February 3, 2023 • 28 mins
A Glimpse at what a Modern Yoga Teacher Training *Should* Look Like | The Asana Academy Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Aganad (00:00):
Hey guys, it's Brian Aganad.
Really quick announcement beforeI start today's show, I have a
new podcast that's calledMindset Daily, and the whole
goal of the show is to help youbuild a rock solid mindset to
support you in life, support youin your goals, and to help you
become the best version ofyourself possible.
So if you'd like to check thatout, you can go right down into
the show notes and check out thelinks to the show.
(00:22):
So that being said, I would liketo start today's episode and.
The this show today is veryinteresting.
So I recorded a few episodesabout the yoga industry and
about teacher trainings, andI've been highly critical about
teacher trainings in general andhow they prepare teachers.
(00:42):
Now specific show you can goback and listen to does the yoga
industry exploit yoga teachers?
If you haven't listened to it,you should go listen to that.
I said a few things.
About yoga teacher trainingsthat really seem to resonate.
And I got a message onInstagram.
And by the way, if you have aquestion or you want to shoot me
(01:03):
a message, you can DM me onInstagram at Brian aaw there,
and I'll get to it as soon as Ican.
But I got a really interestingmessage from someone and that
question was essentially, Whatdo you think a real yoga teacher
training would look like?
Or what do you think a modernyoga teacher training would look
like?
(01:23):
Like you've got really strongopinions on why teacher
trainings fail, and that istrue.
And I like to be one of thosepeople, and I thought about it.
I like to be one of these peoplein general where I don't like to
just criticize things or becritical of something without
actually offer.
Up a solution.
And so I thought about this andI figured I'd put together a
(01:45):
quick overview of what I think areal teacher training should
have and why it's beneficial.
So I think first and foremost,you have to look at this and say
that how has yoga evolved?
And one of the things that Ilike to do, as in my approach is
rooted, I'm classically trainedas an.
For those of you guys who don'tknow, I, my mindset is really
(02:08):
how can I upgrade things?
How can I improve things?
How can I make things betterbased on the feedback that I
get?
And that tends to be myphilosophy with all of my
trainings.
And for example, like with BodyBreakthrough over the years, you
start to notice patterns and youstart to see things in.
The program that you oncethought were a good idea.
(02:30):
And then as you evolve and asyou get real time feedback, you
start to see how you can makethat even better and you can
improve on that situation.
And it's one of the things I sawtoo.
And for Body breakthrough, we gothrough extensively p people's
anatomies, like with ourclients.
We go through their anatomy andwe figure out what's not.
(02:52):
and what muscles aren'tactivating.
And we go, basically it's likea, it's like a deep kind of
overview, so to speak, of allthe muscles in the body and how
they work and what's not workingcorrectly and what's not working
in the context of the body andto help them to rebuild their
body and then use presshandstand as that physical.
(03:14):
Physical walking proof thattheir body is now balanced,
right?
And a press handstand is a verygreat tool for a balanced body,
right?
If you can do a press handstand,your body's pretty balanced.
There's a lot of things that,that if your body is a little
messed up, you won't be able tolift yourself.
Now, what I did notice is as aresult of having muscular of
(03:36):
people having muscles operatingin the wrong way, or not
operating the correct.
They had, they would have theseneurological patterns or these
weaker tendencies that wouldprevent their body from moving.
So it wasn't just good enough tosay, this is how you engage a
muscle and this is how you doit.
(03:56):
You have to take a step backbecause if people have weak
muscles and they go and theyjust start doing things to make
the muscle engage or doingexercises under the As.
That their muscle will justcatch on and do something.
If it hasn't been doing it foryears and in some cases decades,
you'll get injured.
And so once I realized that, Isaw, okay, so some people are
(04:16):
pushing way too hard, way toofast and ending up getting
injured.
We have to improve this processso that way someone who hasn't.
Used a muscle in a correct waycan ease into it and start to
build up that pattern moreefficiently.
And you start to makecorrections, right?
And then you start to see othercorrections on things like,
that's just the big one I liketo look at.
I'm like, okay, cool.
So what's the issue?
(04:37):
How can we improve it?
How can we make it better sothat people in the future.
Have a better experience.
And if you constantly do that,your product and what you offer
continuously gets better, right?
So that, that to me is myphilosophy on things, which is
improve them and make thembetter.
And I can go through numerouscases where my opinion changes
(05:00):
when the facts change.
So when I start to see things,When I start to see things that
kind of change, that counter mypoint of view, then I start to
change my point of view so thatI can tweak things and make them
better.
So really good example of thisis like teacher training.
Now back to what I hadoriginally said, you have to
(05:20):
look at the way yoga has evolvedand the way the yoga industry
has evolved over the years.
Now what yoga classes lookedlike.
A decade ago, or maybe even 15years ago, is very different
from what they look like today.
They're also the type of peoplethat practice yoga are also very
(05:41):
different, right?
And they want different things.
And for better or for worse,yoga has become, An industry,
and yoga's become commoditized.
But that doesn't meannecessarily that all commodities
have to be bad.
There's, that doesn'tnecessarily mean it's gone down
the drain.
It actually means the benefit ofsomething being commoditized is
(06:02):
that it's brought out to themasses.
And yoga is very beneficial whenyou can bring it out to the
masses in that way.
So understanding that you wouldsay, in order to prepare in
order to prepare a yoga teacher.
And I'm gonna operate under theassumption, this is the other
assumption that I'm operatingunder.
If I was ever to do a yogateacher training again, I still
(06:26):
these are the things that Iwould do.
And I think when you're creatingyoga training for teachers,
there is, there should be anelement that takes into account.
Where the industry is going andwhere we are now.
Now, some kind of evolution.
The yoga alliance holds, theyoga teacher training, the
(06:48):
complete the yoga teachertraining's back because most
people feel completely beholdento these outdated standards and
regulations and things youshould be teaching in order to
become a yoga teacher.
And 99% of them are not evenrelevant for yoga teachers
today, right?
So first and foremost number.
(07:10):
Number one, there has to be afocus on marketing and sales.
I'm gonna start right there.
So yoga teachers today, evenvery good yoga teachers, do not
understand that you'reultimately, when you become a
teacher, you're in the business.
(07:31):
Of working for yourself, right?
You are your product.
And that means like anybusiness, if you don't market
the product correctly, if youdon't sell the product
correctly, nobody's gonna buyit.
And that's like it.
That's with anything, right?
There has to be marketing andthere has to be sales that go
into it.
But there's nothing that,there's nothing in a yoga
(07:54):
teacher training that teaches ayoga teacher.
how to market themselves, how tosell themselves, how to create
products, right?
And you may say, like you, youmay say certain things like they
encourage you to have a websiteor a business card or these
kinds of things, or get onsocial media, but that doesn't
(08:16):
do anything to market or sell.
That's the, those kind of thingsare just baseline these days.
Like marketing and selling.
Things like how do I run anemail marketing list?
How?
How do I keep in touch with mystudents at scale?
How do I build an email list?
How do I keep hold of my clientsand my students so that I can
(08:39):
interact with them?
What do I do with that emaillist when I have it?
How do I create products to sellto that list?
How do I take my knowledge andmy skillset?
And be able to properly turnwhat I, the skills I've acquired
into products that I can tellthem.
(09:00):
So tell them so I can sell them.
The goal of a teacher is notjust to be teaching classes for
the rest of your life, right?
Like that.
That gets tiresome real quick.
But the goal is to be able toexpand.
Your knowledge base, right?
And take the knowledge and takewhat you've learned from
(09:22):
teaching yoga classes and thenbundle up all that knowledge
into other products that you canthen sell so that you have a,
you're able to make moneyindependent of your time, right?
So the dilemma that most yogateachers face is that they are
trading their time for money,meaning they have to give.
(09:46):
they have to show up andphysically teach something in
order to make money.
And as a bi and as a byproductof that, they get exhausted and
there's no, they can't createany leverage for themselves.
And it's like you go onvacation, you make no money, you
can't, and you start to feelchained.
You get stuck in that cycle of,I must trade time for money.
That's a bad trade in the longrun because the amount of time
(10:09):
you have in this world isfinite.
It's.
It's limited, but the amount ofmoney in this world is infinite,
right?
So you're effectively trading afinite resource for an infinite
resource, which is ultimately abad trade.
So you have to move beyond thatand in order to make any of that
happen.
(10:30):
That's marketing and sales,right?
So that's number one.
Number two is right along theselines of there has to be some
kind of training.
There has to be something in thetraining that teaches yoga
teachers how to leveragetechnology.
Like the problem with anyindustry, and it's not just
yoga, this is any industry.
(10:51):
They tend to shun moderntechnology.
Like they tend to look at it asa threat versus an asset and how
they can improve the way theyoperate.
Like a great example, like I sawlike schools, and this is the
education system.
The education system iscompletely out.
Also, by the way and it, theeducation system does not
prepare kids in any way, shapeor form to succeed in this
(11:14):
world.
In fact, I think they do adisservice to them.
And one of the things that I sawis schools are banning chat.
G P t I don't know if you arefamiliar with that, but chat, g
p t is, it's like an AI softwareand you can go look at it and
play with it.
That essentially solves problemsfor you.
It can.
Essays, all sorts.
It can do anything.
(11:35):
You ask it basically like youcan, like if you wanted to do
legal writing, if you need ademand letter written, it'll
write a demand letter.
If you want it to solve calculusproblems, you just type in the
problem, it solves it.
And so kids were starting to usechat G p T to get some of their
work done.
Now, my issue with that, AI iscutting edge technology and it's
(11:56):
here to stay.
That's not going, it's not goinganywhere.
So rather than banning thesoftware, why not get with the
Times ASAP and start trainingthese kids how to operate and
how to function in an AI world,right?
Limiting their use to technologydoes not enhanced their ability
to succeed in this world.
It inhibits it, right?
(12:18):
Why block or why inhibit?
Things that would help, thathelp move the world forward.
And the argument would besomething along the lines of I
want them to do the mathproblems themselves.
I want them to write out themath themselves and do it by
hand.
Yeah, but that's outdated.
Like, why would they do that?
The reality is why, right?
(12:38):
You're training them to dosomething that's outdated and
not useful anymore.
Which is the reality of it istrain them to use the te.
right?
Train them to use the technologyso that they have the tools and
the knowledge to apply it to theworld.
The world will move on with AIand so will the kids one day.
So train'em to use it instead oftraining them to do something
(12:58):
obsolete.
Same thing with yoga, right?
Like you got to leverage thetechnology and teach them like
there's nothing there.
There is nothing that isavailable to yoga teachers.
Teaches them not only likenever, like nevermind, never
(13:19):
mind the marketing, the sales,but how do you take what you
know and turn it into a product,turn it into a course, turn it
into a coaching program, turn itinto something of value, right?
How do you take the knowledgethat you've acquired and turn it
into value, right?
That's what we, that's what wedo in our business Growth
Accelerator Mastermind.
(13:39):
We.
We help teachers with that.
We help yoga teachers, coachesany sorts of people, personal
trainers, anyone who hasknowledge of this way turn it
into a course.
There's nothing like that in anykind of yoga teacher training
that even gives teachersremotely the tools or the skills
(14:00):
to leverage what they know andturn it into products, right?
And then nevermind.
but then all of the tools andtechnology available.
Like it's amazing that I, it'samazing that I see, like when,
when we work with yoga teachersand we work with a lot of really
talented yoga teachers, right?
(14:21):
And they're very good at whatthey do, but they're completely
misinformed on technology.
Like they have no idea about howto use course building software,
right?
They have no idea.
About how to use tools to createproducts, and these are things,
this is how you monetize yourbrand.
These are things that you do tomonetize the skills that you
(14:44):
create, right?
And yeah the thing with yo, thething with teaching yoga classes
is that the goal of yoga classesis to not get paid well,
breaking news for you yogateachers listening to this is,
Teaching a yoga class, you'llnever get paid.
Teaching a yoga class and you'llnever get rich teaching yoga
classes.
But what you will get rich inwhen you teach enough yoga
(15:08):
classes is knowledge.
You will learn things from beingin the field, so to speak, and
teaching these classes and thesethings.
You become rich with knowledge,but then the question is, what
do you do with that?
That's when you can go and youcan turn these things into
products and you can turn thesethings.
into very valuable, pro coachingprograms, online courses, four
(15:32):
to six week, eight weekchallenges, things that are
actually going to improve thelives of other people and at the
same time improve and improveyour life in the process.
that's a big one, is learn isleveraging the technology is a
really big one.
Number three.
Number three, I would say therehas to be, there, there has to
(15:55):
be some sort of mindset trainingin teacher trainings for
teachers like they need.
And when I say mindset training,I don't mean I, I don't mean,
and I know people are gonna nailme to the.
For this, as they always do whatI don't mean is they don't need
to read every book on Easternphilosophy that, teaches them
(16:18):
some mantra or something someonesaid 10,000 years ago.
I would argue that the historyof yoga is becoming more
irrelevant than ever and nobodyreally cares about the history
of yoga these days.
Nobody really care.
About what historical yoga booksyou've read, because teaching
classes, people don't show up toteach, to take classes for a
(16:39):
history lesson.
And a lot of that just holds, alot of, that just holds people
back.
If there's anything that'soutdated, it's yoga history,
right?
Like it's great to study thehistory.
It's great to understand thehistory, but the point of
understanding history is how youcan learn from it, not repeat
it.
And that's the issue with mostof that.
That's the issue with most ofthese.
Set sequenced series that areout there is Ashtanga is
(17:04):
notoriously bad for injuringpeople.
That doesn't change.
That'll never change.
That'll be the same sequence ahundred years from now.
They'll die on that hiltz beforethey ever change it.
And anyway, you've got all thesesequences that haven't changed.
They haven't evolved in any way,shape or form.
They're exactly the same.
The problem is that the problemis that history is war shifted
(17:26):
instead of learned from.
And it's our opportunity to say,all right, it's time to upgrade
it, it's time to upgrade ourthinking on this and realize
okay, the biggest the biggestbenefits to yoga are.
Are not these things that arenot, these things that are
spewed in history books, I'msorry to say, but the mindset
(17:47):
has to be like the mindset of ayoga teacher has to be really
solid.
And what I mean by that israther than learning yoga
history learning how.
learning how yoga affects ourphysiology and how physiology
affects our mind, right?
Like when we change ourphysiology, we can change our,
we can change the way we think,we can change the way we feel.
(18:08):
We can change the way we arebiochemically, right?
Like yoga poses do that to us,right?
They change our physiology, andby default, it changes our
biochemistry, which changes theway we think, changes the way we
feel, changes our stress,response changes all sorts.
Yes.
And that's something that issomething that is far more
beneficial to, as a skillsetfrom a teacher versus being able
(18:31):
to quote lines from somehistorical text, right?
Leave that to the yogahistorians and let them do that.
But as a teacher trying tobenefit students understanding
how.
Yoga changes your physiology andhow when you change your
physiology, you can change yourstate, you can change your mind,
you can change all sorts ofthings that's directly
applicable to students that youwork with, that's directly
(18:53):
applicable to clients thatyou'll work with.
And that's knowledge thatbenefits you directly in the
field, right?
So getting into those types, getgetting into those types.
Like deeper mindset things isreally powerful.
It's really powerful.
And then, in four, I have awhole list of these things and I
(19:14):
fear this episode's gonna go forhours if I just keep talking,
but maybe I'll leave it at thisat a fourth one.
But the other thing that has tochange in trainings is it has to
be less focused on the poses.
It has to be less awesome offocused and.
it has to be more anatomyfocused.
Meaning, meaning yoga.
(19:36):
Teachers today don't understandhow the human body works.
They understand poses, theyunderstand and like I said and
lots of you actually agreed withthis point is most of the quote
unquote, learning anatomy in, inPO in trainings is, this is the
pose, right?
And this is the muscle itstretches.
(19:57):
And that's about as far as itgoes.
And.
What do new yoga teachers do?
They just memorize cues.
They just say they told me, grabthe big toe with the middle two
fingers.
They told me to broaden mycollarbones.
They told me to shine my armsand heart like wings.
And then they just regurgitatethose things.
But they have no realunderstanding of what's actually
going on in the body, right?
(20:17):
Like critical understanding,which is how functional anatomy
influences what we do.
How does it affect the body ifyou change the alignment in this
pose, right?
Take half moon how would yourbody be effective if instead of
facing the right toesstraightforward, you angle them
in 30 degrees?
How would that affect themuscles that engage in the pose?
(20:38):
Or things like that, make thingslike that make a big difference.
And it's, and a lot of it too isnot just pose it like pose and q
focus.
But it's also very likealignment focused.
Like this is the ideal alignmentand it's one of the things I
teach.
It's one of the things that Iteach in Body Breakthrough is to
(21:00):
not be overly dependent onalignment.
Alignment is a substitute forstrength and at the long end.
The bigger picture of thesethings here is that alignment.
If you become dependent,Alignment.
Your body doesn't have a chanceto get stronger.
And the definition of strengthis how well you can hold
(21:21):
yourself when you're misaligned,right?
What good does the functionalbody do for you?
If the only position your bodywas safe in standing in was the
correct ideal alignment forWarrior two, right?
If your body couldn't withstandthe knee buckling in a little.
Without ripping every ligamentin the knee, tweaking your lower
(21:41):
back and jacking up your neck.
Are you really strong?
No.
So there's this level of focusand on there's this
over-emphasis on the poses andthe alignment of the poses and
the cues that you're supposed tosay in the class, but no real
focus on how the body.
(22:01):
Actually works, right?
The functional side of things isbeing able to look at somebody's
body physically, and to say Ican see based on how they're
walking, that this is an issuefor them.
I can see based on their posturehere that is an issue for them.
I can see how this affects that,and this is affecting this.
Like those are things that makea huge difference.
(22:23):
Those are things that make areal big.
In your body and with yogateachers started to understand
that they would be held in amuch higher esteem in people's
minds.
I think the I think the, one ofthe fundamental problems with
yoga is that you've got a lot ofprofessions.
That you've got a lot ofprofessions that you know, work
(22:45):
on the human body, holisticprofessions that work on the
human body, and.
They take their craft veryseriously, right?
You can go to an osteopath, youcan go to a chiropractor, you
can go to these kinds of peopleand holistic doctors, and they
understand the body really well.
They take their craft seriously,but sometimes and this is
(23:08):
people's experience with yoga,unfortunately, is you have a lot
of chronic, you have it's achronic issue.
There are yoga teachers that arecompletely ill-equipped to be
teaching people in theclassroom, in a classroom
setting.
And sometimes that's people'sfirst experience with yoga and
they realize, God, this teacheris awful.
All of yoga must be awful.
And it's not true.
(23:28):
It's not true, but that's theirexperience because the craft is
not taken seriously.
To really understand and toreally push past these things
takes a complete radical, takesa complete radical overhaul in
what you do and how you learnand how you approach it.
And I think like those fourthings alone, if teachers had
(23:52):
those skills, like if theylegitimately had those, The yoga
teaching as a whole would getbetter.
And I think from, as anoverview, what has to change is
like the goal of a yoga teachertraining and maybe this is part
of the issue too, is that thegoal of a yoga teacher training,
(24:15):
is just to prepare them to teachyoga in a class, right?
Just show up to teach in a yogaclass, teach a class, be able to
get through a 60 minute class,right?
And you're good enough.
But the bar has to be a littlehigher.
And I think the yoga industryand teaching as a whole would
get better if the goal of yogateacher trainings was not just
how to teach a.
(24:36):
but how to actually make aliving.
How to make a full-time livingteaching yoga.
And that means you've gottalearn a lot more skills and the
training has to be a lot morecomplete and a lot more solid.
And that's that right there ishow you would make the entire
industry better.
There's not very many yogateachers that are able to teach
(25:01):
full.
And take care of themselves verywell and solely focus on
improving their craft andgetting better and better.
And that's the real, and that'sthe reality most, most people
who teach can't supportthemselves, number one, because
they're underpaid.
But number two, they don't havethe skills to create more income
through what they're learning.
So they end up distinct, stuckin a job.
(25:22):
And then if you're working a joball the time, the yoga and what
you do is just the secondarything, right?
It's not this all powerful.
that you do that helps you, thatbasically becomes your career.
So those are my thoughts.
I have a lot more on I have alot more of what needs to go
into training, but those aresome key things that really
(25:47):
that, that are necessary foryoga teachers in today's age,
like absolutely necessary, whichis marketing and sales, learning
the technology mindset.
Really that the right mindsetand even one thing I didn't say
on that third point is moneymindset is actually working and
coaching yoga teachers to, tounderstand that making money is
(26:08):
not bad and you shouldn't feelevil or demonized or villainized
for teaching yoga as much as thepeople in the industry would
like to tell you.
Asking for money makes yougreedy.
It doesn't, asking for moneydoesn't make you greedy.
It.
It is what it's what's necessaryto live the rising cost of
everything, makes it even morecritical.
(26:29):
And getting paid what you'reworth is should be the primary
thing.
Because when you get paid whatyou're worth and you're able to
support yourself, you can helpother people better because now
you've got yourself taken careof.
So that's all I've got.
I'll forward you on today's showagain, if you.
Comments, questions, thingsyou'd like to share.
(26:49):
Find me on Instagram@brianaganad.
You can find me there.
If you'd like to check out BodyBreakthrough, if you want to go
through that process of learninga press handstand and work with
me through that and go throughthe entire anatomical experience
in getting to learn your bodyand how it works, I'll put.
(27:11):
in the show notes to that.
So you can check that out.
You can also head over to formore information,
www.theasanaacademy.com/apply.
That'swww.theasanaacademy.com/apply.
Or if you are a yoga teachersome kind of coach or you do
anything where you're teachingyou're teaching or working with
(27:33):
clients hour.
We do have what's called theBusiness Growth Accelerator
Mastermind, which arms you withall of these tools that shows
you how to turn your expertiseinto an online coaching program,
shows you how to sell it, etcetera, et cetera.
And we even have we even haveoptions where we'll just build
everything for you if you areinto that.
(27:55):
If technology is not your thingat all, we, my team will just.
Everything for you, assumingthat you've got a, assuming that
you've got a good fit, and youget access to the Mastermind too
to learn how to do that andlearn how to grow your business
that way.
So that's all I've got for youon today's show.
If this was beneficial for you,please do share it with
(28:16):
somebody, share it with the yogateacher.
Share it with someone in theyoga industry that you know, a
friend of yours, have themlisten.
It and then take some time toleave a review on the podcast.
That would be really great.
And then find me on Instagram,find me over there at Brian ak
and we'll stay in touch thatway, and I will talk to you
soon.
Hey guys, it's Brian Aganad.
Really quick announcement beforeI start today's show, I have a
new podcast that's calledMindset Daily, and the whole
goal of the show is to help youbuild a rock solid mindset to
support you in life, support youin your goals, and to help you
become the best version ofyourself possible.
So if you'd like to check thatout, you can go right down into
the show notes and check out thelinks to the show.
(00:22):
So that being said, I would liketo start today's episode and.
The this show today is veryinteresting.
So I recorded a few episodesabout the yoga industry and
about teacher trainings, andI've been highly critical about
teacher trainings in general andhow they prepare teachers.
(00:42):
Now specific show you can goback and listen to does the yoga
industry exploit yoga teachers?
If you haven't listened to it,you should go listen to that.
I said a few things.
About yoga teacher trainingsthat really seem to resonate.
And I got a message onInstagram.
And by the way, if you have aquestion or you want to shoot me
(01:03):
a message, you can DM me onInstagram at Brian aaw there,
and I'll get to it as soon as Ican.
But I got a really interestingmessage from someone and that
question was essentially, Whatdo you think a real yoga teacher
training would look like?
Or what do you think a modernyoga teacher training would look
like?
(01:23):
Like you've got really strongopinions on why teacher
trainings fail, and that istrue.
And I like to be one of thosepeople, and I thought about it.
I like to be one of these peoplein general where I don't like to
just criticize things or becritical of something without
actually offer.
Up a solution.
And so I thought about this andI figured I'd put together a
(01:45):
quick overview of what I think areal teacher training should
have and why it's beneficial.
So I think first and foremost,you have to look at this and say
that how has yoga evolved?
And one of the things that Ilike to do, as in my approach is
rooted, I'm classically trainedas an.
For those of you guys who don'tknow, I, my mindset is really
(02:08):
how can I upgrade things?
How can I improve things?
How can I make things betterbased on the feedback that I
get?
And that tends to be myphilosophy with all of my
trainings.
And for example, like with BodyBreakthrough over the years, you
start to notice patterns and youstart to see things in.
The program that you oncethought were a good idea.
(02:30):
And then as you evolve and asyou get real time feedback, you
start to see how you can makethat even better and you can
improve on that situation.
And it's one of the things I sawtoo.
And for Body breakthrough, we gothrough extensively p people's
anatomies, like with ourclients.
We go through their anatomy andwe figure out what's not.
(02:52):
and what muscles aren'tactivating.
And we go, basically it's likea, it's like a deep kind of
overview, so to speak, of allthe muscles in the body and how
they work and what's not workingcorrectly and what's not working
in the context of the body andto help them to rebuild their
body and then use presshandstand as that physical.
(03:14):
Physical walking proof thattheir body is now balanced,
right?
And a press handstand is a verygreat tool for a balanced body,
right?
If you can do a press handstand,your body's pretty balanced.
There's a lot of things that,that if your body is a little
messed up, you won't be able tolift yourself.
Now, what I did notice is as aresult of having muscular of
(03:36):
people having muscles operatingin the wrong way, or not
operating the correct.
They had, they would have theseneurological patterns or these
weaker tendencies that wouldprevent their body from moving.
So it wasn't just good enough tosay, this is how you engage a
muscle and this is how you doit.
(03:56):
You have to take a step backbecause if people have weak
muscles and they go and theyjust start doing things to make
the muscle engage or doingexercises under the As.
That their muscle will justcatch on and do something.
If it hasn't been doing it foryears and in some cases decades,
you'll get injured.
And so once I realized that, Isaw, okay, so some people are
(04:16):
pushing way too hard, way toofast and ending up getting
injured.
We have to improve this processso that way someone who hasn't.
Used a muscle in a correct waycan ease into it and start to
build up that pattern moreefficiently.
And you start to makecorrections, right?
And then you start to see othercorrections on things like,
that's just the big one I liketo look at.
I'm like, okay, cool.
So what's the issue?
(04:37):
How can we improve it?
How can we make it better sothat people in the future.
Have a better experience.
And if you constantly do that,your product and what you offer
continuously gets better, right?
So that, that to me is myphilosophy on things, which is
improve them and make thembetter.
And I can go through numerouscases where my opinion changes
(05:00):
when the facts change.
So when I start to see things,When I start to see things that
kind of change, that counter mypoint of view, then I start to
change my point of view so thatI can tweak things and make them
better.
So really good example of thisis like teacher training.
Now back to what I hadoriginally said, you have to
(05:20):
look at the way yoga has evolvedand the way the yoga industry
has evolved over the years.
Now what yoga classes lookedlike.
A decade ago, or maybe even 15years ago, is very different
from what they look like today.
They're also the type of peoplethat practice yoga are also very
(05:41):
different, right?
And they want different things.
And for better or for worse,yoga has become, An industry,
and yoga's become commoditized.
But that doesn't meannecessarily that all commodities
have to be bad.
There's, that doesn'tnecessarily mean it's gone down
the drain.
It actually means the benefit ofsomething being commoditized is
(06:02):
that it's brought out to themasses.
And yoga is very beneficial whenyou can bring it out to the
masses in that way.
So understanding that you wouldsay, in order to prepare in
order to prepare a yoga teacher.
And I'm gonna operate under theassumption, this is the other
assumption that I'm operatingunder.
If I was ever to do a yogateacher training again, I still
(06:26):
these are the things that Iwould do.
And I think when you're creatingyoga training for teachers,
there is, there should be anelement that takes into account.
Where the industry is going andwhere we are now.
Now, some kind of evolution.
The yoga alliance holds, theyoga teacher training, the
(06:48):
complete the yoga teachertraining's back because most
people feel completely beholdento these outdated standards and
regulations and things youshould be teaching in order to
become a yoga teacher.
And 99% of them are not evenrelevant for yoga teachers
today, right?
So first and foremost number.
(07:10):
Number one, there has to be afocus on marketing and sales.
I'm gonna start right there.
So yoga teachers today, evenvery good yoga teachers, do not
understand that you'reultimately, when you become a
teacher, you're in the business.
(07:31):
Of working for yourself, right?
You are your product.
And that means like anybusiness, if you don't market
the product correctly, if youdon't sell the product
correctly, nobody's gonna buyit.
And that's like it.
That's with anything, right?
There has to be marketing andthere has to be sales that go
into it.
But there's nothing that,there's nothing in a yoga
(07:54):
teacher training that teaches ayoga teacher.
how to market themselves, how tosell themselves, how to create
products, right?
And you may say, like you, youmay say certain things like they
encourage you to have a websiteor a business card or these
kinds of things, or get onsocial media, but that doesn't
(08:16):
do anything to market or sell.
That's the, those kind of thingsare just baseline these days.
Like marketing and selling.
Things like how do I run anemail marketing list?
How?
How do I keep in touch with mystudents at scale?
How do I build an email list?
How do I keep hold of my clientsand my students so that I can
(08:39):
interact with them?
What do I do with that emaillist when I have it?
How do I create products to sellto that list?
How do I take my knowledge andmy skillset?
And be able to properly turnwhat I, the skills I've acquired
into products that I can tellthem.
(09:00):
So tell them so I can sell them.
The goal of a teacher is notjust to be teaching classes for
the rest of your life, right?
Like that.
That gets tiresome real quick.
But the goal is to be able toexpand.
Your knowledge base, right?
And take the knowledge and takewhat you've learned from
(09:22):
teaching yoga classes and thenbundle up all that knowledge
into other products that you canthen sell so that you have a,
you're able to make moneyindependent of your time, right?
So the dilemma that most yogateachers face is that they are
trading their time for money,meaning they have to give.
(09:46):
they have to show up andphysically teach something in
order to make money.
And as a bi and as a byproductof that, they get exhausted and
there's no, they can't createany leverage for themselves.
And it's like you go onvacation, you make no money, you
can't, and you start to feelchained.
You get stuck in that cycle of,I must trade time for money.
That's a bad trade in the longrun because the amount of time
(10:09):
you have in this world isfinite.
It's.
It's limited, but the amount ofmoney in this world is infinite,
right?
So you're effectively trading afinite resource for an infinite
resource, which is ultimately abad trade.
So you have to move beyond thatand in order to make any of that
happen.
(10:30):
That's marketing and sales,right?
So that's number one.
Number two is right along theselines of there has to be some
kind of training.
There has to be something in thetraining that teaches yoga
teachers how to leveragetechnology.
Like the problem with anyindustry, and it's not just
yoga, this is any industry.
(10:51):
They tend to shun moderntechnology.
Like they tend to look at it asa threat versus an asset and how
they can improve the way theyoperate.
Like a great example, like I sawlike schools, and this is the
education system.
The education system iscompletely out.
Also, by the way and it, theeducation system does not
prepare kids in any way, shapeor form to succeed in this
(11:14):
world.
In fact, I think they do adisservice to them.
And one of the things that I sawis schools are banning chat.
G P t I don't know if you arefamiliar with that, but chat, g
p t is, it's like an AI softwareand you can go look at it and
play with it.
That essentially solves problemsfor you.
It can.
Essays, all sorts.
It can do anything.
(11:35):
You ask it basically like youcan, like if you wanted to do
legal writing, if you need ademand letter written, it'll
write a demand letter.
If you want it to solve calculusproblems, you just type in the
problem, it solves it.
And so kids were starting to usechat G p T to get some of their
work done.
Now, my issue with that, AI iscutting edge technology and it's
(11:56):
here to stay.
That's not going, it's not goinganywhere.
So rather than banning thesoftware, why not get with the
Times ASAP and start trainingthese kids how to operate and
how to function in an AI world,right?
Limiting their use to technologydoes not enhanced their ability
to succeed in this world.
It inhibits it, right?
(12:18):
Why block or why inhibit?
Things that would help, thathelp move the world forward.
And the argument would besomething along the lines of I
want them to do the mathproblems themselves.
I want them to write out themath themselves and do it by
hand.
Yeah, but that's outdated.
Like, why would they do that?
The reality is why, right?
(12:38):
You're training them to dosomething that's outdated and
not useful anymore.
Which is the reality of it istrain them to use the te.
right?
Train them to use the technologyso that they have the tools and
the knowledge to apply it to theworld.
The world will move on with AIand so will the kids one day.
So train'em to use it instead oftraining them to do something
(12:58):
obsolete.
Same thing with yoga, right?
Like you got to leverage thetechnology and teach them like
there's nothing there.
There is nothing that isavailable to yoga teachers.
Teaches them not only likenever, like nevermind, never
(13:19):
mind the marketing, the sales,but how do you take what you
know and turn it into a product,turn it into a course, turn it
into a coaching program, turn itinto something of value, right?
How do you take the knowledgethat you've acquired and turn it
into value, right?
That's what we, that's what wedo in our business Growth
Accelerator Mastermind.
(13:39):
We.
We help teachers with that.
We help yoga teachers, coachesany sorts of people, personal
trainers, anyone who hasknowledge of this way turn it
into a course.
There's nothing like that in anykind of yoga teacher training
that even gives teachersremotely the tools or the skills
(14:00):
to leverage what they know andturn it into products, right?
And then nevermind.
but then all of the tools andtechnology available.
Like it's amazing that I, it'samazing that I see, like when,
when we work with yoga teachersand we work with a lot of really
talented yoga teachers, right?
(14:21):
And they're very good at whatthey do, but they're completely
misinformed on technology.
Like they have no idea about howto use course building software,
right?
They have no idea.
About how to use tools to createproducts, and these are things,
this is how you monetize yourbrand.
These are things that you do tomonetize the skills that you
(14:44):
create, right?
And yeah the thing with yo, thething with teaching yoga classes
is that the goal of yoga classesis to not get paid well,
breaking news for you yogateachers listening to this is,
Teaching a yoga class, you'llnever get paid.
Teaching a yoga class and you'llnever get rich teaching yoga
classes.
But what you will get rich inwhen you teach enough yoga
(15:08):
classes is knowledge.
You will learn things from beingin the field, so to speak, and
teaching these classes and thesethings.
You become rich with knowledge,but then the question is, what
do you do with that?
That's when you can go and youcan turn these things into
products and you can turn thesethings.
into very valuable, pro coachingprograms, online courses, four
(15:32):
to six week, eight weekchallenges, things that are
actually going to improve thelives of other people and at the
same time improve and improveyour life in the process.
that's a big one, is learn isleveraging the technology is a
really big one.
Number three.
Number three, I would say therehas to be, there, there has to
(15:55):
be some sort of mindset trainingin teacher trainings for
teachers like they need.
And when I say mindset training,I don't mean I, I don't mean,
and I know people are gonna nailme to the.
For this, as they always do whatI don't mean is they don't need
to read every book on Easternphilosophy that, teaches them
(16:18):
some mantra or something someonesaid 10,000 years ago.
I would argue that the historyof yoga is becoming more
irrelevant than ever and nobodyreally cares about the history
of yoga these days.
Nobody really care.
About what historical yoga booksyou've read, because teaching
classes, people don't show up toteach, to take classes for a
(16:39):
history lesson.
And a lot of that just holds, alot of, that just holds people
back.
If there's anything that'soutdated, it's yoga history,
right?
Like it's great to study thehistory.
It's great to understand thehistory, but the point of
understanding history is how youcan learn from it, not repeat
it.
And that's the issue with mostof that.
That's the issue with most ofthese.
Set sequenced series that areout there is Ashtanga is
(17:04):
notoriously bad for injuringpeople.
That doesn't change.
That'll never change.
That'll be the same sequence ahundred years from now.
They'll die on that hiltz beforethey ever change it.
And anyway, you've got all thesesequences that haven't changed.
They haven't evolved in any way,shape or form.
They're exactly the same.
The problem is that the problemis that history is war shifted
(17:26):
instead of learned from.
And it's our opportunity to say,all right, it's time to upgrade
it, it's time to upgrade ourthinking on this and realize
okay, the biggest the biggestbenefits to yoga are.
Are not these things that arenot, these things that are
spewed in history books, I'msorry to say, but the mindset
(17:47):
has to be like the mindset of ayoga teacher has to be really
solid.
And what I mean by that israther than learning yoga
history learning how.
learning how yoga affects ourphysiology and how physiology
affects our mind, right?
Like when we change ourphysiology, we can change our,
we can change the way we think,we can change the way we feel.
(18:08):
We can change the way we arebiochemically, right?
Like yoga poses do that to us,right?
They change our physiology, andby default, it changes our
biochemistry, which changes theway we think, changes the way we
feel, changes our stress,response changes all sorts.
Yes.
And that's something that issomething that is far more
beneficial to, as a skillsetfrom a teacher versus being able
(18:31):
to quote lines from somehistorical text, right?
Leave that to the yogahistorians and let them do that.
But as a teacher trying tobenefit students understanding
how.
Yoga changes your physiology andhow when you change your
physiology, you can change yourstate, you can change your mind,
you can change all sorts ofthings that's directly
applicable to students that youwork with, that's directly
(18:53):
applicable to clients thatyou'll work with.
And that's knowledge thatbenefits you directly in the
field, right?
So getting into those types, getgetting into those types.
Like deeper mindset things isreally powerful.
It's really powerful.
And then, in four, I have awhole list of these things and I
(19:14):
fear this episode's gonna go forhours if I just keep talking,
but maybe I'll leave it at thisat a fourth one.
But the other thing that has tochange in trainings is it has to
be less focused on the poses.
It has to be less awesome offocused and.
it has to be more anatomyfocused.
Meaning, meaning yoga.
(19:36):
Teachers today don't understandhow the human body works.
They understand poses, theyunderstand and like I said and
lots of you actually agreed withthis point is most of the quote
unquote, learning anatomy in, inPO in trainings is, this is the
pose, right?
And this is the muscle itstretches.
(19:57):
And that's about as far as itgoes.
And.
What do new yoga teachers do?
They just memorize cues.
They just say they told me, grabthe big toe with the middle two
fingers.
They told me to broaden mycollarbones.
They told me to shine my armsand heart like wings.
And then they just regurgitatethose things.
But they have no realunderstanding of what's actually
going on in the body, right?
(20:17):
Like critical understanding,which is how functional anatomy
influences what we do.
How does it affect the body ifyou change the alignment in this
pose, right?
Take half moon how would yourbody be effective if instead of
facing the right toesstraightforward, you angle them
in 30 degrees?
How would that affect themuscles that engage in the pose?
(20:38):
Or things like that, make thingslike that make a big difference.
And it's, and a lot of it too isnot just pose it like pose and q
focus.
But it's also very likealignment focused.
Like this is the ideal alignmentand it's one of the things I
teach.
It's one of the things that Iteach in Body Breakthrough is to
(21:00):
not be overly dependent onalignment.
Alignment is a substitute forstrength and at the long end.
The bigger picture of thesethings here is that alignment.
If you become dependent,Alignment.
Your body doesn't have a chanceto get stronger.
And the definition of strengthis how well you can hold
(21:21):
yourself when you're misaligned,right?
What good does the functionalbody do for you?
If the only position your bodywas safe in standing in was the
correct ideal alignment forWarrior two, right?
If your body couldn't withstandthe knee buckling in a little.
Without ripping every ligamentin the knee, tweaking your lower
(21:41):
back and jacking up your neck.
Are you really strong?
No.
So there's this level of focusand on there's this
over-emphasis on the poses andthe alignment of the poses and
the cues that you're supposed tosay in the class, but no real
focus on how the body.
(22:01):
Actually works, right?
The functional side of things isbeing able to look at somebody's
body physically, and to say Ican see based on how they're
walking, that this is an issuefor them.
I can see based on their posturehere that is an issue for them.
I can see how this affects that,and this is affecting this.
Like those are things that makea huge difference.
(22:23):
Those are things that make areal big.
In your body and with yogateachers started to understand
that they would be held in amuch higher esteem in people's
minds.
I think the I think the, one ofthe fundamental problems with
yoga is that you've got a lot ofprofessions.
That you've got a lot ofprofessions that you know, work
(22:45):
on the human body, holisticprofessions that work on the
human body, and.
They take their craft veryseriously, right?
You can go to an osteopath, youcan go to a chiropractor, you
can go to these kinds of peopleand holistic doctors, and they
understand the body really well.
They take their craft seriously,but sometimes and this is
(23:08):
people's experience with yoga,unfortunately, is you have a lot
of chronic, you have it's achronic issue.
There are yoga teachers that arecompletely ill-equipped to be
teaching people in theclassroom, in a classroom
setting.
And sometimes that's people'sfirst experience with yoga and
they realize, God, this teacheris awful.
All of yoga must be awful.
And it's not true.
(23:28):
It's not true, but that's theirexperience because the craft is
not taken seriously.
To really understand and toreally push past these things
takes a complete radical, takesa complete radical overhaul in
what you do and how you learnand how you approach it.
And I think like those fourthings alone, if teachers had
(23:52):
those skills, like if theylegitimately had those, The yoga
teaching as a whole would getbetter.
And I think from, as anoverview, what has to change is
like the goal of a yoga teachertraining and maybe this is part
of the issue too, is that thegoal of a yoga teacher training,
(24:15):
is just to prepare them to teachyoga in a class, right?
Just show up to teach in a yogaclass, teach a class, be able to
get through a 60 minute class,right?
And you're good enough.
But the bar has to be a littlehigher.
And I think the yoga industryand teaching as a whole would
get better if the goal of yogateacher trainings was not just
how to teach a.
(24:36):
but how to actually make aliving.
How to make a full-time livingteaching yoga.
And that means you've gottalearn a lot more skills and the
training has to be a lot morecomplete and a lot more solid.
And that's that right there ishow you would make the entire
industry better.
There's not very many yogateachers that are able to teach
(25:01):
full.
And take care of themselves verywell and solely focus on
improving their craft andgetting better and better.
And that's the real, and that'sthe reality most, most people
who teach can't supportthemselves, number one, because
they're underpaid.
But number two, they don't havethe skills to create more income
through what they're learning.
So they end up distinct, stuckin a job.
(25:22):
And then if you're working a joball the time, the yoga and what
you do is just the secondarything, right?
It's not this all powerful.
that you do that helps you, thatbasically becomes your career.
So those are my thoughts.
I have a lot more on I have alot more of what needs to go
into training, but those aresome key things that really
(25:47):
that, that are necessary foryoga teachers in today's age,
like absolutely necessary, whichis marketing and sales, learning
the technology mindset.
Really that the right mindsetand even one thing I didn't say
on that third point is moneymindset is actually working and
coaching yoga teachers to, tounderstand that making money is
(26:08):
not bad and you shouldn't feelevil or demonized or villainized
for teaching yoga as much as thepeople in the industry would
like to tell you.
Asking for money makes yougreedy.
It doesn't, asking for moneydoesn't make you greedy.
It.
It is what it's what's necessaryto live the rising cost of
everything, makes it even morecritical.
(26:29):
And getting paid what you'reworth is should be the primary
thing.
Because when you get paid whatyou're worth and you're able to
support yourself, you can helpother people better because now
you've got yourself taken careof.
So that's all I've got.
I'll forward you on today's showagain, if you.
Comments, questions, thingsyou'd like to share.
(26:49):
Find me on Instagram@brianaganad.
You can find me there.
If you'd like to check out BodyBreakthrough, if you want to go
through that process of learninga press handstand and work with
me through that and go throughthe entire anatomical experience
in getting to learn your bodyand how it works, I'll put.
(27:11):
in the show notes to that.
So you can check that out.
You can also head over to formore information,
www.theasanaacademy.com/apply.
That'swww.theasanaacademy.com/apply.
Or if you are a yoga teachersome kind of coach or you do
anything where you're teachingyou're teaching or working with
(27:33):
clients hour.
We do have what's called theBusiness Growth Accelerator
Mastermind, which arms you withall of these tools that shows
you how to turn your expertiseinto an online coaching program,
shows you how to sell it, etcetera, et cetera.
And we even have we even haveoptions where we'll just build
everything for you if you areinto that.
(27:55):
If technology is not your thingat all, we, my team will just.
Everything for you, assumingthat you've got a, assuming that
you've got a good fit, and youget access to the Mastermind too
to learn how to do that andlearn how to grow your business
that way.
So that's all I've got for youon today's show.
If this was beneficial for you,please do share it with
(28:16):
somebody, share it with the yogateacher.
Share it with someone in theyoga industry that you know, a
friend of yours, have themlisten.
It and then take some time toleave a review on the podcast.
That would be really great.
And then find me on Instagram,find me over there at Brian ak
and we'll stay in touch thatway, and I will talk to you
soon.
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