I am so excited about today’s episode because I get to bring you the wisdom of the founder of my own teaching lineage (OM Yoga) , Cyndi Lee! Cyndi is the first female Western yoga teacher to fully integrate yoga asana and Tibetan Buddhism in her practice and teaching. In 1998, she founded OM Yoga Center in NYC, and that is where I took my first YTT in 2005.
In this interview we talk about what makes a good teacher, how to continue to evolve as teachers and what we can learn from the Buddhist principle of Threefold Logic: working with the ground, the path and the fruition.
Cyndi recently became a formally trained Buddhist Chaplain under the guidance of Roshi Joan Halifax and much of her work there centers around using yoga and meditation as resiliency practices. We talked about what it’s like to find refuge in our bodies, no matter the circumstances, and how we can offer that kind of teaching to our students.
In this episode we also talked about:
- how some teaching principles are universal, no matter what you are teaching
- Cyndi gives some advice for teachers who want to deepen their teaching skills
- what it takes to have confidence in your teaching
- having a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset
- taking refuge in a body that has a lot of pain
Trainings, Retreats and Online Workshops with Cyndi:
Cyndi’s Website
Very Special Teachers Retreat in New Mexico
Online Restorative Teacher Training
Meditation Teacher Training coming summer 2018
Thank you for doing this podcast. There were so many gems of wisdom in here that I took notes. I love the idea of taking refuge in the body, and helping students to develop a practice for this. Also, the idea that dharma teaching does not have to be explicit, like a lecture, but it can be in the person of the teacher, how they do what they do, how they interact with the world etc. Those types of dharma teachings are very powerful. Thank you again.
Oh, you are so welcome Kim! I am so happy this landed so well. Cyndi has been one of the most influential teachers of my life, I am so happy to get to share her wisdom with all of you. Sending <3 your way.