Why Yin Yoga Teachers Need a Home Practice

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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, if you are a familiar welcome back.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And if you have been around these parts

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for a little while, if you’ve listened to several episodes, or I know some of you have been binged and listened to like all the episodes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If that’s you, and you have not yet left me a 5 star review. I would be super grateful if you would take

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 2 min. Right now you could just pause this episode

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and go into whatever app you’re using, whether it’s apple

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Nyk Danu Yoga: apple. You can do stars. But you can also leave a written review on spotify. You can do stars, but you can also leave comments now. So if you ever want to comment, if you are a spotify listener below the episode. Or if you have questions, that you want me to cover, you can always do that in the comments now. So that’s a cool, new feature.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’re listening to it elsewhere. I don’t know how you rate things, but if you could take a moment and give the pod, 5 stars, I’d be super grateful.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This helps the podcast to sort of move up in the search. So if somebody’s on their podcast app in there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, searching out Yin Yoga, this is going to help the Yin Yoga podcast show up more quickly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And although we are trucking along and doing really well, we’re still a fairly new podcast was a year ago September. So if you’re listening to this at the time of this recording, we’re in spring of 2025 and we started in September just over a year ago.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so we’re still fairly new.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and but we are, as far as I know, from what I can see. Anyways, we’re the only Yin Yoga podcast. That is still active.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: From my searches, anyways, a lot of them kind of stop and start. And that is super common with podcasts, the percentage of people that make it past. You know a few episodes, even let alone. A year or more are very rare. So if you’ve been loving the podcast I would be super grateful if you took 2 min. Just pause this, go into your app. Give me 5 stars if you want to leave a written review as well, or comment, if you’re on spotify. That would be amazing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Thank you ever so much for for doing that and for your time, and for coming back to the show.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And of course, if you’ve never been here before, and this is your 1st episode. You can wait and see how you feel first.st By all means.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: All right, my friends.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So the other thing I want to mention before we jump into today’s topic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: which is going to be a good one. It’s how do we start a home practice? How do we start a home a yin yoga practice at home.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: How do we do that?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This was this came up recently in my teacher training as a question.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So we’ll talk about that. We’ll dive into that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now on that note about my teacher training. If you’ve been listening to the pod, and you’ve been enjoying this, and you either wanted to add more yin training to your repertoire, or you haven’t yet had a yin training. But you’ve got a big crush on Yin Yoga, and you want to take your relationship to the next level. Then I would like to invite you to join the wait list for my training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The link is always in the show notes. You can just click it. It says, get on the wait list. And that page tells you all of the things that we are gonna cover in in our time together. So there’s a big list of kind of topics and subjects. So you can scan that and see if that is, in fact, something that you feel was either lacking from your 1st training, or sounds like a good fit for your next training

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not at all uncommon for people to do multiple yin trainings. So I’ve had many, many students

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Nyk Danu Yoga: join who have done in trainings with other people, including some of the kind of more well known folks

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in the yin world.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ve had people that have done trainings with Paul and Bernie still come to my training and get a lot out of it. So again, you can read the whole.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Who? What? When, where, why, how, of what we’re covering and whatever current dates depending on what you’re listening to this, the next one runs, but then, at the bottom of the page, or way up at the top of that page. Enter your name and email when you do, the 1st thing you’re gonna get is a little free gifty from me. It’s a Pdf. Then a few days later, you get a video.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and the advantage to being on the wait list is that I let the people on the wait list know 1st

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Nyk Danu Yoga: when registration opens. So before I put it out on social media, before I even put the link live on my website, the email list. The wait list gets it first.st So that’s 1 reason why you might want to join the wait list.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: even if you’re not looking at doing one this year. Just join the wait list. You’ll be on there until you take yourself off, or until you take the course and graduate, in which case I put you on a new different list.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: please know that that’s there for you. The other advantage of the wait list is that I give a 1st 5 people to sign up discount code that is only available on the wait list.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then on the way to training opening, you’re gonna get these podcasts in your inbox and other good yin bonuses. Sometimes I do roundups of my favorite music or I’ll share poetry, or I’ll share a video that you want of me teaching if you want to do some yin I also have, like a quarterly free workshop. And so you’ll get an invitation to that. So all of this happens when you’re on the wait list. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you’ve been around for a while, and you’ve been like, Hmm.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think maybe someday I would like to do some training with Nick. Then hop on the wait list.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: All right, friends, that’s enough of that. Let’s get into the topic at hand.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So not too long ago, just like last season.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I did an episode called How to teach Exceptional Yin Yoga Classes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and one of the many things that I touched on in that class, and I’ve also touched on it in my class.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I have also touched on it

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in my interview with with Lita the words, yin yoga! And words one. I can’t remember what it’s called right now off the top of my head, but

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Nyk Danu Yoga: anyways it

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so I touched on this idea of home practice as a key to guiding exceptional Yin classes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I also touched on this when I was talking with with Lita and on her episode when we’re talking about words and wordsmithing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And did you know, dear listener, that if I ever mentioned an episode in this one that I’ve already covered again in the show notes. There’s a link to a Google Doc which lists all of the episodes from like season one till current times.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They’re all linked up there. So it’s a great place to like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. Check out what other episodes I have. I’ve done, or if I mentioned one here, and you’re like, Oh, I want to check that out please feel free to check that one out. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: How do we start a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, I should be really clear, too, that when I say home practice I’m not talking about a lead practice from a video.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m not talking about. You know, you pulling up Youtube or your favorite Yin teacher and practicing along with video. I’m talking about

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Nyk Danu Yoga: your own home practice that you do on your own.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now this has become something that I’ve now realized is not as common in

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Nyk Danu Yoga: kind of, I guess you could say newer teachers.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: When I 1st started getting ready to take my teacher training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it was already assumed that we had a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: In fact, one of our assignments for that teacher. Training was to we had a journal, and we had to keep track of our home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then we handed that in at the end of the year.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So it wasn’t, you know, like super personal diary kind of dear Diary today I not like that. But just you know what time we practiced, what shapes we did, how we felt before, how we felt afterwards. You know what we might change that kind of thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and we had to keep track of that, and we had to hand that in, and that was actually like a mandatory assignment in order to get our certificate

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to do a home practice. And again, I’m not talking about practicing along to a video.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Sure, you might be watching a video in your home. So maybe you consider that home practice. But what I’m talking about is a self-led practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, if you are a teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m going to talk to you about this in just a moment. But I will say, if you’re not a Yoga teacher getting a home practice that you you do on your own, that you choose the poses self-led. That can be pretty tricky when you’re not a yoga teacher, because you don’t have the same breadth of knowledge. You don’t have as much of an understanding of poses, and what order you’d put them in and blah blah. So now I’m not saying it can’t happen. It absolutely can.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m just saying that you know most of this talking about home practice that I’m talking about here and creating your own home practice is going to be geared towards teachers.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That being said when my partner was sorry, my friends.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I have a kitten here that’s trying to eat headphone cords. Let’s just do this.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: when my partner was kind of just starting out on his yoga journey, I was at the time a fairly new teacher. I was teaching.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t know, like 6 days a week, and you know, also had a part time job, and so I was pretty tired, and I would come home, and he’d say, Hey, you should teach me some yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I would look at him and think, Are you kidding me? I’ve been doing this all day. I’m exhausted.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, and I used to tease him because he’s a musician, and say, imagine that you got paid to play music all day. That’s what you’ve been doing all day, and then you come home, and I’m like, Write me a song, you know. Wouldn’t you kind of be like. Come on seriously. So that’s what I told him I was like. No, I’m not going to come home and teach you yet another class. I’ve been teaching all day.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I did say, but what I will do is I will put on Paul Grilly’s at the time it was DVD. Now it’s available streaming.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll put that on and we can practice to it together. This is back when we actually had, like DVD players and televisions.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And we’ll practice to it together. And unless you’re doing something crazy where I think you’re gonna hurt your body, I’m just going to do my practice, and you’re going to do yours beside me, and Paul Grilly will lead us through practice on this. DVD,

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Nyk Danu Yoga: okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but here’s the thing it didn’t take long before my partner started remembering those shapes and creating his own practice. So then he started practicing without me and without Paul, and, you know, found his poses, found his favorites, you know, put them together and started practicing what felt good in his body. And this is long before he took any teacher training. So I’m mentioning this, because if you are listening to this and you’re not a teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, this is also possible for you

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Nyk Danu Yoga: from books, from, you know, watching Dvds and doing the practice, and then maybe keeping some notes about what poses you liked, what order you liked. You know this is possible. It will be harder, though.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So most of this episode is going to be geared towards teachers.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, dear Yoga, teachers, when I again I mentioned, took my 1st training, it was assumed that we had a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now this was back in the nineties, and so Yoga wasn’t like totally new, you know. It wasn’t like super counterculture. Still, although a little bit so there wasn’t a lot of people doing yoga, and there wasn’t a lot of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: regular classes. And so it was assumed that you would.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, do your Yoga class? And then you would go home, and you would also do a home practice. This was just automatically assumed whether you were a teacher or a student, that you would do a few things at home.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: When I signed up for my 1st teacher training. This was a requirement. This was something we had to sign off on saying that we would do a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and again we had to turn in a book

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Nyk Danu Yoga: now somewhere along the line, and I don’t know what year it happened. I don’t know in what teacher trainings.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: people stop telling teachers and budding teachers and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: teachers that are just starting out that they needed to have a home practice like I don’t know where this started getting lost

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in the Yoga verse, but apparently

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Nyk Danu Yoga: most teachers. Now that have been trained, probably maybe from the mid 2,000 s. Onward, if not, maybe early. 2 thousands

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Nyk Danu Yoga: seem to think that a home. Yoga practice means I’m going to pop on a DVD or a Youtube video. And I’m going to do some Yoga along with that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I’m here to tell you why. That’s not a good idea

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Nyk Danu Yoga: once in a while, sure. But why, that’s not ideal, and that’s not what I’m talking about. When I talk about a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Also keep in mind that back in the dinosaur age, when I was, you know, just starting out as a teacher, there wasn’t Yoga all over Youtube like, honestly, if you searched out Yoga practice on Youtube, there was almost nothing there was, I think.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Sadie Nardini had a channel. She was one of the first, st and it was Super old school. It was just like she pulled up her laptop. Didn’t have a mic busted out some moves. I think she might have been like one of the 1st to actually have, like a real

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yoga channel other than like the big companies like Gaiam and stuff which, of course, would have only had like a little teaser. And then, you know, led you to their website. So I’m pretty sure that Sadie was the Sadie Nardini was the pioneer of Youtube, Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so you couldn’t. Just when I started out teaching you couldn’t just like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: go to Youtube and find some yoga. It wasn’t a thing. Yoga glow, not a thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There were Dvds, of course, at Vhs, and so you could like buy those like a lot of my generation, you know, did a lot of Yoga at home in the beginning with Rodney Yee or Patricia Walden, or you know, I think, had some Kundalini ones out, but even then there wasn’t a lot of them. So you’d only have so many practices that you could do

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Nyk Danu Yoga: along with those Dvds or Vhs tapes

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Nyk Danu Yoga: am. Pm, yoga. That was one that was like really popular. It was like a split where there was like a morning practice and an evening practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So anyways, when you signed up for a teacher training, it was just assumed that you were going to have a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and that that was going to be a self led home practice? Not a. I’m going to pop on a DVD.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And let someone else tell me what to do

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so. Why, I think this is so important. Oh, my gosh! There’s so many reasons.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Well, in that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that episode that I did on how to teach exceptional Yin classes, which is not that far away. It was just last season, a couple episodes. You should be able to backtrack a little bit and find it pretty quickly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Not very many episodes away I was talking about how, if you don’t have

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Nyk Danu Yoga: your own home, practice your own self-led home practice, then you’re not going to have your own words when you’re teaching your classes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: The words that you use when you’re teaching are going to be parroted from your teachers or other teachers you’ve studied with instead of your own words.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and from my, in my opinion, in order to be a skilled and effective teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we need to speak from our own experience

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with our bodies, with our hearts, with our minds.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that if I’m going to show up to class, and I’m going to talk about things. I’m going to talk about them. From my own experience.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m not going to just go up to the front of the room and repeat a bunch of things that I’ve heard on Instagram, or that my teacher has said

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Nyk Danu Yoga: right. That is the difference between, in my opinion, an instructor and a teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Sometimes people think these words are synonymous, but they’re not.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Anybody can instruct anybody to do anything. You can read an instruction manual, but a teacher

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Nyk Danu Yoga: teacher comes at this from their own, their own perspective. There’s their own kind of essence put into it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So, in my opinion, super important to have your own practice for that reason, so that the words that you are speaking to your students the quotes that you are sharing the stories that you are sharing, the sequences that you are sharing

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Nyk Danu Yoga: come from your own felt, lived direct experience in your own body, in your own home, with your own self-led Yoga practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s 1 reason, authenticity of teaching

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and depth of teaching, so that it’s not surface level.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Blah blah! You actually have something deeply grounded and rooted in you of which to speak of when you’re in front of the room.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that’s 1 reason another reason is resourcing yourself.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So Yoga, teacher, Burnout is a real thing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It is so common.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and one of the ways that we can make sure that we don’t have burnout is our own practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so common for teachers to especially new teachers that are teaching a lot to push their own practice aside

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and just focus on. You know their classes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I’ve I’ve been there. I’ve done it at 1 point I was teaching like 15 classes a week.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: 6 days a week, and so my yoga practice definitely took a nosedive, and then guess what followed. Burnout? Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So your yoga practice your own home. Self-led practice

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Nyk Danu Yoga: is a place for you to sort of unfurl to cozy up to lick your wounds, to do whatever it is that you need to fill up your own cup.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s the time that you take out for you

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that you can be present

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for your students, your loved ones, your community, the world at large.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: right? You cannot pour from an empty cup

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and watching A, you know, streaming or a DVD or a Youtube video and just practicing along with them does not ensure that you are getting your own individual needs met as a teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Sure, it’s fun.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll talk more about where these things are useful later, but

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Nyk Danu Yoga: only, you know, if you drop in

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to yourself what it is that you need, and you can use your

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Nyk Danu Yoga: self-led home practice to fill that gap

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Nyk Danu Yoga: right to help to fill your cup.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Also? Can we just talk about practicing what we preach, and not being a hypocrite.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how many times have you said to your student? I know I say it all the time, hey? If you did this pose at home? Blah! Blah, blah, or hey? You could do this pose at home, and here’s how you might do that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you’re giving your students tips on how they could practice at home.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. I hope you are

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that they could, even if it’s just one pose

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that they can kind of take their yoga home with them, and not just only do it at the studio once a week, or whenever they come.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so my hope is that you would be taking that advice yourself as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So burnout a big reason to have a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Learning to be an authentic teacher. So you’re speaking from your own experience in your own voice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Another great reason to have your own self-led practice

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Nyk Danu Yoga: practicing what you preach. There’s a 3rd good reason.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, so here’s the thing, though.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now this is going to be. Some of this will be universal to whether or not. You’re a teacher or a student.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Sometimes we have these silly ideas about what a home practice that is self-led needs to look like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Let me paint the picture of what a lot of us assume.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We need to have a yoga room in our house.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We need to have the right incense, the best Yoga music, comfy clothes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, we need to have lots of space, and we need to have about 90 min in order to do our home Yoga practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We need to have all the props

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and wrong. None of that needs to happen. Actually.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: maybe your home, Yoga practice is 90 min. What a gift, if you can, for those of you especially that don’t have small people around. If you can carve out.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, 90 min in your life for a practice every day. Amazeballs do it

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Nyk Danu Yoga: your your body, your mind, your spirit, will thank you. You will be a better teacher. You will be a better you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: citizen, nothing bad can happen from that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, that being said, some of you do have small people around and finding time without them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, getting in your business to do some Yoga can be challenging.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I am not a mother. Let’s just say that not of humans. I am a mother of cats.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and do they also interrupt my practice constantly?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s 3 things that you can do about that. If you have small people around

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you either. Wake up before they get up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’re a morning folk, which means you got to go to bed earlier the night before. By the way, this doesn’t mean like, just get less sleep. No, this means. Who cares about the dishes? Go to bed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’re a morning person,

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or if you are more of an evening person, or your kids have an early bedtime. Then maybe just maybe, instead of laying on the couch and watching that next Netflix thing in your series. You toss out your yoga mat, and you take some time to practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And yes, that means that we do less of other things.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s what dedication it requires.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like, do do you think all the teachers and generations before that had a you know? A self-led home practice didn’t have other things they could be doing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, yeah, okay, we didn’t have streaming, but like we couldn’t have gone to blockbuster and just rented a shit ton of movies and watched all of those.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Of course we did. You didn’t think that we could. We could have gone out done stuff with our friends instead, or just, you know, busied ourselves incessantly cleaning our house to avoid practice. Of course

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we aren’t any busier now

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Nyk Danu Yoga: than we were when I started teaching Yoga, and when I took my 1st teacher training, we’re not any busier. We’re not

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not really busier now. We are busying ourselves more right. We’re on the social media. We’re scrolling. We’re like, we’re always attached to our, you know, our devices. Yes, that is, that is real. That was not around.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But 90% of what you do on there is just busying yourself. It’s not actually required of you in any way, shape or form.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I would argue that a home practice would suit you far more than that extra 15 min you spent on Instagram. And if you don’t think you spend 15 min on Facebook or Instagram.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you can get these like tracking devices on your phone. That’ll track how much time you spend on your social media apps or whatever they are. I would encourage you to do that and see if see if you’re right, because you might be surprised.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I mostly use social for business, very tiny bit for personal, but not much

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I’m not at all surprised by the amount of time that I spend on there

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Nyk Danu Yoga: sharing things, resharing things, you know, seeing what colleagues are up to like. It’s a big chunk of my time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and if I have to choose, if I’ve got 15 min and I gotta choose between 15 min on Instagram, 15 min in a home practice

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Nyk Danu Yoga: going to choose the home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So the 1st myth that I want to bust is that 1st of all, that your home practice has to be 90 min, and that we don’t have time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You do have time unless you are a single parent of multiple young children, and you work more than one job. You have time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You’re just not making time. You’re spending that time somewhere else that you value more

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Nyk Danu Yoga: than your home practice, and all you need to do is switch so that the home practice becomes more valuable than whatever it is that you’re

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Nyk Danu Yoga: spending time on. And a lot of it is just silly online busying ourselves stuff, you know, Facebook or Netflix, or whatever.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So 1st of all, let’s bust the mist that we have to have 90 min to do this big, long, beautiful practice, and we have to be uninterrupted, and we have to have the best incense, and perhaps the best music. If you practice with music and no small people around, and no noise and come on. Really.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this is not real life.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This is an exotic retreat that you’re just you’re describing here in your own head. So if that’s the kind of myth that you had or the story you had about what it means to have a self-led home practice she’s got to like. Let all that go

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Nyk Danu Yoga: in order to commit to practice. I do recommend that you pick an amount of time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Not that you can’t extend it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Be realistic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but pick an amount of time that you are going to do your practice. Is it 15 min? Is it 30 min? Is it an hour? Is it longer?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Whatever it is, be realistic, and pick that amount of time and stick to it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: even though Netflix is calling, and Instagram is calling.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and there’s always something we need to stay informed on.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But no 15 min, 30 min, an hour.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: hour and a half, if you’ve got it 2 h, if you’ve got it, whatever the time is that you carve out, you need to carve it out, and you need to. Actually, here’s the clincher

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Nyk Danu Yoga: dun dun dun put it in your calendar, I know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because if you don’t put it in your calendar, especially if it’s a new habit. It’s not going to happen.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You’re just going to keep going about life the way that you have been, and you’re going to forget

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Nyk Danu Yoga: once it’s a habit. Then you can take it out of the calendar.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But you pick the time you’re going to practice. Maybe it’s slightly different, you know, on the weekends than it is during the week, and you put it in your calendar with an alert.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a reminder.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you get a reminder the day before, or say you practice in the morning. Maybe you get a reminder in the evening.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, right after dinner time, that oh, tomorrow morning. We’re going to practice. So that you remember. Oh, yeah, I could, I can, you know, let someone else deal with the dishes and go to bed early, or the dishes will still be still. Be there in the morning, I promise you, or I can decide not to watch a whole movie on Netflix and I can go to bed earlier, so that I can practice in the morning

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or vice versa.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, if you’re a nighttime practicer, maybe you like. Okay, I can turn the. I can turn off the screens. And I can settle into my practice. Okay, so first, st I’m going to call bullshit on this, we need 90 min. Perfect silence. Blah! Blah!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Second thing I’m calling bullshit on is that you don’t have time to practice. Yeah, you do. You just take it away from somewhere else that it is not needed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And again, it can be. A short practice does not need to be long. But again, unless you’re a single parent of multiple small children with more than one job, you got time. You’re just not

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Nyk Danu Yoga: spending your time mindfully and skillfully.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You’re spending your time in places where you don’t realize that you’re wasting it, and you could

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Nyk Danu Yoga: pull that back and make it your own that time for your own practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then let’s just talk about environment. I mean, I don’t have a yoga room. I don’t have like a separate. I wish I would love to have a room that was my office. Slash yoga room.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I don’t.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I live in a 2 bedroom apartment, but my partner’s a musician, so he has the second bedroom right now, if you’re watching this on Youtube, you are seeing me in my living room. This is my fireplace behind me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not real fire, just, you know, decorative fireplace.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, that being said because I do a lot of zoom, I don’t have like a real living room, like most people do, because I’m a yogi, like we do have one big comfy chair in the corner. But we don’t have like a couch and a sectional and a TV and all that. No, it’s mostly open floor space, lots of bookshelves.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and this little fireplace that those of you that are watching can see behind me. So there is just room for 2 mats in this living room. If we are strategic for my partner and I to practice together.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But it is not a separate space. It does not have a door

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Nyk Danu Yoga: one of us can’t be practicing while the other one does dishes without hearing it. So you know all of these fantasies that we have are are lovely.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I have that fantasy, too. I would really love like a yoga room that I could also use as my office

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Nyk Danu Yoga: when I’m recording, and I could practice in there. Wouldn’t that be lovely? But I don’t.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you have to make use of what you have.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So maybe it’s a corner of your bedroom. I see a lot of corners of people’s bedrooms now, now that I teach on zoom or corners of guest rooms, or whatever. Or maybe you just kind of move the coffee table out of the way in the living room, and you just sprawl out there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so you don’t need your own individual Yoga room in order to have a practice. If you have that ability great for you, especially those of you that are teachers, then great, enjoy, decorate it, get excited about it, make it somewhere that you genuinely want to hang out and spend time for a long time and and practice in there. But 90% of us that doesn’t happen.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So all you need is a space slightly larger than your yoga mat, that’s all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: In fact, with yin, you don’t even need a yoga mat. You could throw a blanket down.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So let’s bust that myth that we need to have the perfect Yoga environment.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you are choosing to practice while your children are awake and you have small children, you will have to include them in your practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: depending on their age. I had a student that during the Covid times would zoom class with me, but she would just put the kids in the other room with a movie, and then she would come into the next space, and she would, you know she would do Yoga with me. And

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the kids very rarely interrupted.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Because it was only a 90 min practice and they weren’t tiny. Now, of course, if you have small small kids.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, they might be all over you, and so you have choices. Then you either learn to practice with them like I do with kittens.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You learn to step over them, pick them up, move them as needed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And continue with your practice, or you wake up early, or you do it when they’re in bed.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Those are your options.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or if you happen to be working from home and they’re in school, maybe you can sneak in a lunch hour practice. Who knows but you either have to learn to work with the kids being there in the practice and just kind of work around them, or

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you practice when they’re not around. Now, if you don’t have children.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you don’t have small children. Come on. Now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: tell me you don’t have time to practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You’re not prioritizing it, that’s all.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you don’t need the perfect incense. You don’t need a special outfit most often when I’m practicing. I’m in pajamas, especially if it’s in because I like my pajamas, or what I call pajamas. They’re not necessarily actual pajamas, but you know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the clothes that I I wear when I’m bumming around the house, so I’m usually wearing those.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m in my living room

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with kittens crawling all over me, and if my partner is doing something else other than Yoga, I would be hearing, whatever it is he’s doing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This is this is real life.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you want to practice with music. Great.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: if you don’t, great, you don’t need the perfect music.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’re struggling to find music.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: drop me a note, I’ll hook you up. I got a playlist that I love.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So none of these things are actual, real reasons to not practice at home.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And when again, when I say home practice, I’m talking about self-led practice, not, I’ve threw on a video. And now I’m following along with that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, so that’s the sort of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: me calling Bs on all this. I don’t have time. I can’t practice at home stuff.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, why might you want to, though?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Other than, of course, you know, it’s gonna make you a more authentic teacher and help you teach more exceptional classes. It’s gonna help you fill your cup. You might be thinking right now, yeah. But I can get that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I can get filling my cup from watching a an online thing, or, you know, streaming something or other. No, you can’t.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s a predetermined sequence that somebody else created, based on what they thought you might need.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But when you do a home practice that is self-led.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: then you are choosing your own practice, based on your own needs.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So the sequence is based on your needs.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And one of the students in my current round of training

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Nyk Danu Yoga: asked, Okay, but how like? How do I actually do that like? How do I

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Nyk Danu Yoga: decide what poses to do?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Well, how do you decide what poses to do for your students?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Don’t you sit down and write a sequence.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, I’m not saying you need to write a sequence. I don’t in my own practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I’m just saying you already know how to string some poses together. If you’re a teacher now, if you’re a student and you’re not a teacher, this might be a little trickier for you. You might want to follow along

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with a book for a while or a DVD. And then just kind of make some notes about like what poses you liked and what orders you liked, and then eventually, you can kind of put together your own practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But for those of you that are teachers you’re already putting together practices all the time. You just got to put one together for yourself.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or if you want to be more organic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like I am, and I’ll describe that in a moment. Then you can do that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But if you’re like, how do? I don’t know how to get started practicing. Well, how did you get started sequencing for your students.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Didn’t you just sit down with a pen and paper or a computer and type out a sequence?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Same same.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you could do that you could. You know. Sit down, carve out some time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: maybe create a few sequences for you. That kind of are custom

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to your own body to your own needs, to your own goals, to you know your own injuries, tight spots, etc, and then you could have those to refer to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You could do that for sure.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What I do is far more organic than that I.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: As the start of my practice, I sit down on my mat.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I close my eyes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I cross my hands over my heart right hand, 1st because I’m a right-handed person. If you’re a lefty left hand first, st and then the other hand over top.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I 1st start with gratitude. So in this gratitude I’m going to be thanking for the gift of Yoga

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Nyk Danu Yoga: for my time.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the the time that I have to practice for my body, for the teachers that have come before. So I always start with gratitude.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s a whole bunch of neuroscience around gratitude practice and crossing your hands. That could be an episode for a whole other time. So you know, you can check out Rick Hansen’s book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think it’s called Buddha’s brain for more on that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but I always start with gratitude. So I sit down. I get comfortable.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ve usually got my tea. I’ve gone pee already, so none of that’s going to interrupt me, and I sit down, and I do my gratitude. And then, with my hands still in my heart, I ask myself

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Nyk Danu Yoga: questions like, How am I feeling?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Physically, mentally, emotionally, I take a moment to just kind of sit with whatever comes up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then I ask myself, what do I need right now?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What do I need right now from this practice?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What do I need from this practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And that’s how I decide what I’m going to practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe some days this rare nowadays. But maybe some days it’s like, actually, what I need is to get up and stand up and move.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I need to do like a fairly strong kind of half a practice right again, like I said rare nowadays.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but maybe

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or maybe I need a yin practice, or maybe I need just Yoga Nidra, or maybe I need to meditate, or maybe I need a little bit of all of that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So take a moment to sit down with yourself and ask yourself, what do I need?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: How am I feeling mentally, emotionally, physically. And what do I need?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Just like? If you were working with a client, one on one, you would sit down with them at the beginning and ask them how they were doing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you might even ask them, you know, especially at the very beginning of working with them like what their goals were what they were hoping to get out of Yoga practice. So why, why can’t you do that for yourself?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think you can.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So what do I need

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Nyk Danu Yoga: mentally, emotionally, physically. How am I doing? And then that’s how I decide what to practice. Now, I will also say that, generally speaking.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I tend to if I’m you know, a little bit

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Nyk Danu Yoga: brain emptied, and I don’t want to think I tend to do my class recipe.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: which is some sort of forward bending posture. Now, by forward bending posture, I don’t mean stretching your hamstrings per se. I mean child’s pose could be a forward bending posture.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. So something to kind of round the spine forward, something to do, a backbend, some kind of a twist, some kind of a lateral or side pose, and then maybe something for my hips and my butt area. Those are tight always. I always include something for my neck and shoulders and my upper back.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So if I’m struggling because my brain is really tired to come up with like, what do I need? I mean? That’s a great recipe right there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Give yourself a backbend, a twist, a lateral pose, some sort of forward rounding posture. Maybe you work on your neck or shoulders, or some other tight spot. If you’ve got a trouble spot

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that is causing you some drama, maybe you spend a little time there

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then the thing that teachers tend to skip the most

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Nyk Danu Yoga: when they do their home practice. And I’ve been guilty of this is Shavasan.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: or you could also sit in meditation.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I’m gonna just call us all out on that, because I know I’m not alone.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but just like you. Tell your students that this is often the most important part of the practice it still is for you, too.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So set yourself a little timer.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: maybe one with a sound that’s not going to be annoying to, you know. Come out of, and get your meditation, or your Shavasan going, or your note, or your Nidra, or whatever it is.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and you need to close your practice also with some quiet inward time somewhere along the line.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: As we started training Yoga teachers

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Nyk Danu Yoga: we no longer expected them to have a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and this is just one of the many things that I believe has gone wrong in the Yoga verse

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Nyk Danu Yoga: cannot have a depth of teaching.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you don’t have a depth of practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I would argue that there is a big difference between being a Yoga instructor and a Yoga teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Anybody can stand at the front of the room and bark out alignment cues and commands and things.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but it takes a whole other level of presence and maturity and wisdom

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to be at the front of the room and hold brave space.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and to actually guide people from that sense of grounded 1st and personally lived experience that comes from

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Nyk Danu Yoga: having your own practice and sharing from your own experience in your own life.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, I think that might be enough for now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So how do you start a home practice number one

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Nyk Danu Yoga: acknowledge you need a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Really acknowledge that like, don’t just, yeah. Yeah. I know I should probably have a home practice. No, like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m committing that I’m going to have a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s number one. Number 2.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Put it in your calendar, because if it isn’t scheduled, it ain’t real. And it’s not gonna happen you’re gonna get busy, you’re gonna do other things.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then, before you know it. Oh, my God, I didn’t do any practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So put it in your calendar.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Pick a time that is realistic

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and an amount of time that is also realistic. You can always do more. But if you’ve got like little people around and a busy family, and you’re like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll be lucky if I can get 20 min in the morning, or, you know 20 min at night. Then put 20 min in.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You can always do more if you, if it ends up being that you got more time. But be realistic.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: If you’re not realistic with how much time you have, you’re not going to do it. You’re going to feel like you’ve failed at it, and then you’re just going to give up and stop. So number one. Acknowledge you need to practice at home.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Really wrap your head around that. If you are a Yoga teacher. In my humble opinion this is not optional.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Number 2.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Put it in your calendar, decide when is the most realistic, how long and get it scheduled and schedule a reminder or an alert of some sort. Because you will. You won’t remember initially.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You won’t remember, because it’s not part of your habit. Once it becomes habitual where it’s like, Oh, just every night at this time I practice every morning at this time I practice, or every lunch hour, because the kids are in school, and I’m working from home. I practice whatever it is for you like, whatever time. It’s not a habit yet. So put it in your calendar, carve out the right amount of time, and give yourself some sort of an alert. Maybe the night before the morning of if you’re going to do it at night. However many alerts you need

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to do that, and then find a place

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that you can practice. It doesn’t need to be a special yoga place.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. It could be like beside your bed. Be in the guest bedroom could be in a hallway if no one’s using it at the moment. Wherever you can find some space.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: get your props, get your equipment and do that. Now, if you have the privilege of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: a Yoga space or a guest, bedroom or room that’s like an office that you can just like. Leave your props out. That’s a great way to remind yourself to practice. If you can leave your mat rolled out and your props, they’re all kind of organized, all pretty like so that every time that you walk by it. You go right, Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then that’s a great way to help you remember, to practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s like a gentle nudge every time you look at it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Now, that being said, we can all do that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. You may have to roll it up and put it away if you don’t have that space, but for those of you that have the privilege of the space. Leave your stuff set up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: make it pretty, so that every time you walk by you’re like hey! There’s my yoga mat.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then sit down and just get quiet and ask yourself, what do I need?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What do I need from this practice?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What is my body asking for? What is my energy level, asking for? What is my spirit asking for?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then that’s how you decide what to practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I hope that this was helpful.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I do want to say that as a teacher

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Nyk Danu Yoga: there’s nothing wrong with going to someone else’s class.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There’s nothing wrong with occasionally popping on a Youtube thing and doing a practice notice, I said occasionally.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this can be helpful, for you know, inspiration, ideas or community, especially if you’re going out to a class, you know, that can be nice to, kinda especially if you go with a friend or something. Go to a colleague’s class, you know, to build community to build connection. That’s all fine.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but that does not count as your solo led home. Practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s an add-on. That’s a bonus that you can do every once in a while if you want to. As a fun thing

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that doesn’t count as a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Actual home practice is solo led

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and cut yourself some slack. It’s not going to be easy.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And, by the way, if you’re like, if you as a teacher right now, are like, yeah. But whenever I try to do my own practice, my mind is really busy. Yeah, Duh.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: whose mind isn’t busy when they’re trying to practice. Your students are dealing with that all the time when you’re teaching them. They’re dealing with their minds. What makes you think that you get a get out of my mind, card.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We’re all dealing with our brains.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We’re all going to deal with irritation, impatience, frustration, sleepiness, boredom, whatever happens while we’re practicing. This is not an excuse not to practice. Part of dealing with. Yoga is dealing with your mind, and if you didn’t get that in your 200 h, go back to your Patanjali

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and do some reading, because that’s you know, that’s 1 of the 1st

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Nyk Danu Yoga: crosses to bear that we have, as we practice as dealing with our brains.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I hope that you got something out of this gentle smackdown.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: My Yoga teacher. Friends, about practicing at home

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Nyk Danu Yoga: remember to cut yourself some slack and start slow.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but don’t let yourself off the hook.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and some of you. I’ve done this before, where I’ve fallen out of my home practice, where I had like a really dedicated home practice and then stopped for a while. You know, maybe this is a relaunching of your home practice for you. Maybe you used to always have a great home practice, and then somewhere along the line it got pushed aside for cleaning the house, or Netflix, or Facebook, or Instagram, or

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Nyk Danu Yoga: children who knows?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And maybe this is your encouragement to rekindle that love of your home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Your home practice should be a refuge for you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: as a human, as a teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to unfurl your mat, to soothe, to ground, to anchor, to lick your wounds, to heal, so that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you can actually put some good out into the world

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because you cannot pour from an empty cup. Dear Teacher.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: when you try to, it leads to burnout, I know from experience.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, my friends.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: please take this as inspiration. A little gentle kick in the ass to get your own practice going.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and let me know how it goes. If you’re on spotify, you can leave me comments. Let me know how your home practice is going. Was this the gentle kick in the butt that you needed to get a home practice started or to rekindle. You can also always message me on Instagram at Nick, Danuyoga, or at Yan Yoga, podcast

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and let me know how this episode helped. If it helped you to get back on your home practice or to start a home practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and until we meet again, bye, for now