[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, I'm Sarah, and I'm Megan.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're two women in our forties who live in different states and have a lot of different interests between us.
[SPEAKER_03]: On this show, we talk about all the midlife lady leisure pursuits we're enjoying at this stage of life, like travel, hobbies, food, wellness, style, and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: And today, I am excited to chat about yoga because right now I'm doing a lot of yoga.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love this for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love yoga Megan.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, today's episode is brought to you by our exclusive season sponsor and a longtime partner of ours, Vionic Shoes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just got the City Walk sneaker and let me tell you, Megan, they have been making regular midwinter January outfits look super cute and of course, keep me comfortable all day long.
[SPEAKER_03]: Use the promo code midlife at
[SPEAKER_03]: And be sure to check out the special page we've set up where you can see our favorite Vionic styles.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can look for that in the show notes for this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, thanks again to Vionic for sponsoring this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't wait to talk about yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's dive right in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah, I thought it might be fun to set up this conversation by talking about our first encounter with yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember yours?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I was a dancer all growing up and into my 20s and I don't think I have any memories of doing yoga or knowing people who practice yoga.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure there were, but like through the 80s and 90s, I don't think it was on my radar, but I do think that in my modern dance classes, in my ballet classes, and as I started to know more adult professional dancers in my 20s, pairing yoga with dance was becoming increasingly popular.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you would see dancers who were training to become yoga instructors, or going to yoga classes to kind of supplement
[SPEAKER_03]: their dance training in like a modern dance class, you might have something like a downward dog, or a stretch or something like some of those yoga terms brought into the stretch portion of a dance class.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are kind of vague memories.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have one specific.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do remember going to a yoga class with my mom when I was home.
[SPEAKER_03]: from either college or young post college at the YMCA and that would have been like in probably the very early odds maybe 2002 and so by that point it was at the YMCA but I really don't have I don't think your memory is going to be quite a bit earlier than mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I think it's interesting how once you're sort of, and you live in California, Southern California too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, you know, you were probably swimming in that,
[SPEAKER_01]: even if you don't, like it was probably just around you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It might have been, but honestly, my mom and my parents were going to like, aerobics classes in the late 80s.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I also wonder if like, it was around me, but not enough immediate around me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I think I would remember if I knew people who were practicing yoga and I don't think I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I remember it very, very well, right down to the location and the inspiration.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my mom had this book in her bedroom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to like hanging out my mom's room and I can still remember her bed spread.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like her bedroom.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was where I got to hang out when I was sick, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she had...
[SPEAKER_01]: a stereo in there that I think maybe was the only cassette deck, like a cassette tape, you know, player in the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I started getting cassette tapes, I remember going in there and like playing my Debbie Gibson cassette tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like a record player and you remember that was like free records you could get from McDonald's.
[SPEAKER_01]: That one.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're like in the back of the children's book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't remember the McDonald's one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, total side note.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, I do remember I had one that had like every menu item on the McDonald's menu in a song.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was on like a little 45 and I would play it at my mom's room.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, that is not about yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was just kind of my memory of the location, but my mom had a book called Total Beauty and Fitness by Raquel Welch.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so curious if, and I'm going to put a picture of this in the show notes, if anybody else listening remembers this book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking at the cover right now, it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's wearing a leotard.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the highest cut leo I've ever heard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does she have a sweat band in her hair?
[SPEAKER_03]: If not in on the cover, she definitely does a great 80s blow out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was, I think more like perhaps a slightly earlier 80s book, but my mom had it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I discovered it when I was maybe like 9 or 10, you know, um, I, that book made such an impression on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was the 80s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I actually purchased a copy of this book on Etsy or something a couple of years ago, because I wanted to possess it so badly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's full of really good black-and-white pictures, but really good ones where she's doing things like, so she'd have a picture, you know, like, multiple pictures on a page of her doing something like eagle pose, which is where you wrap your arms around each other and then you wrap your legs around each other and you're kind of sitting with your,
[SPEAKER_01]: You look all twisty.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would just kind of mimic what she was doing and I don't remember why exactly it felt so good to me But like everything about it did and the other thing I noticed when I went back to the book as an adult is that yeah That's from the 80s.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a lot of talking it about weight
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and like looking good and elite aren't stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she probably had to she was recalbelts like the most beautiful woman in the world, so she probably kind of had to lean in on that for her publishers, but there was a fair amount of actual yoga in it, like breathing techniques, and she had a guru that I believe was
[SPEAKER_01]: focus or was like featured in the book someplace as like the person she had learned from.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I remember just thinking what even is this world?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it was the 80s.
[SPEAKER_01]: I lived in a teeny little town in northern Michigan.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, I had like no exposure to yoga at all in a day-to-day way, but I will say in kind of what I was getting at before, but not very articulately.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think is that I think once I knew that yoga was a thing, I did hear it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you watched TV, you would hear people talk about
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga or maybe your friends parents would say something about or whatever and I think it was just like now that I had a reference point Yeah, I knew what that was I feel like I was more in tune to the fact that yoga was out there in the world I didn't practice it again until my early 20s college I took some theater classes and I feel like it was sort of incorporated into those classes in some way
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, I really sense, you know, since I was probably 22, 23, I have belonged to a studio every place I've ever lived and I've taken it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The very least I've taken classes casually, but often would at least sign up for like,
[SPEAKER_01]: a six-week course someplace.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just been a real through line for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: The past six or seven years, I've been much more steady.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did a teacher training program in 2022.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was pretty intense at my current studio.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that has made me feel a lot more confident in having a home practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now even if I'm not making it to class, I'm still pretty regularly practicing and that's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of what my
[SPEAKER_01]: progression has looked like.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious Sarah what yoga looks like in your current life or what that progression has looked like for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I was a friend was recently asking me if I had ever done hot yoga and I had to think back and I think I've only done like warm yoga.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure that's not really a thing but I've definitely done classes where the teacher has
[SPEAKER_03]: chosen to keep the studio warm, but not hot yoga warm.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe you and I even did one of those when we were together in Dallas, was that studio kind of warm?
[SPEAKER_01]: It might have been a little warm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, at our studio, we definitely have heated classes, warm classes, hot classes, and they are different significantly different.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think hot yoga is like,
[SPEAKER_01]: almost like a brand and like, got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga is sort of, I mean like it's it's its own thing and it is not my favorite.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so anyway this friend was asking me if I had ever done hot yoga and I kind of had to think and I said I think I've only done like warm yoga Yeah, I don't think I've ever actually done hot yoga, but as I was reflecting I was thinking gosh I have done enough yoga over the years that I'm not overly intimidated walking into a class Of course, I could I could definitely be intimidated if it was just a super advanced class
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, having a dance background, I'm very comfortable.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm very quick to match a pose.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm very quick to interpret.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, you put your right leg here, lower your shoulder, square your hips.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that's my native language.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I have a comfort level with that kind of movement, but actually, I truly have only been a dabbleer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because what I realized is like, I have taken yoga many times at many different places.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I've never had one studio or one teacher or one class that I've been like this is my, this is the class I go to and that is kind of that feels like an opportunity for growth because I certainly have done enough of it to enjoy it and to have a comfort level.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I have never like stuck with anything so that and I think I think if it was the right teacher class you might.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the closest thing is right now there is a teacher in a class that I like a lot at my YMCA and it's the time is the worst.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's 815 on Mondays and Fridays and I don't know a mom with school aged kids who could it's 815 is either to you it's really hard if you're taking kids to school.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I've only can go if there's like a three day weekend, you know, like one of those Monday holidays or a Friday teacher interview or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I will go, but not nearly enough to to feel like it's my class, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also think it depends a lot on like the style of yoga being taught at your gym.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like some gyms really steer clear of yoga classes that
[SPEAKER_01]: edge up against yoga philosophy too much and some sort of embrace the teacher and what they want to bring to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been to gyms before where I really thought I got a true yoga practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been to gyms where it's basically just kind of stretching or even adding, you know, like weights and stuff, which to me is not what I'm looking for in a yoga class.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess that brings me to the next question, which is what do you think draws you to it?
[SPEAKER_01]: or what could turn you off, so whether it's as a lifestyle or something you regularly practice or even just individually inside a class.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I tend to think of yoga as like being on this continuum exactly like you said, where on one end can be very intentional about the spirituality and the practice and the kind of
[SPEAKER_03]: long steeped tradition and all of that a lot of mindfulness and yeah the spiritual aspect and then on the other end of the spectrum it would be like yoga's how you tone your body and
[SPEAKER_03]: stay flexible and like it's almost like reminds me of like tricks in in dance or something where it's like you know I can stand on my head I can yeah, and just like you I have I've seen both ends of that continuum especially at gyms like you said they they sometimes lean more into the athleticism or the strength the strength training how your body's gonna look if you do yoga, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_03]: I definitely like myself in the middle third of that continuum
[SPEAKER_03]: or cheating toward the spiritual.
[SPEAKER_03]: Honestly, like I think something that it would be easier for me to be turned off by a super
[SPEAKER_03]: Jim-based yoga approach than it would by something that's very spiritual.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually really enjoy the mindfulness piece of it and the kind of intention setting and I don't have a ton of experience or background.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when you ask what can turn you off, that's a great question.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think a couple of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: One, if I'm afraid I'm gonna be so sore I can't walk.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is less true nowadays because I'm actually in really good shape right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't feel as worried
[SPEAKER_03]: But I have been to yoga classes where I know, as a dancer, I have pretty good balance and stability.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I can do a lot of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't necessarily mean like it's wise for you and to do whatever you could do, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Dying the next day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like even just the warriors of those lunges, like if you're not in as good a shape.
[SPEAKER_03]: So one thing that can turn me off is a really difficult class.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm just afraid, like my muscles are going to be shaking this entire time and I'm going to be crying tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_03]: That could turn me off.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think if there was gonna be any kind of like
[SPEAKER_03]: chanting participation.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would feel nervous because I haven't, I haven't like leaned that hard into the more spiritual part of it and maybe you can tell me like what that even looks like.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I think what draws me is that sweet spot in the middle of this is a practice that is both centering and grounding and meditative and mindful and feels really good and is strengthening
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's interesting because I think there are people who, well, I know this because a lot of them are the ones that have taught very athletic style classes at my studio and other studios have gone to that coming in through the athletic or the more physical practice is really common.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's people who really start because they just want to good work out and then it's like the back door, like the sneaky back door to the
[SPEAKER_01]: to the more self personal development side, I guess, or the mindfulness side.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's people who come in and maybe have our meditators or people who are really into that more spiritual side.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then find that the physical practice helps them go deeper with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really feel like for me it's kind of someplace in the middle because I don't consider myself a super athletic person.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you and I have discussed, neither one of us really goes out of our way
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I do twice a week for 45 minutes and only yeah, that's only in the last couple of years But like for funsies or because you just thought like this is something I should do for my son Yeah, yeah, I'm not like I don't have an internal drive to Right, yes, I am not internally driven to work my body really hard and sweat
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's something about the dillibritness and the fluidity of the movement in an oscina practice which is just yoga that is movement based.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's other kinds of yoga that really you don't move at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a whole philosophy or limbs or I guess branches of yoga that are really just focused on breath and mind, like mind, breath
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but for me, the style that I've always practiced, I think I've always been at an Ash Tonga based studio, as far as long as I can remember, and that definitely does link the breath with the movement, because the movement is what gets you in a state where the mind can do what the mind needs to do, really.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like they all go together, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's so unlike any other style of exercise I've ever tried, that I think I don't ever get bored from one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It truly keeps my mind occupied, which is hard for me with a lot of exercise.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the element of yoking so yoga means to yoke and so like everything's about union right it's either you're uniting your body and your mind or your breath and your movement and something about putting two things together like that really helps me stay connected to it and so it's interesting when I think back to like why would as a 9 or 10 year old kid doing poses I was learning
[SPEAKER_01]: have felt so good to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no words to put to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have any experience at that point with any other kinds of gym workout.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, I didn't necessarily need to
[SPEAKER_01]: exercise my body or calm my brain at the age of nine, but it just made sense to me and it felt really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just feels really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm doing this yoga challenge right now that my studio does every January.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I participate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I usually decide the very last minute if I'm going to do it or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this year I think it was like December 29th or something when I decided to do it, and it's 30 classes in 30 days I won year I did one that was 60 classes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember it was 60 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the first one I ever did.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy This one I am going to be at a town for five days, so I do have to front load a little bit But one of the things I really like is that It kind of because I have to get 30 classes in I'll go to classes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I otherwise would avoid because they're too hard
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said to someone just this week that even when I don't like yoga, I still like yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like every class that is in any, well, pretty much every class, even the really chill ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be a minute when I wish I was doing something else.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just kind of how it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even when that's happening, I still like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I still am glad I'm there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that I could say the same about nine tenths of the other fitness classes I've taken.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also agree that if I'm in a class where people, first of all, heat is a big turn off for me and I will go to a very chill warm class.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, like, by chill, I mean, relaxed warm class and not want to die, but like anything where there is, it's above 90 degrees and I'm moving fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like to be hot anyway and like that just feels like torture to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have talk to people who said you get past that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, but I'm sort of like, why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, do I need to?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, at this point, I would say heat is a, is a turn off.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a turn off.
[SPEAKER_01]: um, I agree that a class that is so physical where people are just throwing themselves around like throwing their bodies through the poses is also a turn off, but I'm going to say a little bit more about that in the next question.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just sort of put a pin in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have once have said that a class that's so hard that the next day, I'm going to hurt, would have been a turn off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I think I could do that class and not work so hard and feel totally fine about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So putting a pin in that because I have a question that kind of relates to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now on the spirituality side,
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think and having gone through teacher training, I've seen now the more dogmatic side and how that can play in to the yoga experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like you can talk to one person who will say, well, yoga's not a religion, it's a philosophy, it's a spirituality, but it's very personalized, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that might be the way it's expressed in some classes in some studios,
[SPEAKER_01]: there is a side of yoga that is quite dogmatic and it's not my jam.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts to feel a little bit like I'm pretending or like like play acting or cosplaying or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that it doesn't really creep very much into the classes that I take at my particular studio.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's very good at being approachable for everybody but I've gotten whiffs of it and this morning I went to
[SPEAKER_01]: Both a style of yoga but also a very specific kind of practice where you follow the same pattern every time or the same series of postures, that can be extremely dogmatic and I got an interesting conversation with my instructor about like
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you, do she feel like her class would look exactly the same as someone else's class?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, well, no, because there's some classes where they wouldn't allow you to advance past to pose if you can't do it perfectly without a, without a block, like without a prop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would stop and just keep doing it until you get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, so then, so then for someone like me, maybe I'd never get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe you're stuck.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't get to do those because you can't do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she said, you know, I'm not a 10 year old gymnast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's not what I'm going for here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to teach a class wherever one can experience the benefits of these postures.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so sometimes I do think that the dog might get in the way of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of studios, I think, have gotten a lot better about interpreting it differently, but takes all types and you'll find, you'll find a little bit of everything out there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and your instructor, just like in so many things, is the kind of conduit between philosophy and style and delivery.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I can almost see a really capable, really nuanced and thoughtful instructor.
[SPEAKER_03]: They might have some pretty strong beliefs or come from a certain place, but it's the delivery, I think, sometimes that also can be a turn off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was just going to say that when you are new to something too, I think it's hard sometimes to rain in your enthusiasm for your new your newness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like when I, you know, for sort of breastfeeding a baby and then I was just so excited that I was breastfeeding a baby that like I wanted everyone in the world to breastfeed a baby and then you have a little.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just get a little distance and you realize, like, oh, maybe not everyone's experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: So wonderful as mine or maybe people are coming at this from a very different place.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think sometimes new teachers can be, um, it's a danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a dangerous place, which I think is why I backed away and never taught.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I was like, I could see myself drinking the cool aid a little bit to use.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably not the best analogy, not a four.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I know what you mean.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is on another topic, but it's still the turn-off versus what draws us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think there's a perfect length for, I know we're talking about different styles, but our most classes at your studio an hour and 15 an hour.
[SPEAKER_03]: And because I will tell you that if I was going to try a new class and it was like an hour, 20 hour, I would feel nervous.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like an hour.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the longer it is, the more I'm nervous about what I'm getting myself into.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is used to matter to be a lot more than it does now, um, for the same reasons I'm going to, yeah, share it a minute here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to get real nervous about 90 minute classes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't actually have maybe one, 90 minute class on our schedule, a lot of our and a lot of our 15s.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, these days, they're kind of the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: An hour and hour, 15, usually the 15 extra minutes is just a longer warm-up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's what I was thinking down, yeah, but I do feel or even like the seated pastors at the end, the teacher will just take a little longer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you have five more minutes of working hard, but I used to have a lot of fear about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be like it just be torturous and I just refuse to torture myself in yoga classes ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now it doesn't matter right you know it'll be with you two hours, but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna like I'll do what I want so that's actually a perfect segue into my next question which is how has our yoga practice or approach changed in midlife or maybe how do you see it changing how do you hope it will change and
[SPEAKER_01]: two things for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, I have a much less emphasis on the aesthetics.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really think anymore about what my body looks like when I'm in a pose except for sometimes being able to visualize what my body probably looks like will tell me whether I'm feeling it where I want you like you know what I mean like the squaring your hips thing I might have to think like okay well what would it look like to pull my left hip forward and shift my right hip back and if I
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't care how I look.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I glance around the room, and this was something assisting a lot and observing a lot during training, I would look at people who I thought were good at yoga and putting that in like the best air quotes who were like really athletic or really muscular and skinny.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's so hard not for our idea of what, yes, the perfect aesthetic is to
[SPEAKER_01]: Like influence how we feel about it, and I'd look at those same people in class and be like, oh, they're like they're kind of cock-eyed during You know, they're in triangle.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one hands down and one hands up But look how cock-eyed they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not straight.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're us that it's not perfect Just because when they walk around in a tank top, they look awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, does not mean They're and they may be an amazing shape and they might be doing the pose perfectly for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: The aesthetic matters not.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I I don't even think about that really anymore
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but the bigger thing for me is that I was, were you and I joking about the don't care thing, or was it like the midlife lady don't care?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that like a, oh, I've seen that video.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's like a video that's gone around I think, but I don't think you and I joked about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It might have found it separately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe my sister was telling me that she was like, you know, you heard of this thing, don't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, girl, I've been not caring for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I think going through teacher training, I got really in my head for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of freaked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Didn't want to be at the studio for a while because I started to get like performance anxiety about because people knew that I had gone through training.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then I felt like I was representing the training.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I didn't do everything correctly, or if I modified too much, or whatever it was,
[SPEAKER_01]: That I wasn't like representing now it's been I think it's been now four years and I don't care I I do what I want to do in class which is not the same as saying I don't follow the teacher I do but if I want to go to my knees I go to my knees if I want to go in child's pose I go in child's pose if I feel like
[SPEAKER_01]: um, propping and it's a class where like nobody else is propping.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just do what feels correct and appropriate in the moment, which means I'm always working just as hard as I need to be working.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And never harder.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I truly feel right now like I could go into a killer class like the kind where
[SPEAKER_01]: everyone's dripping sweat all over the mat and coming out at the end stat, you know, staggering outdoor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think I would do that because I don't want to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a pretty big my shift and it's really been in the last few years.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does help that my studio
[SPEAKER_01]: the tone has shifted a lot a lot of the instructors are well all of the instructors are aging yeah everybody's getting older but there just seems to be a higher percentage right now of midlife ladies um teaching
[SPEAKER_01]: and middle-aged people of all sorts taking classes and I feel like it used to be very much like there were the power classes and the hot yoga classes and then those were for the athletes and then there was like the YIN people and those people all only went to YIN which is very passive, very relaxed kind of a class.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I feel like it's starting to get a little
[SPEAKER_01]: You could kind of pick almost anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could be almost anybody and pick almost anything on the menu.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as long as you had a basic idea of how to get through the moves, you'd be okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I just think, I don't know if it's like the world around us is changing and that everyone's looking for something less athletic and less... More gentle, more gentle, or if it's just this particular studio,
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, everything you just described sounds like, yes, that is a sustainable, like self-centered.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that in a good way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Practice.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's self-aware, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the point, otherwise?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm realizing I'm very grateful for the fact that my YMCA has a significantly older demographic across the board, not just in yoga classes, but just membership-wise.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the class I was telling you about that I really enjoy, but can't go too very often.
[SPEAKER_03]: The teacher is young and she's, I like her a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything we were talking about about, um, yeah, just that kind of balance
[SPEAKER_03]: The age range in that class is skews quite elderly.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I would feel zero pressure of any kind to perform.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's so not that and I'm realizing as you talk that that I think is a benefit to where I currently am doing yoga.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just think after this conversation, I would like to
[SPEAKER_03]: try a few more different types of classes.
[SPEAKER_03]: The why has the Monday Friday one that I like, but there are a couple of other yoga instructors and there's some different times.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think an evening class is so out of my norm and it's so like not the way I usually structure a day, but we can evolve, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that would be a great challenge for me this winter is just try it once.
[SPEAKER_03]: I might not like the class or teacher.
[SPEAKER_03]: I might not love that time a day.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it is worth a try and you and I have talked for years about how many hangups we can have about like when to work out in the day and like Yeah eating and outfits and schedules all like getting the way but going to a late afternoon or an evening yoga class I think could be a great little micro goal for me Yeah, you might be really surprised to like if you went to a late afternoon class that was sort of a refreshingly
[SPEAKER_01]: Active, not killer kind of a class.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might find that it gives you just a little burst of energy without being at all too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, for that afternoon energy or you could find like a restorative or you in class and literally go in your pajamas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which is nice.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I'm going to I'm after this recording.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to dig up the schedule again.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I'll send it to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am thinking for right now, I want to stick to my YMCA because I'm already paying for that membership.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a yoga class offered every single day, so it's not like there's nothing happening.
[SPEAKER_03]: We do have several really good yoga studios in Santa Barbara, but I don't feel like at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that would work at cross purposes, like I think I'd end up feeling guilty for not going enough, or I would be overwhelmed by the number of classes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like pick one that you think you can make it to and then get to know that teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you and I talked a little bit about before we started recording about the difference when you show up for the same thing over and over, like you especially if it's like a slow flow class or a nashhtanga class where it is the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: basically the same class every time, you really learn from class to class, you can see how some days you show up and your body does this in other days.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I get some extra compared to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like a slow class because then you have time to think.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next pose I go into do I do I take the knee or do I stay in the upright like do I modify or do I not and if you're moving too fast and you're just like I said before throwing yourself around like you don't have time to think about that and so like those slower paced classes are nice too yeah yeah I would love to look at your menu yes I'll send you my options
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this has been really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah, love talking about you'll go with you in the old time.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a reminder for everyone, you can find our expanded episode story with photos and links on Substack at midlifeladyleisurepresuits.substack.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's also where you're going to find the special page we have set up with some of our favorite vionic styles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Use the promo code midlife at vionic shoes for 15% off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for being here, everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk to you soon.