Karen Fabian ~ From Pain to Power: Mastering Yoga with Anatomy Insight

Episode Transcript
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Todd McLaughlin (00:33):
Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy
you are here. My goal with thischannel is to bring
inspirational speakers to themic in the field of yoga,
massage, bodywork and beyond.
Follow us at @nativeyoga andcheck us out at
nativeyogacenter.com. All right,let's begin.

(01:06):
Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcastfor my longtime listeners,
welcome back. Thank you. Thankyou for all your support. If
you're new to the show, welcome.
I'm really delighted tointroduce you to this week's
special guest Karen Fabian. Herwebsite is barebonesyoga.com,
find her on Instagram and Tiktokunder the same handle at
@barebonesyoga. And I reallyenjoyed everything that Karen

(01:30):
brings to the table here. She'san educator of over 20 plus
years in the world of yoga andas a physical therapist in the
world of anatomy. Shespecializes in teaching anatomy.
But what I really appreciateabout Karen is that she's
putting a lot of emphasis andfocus on our mindset, how we
think? What are we thinking? Howare we approaching our teaching?

(01:52):
And I learned a lot. I hope youdo too. Let's get started. I'm
so happy to have thisopportunity to meet and
interview and speak with KarenFabian of Bare Bones Yoga.
Karen, thank you very much forjoining me today. How are you
feeling?

Karen Fabian (02:11):
I am feeling really good. I always whenever I
have a person to connect with ona podcast, like, I sort of wake
up in the morning and I'm reallyexcited and I gage my day like
at such and such a time I get tosit down and connect with
somebody and talk about yoga. SoI'm really glad to be here. And
thanks for the invite.

Oh, of course.
And I agree it's a it's a laborof love, but it is so I feel
like I learned so much everytime I get a chance to meet
another professional. So thankyou for making time for us,
sure, bare bones yoga. So you'rea yoga teacher and you've niched
in and focused deeply onanatomy. Can you tell me what
your beginnings were in bothfields? Did you start as an

(02:52):
anatomy professional and thenget into yoga, or did you start
practicing yoga and fall in lovewith anatomy? So

I thought I thought I wanted to be a
physical therapist. So when Iwent to college up here in
Boston, at Boston University, Iwent with the intention of being
a PT, and I did the pre medcourses with the PTs and the
doctors, and I did a little bitof internship stuff. And then
about two and a half years in, Isaid, I don't know that. I just
want to work with people'slimbs. I really want to work

(03:22):
with the whole person. And sothere was another program in the
health school that was rehabcounseling. And so I switched
into that, and I ended upworking as a rehab counselor and
a social worker and sort of adischarge planner in a hospital.
And it was a hospital withpeople with head injuries. So I

(03:42):
was part of the team ofprofessionals, the doctor, the
orthopedic surgeon, the physicaltherapist, the occupational
therapist, me as the dischargeplanner. And I got a lot of
experience seeing the impact ofnot so much disease, but more
traumatic injury, on the brain,on the body, on movement, and I

(04:02):
became fascinated with bothanatomy and just functional
physical movement. And over theyears, my career took me through
several different places,several different areas of
focus, but it was always inhealthcare. And as a person, I
was very athletic, and I did alot of exercising and working

(04:25):
out, but not yoga. And I wasgoing through a really difficult
time in my life, and I went andtook a yoga class on a sort of a
wellness vacation, and I justlike sobbed through the whole
thing, and I was like, Where isthis coming from? I mean,
obviously, rationally, I couldthink, well, I just got

(04:47):
divorced, so that's probablywhat it's about. But it was just
a very interesting experience.
And then shortly after Ireturned home, a friend of mine
said, Hey, let's go to this yogaclass. And we went to this yoga.
Class and the experienceliterally changed my life. It
was in my mind, the perfectblend of physical therapy and
and psychosocial impact ofmovement on health, the mind,

(05:13):
body connection. It was so manythings that I loved and in that
in that class, I'm not being I'mnot exaggerating, truly, truly
in that class, I knew this iswhat I want to do with my life,
but I was very much ensconced ina very good job in the corporate

(05:33):
world. At this point, I wasmaking really good money, and I
thought, How am I going to dothis? And this was in the late
90s, early, 2000s like beforesocial media, you know, kind of
thing. Matter of fact, the firstteacher training I went to was
because I saw the poster in thelobby of the studio, because

(05:57):
that's the only way you foundout about upcoming trainings.
You went to take class, andthere were posters on the wall,
and I went to that first teachertraining in 2002 and I knew this
is this, is it, this is what Iwant to do. So I really just
over the next 18 months or so,crafted a plan to leave my job
and start working as a teacher.

Very cool.
Well, what yoga training was it?
Was it like?

Yeah, so my original going to class
experience, and this was again,in 1999 where in Boston there
weren't a lot of studios. It wasreally, I know people listening
now might think, oh my god,although somewhat after the
pandemic, things, I think,shifted a bit for studio the
landscape of studios indifferent cities, but here in

(06:44):
Boston at that point, thereweren't a lot of studios. I
went, as I said, On therecommendation of a friend. It
was the it was Baron Baptistestudio in Cambridge, which was
sort of the flagship studio inthe Boston area at the time. And
I went to his original 200 hourteacher training, I really

(07:04):
connected with the power vinyasaflow. I connected with the heat.
I connected with the way that itwas part physicality and also
part sort of mental coaching.
There was a way that Barontaught that really brought in
the aspects of speaking to thethe challenges of yoga and and

(07:24):
bringing in philosophy, but in areally accessible way. And so
that was my initial sort offoray and into teaching. And I
remember, at the time, greatintroduction, yeah. And I
remember at the at the time, Ireally wanted to work there, and
that's eventually where I gothired. Oh,

cool. So after the teacher training, you were
able to start to teach classesthere,

yeah. And then I actually, in addition to
teaching for the company, Iworked there as well. So I was
involved in. I actually wrotethe first agenda for the very
first 200 hour teacher trainingthat we offered, which was not
even really called a 200 hourback then, because the

(08:11):
guidelines didn't exist. It waslike very much the beginning of
things. And so I did a lot ofthings behind the scenes. So I
really, sort of crafted, really,this, this sort of full time
teacher lifestyle.

Very cool.
Yeah, and so, at what point soyou already have this anatomy
training in your background? Atwhat point did you start to pull
from your professional trainingand anatomy and apply it to
teaching yoga.

Yeah. So what happened is, you know, working
initially for Baron in this, youknow, organization, both
teaching classes and, you know,was an amazing, amazing
experience, but I was somewhatfeeling limited in terms of what
I could do on my own. I mean, myentire life was really centered

(09:07):
on working for the company, andso after a number of years, I
stepped away, really to start myown business. And that was
really the beginning of barebones yoga, and it started
because it was right around 2009when there was a really big
economic crash, and a lot ofpeople were losing their jobs,

(09:29):
and I had students telling methey couldn't afford to come to
class because they lost theirjob. So I found a really cool
space in Boston. It was actuallya renovated gas station, and I
taught classes there, and Icalled it bare bones yoga
because it was just the yoga,and people brought their own
stuff, and we did yoga, and thatwas it. And so the name bare

(09:51):
bones yoga spoke to theexperience, and also spoke to my
love of anatomy and my way ofteaching classes that were.
Really focused on functionalmovement. And so that went on
for a little bit. And then Istarted teaching in different
locations, and then peoplestarted asking me, because they
knew my classes were reallyfocused on the anatomy, to teach

(10:14):
anatomy for their 200 hourtrainings. A lot of yoga
teachers don't really feelcompetent with the anatomy as a
topic. And so where I reallyfelt it was my area of
expertise, people that I knew inthe Boston area would reach out
to me and say, Hey, can you dothis part? You know, the 20
hours in the so I began todevelop a methodology of how I

(10:39):
taught it, and that became sortof an iterative process, because
it is a really hard subject toteach in a short amount of time
and get the results that youwant for people. And that really
became the beginning of mecreating, eventually my own
program, totally separate, butthat's how I started,

amazing. So if that was in 2009 and the advent
of online education not reallytaking root until 2020 obviously
it existed before that. But PT,people taking it seriously, not
as much. Did you already have acurriculum for teaching anatomy,
which it sounds like you did,and then have you transposed it

(11:22):
into the digital format? Isthere a way for me or someone
listening to study with you inthe digital realm?

Yeah, actually, in 2015 I connected with a company
out of Canada called Thinkific.
And this was long, obviously,well, five years before covid,
but really when online learningwas not really a thing in 2015
but I knew that from thebusiness side of things at that
point, I'd created a prettybroad portfolio of services that

(11:54):
I was offering. I was teachingin studios, and I was also
teaching in schools andnonprofits and hospitals, and I
had created this entireportfolio of services that I
offered, but I knew it wasn'tscalable. There was only one of
me. There was only one place Icould be at one time. And I knew
if I wanted the business side ofthings to be sustainable, I

(12:16):
needed to build something thatwas scalable, that could be
done, where I built it once, andthen I could sell it over and
over again, and I could reachteachers anywhere in the world.
So in 2015 I created version oneof what is now my flagship
program, called the bare bonesyoga, yoga anatomy blueprint
learning program, and the coreof it is my 10 step blueprint

(12:39):
for understanding anatomy andhow to apply it to your cueing
and your sequencing. So in the10 steps that I take teachers
through, the last three stepsare the application to cueing to
sequencing, and then myofascialrelease and fascia, and the
first seven steps are learningthe fundamentals. So I've had
that program essentially since2015 but it's really been in the

(13:02):
past five years or so that it'sreally sort of taken shape.

Awesome. That's amazing. So can you tell me what
type of growth you experiencedin 2020 when a lot of us got
caught with our pants around ourankles? You know, when that, all
that stuff went down, did youwere you sounds like you're
ready to go. You had everythingtotally already organized. Did
you notice a big growthexperience during that?

Yeah. I mean, I think initially what was kind of
cool is it wasn't just that myprogram sales went up just from
people purchasing it. It wasalso that studios that were shut
down and had gone to visualvideo classes were also trying
to take their 200 hour teachertrainings online. So I had a

(13:53):
bunch of new people reach out tome, even outside of the Boston
area, because they knew of myonline program to see if I could
teach the anatomy part of their200 hour, which they had now
taken virtual, and I already hadthe entire curriculum set, which
was part of my my own onlineprogram. So it was really easy

(14:13):
for me to just do that. So itwas really fun to have a number
of live trainings I did whereeverybody was virtual, and I
just hit the ground running, andthen I already had people
enrolled in the program thatwere outside of those programs.

Very cool. What is one of the myths that you see
around yoga and Ana and anatomythat you could enlighten us on,
that potentially we could bustthrough?

Yeah, you know, I think the biggest thing is a lot
of yoga teachers worry thattheir students are going to get
hurt. And they come to me andthey say, I'm really worried my
students are going to get hurt.
I so want to teach safe classeslike they use that word, and
there's a lot. Of narratives inthe yoga industry that teachers

(15:00):
pick up on. There's a lot ofstories and a lot of phrasing
that people pick up on. And thatphrase I want to teach safe
classes. I mean, duh we all do,right? You know? And the reason
I say duh is because it's kindof obvious. However, the the so
the the sort of assumption thatpeople make that if I do X,

(15:24):
people won't get hurt is a falseassumption, because it's based
on this idea that when I walk ina room knowing nothing about the
people in there, I'm going to beable to prevent somebody getting
hurt. I mean, I'll give you aperfect example. I just visited

(15:45):
my parents in New Jersey.
They're big Yankees fans, eventhough I live in Boston. I was
born in the Bronx, so by birth,I'm a Yankees fan. And before
the Yankees game this weekend,they did this old timers game.
It's a tradition, and they getthe former players who are now
in their 50s to play a coupleinnings of baseball. Well, their

(16:08):
hall of fame pitcher MarianoRivera simply ran to first base,
and then when the next guy gotup at bat, he ran to second base
and he completely blew out hisAchilles. Now, 50 is not old. He
played a long career inbaseball. You could make the
case that his Achilles waspotentially ready to go because

(16:31):
he was older a little bit maybehad spent 30 years running
around on it. But did he knowthat particular day his Achilles
was going to go, No. Was thereanything he could have done to
prevent that? Probably not,unless he had some warning signs
that he ignored. My point is,when we go in to teach our
classes, we know next tonothing. And even for the

(16:53):
students that come up to us andsay, hey, just want to let you
know I have a herniated disc,for instance, but my doctor says
it's okay for me to practiceyoga. Okay, great, depending on
the teacher's knowledge of whatthat is. Who knows if you even
know anything about thatcondition? And even if you do,
you're not looking at X rays.
You're not asking them questionsabout or doing any kind of

(17:15):
muscle testing on them to seewhat their functional movement
is. So the assumption that youcan prevent injuries or you want
to teach safe classes based onthat is really a false
narrative. So what I usually sayto teachers is all is not lost.
It's just that we want to directour efforts to what can we do?

(17:36):
So the kinds of things we can dois, number one, be walking
around your class. Look at yourstudents. Watch your students
get off the yoga mat, stoppracticing, and watch them
because they're not talking toyou. We don't have yoga classes
like fitness classes, where thestudents are talking, so the

(17:56):
only messaging you're getting isby what you can see. So that's
number one. Number two,understand the fundamentals of
anatomy, and I can definitelyhelp you with that. Number
three, use a sequence you knowwell, because when you don't
know your sequence well, becauseyou feel compelled to change it
all the time, most of yourmental process is focused on

(18:20):
what comes next, and you'reprobably practicing to remember
it, because that's how youlearned it, because you probably
practiced it at home a bunch oftimes so and then the last thing
is use really clear cues,because the clearer the cue, the
better the chance theyunderstand it. So those are the

(18:42):
things within your control thatyou could make. The case
decreases risk, not 100% but youcontrol those things versus all
the things you can't control.

Great answer in relation to the first idea that
you presented, which I believe,was to stop practicing and watch
use your visual skill to observeyour students and see what are
they doing. What are some of thetail tell tale signs that? What

(19:18):
are some of the body languageways that you or things that you
typically pick up on that youthink is easy for the beginning
teacher to observe. For example,my first thought would be, okay,
they go to fold forward andtouch their toes and they bend
their knees. So then I couldobserve potentially tight
hamstrings, but maybe there'd besome sort of cue that would

(19:40):
indicate that they have ahamstring issue or a pull or a
tear and all these things. Ithink we get good at it when we
start watching people. And even,not even just watching people
when we're in the classroom, butlike if we're walking down in
the mall, and we start observingbodies, because I think, as an
anatomy professional, everybodyis so fascinating to watch. And
you start to you. Use that as away to study like what, what

(20:02):
could they potentially bedealing with, and when I study
the way their toes are angledout, or knees are bent right?
So, but I know that's hard inthe beginning. So what are some
of the cues that you wouldsuggest that I look for as a
beginner teacher?

Yeah, so I would suggest I have this saying that
I share a lot when I haveconversations like this and it
goes like this, say the cue andsee what they do, say the cue
and see what they do. So we'resort of staying at the
superficial level versus adeeper level with respect to is

(20:37):
there a muscle compensationgoing on? Is there potentially
an injury? We're just at thelevel of, I'm saying, step your
right foot forward, drop yourback heel, reach your arms up.
And I'm seeing, do they do that?
Now, if they do that at thelevel of just gross motor
movement, they've stepped theirright foot forward, they've
dropped their back heel, they'vereached their arms up, generally

(20:58):
speaking, in the class. Okay, Iknow I'm good, so now I can
start to look at the shape,maybe I look at the alignment.
So within my teaching method, Ispeak about four different types
of cues, action, alignment,anatomy and somatic. So I could
focus maybe on alignment, andsay, for, for this example,

(21:24):
Warrior, one, stack your kneeover your heel, and then I look.
So if I don't see it, that's thefeedback to me, maybe rephrase
it. Can you stack your knee overyour heel, or take a look if
your knees over your heel, andsee what that second iteration
does that catch some of thepeople who maybe have their knee

(21:47):
way past their heel? Now I'm notgoing into in this example, the
anatomy base cue, which mightspeak to the why knee past heel
might be problematic. I'm justat the level of alignment. So
say the Q and see what they dois a framework that a teacher
can use, a teacher of any levelof experience to see, do they

(22:09):
understand what I'm saying, andin seeing what they do, that's
how, in part, I buildconnection, because that
connection between the words outof my mouth and what the
students do is literally theconnection between us, so that

(22:32):
can be a really sort ofempirical way to know, is it
working? Are they understandingme? Are they listening? Are they
present? That kind of thing?

Great point.
And then back to the idea of theinitial intent that I'd like to
teach a quote safe yoga class.
Yeah, if you are observing, andyou're noticing, if your cues
are landing and you're payingattention like this, and
actually observing everybody, wehave a higher percentage chance
of achieving this goal totally.

And again, I still might not know. Again, back to
the Mariana Rivera pitcherAchilles injury. I still don't
necessarily know if somebody hassomething brewing in their body
ready to go, but I am doing myjob, what is within my
professional scope of practice,to be watching them, to be using
clear cues, to be saying thecue, and seeing what they do,

(23:30):
all those things. It's like I'vegot this control panel like a
pilot in front of me, and I'mworking the controls. I'm doing
what is within my purview. Andthat, again, you could make the
argument that that sort ofdecreases the risk, if anything,
it hopefully provides for anexperience where the student
feels a little more steadier ontheir feet and is maybe even

(23:53):
learning a little bit about howto come into these different
postures. Yes.

Ah, great point. Karen, oh my gosh, I have
so many questions for you. So inthe last 20 plus years, what
changes or evolutions Have youobserved in relation to how yoga
was either taught and practicedthen and now and because just

(24:20):
personally, there was a lot oflanguaging with my first
official yoga training withBikram Choudhury, push and push
and push and push and lock yourgoddamn knee, and I apologize
for using the GD word, but yeah,it was very aggressive. Yeah,
there was no, there was noreally concern about anybody

(24:41):
getting hurt at least then thatI could pick up on. It was more
like try to push yourself to itwas more almost like you guys
are so lazy that you're not evenworking hard enough to hurt
yourself. I want you to workharder. I want you and so now I
feel like we're kind ofteetering on the other side. Of
I gotta be so careful. I'm soconcerned about if I hurt

(25:05):
somebody, because I don't Imean, honestly, I don't want to
hurt anybody, and I feel thesame way I want to teach a
really safe yoga class. What?
What? How do you boil all thatdown now?

Yeah, yeah. So there's a couple different
angles we can get to this fromthe first one, is part of
saying, I want to teach a safeclass. And part of what you're
describing, this worry and fearis in part, predicated on the
idea that our students can'ttake care of themselves, not
that we intentionally go inthere and think that. But a lot

(25:37):
of teachers, and this is again,part of the narrative, part of
the stories, part of thephrasing that they pick up on
from other teachers and maybeeven the person who trained
them, this idea that thesepeople coming to your classes
need to be taken care of, theyneed to take it easy. They need
to listen to their body. And Iguess on some level, none of
that stuff is bad or wrong, butit sort of sets up the teacher

(26:00):
to feel like these people comingto me are broken, somehow
they're broken, and I'm theperson that's not necessarily
going to save them, but I'm theperson that holds all the cards
as to whether or not they getinjured or they don't. And what
I'm here to say is, number one,your students come to class
because they want to. No one'sforcing them to, even the

(26:20):
students who know they'reinjured and come anyway, because
maybe they've been cleared bytheir doctor, maybe they don't
care that they're injured. Maybethey feel like somehow, in their
mind, they're going to pushthrough it, whatever it is, but
that's their choice. When westep in to teach the class,
we're responsible for certainthings, and they're responsible
for certain things, and Ibelieve that the yoga industry

(26:43):
has done a disservice to a lotof the teachers to make them
feel like they're carrying theload for both their students and
them. And that can cause atremendous amount of pressure on
a teacher to feel the pressureof that instead of looking at it
as we're equal parties here.
Sure, maybe I'm walking in withthe expertise around teaching

(27:05):
yoga, but you chose to be here.
You want to be here. And so nowwe're going into it a little
more of I'm seeing you as awhole person, as a whole entity.
And that's that the other thingI wanted to talk to is this
story you told about Bikram. AndI've never been to a Bikram

(27:27):
class, but obviously I've beenteaching long enough I know
about it, and even when I, youknow, worked for Baron and
taught under Baron, you knowthis model of and I'm not saying
either of these people werelooked at this way, but this
sort of Guru model is, is sortof what the yoga industry is
predicated on. And I believethat this model really sets

(27:48):
teachers up for kind of adisempowered experience, because
just in that idea of, like, whatyou describe, someone says, this
is the way you're the trainee,okay, this is the way, in that
model of learning, the teachersort of abdicates. They sort of

(28:09):
give up their agency to thatother person. One of the things
I hear a lot from teachers, whenI have conversations with them
about things they're doing intheir classes, they'll say,
that's the way I was trained,and that statement is a
statement I hear so much. Itbecomes part of the vernacular

(28:30):
of yoga teachers. Well, that'sthe way I was trained, and that
statement basically, is anillustration of, I've given up
my agency to this person who'straining me, I don't have any
critical thinking. I'm justgiving it up to them and
believing that. And along withthe things that you described, I
can certainly remember in myfirst 510, years of teaching,

(28:55):
the assisting we would do onstudents, when I look back and
think about assisting people inhappy baby without asking for
permission, without, you know,any concern of personal space
and agency over one's body andno one questioned it,

or the SI joint, like bearing all that
weight down their low back andbending the heck out of it, all
the things.

And in looking back, and this is sort of where
we need the context, because inlooking back, there were there
were no questions, we werefollowing the instruction. And
now we have the benefit of oflooking back on it and how times
have changed with respect toassisting in particular and

(29:46):
having much more criticalthinking around an awareness
around the reality for so manypeople that come to our classes
who don't want to be touched,who have lived experience that
makes it. Uh, a nervous systemshut down if they're touched and
and yet, then we didn't havethat conversation happening. So

(30:08):
again, were we bad or wrong? Wasit inappropriate? Probably, but
in the time that we were in,that was acceptable, but that
context of this is what we weretold. Same with your story is
something that still is there,that teachers give me that as

(30:30):
the reason why. And so what Ilove to talk to teachers about
is, how can you become moreempowered, instead of giving
your power away, how can youbecome more empowered? What does
that look like to you? And I'lljust share one more last

(30:50):
example, please. I just got anemail before we hopped on from a
teacher I've been talking towho's considering enrolling in
my program, and she wrote meback and said something along
the lines of, I'm a new teacher,my classes are going pretty
well. I'm getting good feedback,so I figure that must mean I'm
doing pretty well, and that's aperfect example of giving your

(31:13):
power away. And it's notnecessarily about power, like
having power over somebody, butI can't control how my students
feel about my classes. They likeit. They don't like it. It's
colored by their own experience,how they see me, how they see
the world, the mood they're inwhen they come all these things
I have no control over. Sothat's a perfect example of a

(31:34):
teacher who's literally givingher power away to her students
in terms of how she feels abouthow she's doing when she
teaches. So what I love to askteachers is, forget about what
they're saying. How do you feelwhen you teach the class at the

(31:54):
end of the class, when you'redriving home? How do you feel,
because what comes up for you inthe answer to that question is
the stuff that we want to workon, because if you don't feel
great, if you're beratingyourself, if you think you
messed up, if you felt nervous,if you forgot the sequence, if
you felt self conscious, if youwanted to do the walk and talk

(32:17):
and instead, you were on yourmat the whole time. That's the
kind of stuff that we want towork on. Those are the kinds of
things that are blocking youbeing empowered,

yeah, and I appreciate that's thank you so
much. I appreciate how you arepointing out in my first
question about one of the mythsthat we see is the over
identification with safety, andwe can see how we've
transitioned from kind of notreally putting much emphasis on

(32:47):
that, to now putting a lot ofemphasis on it, trying to find
some happy medium in the middle.
Yeah. Can you speak a little bitabout current science within
anatomy in terms of pain and howwe can know what levels of pain
to respond with to going moretoward the safety side versus

(33:10):
Let me push through the pain tohopefully come out the other
side a better person.

Yeah, so pain is, of course, an internal
experience, and oftentimessomething we as the teacher
can't see in our students, shortof maybe if their face is making
some sort of face, but that,again, is an interpretation of
their face, right? How can andunless you're working with
someone privately in a one onone session where they can be

(33:40):
talking back. We're reallyguessing if someone is
experiencing pain. Generally,though, what from a teaching
approach, we can do is makereally intentional choices about
the poses we offer. Because if Ilook at, let's say I had 100

(34:02):
index cards in front of me with100 different poses, and I
wanted to create a sequence bysimply picking a bunch of poses
that had, again, I hate to usethe word risk, but let's say I
want, let's reframe it the otherway. Let's say I wanted to
create a create a sequence thatwas highly accessible, right?

(34:22):
And accessible doesn't have tomean easy. Matter of fact, I
could just teach Sun Salutationa and sun salutation B, and
maybe a tree and maybe halfpigeon at the end. That's it. I
could do that for 60 minutes,and I could make that really
hard if I slowed it down, if Iheld them longer in the poses.
So it's not really about, I'mnot talking about accessibility

(34:46):
from the point of view of thisis a beginner class, but my
point is, if I make reallyintentional choices on the
poses, that in and of itself,can increase accessibility by.
Because I'm not asking for asmuch from the body in terms of
range of motion. I'll give you areally specific example. If I'm

(35:07):
teaching side angle lunge, and Iteach it with just the arm over
the head, and then I ask them totake the arm behind the back, or
maybe put the hand on the hip,the hand in the air, put it on
the hip. But if I then take theminto the half bind. And if I
then take them into the doublebind with each progressive
progression, with eachiteration, that upper shoulder

(35:30):
has more of a requirement from arange of motion point of view.
It's externally rotating morethe more I take the arm behind
me, the more I now go for thedouble bind. I need to keep that
upper shoulder opening, which isexternal rotation. So therefore
I need more output from themuscles that create that

(35:51):
movement, and I need more lengthfrom the muscles that do the
opposite thing, which isinternal rotation. But if I'm
teaching and I sort of hold backon the double bind and just sort
of stay in iteration one anditeration to that's what I mean
about an intentional choice thatyou could make the case

(36:12):
decreases some risk for thestudent. So the the poses you
pick is, is one thing. The otherthing is, when we were talking
before about watching yourstudents like, let's take high
to low, push up if I'm teachingclass and I'm in that first 20

(36:33):
minutes of Sunday and Sunday,which generally is kind of a
vibe that a lot of people willbe teaching. And I see that
there's a lot of sort of slop inthe movement from high to low
push up. That is something I'mteaching a lot in class. I mean,
if you're teaching sort of atypical power flow, kind of

(36:56):
vinyasa flow class, you probablyteach a bunch of those things.
So that particular movement,those poses and that dynamic
sequence, high, push up, low,push up, up, dog, down, dog. It
would behoove me to really helpthem as much as possible. If
people are having trouble withthat or out of alignment with
that, because I know thefrequency of that part of that

(37:22):
movement is higher than maybethe one time I teach tree in
that 60 minutes of class. Sothat's that frequency variable
is another thing that I can sortof play with to again, you could
make the case to decrease risk,but again, to just increase

(37:44):
accessibility. So I'd saywatching your students, this
issue of the things I teach alot in the one class, really
make sure by watching them,they're doing that and they sort
of have integrity in thoseposes, and then making really
good choices, really intentionalchoices, fueled by your
understanding of anatomy whenyou create your sequence.

Great answer does in trying to train them to
understand their own experienceof pain. What is in your own
personal practice? How have youtraversed realization or
understanding about how far youshould push versus take care of

(39:10):
yourself when you are feelingpain, what? What is? What are
your takeaways there?

Yeah, so this is an interesting topic, and
relates to when I said beforethat narrative that teachers
hear of, oh, just, just take iteasy. Like that sort of scenario
of a student comes up to youbefore class and says, hey, just
want to let you know I'm workingwith a hip injury. And the
common retort is, oh, just takeit easy. Well, if we look at

(39:38):
that in the context offunctional movement and and sort
of even just overall health.
There, you could make a casethat in that scenario, you might
want to say to the student,okay, well, and I'm not saying
because I don't know the actualscenario, it would obviously be
different from person to person.

(39:59):
But the idea, let me just say itthis way, the idea that whenever
someone has an injury, if theyhave some sort of discomfort or
pain or reaction internally towhat they're doing, the answer
to that is, oh, just stop andrest. That is again predicated
on an incorrect assumption thatpain is only something that

(40:23):
happens as a sign to tell uswe're doing something wrong.
Perfect example, if you haveever been to physical therapy
because you've had an injury,you know, the treatments that
they give you are painful.
Anybody listening who's had anykind of injury where they've had
to go to physical therapy? Be itis uncomfortable, but they don't
say, Oh, I'm not going to takeyou through range of motion

(40:46):
exercises today, because it'sgoing to be painful for you,
right? So this speaks to whatthe level of an injury in the
body. Obviously, there's lots ofdifferent injuries we can have,
but even if we just look atmaybe a common one, someone
comes in and says, Hey, I have alittle bit of a problem with my
hamstring on the one side. I'vebeen running a lot, and I feel

(41:09):
like there's a little bit ofirritation up by my sitting
bone, which is the origin of thehamstrings. And I'm just a
little concerned that maybe inyoga here, it's just a little
uncomfortable for me when I do aforward fold. Okay, so I get it,
you know, keep in mind, part ofthe thing we might want to do is
strengthen that a little bit.

(41:29):
And to strengthen that, we wantto use it right? So this is
where maybe a pre classconversation can get into a
little bit of nuance, but it hasto be fueled by me understanding
anatomy and also me notprescribing something because
that's out of my scope ofpractice. So some of this around
pain, I mean, for me,personally, I do a lot of

(41:53):
different things now versus 1015years ago, when all I did was
practice yoga. Now I do so muchbecause I'm 60 years old, and I
know that there's a lot ofthings that, as we age, go
downhill, unless you keep upwith it, primarily things like
lifting weights every day tokeep lean muscle mass in my

(42:13):
body. And a lot of the stuff Ido now is a little
uncomfortable, but I don't runaway from that. I also look for
ways that I can do things inkind of a graduated step up way,
rather than just all of a suddenlifting a really heavy weight,
or all of a sudden doingsomething in sort of a impactful
way that's over the top.

Yeah, great point when, when a student like
you had made mention abouttalking about, I have this
little bit of challenge, and youwant to encourage them that
let's go ahead and work on itand strengthen now, if I'm a new
teacher, and for example,somebody comes in and says, I'm

(42:54):
just going to throw a differentmuscle name out there, I
recently pulled my quadratuslumborum and as a teacher, and I
haven't studied anatomy, and Idon't know what the quadratus
lumborum is. How would yourecommend the teacher respond to
that statement?

Yeah, so I'm going to give you sort of a general
talking point that anybody canuse for anything, and I use even
though I know a lot aboutanatomy, I always say to
somebody, because oftentimesbefore class, you don't have a
lot of time to get into a one onone conversation, but you
especially if someone is againtaking responsibility for

(43:35):
themselves by coming to youbefore class to tell you what's
going on. I mean, think of allthe students that never do that,
and you never know, right? So inthis scenario that you describe,
they're being responsible.
They're coming to you andsaying, Hey, I have a problem
with my QL, blah, blah, blah.
The question that always worksis, tell me how it affects your

(43:58):
movement. Because I'm themovement person. I'm not an
orthopod, I'm not a physicaltherapist, I'm the movement
expert. If you and I starttalking about how this affects
your movement, I don't even needto know what the QL is, right,
because we're going to be doinga bunch of movement in here. So
tell me how it affects yourmovement, and now we can start

(44:20):
to talk on the same plane. Oh,well, it really hurts when I
forward fold when I bend down totouch my toes. Okay, well, I
gotta let you know there's goingto be a number of scenarios
today where I'm going to beasking the class to fold
forward. So I want you to listento your body. So I'm not saying
Take it easy, baby. I'm sayingjust listen to your body. You

(44:43):
know your body. I don't knowyour body. I might not even know
you. So listen to your body, andI'm going to be walking around
and watching. If you have anyquestions, just flag me over. I
mean, honestly, that's about themost you can do, but the general
question, just tell me how itaffects your movement, gets us
talking, versus what a lot ofteachers feel like is, oh, the

(45:05):
person's asking me a question,and now I need to be the answer
person. And it's like, wait aminute, they're there of their
own free will in your class. Whydo you need to all of a sudden
be the answer person? Your guysat the same level. So ask the
person. Tell me how it affectsyour movement. You're not
expected. Why should you beexpected to answer all these

(45:27):
questions? But this is, again,part of the paradigm that
teachers are fed that just makesthem feel like the bar is way up
here, and I am never going toget to this bar when it's like,
okay, let's. I really have aconversation about what's really
going on

here. Yeah, good point. Prior to studying
anatomy, I learned a pose calledstanding, head to knee in the
Bikram yoga series. You stand,oh yeah, you round your body
forward, you interlace yourfingers, you grab your foot, you
kick your leg forward, you keepyour heel in even alignment with

(46:04):
your hip, as opposed to, likethe Ashtanga version, where you
hold the big toe and you liftyour leg above the hip. And one
day, a physical therapist, lateron, years later, had said, Oh,
when I see that pose, it reallyjust makes me cringe, because
it's like, loaded flexiongalore. And I was like, loaded
flexion. And it makes reallygood. I mean, it's kind of tells

(46:26):
you what it is. But if you don'tknow anatomy well, you're like,
what does that even mean? Andthen, you know, I started to
explain to me that if you'regonna lift the heavy box, you
don't lift it with your back.
You bend your knees, you grabthe box, hold it close, use your
legs, stand up. So if you'reholding onto this limb out in
front of you that's really heavyand you don't have the core
strength to support it, your lowback is going to be bearing a
lot of that load, as opposed tosharing it amongst other

(46:50):
muscles. Can you tell me ifthere's anything that you've
come across in the physicaltherapy world that the yoga
world doesn't quite match upwith the physical therapy theory
about how somebody should move.

Yeah. So in this specific example, I think
context matters, right? Andthis, again, sort of relates to
when we were talking beforeabout making really intentional
choices about the poses youpick. So if, from the outset,
you're making a choice that thisis a pose you want to include.

(47:28):
Then you have responsibility asthe teacher in terms of you
better understand theimplications of this pose for a
bunch of people about whom youknow very little about, their
abilities, their physicalconditioning, right? So you had,
number one, better be watchingthem. Okay. Number two, yes, you

(47:51):
can make the case from a PTperspective, or even just a
movement perspective, that it'sloaded flexion on spine. I get
that however, like I could standup right now and demo that for
you, and I can promise you,there's very little risk to my
spine because I'm very groundedin my standing leg. I'm very
present. I have the requisitestrength and flexibility in

(48:14):
order to do that pose. So it'snot like we should say, Oh, I'm
never going to teach this. It'sthe same as with the side angle
lunge with the double bind. I'mnot saying don't teach it, maybe
even take it into bird ofparadise, but you best

(48:34):
understand the implications ofthat, versus not offering those
extended variations. So what Iwould say is, you know, even
another example is a lot ofteachers say to me, Oh, I teach
classes with a lot of people intheir 60s and 70s, and a lot of

(48:56):
women, and I don't teach high tolow push up, because they just
can't do it. And I'm like, Okay,first of all, I'm 60, right? So
it's not like it's that old,right? Number two, as you get
older, like we all said before,you need opportunities to
challenge your muscles. It's notlike we should be going into our

(49:18):
classes and running away fromoffering people opportunities to
strengthen their body,especially if they're older, we
want to give them reasonableaccess to opportunities to
challenge themselves. So, youknow, and I think even a
physical therapist would agreewith that, and that's, in fact,
what they do when they work withpeople regardless of age.

Yeah. Cool.
Very cool. What, what? Where doyou what is your future goals?
If you could visualize yourteaching and the way that you
interact with students, where?
Where would you like to see yourown personal teaching practice.

(50:02):
Go,

yeah, so you know, I, I'm going to be really honest
with you on this one, because Ihave been doing what I do for a
long time. And as I mentioned toyou before, I have sort of this
flagship program, which is thisone on one program where I work
with yoga teachers, and the maintransformation that I offer them

(50:26):
when they work with me in thiscontainer is I help yoga
teachers really build theirconfidence and skill. Because
let's face it, if you walk in aroom to teach yoga and you don't
understand anatomy, it's reallyhard to feel confident, right?
And. If you don't really knowyour sequence well, and you're
not really sure of how to cue,you probably don't feel
confident on those scoreseither. So I don't always go

(50:49):
around and say, I help you learnanatomy. I really focus on the
top level transformative goal ofmost yoga teachers, which is, I
want to go into my class andfeel really confident. And
furthermore, the other componentof teaching yoga that hardly
ever gets addressed, that Iaddress is the mindset piece,
because for so many yogateachers, the experience of

(51:11):
walking in the room to teachyoga with all the pressures and
stories that we've been talkingabout so far here does make it
feel very triggering for themand without the necessary tools
to be able to go into a room andfeel confident and empowered

(51:32):
without knowing how to accessthat, that can make even the
teacher who knows anatomy reallywell and knows how to cue in
sequence make them feel likethis is not for me. So a large
part of what I do is mindsetwork, and I very specific way
that I do that. But what I foundis it's really been challenging

(51:52):
to get teachers to say yes tothis, and in large part it's
because a lot of what teachersbelieve is that I just need to
earn hours. Hours is the way toconfident teaching, and that is
a paradigm that yoga Alliancecreated when they were initially

(52:15):
developed, and that assumptionthat hours equals more
confidence is so ingrained inmost yoga teachers minds that
and all the other stories wetalked about that I'm sort of an
odd fish in a big pond. And sowhat I have found is that even

(52:36):
though my goals have always beento empower as many yoga teachers
as possible so that they feellike teaching is easy and fun. I
always sort of feel like I'mswimming upstream. So what I did
in April of this year, here weare, in August of 2025 is I
created an accelerated program.
So I call it the yoga anatomyaccelerator, because one of the

(53:00):
metrics of my original programis it's a three month one on
120, $200 investment. So it'spretty good investment, and it's
33 months. So I thought, let mejust create something that's a
little more accelerated. It'sjust 397 it's lot more
accessible, and it's boiled downto four live trainings. So I've

(53:21):
been running that program sinceApril as a way to sort of offer
something accelerated and shortterm, to try to entice more
teachers to say yes to the ideaof, oh, I want to walk in the
room and really feel like I knowwhat I'm doing. And so when you
ask me, like, what's my future?

(53:45):
What's my vision? My vision isto have hundreds of teachers
every month enroll in one ofthese programs. But what I've
found over the past, really, 15years of doing this, is that
that is, I mean, I'm just gonnabe honest with you, that is not
been my experience, and I don'tthink it's for lack of quality
of what I offer, and I havetestimonials that blow the doors

(54:10):
off so many other programs interms of the experience that the
teachers have, but I just amsort of the alternate path
versus the traditional path, andthat just makes you know, that
just makes it, I think, a littlebit more challenging.

Yeah. So to help me understand correctly,
did you say thank you for yourhonesty? I appreciate that,
because this is what, this is,the challenges that we, that we
face. I'm curious. Do you sayit's difficult to get yoga
teachers to say yes to openlyconfronting their confidence

(54:52):
from a more mindset approachversus just from an hour by hour
approach? Do you Is it a beliefthing? Is it, is it me believing
that it's possible for me toachieve confidence by you
helping to coach me to believethat I can be confident? Or do
you know what I mean? Because Ithink you're right. This is a

(55:13):
really great debate. I had thiswith somebody who's in the tech
field that works with trainingpeople in the tech industry, and
that one of his big complaintshe he mentioned to me was that
when when people are trying toaspire to a certain level of
skill and professionalism, thatthe traditional model of

(55:37):
learning, it's it's evolving sorapidly. That we need to be as
efficient as possible atreaching that state of
confidence. That you're talkingabout that if we take the
traditional route of justlogging in hours and hours and
hours, which isn't necessarilyalways the golden ticket to
achieving that goal. So I reallyappreciate what the what you're

(56:00):
bringing up. This is a reallyinteresting point. I just, I
guess I'm just wanting to dig ina little bit more about why you
think people have a hard timewith accepting this idea that I
could build confidence outsideof the realm of just just
experience.

Yeah, so I don't know if you've ever heard of the
saying that sort of generallyspoken. It goes like this,
somebody will only make a changewhen the pain they're
experiencing is to a certainlevel that they can't stand it
anymore, and they know thatthere's going to be pain in

(56:37):
change, but they're willing toaccept that because the pain
that they're experiencingwithout saying yes to trying
something different is just toomuch. And we can look at this
through a variety of lenses. Wecould look at somebody who wants
to change their diet, or maybesomebody doesn't change their
diet, and then they have a heartattack, and now they're

(56:58):
thinking, oh my god, I'm finallyready to change my diet, because
I had a heart attack, and Ialmost died. So what I have
found, you know, I think thatthe subject that a lot of people
don't talk about is the impactof the the impact of the way the
teacher experiences teachingyoga from a mindset point of

(57:19):
view. And what I've found inmany years of working with
teachers, especially the one onone work that I do, because in
that I have three months of oneon one coaching I do with one
teacher is that the the feelingsand beliefs and identities that
people have can oftentimes blockthem from being the kind of yoga

(57:46):
teacher they want to be. Case inpoint, if I was raised in a home
where my parents wanted me toget really good grades, and I
grew up thinking perfect is theonly way, and there's no other
way but perfect. And I identifyas a perfectionist and a type A
person, and I'm also maybe anover thinker, like I think
really hard about things to tryto make the right decision.

(58:09):
Somewhere along the way, Idecide I want to be a yoga
teacher, and then I go in toteach my class. And I'm a type a
perfectionist. That's an overthinker. How do you think that
kind of person is going to feelevery time they teach a class,
oh my god, there's beginners inthere. Oh my god, they're out of
alignment. Oh my god, I forgotthe sequence. I'm a bad person.

(58:30):
Oh my god, I have to change mysequence all the time, otherwise
my students will get bored. It'staking four hours a week for me
to prep for my classes. Andevery time I teach, I feel so
much pressure and anxiety Ican't these are real things that
people have told me. I'm notjust riffing here. And so this
topic of mindset becomes, youknow, I look at the four pillars

(58:54):
of teaching, and it'ssequencing, anatomy, cueing and
mindset. And so the reason Ibring this up is the teachers
who oftentimes enroll in myprogram, and now both programs
oftentimes either are havingsome sort of, I don't want to
say crisis, but they're reallyfeeling the pain of I go into

(59:17):
class and it's just not a goodexperience. And if my goal, top
level goal is to get as manypeople out there teaching as
possible and feeling like it'seasy and fun. That's my top
level goal. And so when you'rehaving that experience, you're
an ideal person to work with me,but the pain has to be a certain

(59:37):
level. The other thing I'll justquickly add this is teachers are
fed the narrative that it takesa long time to be a good
teacher. So teachers hear that,and they frame in their mind all
these crappy experiences they'rehaving, and they say, Oh, well,

(59:58):
this is just what I got tosuffer through. Or they'll say
to me, Oh, I just need topractice harder. Or I just need
to practice my sequence home atmore, practice my sequence that
I'm teaching at home over andover again. More, I just need to
learn anatomy. More. It's allthis need. But they're told it
just takes a long time, so theyjust accept this. And then when

(01:00:22):
they talk to me, and I'm like,it doesn't take a long time. It
takes doing the stuff thatmatters so that when you go into
the room, you can do it in a waythat feels easy, and that takes
specific steps that I haveworked with teachers in 30 days
and helped. Them to do that. Butwhen there's all these other

(01:00:44):
voices, if they go and talk to acolleague, that teacher will
probably say, Oh, don't worry,you just started teaching six
months ago. Everybody goesthrough this, and then they talk
to me, and then they startworking with me, and they're
like, how come nobody's evertold me this stuff that you're
telling me? And I'm like, that'sbecause I'm sort of this odd man

(01:01:04):
out, yeah, and that's what Iexperience oftentimes when I
work with

Todd McLaughlin (01:01:08):
people that is so cool, Karen, you know, and
you're developing, developingthis out of many years of
actually being in the saddle andlistening to people so I can see
you're you're listening to yourstudents and yeah, and mindset
is everything. So what is? Whatis something that in our attempt

(01:01:31):
to close our conversation orsteer in that direction so I can
be mindful of your time? Thankyou so much. You know, because I
find like I'm working with mymindset every day, one thing I
found really helpful is I have agratitude journal now that it's
put out by intelligent change. Idon't get paid by intelligent
change, but I love theirproduct, and it's just write

(01:01:53):
down three things I'm gratefulfor the moment I wake up and
three things that would maketoday wonderful. And what's my
daily affirmation? Yeah. And ingetting in this practice of
actually doing this consistentlyevery single day for a few
months now, I'm finding that,like having my mind have to
think on something I'm gratefulfor before I give myself
something to think about thatI'm really upset about. You
know, like, first thing has beenhuge, yeah? So I'm working on my

(01:02:16):
mindset every day. I feel likeit's been like a lifelong thing.
Can you tell me something thatyou re what you do, what is one
of your mindset strategies thatwe can and without giving all
your secrets away? Yeah, what'ssomething I can work with?

Karen Fabian (01:02:30):
So here's, here's from a top level, what I can
offer on that score. And this issomething that I do a lot, and I
frame it as experimentation,meaning, when something's not
working, experiment withsomething different. And this
really boils down to what Ioften share with yoga teachers

(01:02:53):
that come to me with differentproblems, and their thought is,
oh, I'll just enroll in a 300hour, or I'll just enroll in a
500 hour. What I'll say is, youknow, your confidence is not
often found in the number ofhours you train. It's often
found in your willingness to trysomething different. So a

(01:03:13):
perfect example of this is theteacher that comes to me and
says, I can't remember mysequence. Every time I go into
class, I have to practice withthem. And I know that I want to
walk around more, but I just amtied my mat because I can't
remember it. And when I talk tothem and I say, Well, how often
are you changing your sequence?
Well, every week, because I haveto do that, because if I don't

(01:03:34):
change it every week, they'regoing to get bored. And I'll
say, Well, would you be willingto experiment with for the next
five classes using the samesequence. I don't know. I'm a
little All right. Well, howabout for three classes? Would
you be willing to do it? Okay,I'll do it for three classes.
And then when we get on our nextcoaching call, every single

(01:03:54):
time, the person will say to me,Oh, my God, nothing happened,
except I felt so much moreconfident with every just three
times, with every time i Nobodywas concerned. Nobody walked
out, nobody complained. It wasthe same secret. Nobody even

(01:04:14):
knew the difference. And all Ihad to do was be willing to try
something different. And whatthat does is it challenges the
belief that I had that somethingbad was going to happen, that I
needed to change it, to keepthem interested. I mean, Yoga
has been around for 5000 years.

(01:04:38):
I don't think from a productside perspective, it's doing
great. People are still doingit, and it's hardly changed at
all, and people do it. So Idon't think all these teachers
need to think, well, I need tochange who are you to think? You
need to change it. It's doinggreat. So you can go in and but
I can't say to that person, oh,just get over it. So I say, Hey,

(01:05:01):
would you be willing? So thetakeaway from that is yes to
gratitude practice, and also,from a mindset point of view,
yes to trying somethingdifferent when we feel like
we're up against the wall.
Because typically, the reasonit's just like in yoga
philosophy that samskara thatdoing the same thing over and

(01:05:21):
over again, wearing like thewater on the rock and the creek,
just wearing to try somethingdifferent. Because when we do,
we don't even, oftentimes,realizing we're facing a belief
that we have that's holding usback from a mindset, point of
view, from feeling confident.
And so that's. That's one of thethings. I actually have a six

(01:05:44):
point framework I call theconfidence practice. And one of
the six points isexperimentation. And yes,
there's meditation, yes, there'sdaily movement, yes, there's
journaling, which you could alsomake the cases part of
gratitude. Yes, there's selfinquiry, but one of the pillars

(01:06:04):
is experimentation. So that'swhat I use. That's what I teach.
And teachers really

love it. Love it. Great advice. Thank you so
much. Yeah, sure,

and I can actually send you a link. I have a five
day Confidence Challenge, whichis a self guided experience. It
takes you through five days withsuggestions of different things
you can experiment with to boostyour confidence, and we could
even say, to change yourmindset, to boost your mindset.

(01:06:35):
So I'll send you the link tothat, and your listeners can
download it, and it's, I have itright here. It's just the five
day Confidence Challenge, andevery day it gives you different
fun exercises. Some of them arephysical, but some of them are
mental exercises to do to reallysort of shift your perspective.

Oh, that would be amazing. I'll definitely will
take you up on the challenge forsure, and I'll have the link in
the description so everyone cancheck it out. Perfect. Well,
thank you so much. I appreciateit. I really like hearing you
sharing your stories about yourexperience in the profession,
and I love your optimism andenthusiasm. Thank you so much.

(01:07:15):
And we need a little bit more ofthis. I think we need a little
bit more like confidence andyes, mindset coaching and and
you're, I love the fact that youbrought up that, oh, the common
scenarios. Let me just sign upfor another 300 hour and right,
I don't know there's You'reright. There are more. There are
other creative ways we can Ithink

that that whole assumption is based on a false
premise, again, where it's notasking the teacher, what do you
need? Yeah, it's basically theteacher saying, Oh, it doesn't
matter what kind of cut I'llhave, I'll just slap this band
aid on it. It's like, stop. Howare you feeling? What are the
problems? And it's like, buyinga house, sight unseen. It's just

(01:07:57):
like, well, I'll just buy thathouse. It's like, no, do you
need two bedrooms? Three? Whatdo you need? And you know, at
one point in my career, I wentand became a certified personal
trainer, not to work as apersonal trainer, but because I
needed more anatomy training,and I couldn't find the kind of
training I wanted in the yogaindustry. So I assessed my
skills, assessed what I needed,and went out and looked for

(01:08:18):
training to help me. So nothingagainst 305 100 hours. It's just
start with what do you need, andmake a choice from there.

I agree. I think that's so important. I my
wife and I led 203 100 hour yogateacher trainings for like, 17
years straight, and we stoppeddoing it. And now I just work
one on one and approach it onthe same exact way you're
saying, like, what do youactually want to learn? Like,
yeah, what do you want to do? Doyou want to teach? The style? Do
you want to teach? Let's focuson that, yeah. Because otherwise

(01:08:50):
you're just, like, just fillinghours,

right, right? It's

not productive anymore. That's my feeling. So I
like the direction you'retaking. I think it's critical.
Yep, perfect.

Well, I'm so glad that we had a chance to meet and
to talk, and I really enjoyedthe conversation. I love I think
there's not enough talkingbetween yoga teachers, and I
think a lot of people are outthere on their own, really
feeling like silos or likequirks in the ocean just
floating around. So I love whenI have an opportunity to chat
with another teacher. I

really appreciate it, and thank you so
much. Thank you. Thank you.
Native yoga. Todd cast isproduced by myself. The theme
music is dreamed up by BryceAllen, if you like this show,

(01:09:45):
let me know if there's room forimprovement. I want to hear that
too. We are curious to know whatyou think and what you want more
of what I can improve. And ifyou have ideas for future guests
or topics, please send us yourthoughts to info at Native yoga
center. You can find us atNative yoga center.com, and hey,

(01:10:08):
if you did like this episode,share it with your friends, rate
it and review and join us nexttime you

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