Hairstylist to Yoga Therapist: A Journey with Yin - Nyk Danu - Chat Off The Mat - Holistic Healing, Feminine Energy and Tools for Vibrant Living

Episode Transcript
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Rose (00:00):
My guest today on Chat Off the Mat is Nyk Danu.
Nick has been teaching yogasince 2004.
She's a certified yogatherapist, yin yoga teacher,
trainer and yoga business mentor.
She lives in the enchanted cityof Victoria, on magical
Vancouver Island, where sheteaches yoga to misfits,

(00:22):
neurodiverse and alternativefolks who are not human pretzels
.
Nick is frequently interviewedon podcasts where she loves to
talk about the business of yogaYin Yoga and is the host of a
Yin Yoga podcast where she talksabout all things Yin Yoga.

(00:43):
Welcome to Chat Off The Mat, thepodcast that explores the
transformative journey ofhealing and self-discovery where
energy, spirituality, mind andbody intersect.
Hi, I'm your host, Rose Wippich, and I invite you to join me
and explore ways to invite moreholistic practices into your

(01:03):
life.
I will feature experts andpractitioners who provide
insights, tips and practicaladvice.
From Reiki to Qigong, chakrabalancing to shamanism, this
podcast will be your guide tounderstanding how these
practices can lead to moreharmony and greater energy.
Whether you're seeking stressrelief, emotional balance or a

(01:25):
deeper connection to yourauthentic self, Chat Off The Mat
provides you with insights andinspiration.
Let's start discovering thepossibilities that lie within
you.
Welcome, Nyk.
Thanks for having me.
I'm so happy that you're heretoday, nick, thanks for having
me.
I'm so happy that you're heretoday, so let's just dive right

(01:48):
in.
I want to ask you about yourjourney done becoming a yoga
teacher and, more specifically,how you were introduced to yin
yoga.

Nyk (01:56):
Okay, I will give you the quick version.
So I was a hairstylist for 12years before I became a yoga
teacher, and some part duringthat journey of being a
hairstylist I had a friend groupthat really wanted to take a
beginner yoga class together,and I had zero interest in yoga

(02:16):
because in my generation theonly yoga I saw was a woman on
PBS in a unitard with a longbraid and the Birkenstock thing
and like yoga was not cool.
Yoga was something that my momand her friends did.
It was like a hippie thing andI was more of a punk rock kind

(02:37):
of heavy metal kid and so itjust didn't have any appeal to
me whatsoever.
Um, but my friends keptinsisting that this would be fun
to do together.
There's a group and it's.
It was also on our day off inthe morning, and I'm not a
morning person and I was like,why would I want to do this?
Finally, after much convincing,they bribed me with picking me

(03:00):
up and dropping me off andbringing me a latte on the way,
and so I thought, okay, okay, ifI don't have to get there on my
own steam and you're going tocaffeinate me before I get there
, I'll sign up for this, youknow hippie crap.
And so we did the beginner yogaclass and that very first class
.
Even I immediately fell in love.

(03:22):
I was hooked.
I looked at my friends and saidI'm going to do yoga forever.
And what I know now I didn't atthe time is that I have anxiety
.
I have for my whole childhood.
I just didn't know that's whatit was because I was high
functioning anxious type, so Ithought I was just kind of prone
to worry.
I had no idea that it wasanxiety until many years later

(03:42):
when it got quite bad.
And so for the first time inthat class I wasn't anxious, my
mind was focused on one thingand I had actually dropped into
my parasympathetic nervoussystem for the first time I
could remember and I was justlike I need more of that.
So that was sort of thebeginning.

(04:02):
I was still doing hair for quitea while while I started
practicing, and then, about theearly 2000's, I started to
really have to start cuttingback my hours at hair because,
for those of you who don't know,doing hair is really hard on
your body, really hard on yourbody, and so I was in a lot of

(04:25):
pain a lot of wrist stuff, a lotof shoulder stuff, a lot of
neck stuff, and so I was cuttingback my hours.
And you know, um, I had afriend who also had to retire
instantly from doing hairbecause she realized she was
allergic to the hair color.
And so I watched her go throughthis process of no plan B and
no income and I just startedthinking, you know, I keep

(04:45):
having to cut back my hours andI'm spending more and more money
on, like chiropractors andmassage and like there might be
a point where coming with a planB might be smart.
So I just kind of kicked thataround for a couple of years and
you know, I kept thinking, well, you know, what else can I do?
I mean, my job skills at thatpoint were, you know,
hairstylist, platform artist.

(05:05):
You know, I had bartended, Ihad served on the way when I was
building up my hair career.
But I was like there's acertain age where, like you, are
not going to be bartending andserving, you know.
And so I just thought, well,what can I do?
And since it was clear that noone was going to pay me to sit
around and drink coffee and readbooks, I started thinking, what

(05:26):
else do I love?
And I was already teaching hairbecause I was an educator and a
platform artist and I reallyloved that teaching and so I
started thinking about it and itwas like, well, you love yoga
and you love teaching, thisseems to make sense.
And so I started researchingteacher training programs and uh

(05:47):
did my first one in uh 2003 andwe finished in 2004 and it was
um, iyengar based yoga.
It wasn't an Iyengarcertification program, because
we all know that that takes, youknow, like a gazillion years or
anyone who's in the yogacommunity.

(06:08):
But it was all of the teachersthat taught us, except for one,
were Iyengar trained teachers,so it was an unofficial Iyengar
program.
And so I graduated with thissort of alignment obsessed kind
of yoga and I was prettycommitted to it, to be honest,
like I kind of did think I'm notmuch of a joiner, to be honest,

(06:30):
but I did think, okay, this iskind of the way that I'm going
to teach, you know, this sort ofalignment focused.
But, that being said, in myfirst teacher training there
were things about my body thatnobody was answering.
You know, I'd ask a questionabout this weird pinching.
I'd get an extended side angle.
I'm like, why does that?

(06:50):
Where am I getting that?
And I would get like answersthat I'm like that doesn't even
make sense.
So fast forward a couple yearsto 2007.
And I'm a newly budding teacherand I'm still teaching this
kind of alignment focused Hathathing.
And I'm a newly budding teacherand I'm still teaching this
kind of alignment focused Hathathing.
And I'm walking down the streetand I stick my head into a

(07:12):
studio that I never go tobecause it was in a stronger
studio, ironically.
But I just wanted to buy a propfor a friend for a birthday.
So I walked in and just as Iwalked in the door there was
this poster board with a posterof Paul Grilley's head on it
saying you know, Yin YogaWorkshop.
Now I didn't know what Yen Yogawas at all, but I had Paul's

(07:34):
Anatomy for Yoga DVD.
I had bought that probablypretty early on when I graduated
, maybe a year, year and a halfin, because I didn't feel like I
had enough anatomy knowledge.
I was in a bookstore back whenwe all bought things like this
at bookstores.
I saw the DVD and I was like,oh, anatomy for yoga.
I didn't know who Paul was.
I just they had me at anatomyfor yoga and I grabbed it and

(07:58):
watched it and it completelyblew my mind.
Not only did it blow my mind asfar as like what was happening
in my own body and all thesequestions that had never been
answered in my previous training, but also I started seeing my
students' bodies completelydifferently, and it had already
started infiltrating my teaching.
Like I no longer said bringyour feet together in Tadasana.

(08:19):
Just so many little thingswhere I loosened the reins on my
so-called alignment speak.
Um, because it became veryclear to me that not everybody
can do these things in the way.
I'm saying, despite what mytraining taught me, that if you,
everybody, can do it this way,and until until they can, you
just use a prop.
Right, you know, as long aseverybody looks the same, then

(08:42):
we're fine, um, and so I hadalready been exposed to that.
It had already blown my mind.
So, to walk into the studio andsee his head on that poster, I
had no idea what Yen was, but Iwas just like, oh my God, this
guy's coming for a workshop.
And it was summertime.
So I happened to have aSaturday off and I was just like
done, like take my money rightnow.
And so I did that workshop.
And it was mind blowing, notonly because we did go over some

(09:06):
of that information from theDVD, but in more detail, but the
practice itself was for someonelike myself who had been I had
been in the past a competitivebodybuilder, so I'm not the
typical yoga teacher body where,like, everything's flexy and
I'm all hyper mobile.
No, that is not the case for me, which is why I younger yoga

(09:29):
was actually a good fit, becauseI could use props for my tight
body.
There were certain areas whereI was gifted, but for the most
part I was not a bendy Barbietype at all and so going into
that workshop with Paul and justkind of doing what felt right
in my body and not having himcorrect me like I was just
waiting for it, you know, Iwould go into saddle pose and

(09:52):
I'd turn my feet out because Iam an internal rotator.

Rose (09:54):
Right.

Nyk (09:59):
So I can easily do that rotator.
Until I studied with Paulbecause when I was in a younger
yoga anytime they saw thatinternal rotation they freaked
out and said I was going todamage my knees and they would
put me on all these blocks andthings and strap my legs
together and then I'd be sort offloating on this tower of
support going.
Well, this isn't great.
I mean, everyone else isgetting a stretch in their
thighs and I'm doing restorativeyoga over here, you know.

(10:20):
So the fact that I could sneakmy feet out in saddle or Supta
Varasana for those who don'tspeak in and not have somebody
correct me, I was like what,what, and so that really stood
out as unique.
What also stood out is, Ithought, because usually when I
would do a weekend workshop, I'dbe sore for a couple of days

(10:43):
after.
You know, just, you're, you'repracticing in a way that you
don't in your home practice andyou're maybe pushing yourself a
little more.
And I thought, oh my God, I'mgoing to be so sore after this
workshop and I wasn't.
All I felt was an immense senseof spaciousness in my body,
which was new to me as a musclytight bodied person.

(11:05):
On top of that.
I felt a sense of sort of likethe peace that I felt in my
first yoga class, that first,first, ever one.
And I had not felt that since.
Don't get me wrong, I loved allmy yoga classes, the Shabbat
was great, but that firstexperience of like whoa, I'm

(11:28):
feeling a little otherworldlyhere, like what the heck is
going on.
I definitely had a sense ofthat in that workshop and so
immediately after that workshopI bought all of Paul's DVDs and
I bought his book, and I boughtSarah Powers DVD and Sarah
Powers book and I was just likeI'm going to immerse myself in

(11:49):
yin because this thing isamazing and I still wasn't
teaching it to my students.
So I just basically startedpracticing it a lot.
And then I started practicing iteven more because at one point
I was diagnosed by a TCMD.
Finally, after many, many, many, many months of trying to get

(12:10):
allopathic medicine, to figureout why I was so fricking
exhausted all the time, and thenrunning all the tests and
saying that I was air quoteswithin the range of normal Um,
finally I went to ChineseMedicine and found out that I
had basically the ChineseMedicine equivalent of chronic
fatigue and that really meant Ineeded to change the way I was

(12:31):
teaching.
I had these yin tools, I hadthese DVDs, I had the books and
I had been kind of just addingthat in like once or twice a
week with my regular hathapractice or if I wasn't feeling
well or if I was on my cycle.
I would like switch over to yin, and what I realized when I was
diagnosed and that I was alsoteaching full-time, that all the

(12:54):
energy I had was going togetting me to the class
demonstrating a pose and comingout, and then I was, I was done,
and so my home practiceswitched to, you know, from 90%
Hatha, maybe 10% yin, to 90% yin, with a little side of
restorative if I was on my cycleor sick and some nidra and my

(13:16):
Hatha practice just got slidover to the side.
And so I think, even though Ifell in love with yin in that
workshop, it was through thosecouple of years of only doing
yin, only practicing yin, andthen also practicing some things
that I knew from Hatha, but ina yin way, that were not

(13:37):
included.
Like you know, classical yintaught by Paul doesn't have any
upper body stuff and I was justlike, as a former hairstylist, I
got some stuff going on in myneck and my shoulders, and so I
just kept starting to look atwhat I knew from my Iyengar
training as far as how I can useprops and certain shapes and
thought like, how can I do thesein a yin way?

(13:58):
And so I was playing with a lotof that for about two years
that my whole home practice wasmostly in and starting to add in
these upper body shapes.
So I felt like I was gettingthat full body yin experience
and that's kind of how I wentfor a couple of years before I
finally went to go study withPaul.
But I'll pause in case you havequestions.

Rose (14:20):
Let's circle back then and talk a little bit about yin
yoga.
And, for those people thatdon't know what yin yoga is, if
you could just explain what itis like, how we hold, poses and
all that.

Nyk (14:35):
One thing I'll just drop in before we get there is that I
did only do that weekendworkshop with Paul, but then a
few years later, um, after doingmy own yin practice for several
years, I got a little moneyfrom some family and I always
feel like when you're given agift of something where you're
like, ooh, this was unexpected,that you should do something

(14:55):
really special with it.
And so that's when I went andstudied with Paul in his teacher
trainings.
So I did his first hundred, Idid, I've done, I've got a 500
with Paul now.
So I basically went once andjust kept going back and going
back, yeah, um, and, and wasplanning to keep doing that
every other year until, you know, the COVID thing happened.
So, but we will, I will, I willdefinitely, as soon as I can,

(15:20):
um, be studying with him as longas I can.
He's you know what.
I consider yeah, and he is he isa true for me and for what I
need in a teacher.
He is my true teacher.
I need a good combination ofwisdom and knowledge and yet
humility and humor and real lifestuff.

(15:40):
If, if there, if all of that'snot in a teacher, I really I
won't resonate in a deep wayfrom their, from their teaching.
So, yeah, so I studied withPaul much more extensively after
that workshop.
It just took me a few years toget there.
So what is yin?
Well, if, if somebody is notfamiliar with yin, first, um,

(16:05):
first of all, I would say thatit's a style of yoga that was
codified by Paul Grilley, but hewas originally taught this sort
of more yin like way ofpracticing from a man named
Polly Zink, and he studied withPolly um, you know, for a little
bit and then started kind ofmaking this his own and really
teaching it, and then he trainedSarah Powers and then Bernie

(16:29):
Clark and all of the people thateverybody talks about.
Now, if we were to summarizeyin, I would say that, which is
hard to do because there's somuch that goes into it, but
essentially, if you want to keepit really simple, it's
floor-based postures, long holdswith a moderate amount of
sensation and that it works ondifferent tissues of the body

(16:51):
than a more movement-basedpractice, specifically deep
fascia and connective tissue,although we cannot separate deep
fascia from myofascia.
I know that sometimes we saythat for simplicity's sake, for
kind of myofascia.
I know that sometimes we saythat for simplicity's sake, for
kind of ease of use for studentsto understand, but you can't
separate your fascia.
It's not like this fascia isdisconnected from that fascia,

(17:13):
but it does have a very uniquefeeling.
So when you come into a shapethat's a floor-based posture,
you do a long hold, you comeinto a moderate amount of
sensation and then you hold it.
It has a very unique feeling inyour body.
When you come into a moderateamount of sensation and then you
hold it, it has a very uniquefeeling in your body when you
come out, and so it's notunfamiliar to feel like you're

(17:34):
kind of disconnected fromyourself or like a little bit
Paul calls it in one of his DVDsa little vulnerable or a little
fragile in your body when youcome out of a shape and so you
come out really slowly and thenwe take these little rests.
Or a little fragile in yourbody when you come out of a
shape, and so you come outreally slowly and then we take
these little rests or thesepauses, which Paul calls the
rebound.
But I have other verbiage that Iuse for most of what I've

(17:54):
learned in my yin training.
Once I became a yoga therapistI really kind of shifted how I
was teaching and talking aboutyin.
But that's basically thepractice.
It's really really simple.
It's simple functional poses,nothing fancy, nothing like you
know flashy that's going to geton the cover of a yoga magazine.
It's simple, functional shapesthat you do in stillness,

(18:20):
relative stillness, with longerholds, and then you come out
mindfully and you notice theeffect of that, and then you
rest and you repeat.

Rose (18:30):
That's the basics of it, and the benefits of it are that
it helps increase mobility rightyeah, flexibility yeah but
there's beyond that, so it's notjust as my husband likes to
call.
I'm going to quote him on thisone a deep stretch is always
looking for that deep stretch,but it's not always about this.
We can talk about thestretching later, but talk about

(18:53):
a little bit about what it cando for our nervous system,
because that's a real benefit.

Nyk (18:58):
Yeah, fascia is a great nervous system conductor, first
of all.
So you know, there's so many ofour nerves that are interwoven
in fascia, so it has the effectthat way.
But also taking the time tosettle on the ground is
grounding, pun intended, um anduh.
To slow down and to becomestill those are the gifts of yin

(19:25):
and also the challenges of yinIn our culture, where we are in
this crazy rat race and we'reconstantly moving and going, and
you know, I mean and we werelike this even before
smartphones, and now it's justeven worse.
It's like nobody's unplugged.

(19:47):
People aren't taking that stillquiet time regularly to shift
into their parasympatheticnervous system, because there's
no way that you can be go, go,go, go, do the things, do the
things, do the things and be inyour parasympathetic Like.
This is not possible.
So when you're in thesympathetic nervous system or
that fight, flight or freeze andsometimes people think they're

(20:09):
not in that part of theirnervous system because they only
think of sort of the extremeexamples of fight, flight or
freeze, right, but like if youwere constantly feeling rushed
and stressed and overwhelmed andyou're not sleeping enough,
guess what that would be yoursympathetic nervous system.
So yin invites us to slow down,to settle on the ground, to

(20:38):
drop into ourselves and tonotice what's there.
And this part of the practice iscalled introception, so an
awareness of what is happeningon the inside of us.
Some people might've heardwords like extroception or
proprioception.
So extroception is like anawareness of what's happening in
the room.
Proprioception is an awarenessof where is your body in space.
So in a more movement form ofyoga, they're really, really

(21:00):
good at cultivatingproprioception.
You know, if I'm standing atthe front of my yoga mat and I
need to step one foot back intoa high lunge, I need to have
some proprioception so I don'tfall down.
And there's a little bit ofintroception in sort of movement
forms of yoga, but it mostlyhappens all at the end of
Shavasana, unless they include ameditation practice, whereas in

(21:22):
yin it's like all introceptionthe whole time, right.
So we're dropping into ourbodies, our minds, our emotions
and we're settling into it foramount of time and this has a
huge effect on our nervoussystem.
Just the ability to be able toslow down and to notice and to

(21:44):
be curious and to not be rushingand not be plugged into your
phone that already can be superhelpful for people's nervous
system.
And then, of course, there'sthe effects on the fascia and
then just literally being on theground.
Now, that being said, some ofthose things are also what makes
Yen really challenging, becausewe're not used to being still

(22:06):
and quiet and not doing 10things at once, and so sometimes
the hardest part for studentswhen they first start practicing
Yen is just giving themselvesthis permission to slow down and
not do things.
And it can feel sometimes tonewer people like this practice
is boring, right, likeespecially for the, the vinyasa

(22:27):
junkies, you know the, the galsthat are just used to like all
these, like super fast, supercreative flows with all the, the
fancy poses, and then they comeinto yin and they're like wait,
what we're just laying herestill, like you can see them
looking around the room Likewe're, are we actually still
just doing this?
This is it.
So it can be challenging, butas a teacher, it's my job in

(22:57):
that case to guide them tonoticing all of the things that
are present in that moment, thataren't as flashy and loud but
that are very present, and toencourage that interoception.
You know I usually, when Iguide students at the beginning
of class, I already walk themthrough a guided experience
where we're going from sort ofthe most external literally the
noises outside of the room thatwe're in to the noises inside,

(23:20):
to the noises of your own body,and we're going further and
further and further in untileventually we're at like
noticing our mental andemotional state.
And the reason that I start allmy classes there is because I
think it is really really hard,and so that is, and that whole
thing is around the nervoussystem, the physical setup.
We do it again constructiverest, and so that's sort of one

(23:42):
of my signature things that I doin every single class, because
it's very hard for someone to gofrom their busy life and often
rushing to get to the studio todropping right into stillness
and forgetting about the outsideworld without some sort of
transition, invitations alongthe way to notice these other
things, invitations along theway to notice these other things

(24:03):
, and when we can get still andquiet, we can notice that every
single moment is literallypregnant with massive
opportunities to notice things.
They're just more subtle andnot as obvious and not as
glaring, but even something assimple as the air on your skin,
and comparing that to the air,the skin that's covered with

(24:26):
fabric.
Um, so there's so much as ateacher that we can um direct
our students awareness to, sothat they do start to find that
introception, that awareness of,like, what is happening inside
of me.
Um, and this is one of thereasons that I think that yin is

(24:46):
so transformative, not justphysically but mentally and
emotionally, because you willsee all your stuff come up right
.
So you're going to watch yourmind thought looping and be like
, oh my God, do I always thinkthis much?
Yes, you do.
You're just not usually sittingstill and noticing.
You might notice emotions comeup that you haven't given
yourself the time to process,because you've been too busy

(25:07):
being a human doing instead of ahuman being.
You haven't allowed yourself tokind of settle and be quiet,
and so you'll be like whoa,where's this grief coming from?
Or why am I feeling soirritated?
Or why am I so bored?
You know, all of these thingscan come up when you give
yourself the time and the spaceto just be.
And so these are the gifts ofyin, but also the challenges of

(25:31):
yin as well.

Rose (25:34):
And talking about you know more of an internal awareness.
It is something that you canalso take outside of the studio,
outside of the practice, orjust you know.
You continue to practice itoutside of the studio Because I
know personally and from hearingfeedback from students they've
become a different person fromjust continuing to practice yin

(25:56):
yoga.
They're more attuned to what'shappening inside their body,
physically and mentally.

Nyk (26:02):
And the ability to witness, physically and mentally.
And the ability to witness,which is so.
It's one of the biggest giftsof yin is being able to be in
sensation, notice sensation andnotice the part of you that's
noticing it.
And this isn't something thatwe do in our daily life.
And so if I can be in a pose,I'll pick one of my least

(26:24):
favorites dragon pose, a lowlunge, and I can hang out there
for two minutes and notice thesensation in my leg, but also
notice all the stories that mymind is telling me about that
sensation in my leg and aboutthat teacher and about this pose
and about my body and how Ihate it all and la, la, la la.
But I can, I can watch thatscript unfolding with this other

(26:45):
part of my mind known as thewitness and can like go huh,
look at you, just go on a littletangent there, mentally, like
you are, you're going off aboutthis pose and is any of that
even real?
And so when you cultivate thatability, that sort of witnessing
consciousness, that I'm curiousI don't want to say detached,

(27:06):
because I think that's not theright word, I think unattached
is a better term but thatcurious sort of unattached
bigger picture, part of yourselfthat can observe your direct
experience.
That is also something you takeout with you.
So when you're on the streetand buddy cuts in front of you
and you watch your tendency towant to like about it, you, you

(27:29):
notice right there.
You're like, oh okay, look atme, they're going off again on a
tangent.
And then you have the abilityto respond in life instead of
react in life.
And I would say that this hasprobably been both with my yin
and my meditation practice,because I don't really separate
those two.
I mean I do in practice, butthey're same same to me.

(27:51):
That has probably been thebiggest gift for me of a yin
practice more so than thephysical, more so than the
nervous system, more so than theflexibility is that I'm a
kinder human now, because I nowknow how to pause and go.

(28:11):
Hmm, I'm feeling triggered here.
What's that about?
What's going on in this mind ofmine?
Is that even true?
You know, I have that ability tojust very slightly step outside
of the direct emotional mentalexperience that I'm having in
that moment and observe it.
That gives me the power then torespond instead of react, which

(28:31):
means I'm having in that momentand observe it.
That gives me the power then torespond instead of react, which
means I'm less likely to begoing off on people or judging
people or criticizing people, orat least that if I do, I notice
it either before, during orright afterwards.
I'm like, oh, that was notskillful.
And I would say for mepersonally that has actually

(28:51):
been.
Probably the biggest benefit ofthe practice is that I'm much
more patient and compassionateand loving and kind to myself
and to my community and to myloved ones and then thereby to
the whole wide world, and that'sbeen the biggest benefit of the
practice and the mostunexpected actually.

Rose (29:13):
Oh, I love that.
It's beautiful, thank you.
Thanks for sharing that.

Nyk (29:16):
I expected looser hamstrings.
I did not expect that.

Rose (29:21):
I'd like to talk about.
You're a therapeutic yogateacher, or a therapeutic yoga
teacher.
Can you talk about what that isand how you know how you either
teach that or you, or how thatis all a part of your life?

Nyk (29:36):
Okay, so yoga therapists in general.
So I think most of us know ifwe're teachers, but the public
may not know that yoga is not aregulated industry, like we're
not licensed.
So let's just get that out ofthe way whether that's good or
bad, but that's a debate foranother time.
Yoga therapists have typicallyan additional 800 hours of

(30:00):
training on top of what theaverage yoga teacher has, and
that training is highly focusedon almost yoga as medicine, and
so you learn a lot of thingsabout you know being trauma,
informed about mental health,you know physical conditions,

(30:21):
you learn about things likearthritis and cancer and you
know, and so most of theprograms give you kind of an
overview of everything you wouldneed to to begin to to practice
yoga in a therapeutic way asopposed to just a isn't this fun
way?
And so how that changed?
Um, that changed for me evenbefore my yoga therapy training,

(30:44):
because in fairly early in myteaching I kind of got just
thrown at me.
The universe just kept throwingthis back pain class at me and
I kept refusing it, and then itjust kept showing up, um, and
which is weird, because I hadback pain and I had done
mentorship with a yoga therapistwho taught yoga for back pain.
So I don't know why I was likeso stubborn about it, but I was,

(31:05):
and so then I took over a backpain class and that class led
into another class and anotherclass.
So I'd already been workingtherapeutically with people and
a bit obsessive about how yogacan help or hurt those with back
pain, and a lot of the averageyoga classes out there are not
good for folks with seriousspine issues.

(31:25):
Um, and so I already was in theframe of mind of um, of
learning to take okay, I havethis 60 minutes or 75 or 90 or
whatever it is, and this is whatthese people need.
What from yoga am I going topull?
What tools?
Which asana, which breathtechnique, et cetera, so that

(31:45):
that is all supporting the themeof this class and what these
individuals are struggling with.
So that is kind of the biggestdifference between a yoga
therapist and the average yogateacher is that my yoga practice
might what I do with mystudents might even whether it's
yin or not might not lookanything like the average yoga

(32:09):
class that you would see at astudio, because I'm specifically
focusing on so the two kind oftherapeutic areas that I tend to
work on are back pain andanxiety, and so if I'm teaching
a back pain yoga class, you'renot going to have your warriors
and your sun salutes and all ofthat, because I only got this
much time and I'm going to usewhat's going to be a best

(32:29):
service to that community.
So it really is a.
It's a whole extra level oftraining.
It's quite vigorous, and thenthere is a sort of a certifying
body not a governing body,because yoga is not regulated
called the internationalassociation of yoga therapists,
and the training that I took wasregistered with the

(32:50):
international association ofyoga therapists, and so that was
something that was important tome, mostly just because I
didn't know how important itwould be in the long run.
But I thought I'm going tospend all this time and money.
I at least want to be able toregister, and it changes the way
you teach.
It changes the way you teachcompletely.

(33:17):
Where I had a little bit of acrisis of faith partway through
my yoga therapy training wasbecause I was already a yin
teacher.
I'm in other styles of yoga too, but when I started studying my
trauma module, it became reallyclear that a practice like yin
which was still quiet, longholds um was going to be tricky

(33:40):
for certain populations.
It's tricky, I mean, it's adifficult practice for a lot of
us, but for certain populationsdoubly triply so.
Um, and I wasn't sure in myyoga therapy and I still don't
necessarily that I wanted tofocus on.
You know, I wasn't planning onteaching in rehab centers or,
you know, hospitals or anythinglike that.

(34:01):
But it became really clear tome that according to the trauma
center's definition oftrauma-sensitive yoga, yin
didn't fit.
And yet I was madly in lovewith yin and had seen not only
so many therapeutic benefitswith myself but also with
students I'd worked with usingyin as the tool in their

(34:21):
practice.
And so I was really strugglinga lot there with, like, how do I
make these mesh together?
And I did that in a few waysand I can mention some of the
differences.
But the first thing I did waswhen I took my trauma-informed
training, I realized that partof the issue with the way that

(34:43):
I'd been teaching in waslanguage, that the language that
I was handed down from myteacher was maybe not the best
language, um in a therapeuticsetting.
So, for example, terms likecome to your edge, um target
area, just the languaging thatnever, I never noticed before

(35:06):
now started standing out and Iwas like, oh, targets, Wow, we
got some more language happeninghere in this class.
Like I don't know if I lovethat.
Um, so there was some of thelanguaging that I wanted to.
I wanted to find a way tochange and some of it wasn't
like because it was, I wasworried it was triggering, but

(35:27):
it just didn't feel accurate tomy own experience.
So, for example, the wordrebound, which is one that Paul
uses and most of his teachersuse to me I never felt in my
body Like that was a rebound.
It felt more like a resonanceor a linger in my body, and so I
just started looking at thelanguaging I was using and I was
very lucky that while I was inmy yoga therapy training is when

(35:49):
I did my.
Up until now anyways, it was my500 hour with Paul.
It was my last 100.
I paused one weekend workshop inmy yoga therapy and flew off to
California and did sometraining and so I was able to
speak to him in person aboutthis and I just said you know
I'm I'm struggling a little bitwith, I know how therapeutic
this practice is and yet youknow things like languaging and

(36:11):
this and like I.
I know how therapeutic thispractice is, and yet you know
things like languaging and thisand like I, you know, I don't
know where what to do with this.
And he looked at me, verymatter of factly, in a very Paul
way, and just said, well, youshould use whatever language
works for you and your peoplelike, duh, you know, like, but
this is.
It is unusual.
Paul is so not attached tothings being his way and to

(36:36):
people just blindly followingwhatever he says and does.
As a teacher, that and that isunusual in this industry.
Usually teachers are.
They're a little bit more egoicand kind of like my way or the
highway, and so I was like, oh,okay, I should just use whatever
words work for me and mystudents, cool.

(36:56):
And so I went back home and Ijust started looking at the
words that I wasn't in love withand going, okay, well, what,
what other word could I usethere?
So, for example, target areabecame intended area, which I
also think is more accurate,because I might intend for you
to feel this in your hip andyour butt, but you might
actually feel it in yourhamstring.
So it felt more um, accurate,but also, again less sort of

(37:23):
militant.
Um I started, I never used theword discomfort.
Used the word discomfort, itnever felt good to me because I
feel like the line for most ofthe average citizens between
discomfort and pain is blurry.
I think if you went up to theaverage person on the street and
said what's the differencebetween discomfort and pain,

(37:44):
they'd be like I don't know.
So I just started sayinguncomfortable, which people
might think is splitting hairs,but to me uncomfortable is very
different than discomfort, whichstarts to move into that
possible pain range.
I started saying my trainingsaid take people to 70%.

(38:04):
I started backing that off andsaying let's go for 50 to 60% of
the most.
We could do so for two reasons.
One, because I end up with alot of A-type people in my
classes and so if you tell anA-type personality to do 70%,
they're doing 110.
So that was one reason.

Rose (38:21):
So true.

Nyk (38:22):
Yes, to back it off.
And then the other reason was Ifound that if people backed it
off from 70, not so light asrestorative, like we're not just
hanging out and have naps here,but in that 50 to 60% range
they were more able actually topractice interoception than they
would if they were pushingthemselves further than that.
So I started bringing that in.

(38:44):
So those were kind of some ofthe big changes from how I was
trained with Paul to kind ofmaking this what I call now
therapeutic yin.
Obviously, then my classesbecame more trauma informed.
It became really clear to methat I couldn't be trauma
sensitive as defined by thetrauma center, because yin by
its nature just doesn't fit withthat, with all the still and

(39:06):
the quiet, but that I could takemy classes and I could make
them as trauma informed aspossible.
And so things like changing mylanguage, letting students know
when I was going to be movingaround the room, was not
something that ever occurred tome before.
The words I use, you know theenvironment, the agency and

(39:30):
options that I give people.
Now, luckily that didn't have tochange with Paul, because, paul
, I mean the whole point oflearning about skeletal
variations is to understand thatwe are not all same same, and
so I've always, ever since myfirst you know, watching Paul on
that DVD years ago had alreadybeen, you know, super open with

(39:51):
agency and options and like,maybe you try this version,
maybe this works for you.
Well, that's not working foryou, let's try something else.
So I didn't need to change that.
Luckily, from my therapeutictraining that was already very
ingrained in me that everybody'shaving their own unique
experience, that I need to givethem lots of options and that
they have agency to choose anoption that isn't one I gave
them and that they have agencyto choose an option that isn't

(40:19):
one I gave them.
Yeah, I also don't like theterm, even though it's
technically, medically accurate,that we're trying to stress our
tissues, and I just think, froma lay perspective, does anybody
show up to yoga to have morestress going on?
No, they don't, so I just don't.

Rose (40:32):
Healthy stress, healthy stress.

Nyk (40:34):
Therapeutic stress you could say, but again, I don't
think that lends to teachers, Idon't think that lends to the
general public.
I just don't.
Actually, you don't.
I just don't talk about.
I talk about the fact thatwe're accessing our fascia and
what this might feel like inyour body, and I talk a little
bit about what fascia is.
But I don't feel the need totell them that I'm stressing
their fascia.
It's like they're gonna feel itProof is in the pudding, right.

(40:57):
They're gonna come out of thepose and be like whoa, I just
hung out with my fascia.
I don't need to tell them theword stress.
So and I started reallyfocusing on it being even more
nervous system-based.
So yin by its nature is alreadyreally great for that.
But this intentional havingeverybody start in constructive

(41:17):
rest, which, if those aren'tfamiliar, that's basically lying
on your back with your feet onthe floor and knees bent,
although I had lots of props tothat.
So it's a little more of aCadillac version.
And that's when I do thatguided centering where I bring
them from the most external intotheir most internal landscape.
Slowly that became a staple.
So I start my class with thenervous system nourishment.

(41:39):
Before we do any yin poses.
We start with gratitude, with alittle science on where you
place your hands, and practicinggratitude that's from Rick
Hansen's Buddha brain, ifanybody wants to check that out.
Practicing gratitude that'sfrom Rick Hansen's Buddha brain,
if anybody wants to check thatout.
So we start with that and abreath technique that's designed

(41:59):
to again switch them over tosympathetic and then we do that
constructive rest experience,all before I've even given them
a yin shape.
So my intention now intherapeutic yin is can I already
get them in theirparasympathetic before I start
introducing the challenge ofthese poses and the challenge of
the quiet and the challenge ofthe still?
Can I get them to?
And and you know, not always,depending on what's going on in

(42:22):
their own mental, emotionalstate.
Maybe I don't, but that's theintention, and so you know,
because if somebody, for example, is dealing with a lot of
trauma, then it doesn't matterwhat my intentions are.
They might find this practicereal hard, you know.
So I can guide them throughthat and I can be there to hold

(42:42):
brave space for them as theyexperience that.
But I can't turn that off.
That's an experience they haveto have in their body and in
their mind and I would say thatmy yoga therapy training also
definitely made me far morecomfortable and capable as a
teacher to hold what I callbrave space, which to me is very

(43:02):
different than safe space, sothat when somebody in my
classroom is going through areally hard time, whether that
is literally they're having aflashback in my class or whether
it just is all the grief theyhaven't processed about their
death in the family is nowcoming to the surface right.
Well, regardless of what themental emotional state is, my

(43:26):
trauma training and my yogatherapy training gave me the
ability to be there and to holdspace for that and to witness it
and to send the good vibes.
If we can speak in woo-woo, butall in a non-co-dependent, I
need to ride in on my whitehorse and rescue you from the

(43:47):
situation that you're havingright now.
I need to find the right wordsto make it so that you won't be
sad and you'll stop crying, youknow, because that's that's just
spiritual bypassing.
And so my, my therapeutictraining really gave me the the
understanding of mental health,emotional health, the nervous
system, to be able to sit at thefront of the room and be

(44:11):
witness to somebody having thatexperience and to be grounded
and not feel that flutter oflike, oh I gotta fix it, they're
sad.
What do I do, you know, to beable to sit in my own seat as
the teacher and to hold thatbrave space and, you know, shine
the light out on the situation,without trying to cut off that

(44:35):
experience.
And that happens a lot in theend, I mean at least it does in
my room.
Maybe I just detracted nowbecause I'm at the point where
I'm comfortable dealing withthat and so.
And then the other thing is thatI of course I did go study
Chinese medicine for just overtwo and a half years, and so I
don't use that information a lotin a really conscious way in my

(44:58):
just kind of weekly drop-inclasses, because I think it's
not really appropriate.
I studied Chinese medicine butI'm not a Chinese medicine
doctor and so I really have tostay within my scope of practice
.
I do offer a lot of thatinformation in my teacher
trainings and I also do kind ofhave a seasonal according to

(45:21):
Chinese medicine and Taoism,like a seasonal approach to my
classes.
So you know what, what poseswe're doing and why, but I don't
announce it.
You know it's not like I showup at the front of the room and
be like we are in the season ofspring.
Therefore, we will be workingon this sinew channel and this
it's like I just informs mysequence and the energy of the
sequence and I just do it, youknow Um so I'm going to have to,

(45:45):
I'm going to have to change myapproach now, Cause I do.
I come in and announce with withthis glory and well, and I
think that that's safe if you'redoing it from like a seasonal
Taoist perspective.
But I think where it getstricky is as teachers, if we
start talking about too muchChinese medicine stuff and we

(46:05):
haven't studied it and we're nota Chinese medicine practitioner
, right?
And then teachers and I seethis all the time because I
teachers and I see this all thetime because I train teachers,
so I witnessed this all the time.
So here's an example evensomebody who took my two levels
of my yin training, so she tookthe one I used to teach at the
therapy college, then she tookmine and she did mentorship with
me.
And yet still I witnessed in aFacebook group, one of the in

(46:29):
this yoga therapy community, oneof the students saying you know
, I have a student who's reallygrieving, what can I do to help
them?
And the first thing that thisperson that I'm speaking of said
oh, you need to work on theirlung meridian.
I was like whoa, whoa, whoa,shut the front door.
No, like, please, do not takethis incredibly wise tradition
and oversimplify it into theselittle cookie cutter answers for

(46:52):
people.
That person, if you startblasting open their heart and
chest.
I mean that might be the worstthing for where they are right
now.
And so this is where I thinkthat sometimes and I make my
students swear I'm like we allraise our hand and I swear I
will not go aroundpseudo-diagnosing people.
With a little bit of TCMknowledge I'm about to learn,
but I do think it can be reallyhelpful for seasonal transitions

(47:15):
and even just as a teacherhaving an understanding of my
students' mental, emotionalstate.
So you know, I might see themgrieving and think okay long,
but I'm not, I'm not diagnosingthem.
You know, I'm not saying it outloud.
It's informing how I work withthem, the presence I hold for

(47:37):
them, the space I hold for them,but I'm not pseudo diagnosing.
You know, I know somebody I hadon my, on my podcast, who you
should interview, by the way, drKarina Smith and I were talking
a lot about this whole.
Where does TCM come in andwhere does yin come in?
Where are the lines?
And you know she said oneexample that she used was you
know, a teacher goes into theirclass and they sort of start

(48:01):
talking about all this TCM stuffand they, maybe unskillfully,
say that there's a connectionbetween back pain and the
kidneys and now that student whohas back pain thinks there's
something wrong with theirkidneys right so this is where
the lines are like oh like,let's, let's teachers, let's
stay in our lane, let's use thisinformation as like,

(48:22):
informative for our own selves,but not and the line is so
different depending on yourteachers and your training and
your students.
And so those are kind of thebasic things that switched when
I started becoming a yogatherapist um, and started
studying yin um, you know,becoming trauma informed, I

(48:45):
already was had plenty of agencyand options for the students.
Uh, my languaging, you know so,around edge, stress, target
discomfort, focusing first onthe nervous system and letting
that actually be the leader ofthe practice.
I'll often say I don't care ifmy students don't do one yin
pose, if they just do thatcentering and then they have a

(49:06):
nap and they leave.
Job.
Well done on my part, backingaway the intensity of it to,
like that, 50 to 60%.
And then I was already a bigaccessibility person long before
Paul and long before my um mytherapy training, because I was
Iyengar trained and one of thegifts of Iyengar yoga is you

(49:28):
become a props ninja.
When you take that training,like I can block and blanket and
bolster pretty much anything.
So, although there was somethings I didn't love about that
training for the most part andthat was mostly just the one
size fits all narrative thatthey have, but for the most part
it was a fantastic trainingbecause we got to see all kinds

(49:48):
of different bodies and like,learn about like, could I put a
here, could I use a block here,how could I use a wall here, um,
and so that all has been superhelpful as well.

Rose (49:59):
Yeah so, as you're talking , as you're saying that, I'm
thinking you know how somepeople can see a person's aura
or see a person's you.
When you see someone, now yousee their body, like that's how
you are because of all thetraining that you've, that
you've had.

Nyk (50:15):
I see their body and I also will get.
It's a little more subtle andquiet, but I'll also get a hit
as to where they are emotionallymentally.
Yeah, but that's a littlequieter for me.
I'm still honing that I'll haveto kind of be in a really
grounded state myself in orderto, uh, to kind of get that that
hit.
But I, yeah, I.

(50:39):
So my Iyengar training helpedwith that, obviously.
My yoga therapy training helpedwith that.
Studying with Paul helps withthat, because there's no this
one size fits all.
So all of that went into it.
But I would say, even in myfamily of origin not to get into
my very messed up childhood,but I will just touch on this
one part that I was the eldestchild of a complex trauma

(51:01):
survivor.
My mom was a, you know, largelysingle parent.
We saw my dad's, but, you know,on the weekends.
So because of that and she wasan addict I was the one who was
the helper, right Like I madesure that my sister was taken
care of.
I was the one who could scanthe room and instantly see if

(51:22):
somebody was uncomfortable orsomeone was going to go off or
something needed to be adjusted.
And although you know, for manyyears and many years of therapy
, that was something I lamented,it's also given me this
incredible gift that when I'm atthe front of the room I do see
exactly when someone'suncomfortable and I know where

(51:44):
to put a blanket, where to put ablock.
You know what I could say, andnot to take the discomfort away
with what I say if it's mental,emotional, but to allow them to
understand that this too is partof the process and that comes
just from kind of family oforigin.
So throw all that together and,yeah, it's what I now call

(52:05):
therapeutic yin.
And the irony is, when I firststarted teaching for the yoga
therapy college that I graduatedfrom, I started teaching they
don't have yin anymore, but atthe time I was teaching their
yin module, their introductoryone, they called it therapeutic
yin.
And at the time I was soresistant to that term because I
just thought, like shouldn'tall yin be therapeutic?

(52:27):
Like why do I have todifferentiate?
Why can't all yin be like this?
But then again I could say thatabout all yoga.
Why can't all yoga be, you know?
But the reality I had to sitwith is, yeah, it, it could, it
should, but it but it's not, andthat it wasn't even until so.
I just kind of tolerated thename therapeutic in when they
did that, even though I was kindof like I roll, but it wasn't

(52:49):
until I taught that first levelwith them and I had been
training teachers and kind of aone-on-one apprenticeship model
before that.
But this was my first sort ofgroup training for a yoga
therapy college and it wasn'tuntil the end of that.
But this was my first sort ofgroup training for a yoga
therapy college and it wasn'tuntil the end of that, based on
the feedback of the students,and then the, the, the faculty
or the the owners getting thatfeedback from the students and

(53:11):
then telling me how mind-blowingthe feedback was that they got.
And they said you know, I knewthat you were the perfect person
to make you in therapeutic.
And so that's when I kind ofrealized okay, maybe what I'm
doing is different.
Before that I didn't want toclaim it as such, you know, but
it is yeah.

Rose (53:30):
So I want to talk about we're going to talk about your
teacher training, which you dooften.
But how I want to segue intothat is when I first took my
first yoga yin yoga class.
I remember being told in swanpose that I had to have my leg
in a certain way and I was likeI can't, okay.

Nyk (53:51):
I just said listen this was in a yin class it was in a yin
class, I was like okay, I cannotdo that, I'm shuddering inside.

Rose (53:57):
Well, this was like I did not know anything about my first
yin class, you know, I was likewhat is yin, you know?
And I, and then, having takenthe yoga training, I was not
taught enough.
I wasn't taught.
You know, you, you go throughyoga training and you're taught
maybe two hours of yin trainingand that's your yin training.

(54:19):
And you know they spend moretime on the sutras, right, and
you're like, okay, well, I'mreally not going to use the
sutras, I really want to learnabout yin, but you, but then
after that, I went and took, uh,a more yin training, because I
knew the importance of, like mybody was not doing what they
were telling me to do.
Why is that?
What's wrong with me?
And I wanted to learn more aboutthis, because I think yin yoga

(54:41):
is like the way to go, you know.
And so, how important is it?
First of all?
Well, how important is it thatpeople who are first coming in
or learning to become a yogateacher learn more like real
skeletal variation, about theconnective tissue, like none of

(55:04):
that language was really beingspoken, you know, it was more
like.
This is the pose, this is whereyou should be feeling it and
this is where you should bepositioned and that's it.
But there's so much more to it,and even if you're not a yoga
teacher, even if you're a yogastudent, you can benefit from
learning more.

Nyk (55:23):
Yes, I am going to say what might be an unpopular opinion
here, but I actually don't thinkthat a 200 hours should include
yin at all.
I think when people are new tolearning how to teach yoga and
then if you're going to throwyin in skillfully, where you
would talk about skeletalvariations and all of that, it

(55:45):
confuses the, it muddies thewater, unless that 200 hour is a
functional approach to training.
So you can't go around in yourHatha training or whatever it is
that you're taking and tellpeople that their leg needs to
be at 90 degrees in a lunge andthen the next day teach them in
and say, well, actually now yourleg doesn't need to be at 90

(56:05):
degrees, like this is messingwith their heads.
So, although there areexceptions and I think if a
teacher is a functional approach, teacher who focuses, who
acknowledges skeletal variationsand they teach their 200 hour,
that would be very differentthan including a little yin
would be fine.
But what happens, unfortunately, is a lot of times this yin is

(56:29):
introduced as just like regularyoga, with longer holds, air
quotes for those of you notwatching the video and nothing
could be further from the truth.
Yin is so incredibly unique andI'll often hear.
You know, twice in my life I'vehad incidences with other
teachers where I I've actuallyjust had to like walk away

(56:51):
because, um, that learning torespond instead of react
situation because my face is anemoji uh was not happening.
And and both of those timeswere times where teachers would
say things like, oh hey, if youever need your yin class subbed,
you know I'm at a studio andI'd be like, oh great, tell me
about your yin training.
And they'd look at me and golike, well, I mean, it's just

(57:14):
like regular yoga with longerholes.
No, no, it's not Um.
Or another one in the case ofyou know, one point asks me
because she's going to be takingover a yin class at a studio
and she has no yin training,although she was studying
Chinese medicine, so at leastshe had that going for her.
But you know, asks me aboutrecommended books and videos and

(57:36):
stuff.
And I said, oh, I've got abunch I can recommend and if you
want to just go for coffee, Ican, you know I said you
probably should take a yintraining if you love this.
But like, let's at least justget you started on the right
foot and to have her not takeany of those resources from me
and then me ask her about it acouple of weeks later like, hey,
did you still want those books?
Or and she's like, well, no, Imean I can teach yin.

(57:57):
And again me just being like soyin is incredibly unique as a
practice and if you love yin andyou want to teach it, well, if
you want to teach exceptionalyin classes not mediocre half
hatha not sure if this is yinwishy-washy business that

(58:20):
happens hatha not sure.
If this is yin wishy-washybusiness that happens then you
really do need to take anin-depth training, and I'm not
sure that that can happen in a200-hour.
And so my preference would be,if you're not a teacher not that
anyone's listening, but just incase they are if you're a
teacher and you don't have, ifyou don't come at your other
forms of yoga from a functionalskeletal variation perspective,

(58:44):
then don't include yin in yourtraining, just keep it separate.
And I did used to do a yinmodule in a vinyasa training,
and that was one of the biggestreasons that I stopped is that I
was like, right, you all arebrand new teachers and you're
learning all of these cues andyou're learning about hands-on
adjustments to make everybodylook like this in the pose.

(59:05):
And now I'm coming in and I'mshowing you some DVD action with
Paul Grilley going.
Actually not everybody'sshoulders do that.
So I just stopped teaching inentry-level trainings and I only
do.
Well, at this point I only domy own training.
I've not that I would betotally opposed to being part of

(59:26):
someone's 500 or 800.
I'm totally open to that if itwas a good fit.
But at this point I'm just kindof running my own show, cause
then I get to do what I want,which is the way I like it, and
I would say that, um, what Ihave been blessed with a few
times now is I have peoplecoming into my yin training and
the first homework assignmentthey have is to watch anatomy

(59:47):
for yoga.
Yeah, all of it yeah.
And then I have some reflectionquestions that they answer.
That's their first assignmentand I have been pleasantly
surprised that recently at leasta quarter of the people that
come in have already beenexposed to that information.
That didn't used to happen.

(01:00:07):
It used to be like fightingtooth and nail to get people to
acknowledge that our bones areall different, and now there's
about a quarter of them be likeoh yeah, we went over Paul's
stuff in my 200 hour and I'mlike, bravo, why aren't all 200
hour trainings using that DVD?
Well, the reason they're not isbecause then they're now going

(01:00:28):
to go teach you that the poseneeds to look like this, and so
you know.
But but it is starting to shift.
I think more and more teachersare starting to look at yoga
from a it's slow, but from afunctional perspective, and then
that of course allows forskeletal variations, cause if
you're like the point of thispose is to feel a stretch in my
hip and my butt, then it reallydoesn't matter what position my

(01:00:51):
shin is in in swan or pigeon,does it?
You know?

Rose (01:00:56):
Yeah, even if you're in, you know you're talking about
functional alignment.
For those people that don'tunderstand what that means, it's
how your body responds to thepose.
It's not like you're trying tofit.
Everyone needs to be in thatsame pose.
So even if you're in warriorlet's say warrior one and your
back foot is internally rotatedand you know your back foot may

(01:01:17):
internally rotate more thansomeone else, it may not just
align to the corner of the mat,it may come in a little bit more
or maybe it goes out a littlebit.

Nyk (01:01:24):
So you know, you know it all depends and you may need to
widen your stride, to make roomfor your pelvis, and you know
Exactly.

Rose (01:01:33):
But once I learned skeletal variation and all that,
my whole teaching just changed,not just in yin, but how I
taught a hatha class.

Nyk (01:01:44):
Yeah, me too.
Everything, because I wasn'tteaching yin.
When I discovered thatinformation, I was still
teaching.
You know.
I was like I had drank theIyengar Kool-Aid, right, like
this is the correct way to dothe pose.
And then I watched this DVD andI'm like and then I watch this

(01:02:04):
DVD and I'm like wait, oh, youknow now, luckily, I'm very keen
and nerdy and open to learning.
I'm not super attached to myperspectives and opinions,
because I find that reallylimiting.
Because so I was open to thisinformation in the presentation.
I was excited about it.
I was like, oh my God, thisexplains so much.
This explains, like you said,some things in my own body and

(01:02:25):
trainings where I'd be, like youknow.
Turns out I'm an internalrotator in my hips.
Turns out that affects someposes in ways that my teachers
could not explain to me, when Iwould say I don't get it, though
.
Why does it matter if my kneesturn in here?
Because I've always sat likethis since I was a child and I
don't feel any knee pain.
Like why are you putting 10bolsters under me and strapping

(01:02:48):
my legs together?
Like, what is the problem here?
Or that pinching that I'mgetting and them telling me it's
tight hips.
It was like my hips are my onlyflexible area actually, so I
know that's not true.
My only flexible area, actually.
So I know that's not true.
So you know it started to shiftthe way that I taught.
Now there is a point, though,where I experienced a bit of it,

(01:03:10):
and I did see it when I took myvery first workshop with Paul
in 2007, where there were acouple of Iyengar teachers in
there who'd been doing Iyengarlike their whole life.
They were teaching, they wereon the ladder of you know Angar
certification who took thisworkshop, and you could just see
they were in shell shock,because everything that they
knew and taught and believed foryears had just been proven to

(01:03:34):
them to be untrue.
And when you are faced withthat kind of information, you
have two choices you can embraceit and learn more, or you well,
I guess three choices initiallyor you can just sit there in
shock, which is kind of what washappening with them, or you can
just reject it.
Right, you can be like no, no,no, no, he doesn't know what

(01:03:56):
he's talking about.
Despite all the bodies I've nowseen and the bones I've seen,
I'm just no, no, but despite allthe bodies I've now seen and
the bones I've seen, I'm just no, no, no, there is still a right
way to do this.
So I could see that I rememberthem so clearly too.
There was about three teachersin there who were, I mean, and
Paul's wife, susie, who nevergets as much press as she should
also, you know, could feel thevibe in the room, and I'm sure

(01:04:20):
they experienced a lot of thatback then because this was new
information.
Then, you know, and she said,you know, to these teachers,
like, if you, if you feel likethe yoga mat has just been
pulled out from underneath you,like, just know, you don't have
to change anything right now,just sit with this information,
bring this information in, startsitting with it, start looking

(01:04:44):
at your students' bodies, startquestioning.
Like you know, because you dofeel like or at least I did, and
so I did that, I brought it inslowly and you do feel at some
point like I don't know how toeven guide a pose at all, like,
what do I say to students?
Stand up.

(01:05:08):
Like you know, like, becauseyou start to realize there's so
many differences in skeletalvariation that all of the cues
you've learned could not beaccurate for somebody.
And so it does leave you alittle bit kind of like how the
hell am I going to go home andteach warrior two now, right, or
how the how am I even going toteach Tadasin now, now that I
know that some people internallyrotate, some people externally

(01:05:29):
rotate, but some people canbring their legs together, some
people can't bring their legstogether.
How do I like?
This is the first pose how do Iget them to just stand there,
you know, um, and so it is a bitof a shock, and so I really
don't think that that kind ofinformation should be in a 200
hour, unless the whole 200 hourstaught that way from the start.

Rose (01:05:47):
Right, I agree with you.
I'm going to put all yourinformation about your teacher
training.
I know you have one that iscoming up I believe September
it's it starts.

Nyk (01:05:56):
Yeah, if you're listening to this live, I'm going to.

Rose (01:05:58):
I will, I'm going to put it in, I'm going to air this
before your training so thatpeople are aware.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Yeah, I'm here to support myguests as much as you know,
support the audience.
But I do encourage everyone tocheck out your website and check
out your training because Imean, I can actually sit here
with you for another two hoursand talk about this, because

(01:06:20):
this is just my jam and I lovethis.
Yeah, and more and more peopleare understand the importance of
everything that you're saying.
I mean, in the matter of Ihaven't been a teacher long, but
I've been studying a long time.
I mean, I've been practicingyoga a long time.
I have seen the pop yin gainpopularity in the past several
years and I love that and somore and more people, more and

(01:06:44):
more.
So needed, yeah, absolutely more.
But we need the teachers tounderstand how to teach it.
You know, because we don't wantto, I don't want to have to go
around and unteach what, what?
Yes, teachers are teaching.
So the mess.
Yeah, yeah, so it's people likeyou, exactly so it's people
like you who are, you know, whoare putting in the time and
effort, who are learning andinvesting in yourself so that

(01:07:06):
you could teach others and wecan spread the love of yin all
over.
Right, yeah?

Nyk (01:07:11):
I would say if there's a yoga teacher listening to this
who has been teaching in withouttraining, please stop, because
it really it really is and I'mtrying to be as gentle with this
as I can because I feel verystrongly about this but it
really is a case of you don'tknow all that.
You don't know until you take atraining, and then it's like

(01:07:32):
Whoa, okay, I didn't have any ofthat information before.

Rose (01:07:37):
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to put in also the link to Paul's
anatomy course and yeah, justyou know people that are
interested start there and thatwill just blow your mind and
you're going to see things in awhole different light.

Nyk (01:07:51):
Even if you don't teach you and watch that course, because
actually a lot of people assumethat that presentation is a yin.
It's actually not.
He's doing all Hatha poses,right.

Rose (01:08:00):
Any teacher should watch that yeah yeah, that's a good
point, or any person actually.

Nyk (01:08:05):
Yeah, yeah, even as a student, if you want a better
understanding of your own bodyif you've come up with things in
a class where you're like hey,how come my body doesn't do what
that teacher's saying you?

Rose (01:08:14):
know we get that question a lot right on the side, like
how come I can't?
Um.
Well, I just want to say thankyou, nick, for being here today.
I I loved our conversation.
I couldn't wait to hang outwith you in in this space and um
and share, you know, have youshared the information and your
knowledge is just so amazing andpeople check out her podcast.

(01:08:36):
I love her podcast and I'mlistening to it.
I'm going to binge listening toto your podcast and everything.
So just you know, check, checkher out.
She's awesome, fantastic.

Nyk (01:08:49):
Thank you so much.
Podcasts are my favorite mediumto connect with people.
So thank you for having me.

Rose (01:09:01):
Thank you for joining me here on Chat Off The Mat.
I hope these stories haveinspired you.
If you've enjoyed this episode,please share it with those who
might benefit.
Your support helps me spreadawareness about the power of
transformative healing.
Stay connected with me onsocial media.
Reach out with your own healingstories or topics you'd like me

(01:09:22):
to explore in future episodes.
Your voice is an essential partof this community.
I hope that your healingjourney is filled with
self-discovery, curiosity,resilience and the unwavering
belief in the power that resideswithin you.
Until next time, I'm RoseWippich, wishing you a journey

(01:09:44):
filled with love, laughter andendless possibilities.

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Hairstylist to Yoga Therapist: A Journey with Yin - Nyk Danu

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Hairstylist to Yoga Therapist: A Journey with Yin - Nyk Danu