We Finally Address the Elephant in the Room: a list of my favorite anatomy and biomechanics teachers

Hello sweet peas. Thank you so much for replying to my survey about what you would like me to talk about here on the blog! You gave me so many good ideas and I am having a blast researching and writing and thinking about how I can serve you all best.In different ways, what many of you want to know more about is how to tailor a practice to an individual's needs. That is essentially what I teach in my teacher training, so it is a huge and complex topic! {Sidenote: I am only teaching one live teacher training this year, check out all the details here.}Because it is such a big topic we will spend the next few months exploring it here on the blog. Are you excited?? I am!To get ready for all we will learn together over the next few months, make sure you have read these blog posts. They lay the groundwork for what we will start to dig into more deeply over the coming months.

• What is the intended benefit of the pose?
• How to teach skeptics, so they learn to love their yoga practice
• How Important is it to Teach a Well-Rounded Practice to Your Private Yoga Clients?
• How much of your private yoga lessons should be planned ahead of time?
• The Biggest Mistake Teachers Make When Teaching Private Sessions

Here are some of the things we will talk about over the next few months:

• How to Prepare For/What To Do In A First Session
• The Basic Structure of a Private Yoga Class
• How to Explain The Differences Between a Group Class and a Private Session
• How To Work Within The Framework of Our Student’s Goals
• What Is the Yoga of Discernment, and How To Teach It

But you know what we have to talk about first? The big giant elephant in the room: Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics, Functional Movement Patterns and how little yoga asana teachers are initially taught in these subjects.

Many yoga teachers feel insecure about their lack of anatomy knowledge. This insecurity about lack of anatomy knowledge is totally normal. We ALL feel it, me included, because it is true! We don’t know enough. There is so much to learn about the body and how it functions and then even more to learn about specific individuals bodies and how they are patterned. It is overwhelming! {I personally think most 200 hour yoga TTs don't have nearly enough focus on anatomy, but that is another topic for another day.}Since my first 200 hour teacher training more than a decade ago I have taken many more trainings focused on anatomy and yoga therapeutics. I have also had many of my own injuries and the healing work that has happened as a result have had a huge impact on my teaching. I also still feel nervous when working with a client with a new injury, and am continually working to educate myself on the latest research on the body, the neuroplasticity of the brain, the science of pain, and the most skillful ways to work with musculoskeletal injuries.This comes up a lot in my work with new private yoga teachers because many students who reach out to teachers for private lessons are doing so because they can’t attend group classes. Some of the most common reasons students reach out to a private teacher is because they have an old or current injury, limited strength, unstable balance or a lack of range of motion that makes your average public class inappropriate.I teach a really deep and complex training on how to tailor a practice to an individual's needs.In my trainings I teach how to create and hold energetic space so you can teach anyone, anywhere. {The perfect, quiet space or really easy, engaged student is no longer necessary to enjoy your private teaching.}One of the most complicated topics I teach is how to Meet A Student Where They Are. {As in: what that even means, how to figure out “where” your student is, why it is important to teach in this way, both for the evolution of their practice and the growth of your business.}I LOVE teaching Observations and Assessment Skills so you can create super specific sessions for your clients right on the spot!

What bolsters this information really well is a deeper knowledge of anatomy and biomechanics.

In the spirit of that, today I will recommend all my favorite functional movement and anatomy teachers that you guys should be following! Some of them have teacher trainings, and those will be amazing to take when you have the time and the financial resources. But many of the teachers I recommend have tons and tons of free resources, in the form of podcasts and blog posts. There are many ways to slowly and steadily increase your anatomy, physiology and biomechanics knowledge without spending any money!If you just sign up for these people’s email lists, read their blogs and listen to their podcasts your teaching will change and deepen for the better.First up, Katy Bowman of Nutritious Movement. No one has changed how I think about movement, exercise and the body more quickly than she did. She has a hilarious podcast, Katy Says, and she blogs regularly as well. Her books have tons of corrective exercises that will be helpful for private yoga teachers.My own anatomy teacher Jason Ray Brown has a wonderful teacher training, but he also has an awesome blog with tons of super specific anatomy focused articles just for yoga teachers. Here and here are some of my favorites articles he has written.I love the way yoga teacher and biomechanist Jenni Rawlings is questioning the yoga status quo with questions like, “are some movements inherently bad?” She and I agree, no natural human movement is inherently bad!My good friend Diana Zotos is a yoga teacher and physical therapist and she has SO MUCH to offer our community! She has an advanced teacher training she teaches in NYC and London, but she will also be releasing an amazing video library of 60+ videos with really simple yoga-inspired physical therapy exercises you can use with your clients. Stay tuned for that, coming soon! {If you get on her list, you won’t miss it!}One of my very favorite movement related podcasts is Liberated Body with rolfer Brooke Thomas. Brooke is smart and thoughtful and has amazing teachers on her show. I always learn so much when I listen to it. {Bonus, I LOVE listening to podcasts while I’m driving, doing the dishes or rolling my glutes out on a tennis ball. Killing a whole bunch of birds with one stone is one of my favorite pastimes.}While we are on the topic of podcasts, don’t miss Yoga and Beyond with my friend, yoga teacher and movement geek,  Ariana Rabinovitch. She gets amazing teachers on her show and always asks them exactly what I would want to. She also is working on a series of books exposing common yoga myths. This is not to be missed!{Between Katy Says, The Liberated Body and Yoga & Beyond podcasts there are more than 150 episodes to listen to if you go all the way back to the beginning, and I recommend you do! That should keep you busy for plenty of long walks and dish cleaning and tennis ball rolling.}I am a big fan of Jules Mitchell and the decidedly science-y tone she is finally bringing to the conversations yogis are having about the benefits and risks of an asana practice. Get on her email list so you don’t miss a blog post. {Bonus, she doesn’t send out too many emails!}Leslie Kaminoff is a wonderful leader in our yoga community and no one teaches about breath and pranayama like he does. Soak up as much from him as you can. This article about Leslie sums up so well many of my own theories about teaching.Mr Fascia, Tom Meyers, has some neat resources on his website in addition to information about his books and trainings.I am DYING to do a Dissection Workshop with Gil Hedley, but it hasn’t worked out for me yet!I don't have much personal experience with Yoga Tune Up practice but several teachers whom I love and trust {and who work for me} LOVE Yoga Tune Up, and have used this practice with fantastic success with our clients. People love it, and I respect the ideas it is founded on!I love Amy Mathews' approach to embodied asana, and she teaches regular weekly classes in NYC. If you live there, go see her!{NOTE: This is by no means an entirely comprehensive list. I am sure I left out a bunch of wonderful people. These are just my favorites. I would love to hear from you though! Who do you love learning from?}And one last thing before I let you go my loves. If I could impart all of you with anything, it would be this:

I wish for you the ability to look critically at your own teaching without beating up on yourself.

I wish for you the desire to learn more and to become a better teachers without being crippled by anxiety.

Our students DESPERATELY need us to be able to do that.

THE YOGA COMMUNITY AT LARGE needs yoga teachers who care about their craft, are aware of the holes in our education and continuously work to better our teaching. We all ALSO need teachers to BELIEVE STRONGLY in their abilities and the importance of all the amazing practices that can help transform our world so in need of them. This means that teachers CANNOT hide their light and teachings under the blanket of FEAR.We have to have the STRENGTH to look really critically at our own teaching {and the holes in our education} WITHOUT being crippled by self doubt. That doesn’t serve anyone.Does is it feel like I am yelling? That is because I am and because I LOVE YOU and because this is so important to me.Okay, now go and roll your feet out on a tennis ball, listen to one of these fun podcasts and get back to me and let me know if it has been helpful.<3