Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. I'm Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri, and I have a really special guest with me today, Liz Kurlin. Liz is part of the True Love Yoga fam and she's a teacher with a focus on accessibility and agency and inclusivity in yoga. She's going to tell us a little bit about her journey today, as well as an upcoming intro to chair yoga workshop at True Love Yoga she's hosting. And I'm so excited for you to get to know Liz a little bit better today. Welcome, Liz.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Hey, thanks for having me.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: I'm so happy you're here. I love to start with the same question for every interview. So I'd love to know, how did you fall in love with yoga?
[00:00:53] Speaker A: I mean, I came to it the way a lot of people come to it, I think, which is I was in pain and looking for some relief. Shortly after I moved to Kansas City in 2013, I injured my back at the gym doing some squats and then had chronic pain off and on in my lower back for, like, the next five years and saw a chiropractor, and it was helping some, not fully. And she suggested I go to yoga. So the first place I actually went to yoga was Jim Casey. And I was like, oh, wow, this is the hardest thing I think I've ever done in my life. And also my back feels better. Weird. So, you know, I didn't become a daily practicer for a long time, but that was kind of the start of it. I came to it wanting pain relief and wanting to move my body and not really understanding that it was different than just like a regular workout class. But I learned pretty quickly it was different because things would happen, like, while I'd be in yoga, I would just, like, start to cry or something. And I was like, this is. Well, I've never, like, burst into tears on the treadmill. So this feels different than, like, going to the gym. It's kind of. That was kind of my first inkling that this was something different than anything I'd done before.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: So many people come to yoga because of pain, and a lot of people's doctors recommend it. And it's nice that you went to a class at a gym, but it was that one. I actually started taking classes there, like, a long time ago when I first moved back to Kansas City.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: And there was a teacher named Bernie.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Love Bernie. He was my teacher, too. Yes. He was great.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: He's so Wonderful.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: He had the same playlist every single class and pretty much the same sequence, and I loved it. And it was not what you would think of for gym yoga. It was always deep and lovely and the lights were dim, and I found it to be such a safe place. And I don't want to go too deep into that, but I have so many funny stories.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I will say that that's so funny that you knew Bernie, because I loved his classes. But also something important about those classes was that was the first time I saw a fat person do yoga, because he was a bigger guy. He had a big belly. You know, I think he said he used to be, like, a construction worker before he was a yoga teacher. And, like, he was just a regular dude who happened to build this beautiful practice. I was like, like, okay, anybody can do this. Which was important for me to see.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Awesome. I love that you point that out, because at the time, I don't think it even really registered for me. I was just like, cool, I'm going to yoga. But, yeah, he wasn't the person that probably most people are expecting to see when they walk into a yoga class. His name was Bernie already. So I think maybe that primed me.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: You get there, and it's like, bernie Sanders is teaching now.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: That could be fun.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be fun.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: So, Liz, I'd love to know. So you did our yoga teacher training in 2021, and since then, you've done accessible yoga teacher training. I'd love to know what inspired you to step into that role.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Well, I think early on in my teaching, you said something to me that was like, hey, I think you have a knack for, like, using props and offering assists. And I think if you followed that and got deeper into that, that could be something that you're good at. And I was kind of like, okay, you know, it didn't strike me as untrue, but it also wasn't like, yeah, animals course. But I. I started teaching yin about, I don't know, five or six months later and realized that I really loved it. I loved working with props. I loved feet postures, and I loved the sort of timber of a yin class, the environment that we create in a yin class. And so that made me interested in doing things that were more intentional. In terms of postures, every class can be intentional no matter what you're doing. Obviously, your vinyasas can be extremely mindful and intentional. But teaching classes where it wasn't like, okay, I'm gonna do 50 vinyasas or whatever, that connected with me a lot. And also just living made me realize that there are so many folks with disabilities who can benefit from a yoga practice and who already have a vibrant yoga practice that is enriching their lives. And that kind of blew me away because we're taught that disabled people can't do anything, which is a lie. I just got really interested in it. Yeah. And I certainly don't consider myself an expert, but I have studied about it and it's something that I'm really interested in breaking the idea that yoga is for a specific type of person or it's for some specific goal that you have to achieve. And so, yeah, I think it all kind of started when you were like, hey, you might be good at this. And I was like, well, maybe so. So thanks for that. Yeah, that's, that's kind of how I got into it.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: I love that. And I love that you've taken it much farther than that even. And as much as we don't want it to be and we say yoga's for everybody and we often use the phrase like all levels classes. It's a misnomer. And the yoga world can be really ableist.
So you are such a kind and empathetic person, keeping in mind all of the different ability levels and bodies that truly are possible. And I love that accessible yoga can even reach somebody who's in a hospital bed and completely immobile.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. And thank you for saying that. And I also will say, like, I still have a ton to learn. Like I am still learning the parts of my practice that are ableist all the time and like learning from disabled folks of like, hey, you could do this better. So that is an ongoing thing for anybody who's teaching.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah. I want to circle Back to your 200 hour training with us. What made you take the leap into that and what advice might you have for somebody who's considering it but might feel hesitant?
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Love, love this. I'll start with the advice. So the advice I have is do it before you feel ready. Like, don't wait until you're like, well, next year I'll have all the free time I need. I'll have the money I need. I won't be in this weird place in my life at blah blah, blah. You know, we can explain away all the reasons to not try something new. And I do that too, all the time. But I would just say do it before you think you're ready. Like really, if you have an inkling and it's, it's staying with you and you keep thinking, like, I think I could do this, then, like, follow that, even if you don't feel like you're going to be perfect at it immediately. And the reason I was interested in it is I couldn't go to yoga classes, obviously, during the pandemic 2019 and 2020, I started going to True Love, and then everything shut down. And I was still doing a lot of the online classes that you were offering, but I also started to do my own home, practice more and lean into that and spend time on my mat with just myself, nobody guiding me except for myself. And I thought, like, I could lead other people the way I'm leading myself, which is kind of an audacious thing to think. You know what I mean? But I was just like, I wonder if I could be good at this. And it, like, occurred to me, and then kind of like, I moved on. I was like, on to something else. And then it came back a few months later. I was like, I wonder if this is something I could be good at.
I had seen a lot of people, a lot of different people who don't look like the people you expect to teach yoga, had been at True Love, had been going to classes, had been going through the teacher trainings, and it kind of made me realize, like, anybody can do this, and you're going to get out of it what you put into it. So, yeah, that little audacious thought of, like, maybe I can lead people kind of blossomed from there. And it was the pandemic, so we didn't have a lot else going on, so I was like, sure, why not? And I'm actually, despite the fact that, you know, the pandemic was what it was, and it was very hard, I'm so glad I went through it in 2021, because I did have a lot of time to, like, spend with my thoughts, spend in my physical practice, spend meditating. And I wouldn't have gotten that had we not been forced to really radically adjust the way that we were doing things in the pace of our lives.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's an audacious thought, but in the best way, because you having that time to really just be on your mat by yourself allowed you to probably deepen your relationship with your own practice and body and emotions and, you know, yourself holistically in such an authentic way. And I think having the excitement to pass that truth and genuine love for yoga onto others is such a beautiful thing. Yeah, it's just whether or not you teach.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. Whether or not you teach, I Think yoga teacher training is super valuable. Yeah. It just made me realize that, like, at its core, yoga is about, like, relationship to self. Like, me and myself hanging out, becoming closer, working through this stuff. And I love classes, and I love to go to classes, and I love teaching and sharing that. But also, like, I think the most important part for an overmold for me was just, like, I got closer to myself and I learned more about me.
Yeah.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: Kind of invaluable, beautiful thing. I'd love to circle back a little bit more to accessibility in yoga. And I'd love to know, to you, what does that mean?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: So accessibility in yoga to me means getting rid of the gatekeeping and checking all of our preconceptions about what a yoga practice is. We know from all of the teachers and all of the practices across the world that have come before us that yoga can be varied. It can look like a lot of different things, physically, energetically, mentally. Yoga can be so many different things, things, and it can look so many different ways for different people. But that's hard to remember in the West. That's hard to remember in America. We're not taught that and we're not marketed that. I'll say, because I don't ever remember before taking teacher training. I don't ever remember being taught anything about yoga. I just had yoga marketed to me. So actually learning about it and learning that it meant to have all of these different purposes in your life and meant to intersect and touch all of these different areas of your life, and it's not just about moving your body made me realize that it can be for every single person and that every single person's body living has things it can do and things it can't do yet. And that's what the accessibility part means to me is like finding out, okay, what are the things that your body can do and what are the things that it can't do yet? What do you want to do? And that's something I want my students to investigate when they're in classes.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I think something that you keep in mind when you're teaching is choice and agency. I'd love for you to speak on that a bit, on how you promote that within your classes so students can unlock their own bodies, knowledge and capabilities.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Something I repeat often in my classes, which that was a technique that I loved from the yoga teachers that taught me, was like repeating things over and over again and reminded the students. So something I repeat often is practice asking yourself, what do I need right now? And it is a Practice, because we're not taught how to do that. We don't really know how to do that all the time to just like sit and ask ourselves, like, what do I actually need in this? So that is my invitation constantly to students to check in with themselves, to get curious. If you're not ready to ask yourself that, that's fine. Sometimes I'll just say, imagine what it would be like to ask yourself what you need. And maybe that's all that the student is capable of doing in that moment. In that fine too.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: I love that phrase, imagine what it would be like. I think when we're teaching and offering agency that I think of phrases like that as bridges. So yes, maybe they're not on the other side yet, but it's an invitation to cross the bridge. Right?
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And it's reminding people like, you don't have to solve or fix anything in this moment. You don't have to like come out of this class feeling incredible or knowing how to, you know, be with your emotions. Like, it's cool. Imagine it today and imagine it for another few weeks and imagine it for another few months and then maybe you can do it eventually.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: You've spoken a little bit to this already, but I'd love to expand on it just a little bit more before we talk about your upcoming workshop. Clearly, to you and to so many people, representation is so important in yoga. People want to see people that they have something in common with teaching and practicing alongside them. Um, I'd love to know your experience as a fat bodied person with injuries, how has that influenced your teaching? I think you've spoken to a lot of this already, but I want to get to it real directly.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it makes me have. Knowing that I am not always represented in the yoga community makes me think of all the other people who have identities that are different from mine, that also are not always represented. So I try to keep that in mind. You know, I've got a great little community going on and so I don't feel this too much anymore. But you know, when I do feel fatphobia creeping up in the yoga community occasionally, it is a good reminder to me that like, I also have areas where I can be working on, I can be making my classes more accessible and inviting for people who don't share my identity. And that's so important. I don't know why you would want to. I can't think of a good reason why anybody would want to be exclusionary and the practice, although I know it exists. But yeah, why wouldn't you want more people to come in and discover the practice. And again, like I said earlier, it was really important for me to see people with bodies like mine doing yoga. And that can't be taken for granted. We need to see, you know, people of color doing yoga, people with disabilities, people in wheelchairs, folks of all ages, all that sort of stuff in order for those people to say, I guess this could be for me.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: I saw a really cool post on Reddit, the yoga Reddit, that was a trans woman posting a couple pictures of herself practicing and saying, what would you think if I was next to you?
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: In yoga class? And it was really cool reading all of the answers because most people were just like, not don't. I don't care in a callous way, but just like, cool.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I just want you to be there and, you know, be. Be cool and be chill in the class. It's all good.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I want to commend you on your humility of. I guess when you're faced with adversity, you examine your own biases. And I think, like, that takes a lot of bravery and you really have to set down the ego to be able to do something like that. And that's been, you know, a practice I worked on for years, too, because, like you said, like, it's impossible to do everything perfect. We're always learning. I've been the same way. And sometimes I've been confronted with not doing things perfectly right, and it can hurt and the. The urge can be to be defensive about it, but really the yogic approach is to. To take it in with equanimity and to examine it and then honestly to learn from it and do better. And I think that's. That's like, all we can hope for.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: For humanity.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And I will say I. I wouldn't be able to do that if I didn't have a safe space. So the fact that I have a safe space, that makes me feel like I'm just as good as everybody else in the class. Like, allows me to. Yeah, get into my biases and realize where I need to do work and stuff. But it's not, it's not possible if you yourself are constantly feeling not safe or under attacks. So kudos to you and to all of the other classrooms and studios I've been to that have made me feel.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Thank you for saying that. And I don't know if I'm going to explain what I have to say with enough, like, nuance or care for the conversation, but developing a space where a Lot of people feel safe has taken a lot of time and a lot of my own inner work and a lot of strategizing over the years. So it's not something I've been able to like, force.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: I can't just like forcefully create a diverse yoga studio. That's not what happens. Instead, what we do is create the environment that is welcoming and accepting and that is through so many different techniques. It's tending to the our own practices, it's skillful use of language, it's learning how to teach yoga in specific ways that is, that are welcoming to people. It really is intentional from the moment people walk in through the door till till when they leave and in between as well. So I just encourage any, anyone who doesn't know quite how to get there yet to keep working at it, to not expect perfection and to keep examining your own biases that come up in your own inner talk too. Like, how do you talk to yourself? Because you might be projecting that onto others as well. And it's just this ongoing process that probably will never reach this like, peak of perfection.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Right, Absolutely.
I love that you say that because you really have. I mean, what is this, 10 years.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Now that it's 10 years really exciting.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: First off, mazel tov. That's incredible. Secondly, yeah, you didn't, you didn't have the practice that you have in the. And the studio that you have now on the first year, you know, and you're. And 10 years from now, it's probably going to look different again and that's great. That, like you said, that is like emblematic of the inquiry that yoga invites us. Did you?
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Pretty awesome to be a part of. Well, Liz, thank you. And I'd like to shift into your upcoming chair yoga workshop. Believe it or not, in 10 years at True Love, we haven't had a chair yoga workshop.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: So I am really excited to offer it. Offer this. We are ada accessible here at True Love Yoga. And I'd love to know. I mean, I feel like you've explained this in so many words, but for this specific workshop, why did you create it?
[00:19:06] Speaker A: For sure, Yeah. I want to offer people an introduction to it. It's so funny. I had a conversation with my mom. She was visiting last weekend and she was here. She's almost 70. If I said that, she'd probably be like 70. I'm only 67. But she is, you know, what we refer to lovingly as a senior and somebody also that is kind of excluded from yoga spaces, you know, and she said, I Saw an ad for Facebook, on Facebook for chair yoga, is that real? Is that actually a thing? And I said, it's absolutely a thing. She's like, oh, it is. I saw it and I thought, there's no way that can be real. And I was like, my goodness, it's so real. So, you know, that happened after I planned the workshop, but it just reminded me, like, there are so many people who don't even know this is an option. There are so many people out there who could benefit from a yoga practice, who maybe they can do, you know, a ton of different stuff, but they just can't get up and down off of the ground. And if we can remove one barrier for people to just be able to have a chair to sit in while they practice, like, hallelujah. That's what it's about. So, yeah, I designed it for anybody who's curious about it. This can be teachers who might be interested in teaching chair yoga. It can be students who are interested, other practitioners who might want to get a sense of what chair yoga is like, people with disabilities, people who are able bodied. You know, anybody who is just like, is chair yoga a real thing? What's that like? They can come and practice in a chair and it's going to be a 75 minute practice. So we'll do, you know, some, lots of asana, some meditation, we'll get a ton of props involved. And I just want people to walk away and say like, that was not what I thought it was going to be. And now I feel like I understand how to do yoga on my chair.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Well, that leads me to my next question is what are a couple of things that people might find surprising about chair yoga?
[00:20:58] Speaker A: That it can be bigger, vigorous and strenuous. I think a lot of people think like, oh, that's easy yoga. It's like, well, depends on the day, depends on who you are. That it can be just as physically challenging as a practice where you're doing 50 vinyasas, and that it can be so customizable. You can use your chair as a prop, you can use it as a support, you can use it as a place for you to sit, you can use it as something to hold other props that support you, a place for a partner to sit if you're getting assists or something like that. There is when you add props and when you add chairs and things like that to your yoga practice, you don't get more limited, you get more expansive. Like you get the opportunity to do more stuff and have more variations. So like, I'M looking forward to showing people all of the variations and all the things that you do.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: I love that. So that is coming up April 26th.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Saturday, Saturday, April 20th at True Love Yoga. And I wanted to ask too, because not all of our listeners are local to Kansas City. Are there any other resources that you recommend for chair yoga or accessible yoga?
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I recommend following the Accessible Yoga School on YouTube, on Instagram, anywhere that they have socials and as, as well as their founder and lead teacher, Jeevana Haman. He I've taken several of his trainings and he's got a great philosophy of making practice accessible to anybody and showing people that you can do every single yoga posture from a chair or from a seated position or a standing position or any modification that a human being might need. So I would check those out also. I think a lot of times, like community centers will have like mature yoga and whatnot. And so if you are in an area where you have a community center, I would check that out and see if it's available. Especially if you're like, you know, cost is a prohibiting factor. See if they have resources or see if they would be willing to lead a chair yoga there. Chances are if they have anybody who's teaching yoga, they're they're going to be willing to do that. All they need is interest.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I love that. My grandma's been taking chair yoga in her retirement community for a few years now and I would love to be a fly on the wall in that room.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Hell yeah. Shouts to your grandma, that rules.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: I know, I know. I think it's also gossip hour, but I'm not really sure.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: I mean, why not?
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Well, Liz, thank you so much for sharing all of this today. It's really valuable information for our listeners and I'd love to know, in your opinion, how can they deepen their yoga practice?
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Bring all of your hard emotions to it. So, so don't ever think, I can't practice today. I'm too anxious. I'm too all over the place. I'm too sad, I'm too angry. Bring those emotions to your mat because when you start to practice from a place of anger or sadness, things can open up and you might be surprised at what you get.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: I love that so much. It reminds me too on the physical of when people say, I can't go to yoga, I'm not flexible. It's like, no, no, no, bring that, bring that to the practice.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Bring your injuries, bring your stove up muscles. Like, bring it all for real.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and allow yourself the space to be open to what comes right from wherever you are. And if nothing changes, it's okay, too. If you put in the effort, if you leave and you're still angry, that's all right.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: You might be more angry because you might be feeling your feelings for the first time in months. And, like, that is real and it's so hard. But, like, that is the worst.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And you do such a good job creating this environment and expectation, but just come as you are. Like, all vibes welcome.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: So thank you. Liz. Besides your Wednesday 7:15 class at True Love Yoga and your upcoming workshop on April 26, what are different ways that our listeners can connect with you further?
[00:25:06] Speaker A: You know, I'm on and off the social medias, but I will be posting leading up to the chair workshop to try to give people an idea of what they can expect and get some interest. So you can follow me on Instagram at Fat Down Dog. And that's about it for now.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: I've always thought you had the best Insta name. I love it.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Thanks. Yeah, that's a. It's a pretty good one.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: All right, Liz. Well, thank you so much for your time and energy and for sharing yourself today. And thank you everyone who's listening. I hope this encourages you to dive more deeply into accessibility and yoga and maybe give Cherry Yoga a try. Until next time. Om Shanti Om. Peace.
