The Mentor Sessions

I am so honored to be joined on the podcast by my teacher Cyndi Lee. As a senior yoga teacher, author, and Buddhist chaplain—Cyndi talks to us about what's being gained, lost, and misunderstood as artificial intelligence enters yoga, writing, and teaching spaces.

Cyndi reflects on her five decades of practice and teaching. As the founder of Om Yoga Center in New York City, a global hub for yogis from 1998 ...

In this episode of The Mentor Sessions, I'm joined by Lizzie Lasseter for a wide-ranging conversation about teaching yoga in a rapidly evolving world. Lizzie is a designer, educator, and second-generation yoga teacher with over 20 years of experience. As the daughter of Judith Hanson Lasseter, Lizzie grew up immersed in the Iyengar lineage, while also carving out her own path as a teacher, business owner, and working p...

In this episode, we dive into a concept that is absolutely transformative for yoga teachers: the idea that yoga cannot be both healing and performative at the same time. If we're still teaching from a linear, hierarchical, aesthetic-based model of asana, we're unintentionally blocking the very healing we hope to support.

This conversation focuses on how teachers can shift toward a non-linear, person-center...

Today's conversation is a deeply layered one. I'm joined by my friend, colleague, mentee, and private student Geneva Jimreivat for a nuanced exploration of how I work with private clients who experience persistent, subclinical pain and hard-to-pinpoint movement challenges.

Geneva is truly a multi-hyphenate in the movement world—she's been practicing yoga since childhood, completed her 200-hour training in ...

In this episode of The Mentor Sessions, I share something a little different: a Dharma talk I recently offered in my monthly class for yoga teachers. These monthly gatherings are one of my favorite places to teach—intimate, thoughtful, and deeply rooted in practice—and this particular talk felt important to bring to the podcast.

Over the last several months, as the political situation in the United States ...

Before this recent solo episode, The Purpose of Asana Ep 159, was even released my friend Cecily Milne reached out to say she was so excited to listen to it and chat about it! We decided to record our conversation for all of you, so today we have Part Two! 

In this episode Cecily and I dive into what makes asana unique compared to other movement practices, we discuss the nuances of teaching with specificit...

Is yoga exclusively connected to Hinduism? What is the caste system and why would a western yoga teacher need to understand it? How much of yoga's complex history do modern yoga practitioners and teachers really understand?

In this powerful and thought-provoking conversation, I welcome back Anjali Rao — yoga educator, activist, and author — to unpack the intertwined histories of yoga, caste, patriarchy, an...

If you've ever dreamed of owning a yoga studio, or you are curious to hear what experts are saying about the yoga industry and its future-- this episode is for you!

In my first "podcast swap" I had an awesome conversation with Michael Jay, a long-time teacher and yoga studio consultant who is also known as @YogaBizChamp.

Michael is a Certified Business Consultant who helps yoga studios open wi...

If I were to ask you what the purpose of asana is, what would you say? Would you say it was to feel better in the body? To build strength and flexibility? To prepare the body for meditation practice? To help people connect more deeply to their breath and themselves?

These are all beautiful answers!! 

But if you gave a very specific movement cue or alignment principle when teaching asana, and I...

This is a vulnerable episode for me to share, but it was very important to me to record and release this episode because it highlights something I don't think we see enough: people in positions of power, privilege or leadership openly receiving feedback.

Janie Ganga is a yoga teacher I deeply admire and have worked closely with for nearly a decade. In May of this year, they reached out to tell me something...

Today we are going to talk about what it really takes to grow your business as a yoga teacher, what kind of support you need, the people you might hire to help, and how I suggest you go about doing that.

And to help us out with this conversation, I have the Operations Manager of my own business, Jessica Gulley!

Jessica Gulley is the founder of Juggling Logistics and a logistics wizard for serv...

I started teaching one private yoga client virtually in 2019 when she left Washington, DC for California. But other than her I had absolutely NO experience teaching online when everything changed on March 13th, 2020.  I was slightly ahead of the curve in understanding that the pandemic would be a life alternating experience and that we wouldn't be teaching yoga in-person for many many months. 

I made reall...

I've been teaching yoga full time for 20 years, and most of that time I taught at least 15 private yoga sessions each week; for a decade that number was closer to 25 per week!

I have a lot of experience in teaching private sessions! And when you've been doing something that often for that long, you start to develop some specific opinions... or, I certainly did!

Today we are diving into some un...

Social media can be a wonderful tool to help us connect with friends, communities or potential students. It can also be a black hole of despair and panic.  Some people say it is necessary to participate and post on social media to be a successful business nowadays.

I don't think engaging on social media is a requirement for having a thriving yoga teaching business at all, but if you use it right it can be ...

My understanding of the spiritual teachings is that my liberation doesn't mean anything unless everyone else is free too. The teachings of Buddhism say over and over again that a huge part of our practice is about creating a world where the safety and freedom and happiness of all sentient beings is possible. So from that I take that being engaged in working for a better world is a necessary part of my spiritual practic...

In episode 148 I collected all my best advice for new teachers. The episode centered around the idea that the most important thing new teachers can do is start teaching and figure out what kind of teacher they want to be.

But once you've started that process, there are some important business foundations you want to have in place so you have solid ground upon which to build. This episode (152)  is a deep d...

How do we pour into ourselves so we have enough energy, time and focus for all the people who need us?

How do we stay connected to our practice, since it should be the foundation our whole teaching life is built on?

How do we stay inspired in our teaching without investing thousands of dollars in continuing education each year?

It is not easy! But creating time for our own practic...

Being a yoga teacher, heck being a PERSON, is TOUGH right now. But having a job that requires presence and vulnerability and groundedness all the time requires we pour into ourselves so we have something to give. 

I LOVE hearing the behind the scenes details of people's lives and routines. And I'm so happy to say that after a pretty stressful few years, I have my self care routines DIALED IN right now! In ...

Teaching yoga, and maybe especially teaching private clients is, to be candid, an unstable way to make a living. But I have done it successfully for twenty years, so it can be done! 

I'm in a season in my life where I have limited spots available to teach, but financially I need every single one of those spots filled every week. I have about ten standing private clients and then I have at least five spots ...