga: So that way you can focus on like, okay, you know, like a pitcher might be very different than a runner. For example, you know, in what they need.

510
01:05:56.470 –> 01:06:22.100
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And looking at the context of what they’re already doing. So there are a lot of athletes who are using Mfr. And foam rollers and and static stretching, and things like that. So you know, a lot of times I’m looking at. What are they already doing? What? What do they need? What are their goals? What are they already doing? And then sometimes I’m going back like, if we’re doing some things and they’re not making the progress. And I go back? Well, show me how you’re using your Mfr. Or show me how you’re doing these things that I already had checked off the list. And

511
01:06:22.100 –> 01:06:27.269
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know, and might find they’re just like grinding the tissues down with their Mfr. Ball or their lacrosse ball, and

512
01:06:27.270 –> 01:06:38.509
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): might approach it a little differently. But you know, I think you have to take all of the context in and realize that whether they’re especially if they’re a professional athlete, but but also, if they’re a casual athlete, because.

513
01:06:39.070 –> 01:06:50.489
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): With casual athletes. Now we have work and life and all the other things. We don’t get to spend all day training and doing all the things. We also have a job and a family, and you know our own other things. So.

514
01:06:50.490 –> 01:06:51.740
Nyk Danu Yoga: Responsibilities.

515
01:06:51.970 –> 01:07:04.210
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Time is always an element, and I’m always just trying to find like, where am I going to get the best use of their time, because, like, you know, there’s just so many things that could be helpful in Yoga, and.

516
01:07:04.340 –> 01:07:08.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, don’t we all wish that everybody had 2 HA day to do, yoga? But.

517
01:07:08.510 –> 01:07:12.580
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, an hour of active, an hour of introspective.

518
01:07:12.580 –> 01:07:13.040
Nyk Danu Yoga: Similar.

519
01:07:13.040 –> 01:07:13.660
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Far.

520
01:07:13.660 –> 01:07:16.530
Nyk Danu Yoga: Ball rolling again. Yeah, I mean, it would be lovely.

521
01:07:16.530 –> 01:07:17.520
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Vacation.

522
01:07:17.520 –> 01:07:19.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s not the real world, it’s not the.

523
01:07:19.480 –> 01:07:26.520
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, we got to be realistic. And that’s the important part. Because we know whatever system it is you’re working with. It’s the frequency

524
01:07:26.540 –> 01:07:29.029
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): usually more than the duration. That’s gonna be important.

525
01:07:29.030 –> 01:07:29.440
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, sir.

526
01:07:29.440 –> 01:07:31.689
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): So, you know, if I can sneak things something in.

527
01:07:31.690 –> 01:07:32.700
Nyk Danu Yoga: Consistency. Yeah.

528
01:07:32.700 –> 01:07:33.130
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah.

529
01:07:33.130 –> 01:07:36.089
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, which athletes totally understand.

530
01:07:36.500 –> 01:07:43.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: They understand that in order to get better at something you you train consistently. So they like. That’s not going to be a news flash for them, you know.

531
01:07:43.660 –> 01:08:11.359
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And again, it’s a generally compliant demographic to work with, because they’re coming to you. Usually for some specific reason, they’re usually invested. So it is a really rewarding, and and a lot of times, though I think athletes can get a lot better at body awareness. They have a strange mix of having good body awareness in very specific ways, and really, poor body awareness in other ways, because they kind of have to. Sometimes they have to turn that off to push past. But I think you know

532
01:08:11.600 –> 01:08:36.179
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): they also bring really great feedback back. So they start to see those effects really quickly, and that hooks them as well. So if there is any issue with compliance, if I can just get them doing some of the things like Mfr. Usually gives really quick rewards really fast. So if I can get them doing something that gives those quick rewards and feedback, I can then usually start to add a few more things in more easily, because now they’re they’re committed and they’re doing it. And again, that’s kind of the hardest part sometimes. So.

533
01:08:36.609 –> 01:08:48.669
Nyk Danu Yoga: And for those of you teachers that heard her say, Mfr, and you’re still like, what does that mean? Myofascial release with balls and such. Yes, sometimes in Yoga circles they call it Myo yin, you know, it’s got all these

534
01:08:48.769 –> 01:08:55.449
Nyk Danu Yoga: tm’d versions of the Mount, but myofascial release with like balls and things like that. Right? Yeah.

535
01:08:55.450 –> 01:08:56.000
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yep.

536
01:08:56.000 –> 01:08:58.299
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. One of my other favorite practices.

537
01:08:58.660 –> 01:09:19.260
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, it’s so good. And and you know, they’re nice together. And again, kind of like the cold thing, I think, for people who struggle getting into yin and are really tight doing Mfr. Before can be a really great way to help them relax versus someone like me who’s more on the flexible side doing it before. Isn’t that helpful? Because I don’t feel the resistance anymore? And you, you know, you want some of that.

538
01:09:19.529 –> 01:09:21.519
Nyk Danu Yoga: You’d almost want to do it the other way around. Then.

539
01:09:21.520 –> 01:09:23.770
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I do, yeah.

540
01:09:24.330 –> 01:09:27.264
Nyk Danu Yoga: I do. I do both depending on the area.

541
01:09:27.590 –> 01:09:29.770
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I mean, but yeah.

542
01:09:29.770 –> 01:09:38.969
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Mfr. Is so good I feel like you can do it either way, because at the end it’s like the nervous system regulation for me that can be so amazing at the end of a yoga practice or a yin practice.

543
01:09:38.979 –> 01:09:39.479
Nyk Danu Yoga: –

544
01:09:39.979 –> 01:09:41.049
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): So good.

545
01:09:41.050 –> 01:09:49.800
Nyk Danu Yoga: So for athletes, the pluses can be obviously mobility, recovery, nervous system, nourishment.

546
01:09:50.050 –> 01:09:54.969
Nyk Danu Yoga: working with their minds an additional opportunity to work with their minds.

547
01:09:55.482 –> 01:10:00.010
Nyk Danu Yoga: All of those things yin kind of has as superpowers.

548
01:10:01.670 –> 01:10:02.650
Nyk Danu Yoga: What am I forgetting?

549
01:10:03.050 –> 01:10:18.559
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And potentially some of the other intangibles we don’t really know a lot on yet, but there has been some preliminary research on it having anti-inflammatory effects by Helene Longgovine. She’s like one of my favorite scientists who does a lot of research on stretching and acupuncture.

550
01:10:18.620 –> 01:10:22.089
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): She’s presented at a bunch of the Fashion conferences, and is

551
01:10:22.180 –> 01:10:39.109
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): like I fangirl over her, but she has done some on static stretching, being an anti-inflammatory antifibrotic. And then there’s been some research, too, on its ability to hydrate the tissues meaning the connective tissues.

552
01:10:39.590 –> 01:10:42.650
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Act kind of like a sponge. So, as we held these postures.

553
01:10:42.670 –> 01:10:49.130
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you can imagine that as I hold them, it’s pushing fluid out of the connective tissues, and as I release it, they found that

554
01:10:49.160 –> 01:11:08.210
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): so I have less water in the tissues right away. But for up to 3 h after those tissues are potentially pulling more fluid into them and think about fluid fluid is water is resistant to compression. So not only is it helping provide a gliding mechanism between the tissues, but also kind of pressurizing the tissues and making them more resilient with that pressurization.

555
01:11:08.270 –> 01:11:33.890
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean fluid. Such an important part of resilience in the tissues in so many ways, so potentially having a positive effect on the hydration, like pulling fluid into the tissues as well. And again, important. Why, that kind of rebound effect or resting, whether it’s right after the pose, or or at least in Shavasana, is important, because, as you release that pressure. This is when my connective tissues are actually pulling more fluid into them. So

556
01:11:34.060 –> 01:11:38.820
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): so yeah, I think that summarizes a lot of the big parts. The main things.

557
01:11:38.820 –> 01:11:47.030
Nyk Danu Yoga: Very cool, very cool. So it sounds like overall other than the you know, the temporary performance thing. It’s it’s a good practice.

558
01:11:47.600 –> 01:11:48.350
Nyk Danu Yoga: right for athletes.

559
01:11:48.480 –> 01:11:49.050
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

560
01:11:49.050 –> 01:11:50.350
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I think it’s a no brainer, and.

561
01:11:50.350 –> 01:11:55.759
Nyk Danu Yoga: And if you add some balls ball rolling to that too, then you got a real special sauce going on.

562
01:11:56.030 –> 01:12:08.799
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And I don’t feel like it has to be just yen like if it’s an athlete class. I mean, I’ve taught versions of this where we do some very accessible flow, and then maybe some Mfr. And some yen.

563
01:12:09.610 –> 01:12:17.659
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Do think it really is like we talked about a time element. And so it’s it’s finding a way to mix and match to meet the needs of the person that you’re working with, and

564
01:12:17.910 –> 01:12:19.360
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): for athletes

565
01:12:19.750 –> 01:12:29.279
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): it’s so good. And I again, I kind of started talking about this. I do think like with professional athletes. Sometimes it can be hard to talk them into it, because they’re so afraid of it because of those performance deficits. But.

566
01:12:29.280 –> 01:12:29.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

567
01:12:29.660 –> 01:12:40.449
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): As I build a relationship with them, and as they sense that I’m not like, if I’m like pushing them and overly invested in it. I think you need to be willing to walk away as a teacher, too, as far as like

568
01:12:40.490 –> 01:12:55.729
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): not walk away, but willing to like. Let them have their own journey and make the decision. I’m putting the information out there. They’re deciding they’re ultimately in, you know, in that deciding role. But I’m giving them the information, and so a lot of times with professional athletes. Eventually.

569
01:12:55.740 –> 01:13:00.719
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): as long as I’m not too tied to it, I’m giving them that they’ll eventually come around. But

570
01:13:01.060 –> 01:13:08.349
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): again, I’m putting in context, maybe they’re already doing it, but I do think it’s such a no-brainer for athletes.

571
01:13:08.370 –> 01:13:15.440
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): it’s just about adding it in at the right timing with their training. So just usually end of day, or on a low day or off day.

572
01:13:15.882 –> 01:13:32.570
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): is usually best. I mean, if they’re comfortable with it. I’m not totally opposed to them, just, you know, doing a couple of those. If they have a couple of things they have to do like at night, even in front of, I know. Cover your ears like, even in front of the TV, if they have to like.

573
01:13:33.050 –> 01:13:33.899
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): you know what though.

574
01:13:35.100 –> 01:13:42.539
Nyk Danu Yoga: I know the Yoga teachers and us, and especially the dedicated season. Yoga teachers and us, are kind of shuddering a little when we hear that. But here’s the thing.

575
01:13:43.830 –> 01:13:47.840
Nyk Danu Yoga: If you can get them to start doing it. Maybe it’s in front of the TV right now.

576
01:13:48.020 –> 01:13:58.469
Nyk Danu Yoga: But eventually, I think my theory is that they’re gonna realize that actually, the TV is just distracting them from all this sweet juiciness they’re feeling in their body. And they’re probably gonna

577
01:13:58.500 –> 01:14:02.160
Nyk Danu Yoga: turn it off and just focus. Or so my theory goes, yeah.

578
01:14:02.470 –> 01:14:20.209
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And I also think you know, you’re doing it in front of the TV. In my opinion, you’re probably getting more of like the physical effects. Right? You are missing out on a category of some of the effects that can happen from that. But you know, if I’m like working on one specific area, and I really need them to do it. You know, it’s better than

579
01:14:20.310 –> 01:14:24.930
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): than them not doing it, getting half of the benefits, you know. Yeah. And that’s.

580
01:14:24.930 –> 01:14:26.860
Nyk Danu Yoga: These things lead to a more

581
01:14:26.870 –> 01:14:32.250
Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah comfort with a quiet practice, you know, and once they see the benefits.

582
01:14:32.490 –> 01:14:40.520
Nyk Danu Yoga: even if they’re doing it in front of the TV. Then they’re going to be like, Oh, this practice is actually really worth kind of carving out some time.

583
01:14:40.560 –> 01:14:42.189
Nyk Danu Yoga: 4, you know. Yeah.

584
01:14:42.190 –> 01:15:09.379
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Well. And I think, too, that’s like, early in the relationship, when I haven’t had the time to really talk about the importance of recovery and all these other things. And again, I think in building that relationship you got to do what you can at the beginning get them doing something that they can commit to. And you know you start to build that muscle of compliance, you know, or the routine you know, in in their schedules. And then, and then, as they learn more, you know, it shifts and adapts. And

585
01:15:09.770 –> 01:15:11.240
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): yeah, shows up in other ways.

586
01:15:11.240 –> 01:15:22.729
Nyk Danu Yoga: I have a lot more probably people that work at desks than athletes, probably in my classes, and I often say to them, You know there’s this one pose I do over a bolster in a yin way, not in a restorative way, called Heart bed.

587
01:15:22.780 –> 01:15:26.080
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I always say to them, you know, if you have time for one pose a day.

588
01:15:26.540 –> 01:15:27.260
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Sit.

589
01:15:27.620 –> 01:15:43.679
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s 5 min you got that like this will help to reverse that slow Jasana that you have going on, you know, and it’ll help get you ready for bed, and like just you know, you could even do it on your bed. If you really want. Pull a bolster out on your bed, you know. Do it for 5 min. Go to sleep kind of thing.

590
01:15:44.120 –> 01:15:45.859
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah. Making ends. Great.

591
01:15:45.860 –> 01:15:46.980
Nyk Danu Yoga: Accessible.

592
01:15:47.889 –> 01:15:48.279
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Alright!

593
01:15:48.280 –> 01:15:48.890
Nyk Danu Yoga: Weeks.

594
01:15:49.180 –> 01:15:54.930
Nyk Danu Yoga: That is awesome. Thank you so much. I think maybe we’ll start to transition into some

595
01:15:55.260 –> 01:15:58.270
Nyk Danu Yoga: questions, some more fun questions that I have for you that I do.

596
01:15:58.270 –> 01:15:58.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: Ok.

597
01:15:58.630 –> 01:16:01.740
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, and of course, at the end I’m going to give you an opportunity to share

598
01:16:02.070 –> 01:16:11.890
Nyk Danu Yoga: all your things. And there’ll be links at all the show notes for all your courses and all that stuff. I was actually looking at your myofascial course myself going.

599
01:16:12.660 –> 01:16:16.678
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m like, I always need some continuing Ed stuff, you know.

600
01:16:16.990 –> 01:16:18.159
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): We all do. Yeah.

601
01:16:18.160 –> 01:16:20.200
Nyk Danu Yoga: 100%. Yeah, yeah.

602
01:16:20.280 –> 01:16:26.300
Nyk Danu Yoga: right this right now, it’s a meditation, another meditation course and some qigong. But it’s probably in my sure.

603
01:16:26.720 –> 01:16:29.830
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You know where to find me? Yes, I do.

604
01:16:29.830 –> 01:16:36.850
Nyk Danu Yoga: I do and I will just say and I’m just so y’all are listening. Most of you know me well enough to know

605
01:16:37.060 –> 01:16:46.220
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m not the blow smoke up someone’s ass type of person. So I’m not saying this because Tiffany’s looking at me right now on Zoom, but actually really do check out her portal of courses

606
01:16:46.260 –> 01:16:53.980
Nyk Danu Yoga: because there’s a lot there, and whether you decide to do a whole 500 or not, or you just want to take certain things. There is so much

607
01:16:54.000 –> 01:16:56.379
Nyk Danu Yoga: there, and it’s hard. I find

608
01:16:57.690 –> 01:17:01.410
Nyk Danu Yoga: 2 aspects of Yoga trainings that I find are difficult

609
01:17:01.550 –> 01:17:06.600
Nyk Danu Yoga: are ones that are either quite based in in science and research like yours are.

610
01:17:06.950 –> 01:17:09.219
Nyk Danu Yoga: and also the complete opposite.

611
01:17:09.490 –> 01:17:14.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: It seems like there’s a lot of mushy mushy in between stuff like pseudoscience.

612
01:17:14.820 –> 01:17:21.039
Nyk Danu Yoga: not really Indian philosophy being tossed out there. And it’s like to find kind of

613
01:17:21.050 –> 01:17:30.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: really quality trainings in either of those those 2 is really is challenging so definitely, I recommend checking those out

614
01:17:30.430 –> 01:17:31.529
Nyk Danu Yoga: my pleasure.

615
01:17:31.700 –> 01:17:36.010
Nyk Danu Yoga: All right. So some questions, some are fun, some are more soulful.

616
01:17:36.060 –> 01:17:38.089
Nyk Danu Yoga: The 1st one coffee or tea.

617
01:17:39.210 –> 01:17:39.870
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): T.

618
01:17:40.330 –> 01:17:40.970
Nyk Danu Yoga: Awesome.

619
01:17:41.370 –> 01:17:42.127
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): That was easy.

620
01:17:42.380 –> 01:17:43.050
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, it was.

621
01:17:43.470 –> 01:17:44.150
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Hey!

622
01:17:44.150 –> 01:17:46.899
Nyk Danu Yoga: They get harder. Favorite ice cream, flavor.

623
01:17:47.720 –> 01:17:53.590
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh, gosh! I like never eat ice cream, and I think I’ve just trained myself that way, because in Chinese medicine.

624
01:17:53.590 –> 01:17:56.100
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): see, you have the worst food you can eat.

625
01:17:56.100 –> 01:17:56.449
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s true.

626
01:17:56.450 –> 01:18:01.460
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It’s cold, it’s dairy. It’s like, I don’t even know if I like it anymore. Because I’ve just

627
01:18:01.470 –> 01:18:02.709
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I don’t know.

628
01:18:02.770 –> 01:18:03.939
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I’m the same.

629
01:18:03.940 –> 01:18:14.070
Nyk Danu Yoga: Except well, I don’t do dairy, anyway, because I’m allergic to it. But once in a blue moon on a very hot, humid summer day. I’ll do. There’s a Vegan place, but yes, I know what you mean, all of.

630
01:18:14.070 –> 01:18:17.650
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And that’s not to say I don’t indulge in things. It’s just for some reason, I think.

631
01:18:17.650 –> 01:18:18.430
Nyk Danu Yoga: Over the decades.

632
01:18:18.430 –> 01:18:20.730
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Just turned away.

633
01:18:20.730 –> 01:18:22.670
Nyk Danu Yoga: Cream and ice water both left my life.

634
01:18:22.670 –> 01:18:23.450
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Troux.

635
01:18:23.450 –> 01:18:24.679
Nyk Danu Yoga: Studying Chinese medicine.

636
01:18:25.818 –> 01:18:28.289
Nyk Danu Yoga: One thing people often get wrong about me.

637
01:18:30.010 –> 01:18:38.460
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh, gosh! I can’t even think of something. Oh, well, this is a really dumb thing, but I will say that most people, when they meet me in person, are surprised at how tall I am.

638
01:18:40.130 –> 01:18:41.450
Nyk Danu Yoga: Because you are quite tall.

639
01:18:41.780 –> 01:18:46.830
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean, I’m 5, 9, but I don’t know why people assume, because they see me on a screen that maybe I’m really tiny.

640
01:18:46.960 –> 01:18:55.320
Nyk Danu Yoga: Cause. It’s funny. I’ve had other guests say the opposite that people based, I guess, on their confidence or their presence assume. They’re like 5, 9. And they’re like 5, 2.

641
01:18:55.590 –> 01:18:58.500
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I get that a lot. Oh, my gosh! You’re so much taller than I thought.

642
01:18:58.500 –> 01:18:58.920
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, interesting!

643
01:18:58.920 –> 01:19:02.700
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of other things I could add in there. But that was the 1st that came to mind.

644
01:19:02.700 –> 01:19:03.540
Nyk Danu Yoga: Awesome.

645
01:19:05.600 –> 01:19:07.680
Nyk Danu Yoga: Tiffany, do you have a pop culture vice.

646
01:19:08.340 –> 01:19:11.970
Nyk Danu Yoga: a show? You binge a series something.

647
01:19:12.170 –> 01:19:16.709
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It just depends. I do, I mean yes, I just.

648
01:19:16.930 –> 01:19:17.950
Nyk Danu Yoga: Currently.

649
01:19:17.950 –> 01:19:20.450
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Currently, it’s just been too much news to be honest.

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01:19:20.450 –> 01:19:23.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, God!

651
01:19:23.020 –> 01:19:25.369
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): My brain’s just like so full.

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01:19:25.370 –> 01:19:25.730
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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01:19:25.730 –> 01:19:33.260
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): But yes, I’ve definitely we definitely binge watch things. I mean, one of my favorite shows right now is lioness, but I don’t really know that that’s like

654
01:19:33.520 –> 01:19:36.890
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): a guilty pleasure I’ve watched. I don’t think we should.

655
01:19:36.890 –> 01:19:39.760
Nyk Danu Yoga: Feel guilty about our Pop culture vices at all.

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01:19:39.760 –> 01:19:43.119
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I’ve watched. Love is blind. I think that’s the cutest show.

657
01:19:43.510 –> 01:19:46.900
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And oh! And I’ve watched the golden bachelorette, and I think that is

658
01:19:46.920 –> 01:19:49.320
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): the best show. I had to watch the

659
01:19:49.700 –> 01:19:57.690
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): bachelor with our daughter when she was a teenager, and it was torture, and I happened to watch the golden bachelor. It was

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01:19:57.810 –> 01:20:00.149
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): the sweetest show I’ve ever seen.

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01:20:00.150 –> 01:20:01.440
Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ve never watched it.

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01:20:01.440 –> 01:20:07.369
Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s so good. And they’re actually just really sweet, decent people. It gives you hope in humanity.

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01:20:07.370 –> 01:20:13.700
Nyk Danu Yoga: See? Then, that’s a good pop culture, advice right there, anything that gives you more hope and humanity. We could use more of that right.

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01:20:13.890 –> 01:20:14.560
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah.

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01:20:15.171 –> 01:20:18.189
Nyk Danu Yoga: When I’m not practicing yoga. I am.

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01:20:18.940 –> 01:20:22.760
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Nowadays playing tennis, or working, working or playing tennis.

667
01:20:22.760 –> 01:20:23.210
Nyk Danu Yoga: Nice.

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01:20:23.210 –> 01:20:24.419
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Or walking, my dog.

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01:20:25.930 –> 01:20:26.730
Nyk Danu Yoga: Good things.

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01:20:26.920 –> 01:20:29.059
Nyk Danu Yoga: One weird fact about you.

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01:20:30.258 –> 01:20:32.530
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): A weird one, a weird one.

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01:20:33.350 –> 01:20:42.440
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I mean, so many things come to mind. I mean, I think I already told you a lot of weird things that I went to a wilderness rehab. I think that’s you’re like much.

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01:20:42.440 –> 01:20:43.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: My teenage years.

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01:20:43.660 –> 01:20:48.660
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): My! My life is being the weird person in my family, I mean, what do you want me to say?

675
01:20:48.660 –> 01:20:50.009
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh, that’s funny!

676
01:20:52.320 –> 01:20:54.690
Nyk Danu Yoga: What the world needs now is.

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01:20:55.850 –> 01:20:57.340
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Oh, connection.

678
01:20:57.340 –> 01:20:58.070
Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm.

679
01:20:58.070 –> 01:21:04.650
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Connection, turning toward not turning away, finding ways to be together instead of separate.

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01:21:05.420 –> 01:21:09.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, one thing I wish people knew about yin yoga.

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01:21:12.650 –> 01:21:33.750
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It’s so good, it’s just so good. Just try it. It’s like, just do it. I’ve always resonated with the nikes. Just do it because you know what it’ll sell itself eventually, although I say that now. And you know, we all know that there’s a lot of people who hate yen. And first, st and that’s fine, like, go find something else in one day, maybe in Yoga. And maybe one day, you’ll

682
01:21:33.780 –> 01:21:35.860
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): yeah, until like, yeah. And I think eventually. But.

683
01:21:36.120 –> 01:21:40.550
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think sometimes it’s, you know, sometimes that’s just because it’s not the right time for them.

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01:21:40.590 –> 01:21:44.760
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, Korean. And sometimes it’s because they just didn’t have a skilled teacher.

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01:21:45.050 –> 01:21:45.580
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah.

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01:21:45.580 –> 01:21:48.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, like that makes a big difference. Yeah.

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01:21:48.190 –> 01:21:52.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: And sometimes it takes building a little relationship, too. Yeah, so totally, yeah,

688
01:21:54.520 –> 01:21:58.030
Nyk Danu Yoga: is there anything else that I forgot to ask you that you’d like to add.

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01:21:58.540 –> 01:22:03.359
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): No, I think it was a great conversation. I really enjoyed chatting with you.

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01:22:03.760 –> 01:22:06.629
Nyk Danu Yoga: All right. Tell everybody where they can find you. All the places.

691
01:22:07.060 –> 01:22:18.829
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): It’s just yogamedicine.com. So you can find everything on there. We’ve got, like like you mentioned, a lot of different trainings from yin to myofascial release, to hip, shoulders, spine, meditation.

692
01:22:19.575 –> 01:22:22.149
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): lymphatics, pranayama, all the things.

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01:22:22.150 –> 01:22:26.909
Nyk Danu Yoga: Got a longer, a longer program, too. Like, Do you have a 2, 5, and then kind of a

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01:22:27.420 –> 01:22:29.049
Nyk Danu Yoga: 1,000 program as well, yeah, yeah.

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01:22:29.220 –> 01:22:52.320
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): We have a thousand, and then they write like they write a thesis paper, which is basically like a little research project that they they write for their 1,000 h. But then it’s basically just a continuation. We really believe that after you have your 200 h, it really is about you developing yourself as a teacher so like you said, people can pop in and take one course from us, you know, and then decide that they want to keep going and do more or more, or whatever I mean. I think.

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01:22:52.650 –> 01:23:06.850
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): like you, I believe as a Yoga teacher, it’s an ongoing process of learning whether that be through podcasts which are free, which which we do as well. And I think that’s a really great way to offer free resources for teachers or through a more formalized training

697
01:23:06.860 –> 01:23:32.480
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): online or in person, we do in person courses again. Now, which is cool. Finally, having that. And we’ve got a, we have a Tcm training coming up Tcm. And Female Health training coming up in. So those were 2 separate trainings of ours. They were each like 3 or 4 days long that we’re putting into one week together in tulum, in March and in Spain. We’ve got the shoulder training and some other stuff. So

698
01:23:32.630 –> 01:23:37.969
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): we’ve got all those. And it’s all online. I mean, you can poke around there for info or podcasts.

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01:23:38.190 –> 01:23:51.380
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): We also have our nonprofit, which anyone who’s ever done a training with us is already kind of a part of, because our run nonprofit runs off of a portion. A portion of our profits from Yoga medicine goes to run our nonprofit.

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01:23:51.540 –> 01:24:00.520
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): which works with women and girls who’ve been rescued from trafficking mostly in India. But we have expanded a little bit.

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01:24:00.710 –> 01:24:21.019
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): and really providing them with meaningful vocational skills. And I think our program is really unique. We work with a lot of other nonprofits there on the ground. In India, everyone who runs. Our programs are Indian who live in India as well, and a lot of them have come up through our programs and and now become people who run them.

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01:24:21.020 –> 01:24:22.690
Nyk Danu Yoga: We’re going to give those women.

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01:24:22.970 –> 01:24:24.190
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): The options.

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01:24:24.930 –> 01:24:38.569
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): And so one thing that’s really cool about ours is we we not only let them pick the vocational skill of their choosing. We also really feel strong about bringing them above the poverty line. So it’s not just teaching them spice grinding. Some will learn to make jewelry.

705
01:24:38.570 –> 01:24:51.250
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): We had one that went to law school, some to go to college, some to do block printing for like topshop and things, some that want to get married, and then we try and raise money because weddings are really important and expensive there. So

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01:24:51.250 –> 01:25:10.950
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): it’s really about giving them skills to last a lifetime and also continuing that support beyond the standard of care there, which is like a year. So a lot of people end up back in the cycle because they can’t support their families. And so it really is like a family, and I love that they can kind of grow up and still be part of it, and we also work

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01:25:11.000 –> 01:25:19.069
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): not only with the women, but we have partners. We work with and support there, who work with women who have aged out of the industry, and then also.

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01:25:19.070 –> 01:25:20.360
Nyk Danu Yoga: Job skills yeah.

709
01:25:20.360 –> 01:25:28.654
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yup and and the kids keeping them in school to prevent them boys and girls from getting pulled into traffic and sex trafficking. So

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01:25:29.000 –> 01:25:30.580
Nyk Danu Yoga: Beautiful Organization.

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01:25:31.280 –> 01:25:35.410
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Yeah, that’s like, that’s my soul food lovely.

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01:25:35.410 –> 01:25:45.380
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): You can find that as well if you go to yogamedicine.com, and you scroll down to the bottom. There’s a lot of ways to get involved. You’ll see Yoga Medicine, Seva Foundation, which is our nonprofit and has its own website and

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01:25:45.410 –> 01:25:47.429
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): beautiful. You can find all that there.

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01:25:47.690 –> 01:25:52.709
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I’ll also give a shout out to your podcast. I listen to it often.

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01:25:52.730 –> 01:26:00.689
Nyk Danu Yoga: I go through and I look at, look at which episodes and I like download a bunch so that when I’m out and about I have something to to nerd out with.

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01:26:01.070 –> 01:26:04.820
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): I love that, and I’ve done the same. I’ve I’ve enjoyed listening to some of yours as well, so thank you.

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01:26:04.820 –> 01:26:05.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: Good. Thank you.

718
01:26:06.230 –> 01:26:12.340
Nyk Danu Yoga: All right. Well, we’ll say our official goodbyes once I hit stop record. But thank you so much for your time and your expertise.

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01:26:12.400 –> 01:26:17.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And for those of you listening or watching on Youtube bye, for now.

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01:26:17.950 –> 01:26:19.730
Tiffany Cruikshank (she/her): Thank you.

 

 

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