Luca Richards ~ Why Yoga Teachers Burn Out: The Secret to Longevity in the Industry

Luca Richards is a seasoned yoga instructor and business consultant with over 25 years of experience in the industry. Based in Maine, Luca has traveled extensively, teaching yoga in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. He has a rich history of working on large-scale yogic initiatives, including executive roles in the Baptiste Yoga organization and the Africa Yoga Project. Currently, Luca is the founder of Good Company, where he focuses on corporate coaching, leadership development, and consulting. He is also co-founder of Lit From Within Yoga, where he leads advanced yoga teacher training programs.

Visit Luca: https://goodcompanyco.com/
And: https://litfromwithinyoga.com/

Key Takeaways:

• Luca Richards discusses the importance of merging precise methodology with authentic connection in yoga teaching and corporate environments.
• The transition of yoga training programs online can enhance accessibility and personal growth, allowing participants flexibility and comprehensive learning.
• Richards emphasizes the importance of mentorship and tailored scaffolding in advancing yoga teachers' careers and sustaining their passion for the practice.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Luca Richards Discusses Moving and Life in Maine
• 3:44 Luca Richards' Journey From Yoga Enthusiast to Corporate Coach
• 10:06 Challenges of Merging Distinct Yoga Cultures in Miami
• 16:57 Blending Yoga Traditions for Business Success
• 21:22 Balancing Directness and Kindness in Mentorship and Leadership
• 28:56 The Importance of Mentorship in Education and Yoga
• 32:26 Transforming Yoga Teaching Through Structured Training and Facilitation
• 41:01 Teaching Yoga Through Principles Rather Than Poses
• 49:07 The Joy of Service and Vulnerability in Teaching Yoga
• 57:45 Bridging Yoga and Corporate Worlds Through Professionalism
• 1:03:05 Precision in Yoga Teaching and Handling Classroom Dynamics
• 1:14:55 The Benefits of Online Teacher Training During the Pandemic
• 1:17:38 Adapting Yoga Studios to Embrace Teacher Attrition and Systematic Growth
• 1:21:38 Gratitude and Future Conversations on Systems and Scaffolding

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. You. Hello. This is Native Yoga Toddcast. I'm Todd McLaughlin. Today, my special guest, Luca Richards. Visit Luca on two websites, one litfromwithinyoga.com, the other

https: 1:23

//goodcompanyco.com/, Instagram handles are in description. Click the link, you'll find them easy, and I am very grateful. Thank you. Luca, I enjoyed this conversation immensely, and I feel like the wisdom that Luca brings to the table here is applicable to all of us. And as a yoga practitioner myself, and as you being a yoga practitioner, having interest, having passion, having love for yoga, I think what you'll might notice, what I noticed is that Luca fluidly has been able, and is able to move from each of these various worlds that we speak about within this conversation so fluidly, effortlessly, it seems, and and just really brings a lot of wisdom and insight into what it's like to be a yoga teacher, to facilitate trainings, to host workshops, to run businesses, to own studios. And so I hope you find this as valuable as I do, and please send a message to Luca to let him know if you enjoyed this, send a message to me. I always appreciate feedback. We really appreciate any sort of feedback is great, and let us know what you think. All right, on that note, let's get started. I'm really grateful and excited to have this opportunity to meet and speak with Luca Richards. Luca, thank you so much for joining me today, and I've been looking forward to this conversation, how, how's your day going so far? What's how's the new year treating you? Well, yeah, thanks Todd. It's great. It's really great to be here. Well, the New Year's going great. This is my first day with my head up from moving into my new place. So if you do hear some hammering in the background, it's not the wheels of my mind turning. It's actual covering happening from the restaurant downstairs. But yeah, it's been, well, moving has been a real practice of yoga with my husband and working together to hang pictures and move furniture and make decisions. And it's been really wonderful and magical and gelling and creating a new home together and having a lot of laughs and, you know, really challenging opportunities for growth. Well, congratulations. Do you mind me asking, Where did you move from and to? Yeah, well, I'm from Southern Maine, so I grew up in Portland. I lived away for many years. I lived in, you know, I moved quickly to New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, where I lived for many years, and moved back here, gosh, about five years ago, I was lucky to be able to work remotely, even before it was happening widely. Moved back to me. What would happen was I was traveling so much, teaching yoga and stuff. I go to, like, I go to, like, cool places like Atlanta, and whoever was hosting me there would be like, Oh my God, you've got to come check out the Old Fourth Ward. They're they're building, they're putting, like, restaurants inside of old warehouses. And I'm like, Okay, well, I'm from Maine, so like, everything's inside of a warehouse, and it's so what would happen is more and more I'd come home, and maybe because I was getting older, or Portland was getting cooler, but I would, I'd be like, this is a really cool spot, but I didn't think at that time I'd have an opportunity to do what I do here. That opportunity presented itself, and. I moved back. So I moved anyway. To answer your question, I moved from Portland, where I moved back about five years ago, just one town, over to Falmouth, Maine. So we just relocated just it's just about five minutes away, but nice, more suburban, a little easier, little more manicured, very cool, and I've never been to Maine. I can't wait to go someday. Here, it's absolutely beautiful. Can so and it's January right now. What is the weather? There are you guys under snow? It's got to be way colder than Florida right now. Well, it certainly is colder than Florida. It's not snowing here right now. I think it's just cold. I'm going to be honest with you, I have not left the house today. So it looks cold. It looks great. It's January in Maine. The days are short. You know, we get our days. Our sun goes down around a little after four, yeah, yeah, in the winter, and then in the summer, it's like, you know, light until eight, eight plus. So we swing in the pendulum, which is understood, a fun adventure, cool. Well, have a ton of questions for you, because I feel like I'm just meeting you. I am meeting you for the first time, and I've I've been able to read about you and learn about your work and your journey, but I'd like to hear it from you. I'm curious, what was your foray or entry into this wonderful world of yoga? Yeah, I in thinking about coming to talk to you today, I was doing a little bit of timelining to get a sense of it. So I was introduced to yoga over 30 years ago, and well, I'm almost 50, so I'll be 50 this year, 2025 Yeah, I'm with you. I'm 51 so you are, yeah, man, some people, you know, because I think I do genetically look a little young. So some people be like, what's your secret? And obviously, yoga is the obvious answer. But it's not that, it's just that I don't have many kids, you know? I'm gonna, I'm gonna say, Yeah, you're right, dude. So I, yeah, I was introduced yoga for 30 years ago, and I've been really teaching for what is now 25 years. You know? I started teaching and and working in Los Angeles, actually working with some, you know, I like to say, like, you know, celebrities, but you know, D and F list celebrities, we could say, and then made some moves and continued in the field, and continued to grow and opened my own business in My mid 20s here in Portland, Maine, I came back for a spell and opened a fitness studio here, and then went on to run medium sized business in South Florida. I spent some time working with in Kenya, with Africa yoga project. And, you know, in Florida, when I was there, I I was sort of the director, and I was directly accountable for over 120 teachers in five brick and mortar locations. So it was really my first entrance into the business of yoga at a high level, other than being an entrepreneur, like really developing teachers, which has you know since become my what I like to think as my lane, or my passion. And then went on to work for an international training brand, so Baptist yoga, some of your listeners may have heard of and really traveling the world, working closely with those trainings, small trainings, I would lead, and then support Baron Baptiste, who's the founder of Baptist yoga, in his facilitation at the larger scope trainings. And then, you know, sort of moved, moved moved on, and really, you know, more recently, transitioned the work of what we all know is the work of yoga, you know, into more corporate coaching and consulting, soft skills development and training and doing a lot of work there now, more so than yoga. So have one toe in the door for yoga, mostly in trainings we can talk about a little bit later. Yeah, 300 level, and I would say, working with leaders on their facilitation and also giving them replicable content to be able to lead their own trainings and programs. Nice, but it's kind of the long, that's the timeline of it? Yeah. I mean, that's that's 25 years in a nutshell. Well done. It's not easy to break all that down, all the highs and the lows into an elevator pitch. But good job. I so at 20 it sounds like around about 25 is when you opened your fitness studio in Maine, and you didn't say yoga studio, you said fitness studio. So I'm gathering at this point, had you studied or practiced with Baron yet and or were you doing a combo of yoga and fitness in your first business? Yeah, it's a great question. So yeah, I had, I had done some training with Baron when I opened the business with a business. Partner. We I when I was in LA, I'd also trained in classical Pilates, but I studied in Hollywood, right across from CBS, at a place that was very, it was very yoga, like the teachers were very yoga. So it was really my first, you know, Introduction to professional teaching. And so it was a little Pilates, yes, and very strict in the classical format, but also with a very yogic sort of backdrop, yeah. And so then we, we, when I opened the business here in Maine with my business partner, she also had a Pilates background. And then she also did something called bar, which is much more popular now, but she'd studied with some of the in New York. She'd studied with, you know, whoever brought that up into being. And so we kind of had, we were like, really did okay, let's be honest. We did not know what we were doing. Made a lot of mistakes and and maybe for better later on, but at the time, you know, we didn't really know what we're doing. But you know, nobody really at that time, especially here, was doing combo, sort of boutique fitness, where you'd be like doing we had yoga happening. We had Pilates on the machine happening. We have bar happening. We had some personal training hit stuff happening, so we didn't know better than to dial it in. We were very happy for it to be, yeah, loose and open. And you know it was. It was pretty wonderful experience. Sounds like a little ahead of the curve, almost in relation to now. There is a lot of cross pollination within fitness studios. Do you? Do you feel like it is a more trendy thing to do to bring in these multiple disciplines into a single space? Well, say in having a lot of conversations with with yoga studio owners, I think one of the things I always advise people to do is pick a lane, I think, for the most and maybe that comes from my own experience, but also, if you don't have the bandwidth, really, to run multiple schedules and run multiple modalities happening at the same time, or even really be able to, you know, do quality control on different teachers. So what most yoga studio owners will do, especially new, new and out of the gate, is they'll sort of open and they'll just hire in whoever they can. And usually they're like, oh, let's bring in this person. But what what happens is, even in the yoga, the yoga gets very confused, yeah, because, like, I'm going in Tuesday, I'm taking Todd's class. It looks like this, it feels like this. Then I'm going in. Wednesday, I'm taking Lucas class. It looks like this, it feels like this. And from a business model perspective, it doesn't work. Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, one place I really saw that when we opened the studio in Miami. So at the time, I was in Kenya, and I met with the owner of the South Florida businesses, and they were just opening this tremendous Yoga Studio in Miami, and it had, like, it opened up these sliders and could fit over like 200 people. Was that the frog one was there? Like, a green you're thinking the green monkey, the green monkey, oh my gosh, yeah. Is that what it was, it was that, well, it was a precursor to that, before we merged into green monkey. And what happened there was really, you know, especially in Miami, and I'm not sure where you are, but people just followed teachers. So it was very teacher driven. So the successful studios just sort of had successful, yeah, teachers. And you know, what we were going to do is going to be very different. It was going to be very uniform. You know, you're going to get a product, not that it was going to be boring or the same, or, you know, anything like that. It was just that, you know, the students who come in at four o'clock, whoever was teaching, and get the same product. And it was very interesting. A lot of the, you know, very popular and successful yoga teachers came to visit, and they said to us, when we first opened, this is never going to work here in Miami. This is not what people want in Miami. They follow teachers. They want it to be, you know, much more spiritual. They want it to be more free form, more open. And we said, okay, and I will say in the context of, like, 18 months, we were the biggest studio in in Miami. We were just crushing it. I remember hearing about you guys, yeah, I remember, I feel like I was watching from afar, what your development. Yeah, people were, we were just crushing it. Because people were hungry for consistency. It's actually, you know, they were, they were hungry for classes to begin and end on time for there to be a clear structure, not that it would be the same in every class, and certainly personalities drove the class, but we could interchange teachers. It became a really easy model in which to train teachers and have them be really successful. Full quickly, so I to answer your answer. Asked me a question about five minutes ago, but I'll answer it now. Okay, so two things. So I learned from my own experience that what being kind of wide and shallow and wide wasn't really the right model. You know, to really go skinny and deep. It tends to be a more successful business model in in yoga, unless you've got, like, the bandwidth, but I would say even, like in an equinox, or one of those big gyms where they have a variety of different classes, you know, that's really a selling proposition, like, we've got all this, you could do all this. But really, what tends to be successful, even in those businesses, is, is what's consistent? I agree. I agree 100% that's so interesting. I i like the juxtaposition of what you're saying with the the multiple assets and your your experience with trying to hold that down and then coming in with a really solid program that is very consistent, but you said for about 18 months we crushed it. I just want to I'm curious to hear from you. Well, then what evolved? Because something happened after 18 months. Where was the breakdown? Well, I would say it took us about 18 months to get up to speed. Is, is what I meant. And it did break down. And I'll tell you where it broke down is, is exactly in the moment you're referring to when we merged our original brand, which was called Bala vinyasa, with the very popular local brand, which was green monkey. And what we had was two very divergent and distinct cultures. And you know, one of the greatest challenges in my life was being at the tip of the spear to bring those two cultures together. I met with every single teacher from the green monkey, and I said, here's who we are as a culture. Here's what we want to create. This is what we do. This is what we want to invite you into. Some of them wanted to be part of it. And then those that didn't, we generally invited them to go do that elsewhere, and they did. And some, some, some of them to great success. But really we knew who we were, and so bringing those two businesses together and expanding suddenly from three locations to at five locations might even been six for a short time, six locations and and really, with two very distinct cultures, I think ultimately was it was a little ahead of itself. Ah, very challenging transition, I can imagine. So you originally were to the ball of vinyasa. That was your original creation with with a group of people, am I right? Yeah. Well, I was brought in as to direct it was, it was owned by a great mentor of mine, kirstj Mooney. She owned it, and she brought me in to work there cool sort of, I spearhead with it, with a small team the Miami studio, until we merged and and worked. And, you know, even still, it was still moderately successful, I think ultimately, just collapsed under its own weight. Where were the Civic studios, like all within the Miami area or spread out cross country? They were we had two in Naples, Florida. We had our Miami location. There was a green monkey in South Miami. We had a Miami Beach green monkey, and we also had a Fort Lauderdale green monkey. Got it, got it. And based off what you're saying, then the fact that there's these two distinct cultures was there a bit of a battle, so to speak. That's probably the wrong word, a an ego, a power trip between each side is like, who's going to bend here to be in control of the overall vision of the unification? Yeah, well, I think you're right. I think there's always a bit of that, because we've gone from strong leadership under Kiersten to her merging and working with the owner of the green monkeys, and they decided to stay in partnership. It wasn't a buyout, yeah, and he was a businessman, and saw things very, a bit distinctly, and was looking at the numbers. And Kirsten was a culture person, and she's she knew that if we implemented a strategy of culture, we'd be able to get, wow, the results we wanted. But that was always a push and pull for what was happening. Because in order to, you know, be successful, we weren't able to just clean house and just put in a bunch of new teachers. We really had to work with the amazing and exceptional teachers that were already acrimony. But that was a very different philosophy. It was a very individual and I do my this is my thing, and this is what I do, yeah, yeah. Well, I could see where that would be challenging. Yeah. I feel very blessed. You know, it's like the work I do now with yoga studios and studio owners is really informed by, you know, a lot of what went wrong in my own business, but even in these other businesses. I, you know, some of these places where I we fell on our knees or fell on our face, has been so instrumental in me being able to have, you know, conversations, not just inside of yoga with yoga studios and studio owners and key leaders, but now that I do this work inside of corporate America, it's, it's interesting how much of it translates over wow, like the core is there. It doesn't matter what the business or product or service that's being delivered underneath, there's these same challenges, so to speak, and or levers that you can pull to to create success. Is that going a little too far, far out there. Does business actually work on levers? You know what I mean? Like you read business books and you go, that's a great idea. Whoa, I really got to implement these ideas of pull this lever and do that trigger and that type of thing. But for me personally, it's always like such an organic thing, and you just keep trying so many things. I'm so excited to hear somebody who to talk to you, to hear, you know, you've been really working with this, to direct the question in this angle. When I, my wife and I used to own a Bikram studio in San Diego, and then we went and studied Ashtanga in Mysore, and I had this kind of, like, similar concept that you're saying, of like, if you want to, like, really focus in on one thing. And we were kind of getting split in between two. And we we could see the business model of the B Crom world was so good in the sense that you got one class, it's 90 minutes, it's the same 26 poses every single time you got the class going, six times a day, any teacher can come in, can come out, and yet, there was such a and people go to Bikram, they'd be like, you know, Bikram, you're like, the McDonald's in a derogatory way, like, you're the McDonald's of yoga. And he'd be like, Yeah, I'm the McDonald's of yoga. Thank you very much. Like, this is a business model plan that works. And he was very obviously successful up until a point where I don't really look at PEC as very successful now. But anyway, when I got Baron's book, and I was really kind of under bikrams thumb, I was so nervous about going out on my own. And then I got Baron's journey into power book, and I saw how he kind of blended these multiple, you know, study with Iyengar and Bikram and in the vinyasa, stronger world. And he empowered me to think I could do this, just off that book. I never met him, but I thought, if he can do it, it's possible, right, to kind of tread your own path. So I guess I'm curious in your observation of everything that we're speaking about thus far, can you give me a little insight into just what your experience has been working with Baron and and some of these ideas about combining what we've learned all along and somehow making that accessible and a good model for for making a business work, it's a great question. You know, I would say this, I think Baron is brilliant. He's really brilliant and and really had a great listening for other people's listening, like how their capacity for actually digesting information and taking that, making it applicable, like you're saying, you know, just you reading the book and feeling like you could do it is, I think, I think he'd be so happy to hear that. I think that's really at the heart of who he is, as as a leader and as a thought leader. In that way. I think, you know, so much of what he would refer to as his methodology is, is really, you know, it's the ocean in a paper cup. It's, he's, and he gets it, he's, he's lived that life, you know, like you said, working with greats like Iyengar Bikram, you know, his family opened, you know, brought in, invited all these gurus from San Francisco. And, you know, he's lived it, and also somehow managed to get maybe in his own studentship, like what goes over people's heads and how to really dial it in, and how to make it just complicated enough, if not a little bit overly complicated in a simple way. I know that sounds crazy, but no, I get that. That actually makes sense. That was, that is a weird idea, but that's cool. Man, that's a good point. Yeah, I, you know, I have been lucky in my life to have we talked about this a little bit before we started. Have really, have had really strong mentors, you know, in my life and and the mentors I needed, because I think I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm not always the best student. And so, you know, throughout my life, I've had these really, you know, I think about Joe fontechio, who used to own the food bar in Chelsea, New York, and I worked there for a time, and I was late a few days in a row. And I think the last day I was ever late for anything, I walked into the bar and he swung around on the stool you could smoke at the time with a cigarette in his mouth. He said, Don't be late again. And I don't think I've been late to anything. And I think you. Know, sometimes I think I've been lucky to have really mentors who are courageous enough to actually say what needs to be said, or to point you to what needs to be pointed to you. It's like the it's the broccoli in your teeth. I've been lucky to have mentors who've said, There's broccoli in your teeth. Stop doing what you're doing. It's not working for you. And I think Baron's been one of those mentors for me, so I got the great privilege of working with him closely for many years. I mean, I was the, you know, first person to see him in the morning, last person to see him at night. We'd worked together on facilitation and his what he was leading that day, and how he was going to lead it, and what it would look like. And I knew what an amazing education that was for years to get his insights and really get a sense of of what he was doing and why he was choosing to do it from behind the scenes. And, you know, again, that's filtered so much into my work now as a facilitator and coach that I don't think I could have ever got to on my own without that, you know, support of a, you know, really guiding hand. And I'm always so grateful to him and to the work he's done. And I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing had I not, you know, had that opportunity. That's so cool. Luca, you know, what are your feelings and thoughts currently about the where the state of let me see if I can, let me try to do this. Well, the world is in flux constantly, and it seems like we're pushing and pulling back and forth from these different ideas. If I grew up or was trained the same way you were. And, you know, it's easy for me to make fun of B CRM, based off of how things evolved, but the same time he kicked my butt. He really kicked my butt. He yelled at me, he he was so intense. And as much as I'd be like, I want to be like, you know, look, you guys don't follow that path, because that doesn't lead you into greatness, you know, taking advantage of people. But at the same time, I'm so thankful, like, what you're saying, and I feel like we've been in a little bit of a that was a push, and then we've gone through a little bit of a pull collectively into, let's be nicer to people. Let's let's treat them kindly. Let's not take maybe, let's not tell them they have broccoli in their teeth, and try to get it creatively with get them to get the broccoli out. But instead of just like say, Hey, man, you got broccoli in your teeth. Let's get creative. So I just would love to hear what your thoughts are on finding that balance between the hardcore. Tell it like it is. Let's not cut around any corners. Let's get to the chase and being kind and thoughtful in the world of, say, trauma informed and all of that. Well, I think when you know better, you do better as Maya Angelou, I think, yeah, we think about where some of these large format training came from these, these large group. Forget the exact name for it, but they're like, you know, you know, essentially like the world in the 90s, early 2000s where you know, and even then somewhere you know, and where somebody would be, you know, asked to share in front of a group of people, 100 200 people, and then sort of coached by, you know, a leader of the group. And there's so much power dynamics in that there's so much, you know, I'm saying, in front of all these people, there's that's a larger group than most people will ever stand in front of, and sharing something vulnerably and being pushed, say, in a way that even as gently as it can be like it's your choice to share. You're still in this environment in which you don't have a lot of choice. And I think that's what the the important message of today is, is that, well, wait, why are we doing that anyway? And though, I think we have to be mindful when we look back that we're not looking back with eyesight from today, we're not looking back at what got us here. We would never have been able to get to the revelation that there might be a better way if we hadn't, sort of gone through the just like it's just like my life in business, right? If, if I hadn't messed it up so profoundly, I wouldn't have a clear understanding of what works. I wouldn't be actually any efficient at my job in any way. And if you know we have to, I think we sort of have to look back at ourselves, certainly in our own journeys, but also our collective journey, certainly in yoga and certainly in all of these areas of thought leadership, we have to look back and be like, Well, they didn't, they didn't necessarily know they were doing what they knew. To do and knew how to do. And it those of us that got something, we got something, those that didn't may have been, you know, may have had a bad experience, but that bad experience in itself, we could say, is could be of use, if you choose to look at it that way. I'm not talking about certainly in the case of Bikram or those kinds of, you know, criminal activities, you know, I'm not referring to that. I'm sort of more saying in general, like the way in which we're we're working together and talking and having conversations, it's really up to us to glean the good and let go of the bad. And I think that that's, I don't know, that's kind of the message to me is, you know, I because I get to work with a lot of younger yoga teachers when I travel or go to studios, and, you know, it's like, gosh, it's like, I hope they're getting told the truth, at least in it, even if it's in a nice way. Yeah, good point. I don't know. I don't know, personally, what a world looks like without, without mentorship. Yeah, great point. Do you feel like there's almost the attempt to remove mentorship? Like, if we're, if we're, if we're nervous about, I hear very often about, okay, the education system is so bad. I hear people saying, like, everybody wins an award. I hear people saying, you know, we got to be very careful about how we speak with other people. I agree. And I'm just wondering, do you feel like there's an attempt to remove mentorship because, like, an attack on, say, the guru disciple structure. You know, a lot of the ways that we were learning was initially, it seems to be that it was from this sort of guru disciple. The Guru knows the disciples learning you listen to the guru, no matter what the guru says, you follow. And there's clearly a lot of stuff that can go wrong in that model. Clearly a lot of stuff that can go well in that model. Do you feel like we're Do you feel we would ever remove the mentor from the situation, and if we did, it sounds to me like you're feeling like that could ultimately not be a good thing. Well, you know, like in some kindergartens, they arranged the tables to face each other, so that there's like four or six kindergarteners, and they're facing each other, and so that what they're, you know, teachers may be in the background talking, but they're what they're seeing is each other, so they're sort of learning from each other. Now, what I would say is that I'm not an expert on education, and I'm certainly not tackling challenges in young education, but what I would say is like, Well, is there something to be said for students actually facing the teacher? The teachers really the leader in the room, the teachers the one with the experience. And if we that and carefully place our leaders and our teachers, and if our teachers take that with that responsibility, with a level of reverence that they're not sort of taking advantage of their positions of power and leadership. If we could make that assumption, then really, shouldn't that? Shouldn't the students be facing the teacher? That's where, that's where we want to look. That's a good question or education. You know, I think that's true in that Guru, also it's I should, I should hammerings here, that is my mind turning this time. But you know, that is, you know the guru. You know every religion. You know, it's like every not just yoga, if you you know, everywhere from, you know, Michelangelo and apprentices to, you know, how do you learn how to paint if you if you're not, you know, there with a master learning how to what they're what they're doing. And I see this a lot with young yoga teachers. I think they know that they already know better. And so a lot of the conversations I have, you know, sometimes working with newer leaders or newer yoga teachers is that they sort of have, they have it figured out already, and, and I'm like, Okay, well, that's I'll come back in a couple years. Let's see, yeah, yeah. Let's see how that goes. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about your yoga teacher training that you offer, and what are some of the key components that you focus on as as your teaching methodology? Yeah, thank you for asking. So you know, my yoga, my toe in the yoga business is called lit from within yoga, and I do that with a couple amazing partners, Mary, Lynn, Jenkins and Karen Tyrone, and we bring very different perspectives, but we're very clear. What we do is we have a 300 hour training. We don't necessarily call it a 300 hour we call it a the good to great facilitator Academy. It's a 300 hour training that doesn't focus on more philosophy. More anatomy or more of anything. It really is an opportunity to a to become stronger in facilitation, from the classroom up to workshops up to trainings. So really, how do I develop and create replicable content for myself? You know, most, most, even good yoga teachers will show up at a workshop and they'll have a few notes on a post it, and then they'll just see what happens. And you know, there's, there's nothing wrong with that, and it's going to work for a percentage of the time. It's going to work. But what we've found is that if we actually give people a solid foundation of scaffolding, you know, it's going to be successful more than it's not. And even in the classroom, if, if we're standing in some really clear tools and skill sets and scaffolding, right, it's going to be great more than it's not, and and it's going to give us an opportunity for connection, versus remove connection, which I think is always the fear of teaching in a system. It's like, I just want to go in and feel I can't tell you how many times I hear let me just go in and just go in and feel the room. It's like, no, no. Stop feeling the room. Like, don't go in at six. Feels like, you guys just want to roll around today. It's like, no, they don't come here at 6am they want to be led. You know, they need you to lead them. And so it maybe harkens back to our conversation about mentorship. Yeah, we have to sometimes have strong mentors to be strong leaders, to be able to say, no, everybody. Get into that warrior two. And I think that say what Bikram did really well with the 26 postures, like it's you don't. You're not really having a choice, yeah, yeah, should we do an extra long hip opener today. We don't. We're not, and I think that's in a way, why it was successful anyway. So what we do in the facilitator Academy is really look at those tools in the context of teaching a class. So you know, sun salutations to Shavasana. What are those tools? I call them key building blocks that I've learned throughout the years of what are those? What is that scaffolding? And how does it? How does it support me and actually doing what I love to do, which is create connection with the students. It's really important. Without it, without it, it falls apart more often than it doesn't. And I just see it. You know, one of the things I see is our role at lit from within yoga. And my own role is that, you know, I want to yoga teachers are amazing people. I really like them, and they don't stay in the game very long. You've probably seen this. They like they don't. It's, you know, it's like, it's fun and it's got energy to it, and then it doesn't. And I think if we can apply strategy and tools that aren't just like secondary but really at the foundation of what we're doing, then more likely those teachers will have the skills to be able to overcome those, those energy hurdles, of like, Oh, I'm kind of bored with seeing these same faces, or my classes aren't growing. Or like, what you know, why isn't? Why is this person's classes so much busier? It can be really challenging. So we move from, anyway, I'm saying a lot, but we move from, like, the in classroom teaching, to developing workshops, to really understanding how those workshops get marketed, and really talk about what are the key aspects of facilitation, what you're doing here, leading conversations, asking great questions. You know, it's it's essential to a career in yoga. Oh, man, I'm happy to hear everything you're saying. Luca, the I like the scaffolding analogy and this building process. And I grew up with hearing this slogan as a kid, the 6p over and over and over again, used to annoy the heck out of me. It was the 6p or the proper planning prevents piss poor performance. And I would get told this whenever I wasn't putting proper planning into my into my strategies, and I would get so frustrated. But I think it's a really valuable idea about how important it is to actually plan and think things through and have strategy, and you're right. And when you bring these concepts into a training format, I'm excited to hear that you're approaching the training, the 300 hour training, because this is where we say, Okay, this is an advanced training, or this is the training that you would do after you've already completed a training. So we can take a slightly different tack. I like the fact that you said it's not more of this, it's not just more of that. It's more like, let's break down the strategy. So that's so cool, man. I yeah, I think that's a brilliant idea, and it's, I'm happy to hear that you guys are having success with it, and that you've been able to collaborate with others in on the project. So that's sounds amazing. And I think I definitely have days, and I'm sure you probably would agree that maybe you can't be doing your six PS for everything all the time. Like some days I do come in and go, let me just feel the room. But I love the fact that you said, Stop doing that. Like. Don't do that all the time, like you gotta. You gotta prepare and plan so it's encouraging. Gives me a motivation. I appreciate that, man, thank you. Yeah. Man, yeah. I think you know a couple things. I think there's a I think most of us do what we do because we get something out of it, and because we enjoy getting something out of giving something. And I think all the work we're doing to remain relevant and interesting and to make it, you know, make it dynamic for the students is, you know, is really sometimes in the way of that connection, in the way of the connection, so the the Pro. So let me just try to understand what you said. I think you said, like, so then in the process of building the scaffolding, though, you're saying that that also can get in the way, did I get that right? Like, there's like, a balance to that? Yeah, I think so, in a way, I think yeah, you learn it to a point that you have a level of mastery over the tools. So the tools are there to support you. And then, you know, in a way, it clears the space, you know, it actually clears a space for what we all want, which is to connect and and make a difference. Yeah, good for the students. Yeah. And it's fascinating. I mean, one place we really see this at lit, from within one of our products that we're really proud of is that we created and sell a 200 hour training to new not always to new studios, but so we have this complete product. It's a complete 200 hour yoga teacher training that works, that provides tools that has a clear promise to allow for your students to leave that training able to stand in front of a group of people and actually teach yoga practice from soup to nuts and and then what we do is we sell that to studios, the materials, the intellectual property, and then we coach them through leading it. So we give them this facilitation opportunity, and we work with them closely, and we work with them throughout in marketing and throughout the process. And so what we've seen with that a lot of the times new new studio owners are very skeptical to to start their own 200 It feels very daunting, and it's a big project and it's a scary project, and they don't want to get it wrong. And so, you know, one of the places that I think this model is really successful, is in really clear, replicable content that you're able to read off the page. You know, I always like to joke, like, if you handed this to my mother, would she be able to deliver this, you know, with no experience in facilitation or or until we've refined the product so clearly that, you know, hopefully, people who own, who want to lead 200 hour, you know, trainings in their studio are able to, and really, we've worked with almost, I think, at this point, 10 partners, and a lot of them have been like, newer studios, or one that comes to mind, you know, she just opened and, you know, she was like, Hey, I'm just going to do This. And she has almost 20 people in her training. And nice, you know, I keep poking her to see what's going wrong. And she's like, No, it's going great. Are you that sounds cool? So like, if we were just to say, take the pose, Triangle Pose, that then you are and maybe you're doing it something different from the postural side. But if you're saying, okay, Triangle Pose. We're going to pick five key things that you're going to point out. Let's start from the feet and work our way up to the hand. Turn your feet this way, make the legs do this angle. Your hips that way, shoulders this way, and top hand here. Now I want you to repeat that in that order of those five key points is that, is that to the level that you're attempting to kind of simplify so that the process of delivering will feel comfortable and not haphazard and like, hey everybody triangle pose so and then having no clear direction as to how to get someone from point A to point B. Is that, am I understanding properly some of the methodology of how you're taking this song. Well, I would just say it a little bit different. This might be a bit controversial, but I advocate for teaching principles, not poses. I think one thing to know is that we spend a lot of time speaking to say, the form action and alignment of individual poses. So as you just did, like, Hey, this is what triangle looks like. Here's kind of what's happening inside of there. Here's what's going on. And as a result, your students, yes, your students learn something about Triangle Pose, but it's not applicable to any other pose. But if we were to teach Hey, say one key element, say, neutral pelvis, right? But we were to look at that key principle through a series of different ranges of motion, say, forms, yoga forms. We were to look at how neutral pelvis affects Tadasana, how it affects triangle, how it affects plank, how it affects handstand. If we're to look at how that principle is applied, not just in a pose, but throughout the poses, students have actually learned something. This will make a huge. Difference. I'll just say this, if you're doing this in a class, I would recommend this. So this, again, this is a bit controversial. I would say, Stop teaching everything. Start teaching one thing in your class. Say, pick up what I would call a physical focus. Let's say it's neutral pelvis. Show them what it is at the beginning of the class, and then keep pointing back to it through a series of gravitational forces through ranges of motions. At the end of the class, what will likely happen is your students will come up to you with slightly different feedback than they've been giving you before. People are nice. They want you to they want you to know you did a good job. When we're done with this call, I'm going to ask you if I did a good job, as my spiritual teacher, Oprah, says, All of her guests from celebrities to housewives. You know, everybody at the end of the interview, they say, Did I do a good job? Most of the feedback we receive as teachers is like, hey, thanks Todd. I liked your class. Or, thanks, I did. You know, good job. Now, when the feedback shifts to what they got over how you did, that's when you've really landed something. So if you teach one principle and teach it in a way that it becomes ingrained in that student's body, that physical body, they'll leave that class and they'll say, oh my god, I never really got that. I never really got you'd be like, really you never got it. You've been taking class here for four years. I've been saying neutral pelvis for four years. They're like, No, I didn't get it, but now I got it because it lives in my body, and it's that kind of system I'm talking about, from the body up into even facilitating a training. How do we get out of the what's happening the form, say, and get into to what's driving that, what's what's, what's causing those alignments. And you know, each class, you know, you gave about six different points of alignment for a triangle. You know, each class could, you know, each of those isn't exclusive to triangle. It lives, really in every pose. So we could say, like, oh my gosh, here we are looking at the alignment of the poses. Nice. Love it. Luca, great, great little perspective shift. So then, from the 200 200 hour perspective, if I follow your strategy, and we'd start to then attempt to tackle yoga philosophy, we could then, in theory, take a if we were to say, Okay, now not neutral pelvis, but let's say non violence. And then do you go text by text and or philosophy by philosophy, and point out, look how nonviolence pop pops up in the Hatha Yoga paddica. Look how nonviolence pops up over here in the Bhagavad Gita. Have you guys taken that thread of thought over into the realm of teaching philosophy? Well, I think again, because our focus is on sort of the How to versus the what to teach. I think those things are fascinating. And I think as a yoga teacher, because it's the ocean in a paper cup, you know, I get Oracle from everywhere. Like I get Oracle, not just from yoga philosophy and text, but maybe I'm watching an episode of The Golden Girls. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's really, I love the Golden Girls. I just watched them two nights ago. We sort of have it in the background here sometimes, well, projects are happening, but yeah, it's like, oh my god, I got that. And how that maybe relates to some philosophy, or how it relate? And then so I do, I think so, in the same way I would give a physical focus, I would say I would also give an energetic focus, or conversational focus, to a class. What I prefer for myself is like, I mean, I don't know how many times I've been in yoga class, and it's like some wonderful 21 year old, new teacher is like mind blown. You know, I was driving into work today, and the sun was rising, and I thought to myself, every day is a new beginning. I'm like, Okay, how long are we in this pose for it gets lost in the day to day of it. But I think if you're doing a conversational focus, it involves some key elements, which is the again, this is the how to but how am I creating that thought process throughout the class, I call this bread crumbing, right? So say it was shifting perspectives, right? Which I could tie into a sutra or shock. I could tie that into a few, you know, philosophy elements, but say basically, it's shifting perspectives, you know, I could just do things a bit different, and I could say, hey, took a take a look at your lower hand inside plank, and then press down to lift up, just having them look in a different direction. Or instead of looking up in your which is a bit of a deep level, looking up in your upward facing dog, you know, having them look down or at a specific spot, and having them experience in real time, a shift in perspective. And then towards the back half of class, actually tying that into a deeper teacher, into a deeper learning, into you know. How does you know? To your point, like, how does you know? How does non harming? How do we how do these things look when they're at home? That's an old English expression. But what does it look like in real. Life, and why does it matter? But if we're, you know, rather than sort of these platitudes or just dropping in drive by wisdoms, which is what we're typically doing, in the same way, we're queuing with everything but the kitchen sink, we're also sort of dropping in all these platitudes or jargon so to our students throughout an entire class, and it never really reaches deeper than skin deep. For the students, they're not really experiencing that, they're just hearing it. And I always say one of the biggest mistakes yoga teachers make is to say too much, because it trains our students not to listen to us. Like the more you say, the more you're actually just training your regular students that what you say doesn't matter, and the more you can actually craft a class. And this is what we do inside of the 300 certainly is. And for our 200 this is what we coach. Our 200 facilitators to lead is like we've got to get into something that shares, something that creates, something that gives somebody, you know, something that they can actually really hold on to, not just sort of an airy fairy idea. Yes, this is great. Luca, good advice. I'm so happy to hear all this. Thank you for opening up and sharing what obviously, I would need to sign up for and take a course. So I appreciate you, you know, being open about all these, like, kind of inside information. So then I'm curious, because you I have to back up into a much earlier in our conversation, just to pick your brain a little bit about this, and I'll pull us back to where we are now. You mentioned the Africa yoga project, and I recently had a chance to interview a woman named Dorcas morungu, who is involved. She lives in Kenya, and she teaches in her in Africa. And so when I followed you on Instagram, I saw Dorcas is also following you, and I went, Oh, cool. That's cool. You know, that's one thing I think neat about I Instagram is I'll just show like, two or three other people that you follow that or that follows someone else, right? And you kind of go, Oh, interesting. This person knows that person. That's kind of cool, that there's a connection there. Can you talk a little bit about what your experience in Africa was? I have had a chance to travel to Africa. It was a mind blowing experience for me. I'm curious what, what was that? What was that like for you going there and making yourself a service there while you were there? Yeah, gosh, I just, you know, just yesterday, as we're moving in, I actually found my journal from when I was in Kenya, and I was looking at it. It's so funny in the journal I sort of speak to like the awe of it. You know, I think one of the things i i learned above anything else was like, how much this sounds funny to say, but how much joy more joyful our friends in Kenya and certainly the Africa yoga project community is such a joyful community. And, you know, my parents are English. So not that we didn't have joy, but we have butter, you know. So it's like similar. That's all I have to say. My parents are English. Do I need to say they're English? Yeah, yeah, we would have butter. But I found that joy is a close substitute to butter like and my point about it is that I think my big takeaway from being in Kenya is that, gosh, like the what allows for now we kind of know this through Brene Brown. Now this was prior to my learning about Brene Brown, but so some of this language is influenced by Renee Brown, but it's like, yeah, the joyfulness is a direct correlation to the vulnerability of the population and how much we have here, and how much we're concerned with, and how much that eliminates, For a lot of us, the experience of joy, like how much you know how safe for the most part we are, or how you know how vulnerability looks, something we avoid here, but really it, it seems to me, and through my experience, it's such a clear access to joyfulness, to wholeheartedness again, to sort of be filtered by Brene Brown a little bit and her teachings. But, you know, I really saw that and got that on the ground there. And, you know, I don't know that I knew how to be of service. I think certainly it was, you know, probably 15 years ago now. And I think, I think if I asked me, then I would have said, I'm excited to go do this for me. What a good opportunity for me. And I think, you know, I know that's this is a real confession, but I think it really was that turning point for me of actually getting what service looks like, what it feels like, and how it lives and breathes in. Side of me, you know, and not necessarily as a strategy to sort of accomplish something or put something on my resume or check a box. And, you know, I don't think that was my true intention, but I do get how it opened me up to a world of service that I didn't even know I needed or wanted. To be honest. Wow, great answer that was good. Can I Can I ask? Then Joy increases, potentially due to adversity. Isn't that an odd paradox? You use the term vulnerability, adversity, I would think like I've witnessed adversity. I know we'd witness adversity everywhere but, but I got from what you said is almost like this, through the simplicity of that challenge that might exist in a place where we have to work extra hard to get the bare necessities, to get the necessities. Somehow greater joy can spring from that challenge, am I? Did I understand you correctly? Did I get it right? Yeah, I think that's a I think you're right. I think you're right. Man, that's a really good point. That's a good point. It's a good way to put that whole dynamic that occurs when you witness adversity, and the realization of for me, that was my big takeaway going to Africa. And I, I had originally gone with the intention of working on a permaculture farm, which is kind of like an organic farm, and things didn't play out anywhere close to what I thought they were going to and I had this big turnaround moment of, I don't really see how I can be of service here, and am I more a part of the problem by attempting to think that I could be of service than actual being of true service. And it was like this moment of like, Okay, it's time for me to go. You know, like I had this really heavy moment of like, what am I doing? I clearly had grown up in a world that was much different, and I was so naive, and it was such a good eye opening experience for me. I think it really transformed me in a way. So I love hearing your experience. That is awesome, man. I can't agree more with you. And I think you you said it really well. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I love what you said too, because I don't, because I think when we're talking about yoga teachers, and I think there's probably some listening, and we love you yoga teachers, but I think sometimes we get into it. And again, we think we're we think we're doing we think we want to do a we want not it's not a favorite, but we want to be of service, because we want to have impact on others. That's what I hear you saying, like, I really wanted to make a difference. I wanted to have impact on others. And just the minute you have that thought, it's somewhat self focused, the minute you think, Oh, I'm here to make a difference to you, or I want to make a difference to my students. It's some Oh, wow. Well, you're really in a world of self here. And I think the trick is, and I think you probably got it in Africa United too, is that the trick is actually, and even with yoga students, our students, even the more challenging ones is being open to the interplay of services in a one way, directionality. It's a you know, we are opening up into a realm of being for each other in unexpected ways, and it can't be controlled or managed. And I think we see that so often, again, with our good friend yoga teachers, is like, Wait, are we here because we want to make a difference? Are we here to experience something in the realm of connection and humanity? And in order to do that, I have to step down off of the soapbox, and I actually have to be in this space of again, adversity or vulnerability with them, with the students. Oh yeah. Okay, cool. Luca. I Lauren. Thank you Lauren for you know Brian, for introducing me to Luca, because she said so many great things about you. You're delivering Thank you. I'm I'm so Okay, now to fast forward or jump into another realm from there, you what the work you're doing currently, and the or the direction you're moving toward, and you made mention of you've gained, it sounds to me like you've gained a lot of skill and understanding, facilitating groups, helping to facilitate people that are wanting to facilitate, and this direction that You've moved now into, I apologize and have my glasses on. Can you remind me your the other website that you mentioned that is your business, current business that you're working with? Yeah, my, well, sort of my access point to consulting. So for businesses is good company code, thank got it, and it's just where I work out of so I work. A couple amazing organizations, vital work, which is this great company, and they have a lot of national clients, and they do amazing culture development work. They're incredible people, and I work with them, and I also work here locally, with the college, so Southern Maine Community College, which has been for me, such an amazing experience of these last few years, you know, going to lead culture and leadership development trainings. It could be in a break room, we're halfway through, you know, the lesson, somebody comes in to get a soda out of the machine, or in a barn where we're all wearing coats. Or it might be in a boardroom. It's, you know, with waste companies and tech companies and, you know, mechanical engineering companies, and it's been such a stretch for me, but, and it, I'll tell you what, though, it's easy. Sometimes it's easier. I mean, all these years of teaching yoga teachers, again, I love, don't hear me wrong. We love our yoga people. But, you know, sometimes I'll just say to like, um, you know, I'll just say to, like, a mechanical engineer in a in a training I'll just be like, What do you want to create in 2025, and they, they'll give you an answer, you know, it's not, there's no BS. They just like, it's honest, it's open. It can be so wonderful. And, you know, having impact in organizations, I think, has been the great love. It's like everything I've done has culminated to this. I wouldn't been able to do it without yoga. I wouldn't have been able to do it without the business of yoga. But it is just amazing to work with teams and leaders and do some consulting and work with companies just in what we do in yoga all the time, which is just communicating and connecting and perspective shifting. You know, that's really sometimes all it takes to make a big change for an organization who's experiencing some pain points in the, you know, soft skills. They're really more core skills, but they're often referred to as soft skills. But, you know, communication, listening, leadership, difficult conversations, conflict management, all those areas, is where I spent a lot of my time working now. And it is, yeah, just, it is yoga. It's just everybody's wearing shoes and pants, yeah? Well, I like that. You're wanting to be nice and not throw anybody under the bus, but I also maybe I'll just be not nice and take the mentorship role here yoga teachers, we got to level up a little bit and start getting a little more professional, because I kind of agree with you. I had a had a chance to go and teach yoga to a corporate group, and it was a part of a weekend corporate training. And it was such an eye opening experience, because I noticed what you said, I kind of came out of it. I didn't know what I was getting into when I came out. I was like, do I want to cross over into the software world now, or, like, the the computing world, because it was so fun to be around a professional group of people that were working so hard to develop their career skills. And I was like, This is so refreshing. And I again, and I agree with you, I don't want to be too harsh on myself and my chosen profession of yoga teaching and massage therapy, but, and it's funny, because I remember one time I just kind of was embarking on this journey of thinking, like, wow, I could be a professional yoga teacher. This sounds so great. And I met this girl. I just moved back. I was in California. She moved back from Hawaii to California, and I said, What have you been doing in Hawaii? And she's like, I was a yoga teacher and a massage therapist. But I, you know, I can't take it anymore. I'm doing like a corporate job. I can't handle the airy fairness of this profession. And I just, I need some structure. I need something and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not what I wanted to hear like. That's the total opposite of what I wanted to know right now. But I filed it in the bank, the cabinet, and so I hear what you're saying, Luca, and it's really, it's cool, and it's refreshing, and I appreciate your your gentleness and but it's coming through. And I And would you agree with me, in relation to this, let's try to bring the professional quality of yoga up, because there's no reason that we couldn't be on level with an engineer adopt the the medical, the the tech and the the software to the just computer or tech development world like I believe we could the bar. Could raise a little and we could, we had the capacity to come up. Yeah, am I getting two out there? No, you're, you're, it's really good actually. And I don't think it's here's what it is as I think people want this, they do, and I don't know that. I don't know that. Listen, we've got to if we want to be serious or have seriously. We want. Let me put it that way, there has to be a dedication to precision. It is only through precision that any industry, whatever that industry is, it's only through precision does anybody elevate or have any kind of structure, growth, development or success. And yoga teachers resist precision. I can't. One of the main things I teach as a key building block is, is a measure. And what I say that is, is, like, you've got to start telling people how many of something they're doing and how long they're doing it for, how many of these are we going to do? And you probably get this from the Bikram world. It's like, that's built into the Bikram structure is like, you're doing this this long on this side, and then this long on the other side. You know, I don't know, how many times have we been in that mystery warrior two, it's like, why am I in a mystery warrior two, just tell me how long I'm here for. Then I can give it my all. It's I can really give it everything I've got, if you just communicate with me how long I'm here for. And you know, yoga teachers resist precision. They love to do the count, where they're like, 517, who cares? Numbers don't matter. And I'm like, they do matter. It's important that I know how long I'm here, because that's where empowerment lives. Empowerment lives me as a student, being able to actually give what I've got, and maybe even find that I've got more than I thought I'd have to give. But if you don't give me a measure. You hold all the cards to my practice. You're too busy in my practice. I have an experience of you versus an experience of myself. Now, why I'm saying this? Again, that again, everything can point back to what we do in the classroom, but then when we look at the leadership level where you're talking it's the same thing. We've got to dedicate to some sort of skillfulness of precision as a as an artist, as a teacher, as a, you know, what is engineering to move people's bodies? You know, in a lot of regards, is really important. And I think it's actually that precision that that like you're the person you're mentioning. I think had that person been introduced to or and maybe they did on some level, but had a strong sense of mastery in the art of how to teach. I think likely it may have elongated that career, maybe not forever, but it may have elongated it enough to overcome some of those hurdles. Wow. Yeah, good, good. Kind of bird's eye view there of that. Because, yeah, I don't mean to be controversial on the on the Todd cast, but, oh, dude, I don't think that's too Contra. I want you to be controversial, man. I mean, I mean, shoot, oh, man. Luca, I just looked at the I put my glasses on. I can see the time it's been we've been going for an hour and five minutes. I want to be very respectful of your time. I'm sure super. I know you're busy and you got lots going on and, uh, well, I want to bring us in the direction of of a closure. Um, I like the word fact that you used. So maybe to bring us into closing, I love that you use the word Oracle. I haven't heard anybody throw the word oracle at me in a long time, apart from last time I watched the matrix. Can you define Oracle based on the way that you used it earlier, or what? Why you chose to use that word, yeah, well, because here's just as a bit, bit of a background. I think we're so, you know, especially in yoga, we have all this great text and philosophy and wisdom, you know, and thought leaders, you know, generations of thought leaders and ideas and, you know, and, and I think sometimes we think that we've got to repeat or share that teaching those teachings in order to be teaching yoga. But you know, like I said, my move was yoga. My career in corporate America as a consultant is yoga. My relationship with my husband is yoga. Yoga has been the longest relationship of my life. We have good years, we have bad years speaking. You know, sometimes it's harder, sometimes it's easier, not with my husband, but with the yoga and you know, Oracle is an opportunity to be what is the teaching of yoga, but be present and see what's in front of you. I mean, I really believe, and I learn it more and more every year, that the universe is conspiring for my greatest good, which sometimes means I'm heading into a conversation like this, and I'll find my Africa yoga project journal and read through it a little bit and think nothing of it, or why it would apply to the future, or why would have have any relevance. That's an Oracle, you know, to have those writings in front of me and have no idea we're going to talk about it, and then have it come forward in a way that I think, yeah, it really closes a loop for me and hopefully share something with the world. And that's Oracle, or, like, I shared the Golden Girls, like watching, you know, can be anywhere I joke about the Golden Girls. It could be off somebody's bumper sticker. Or a license plate or, you know, something resonates with you deeply and and connects with you and reminds you of something, a deeper teacher. That's Oracle. It's a, it's a, you know, it's the, it's the sun coming up. I love it, yeah, it's a million, oh yeah. Every day is a new beginning. I'm gonna bring it in. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use the word Oracle somewhere in my speech today, and and I have my meaning. I'll just wait for somebody to ask me to like, What do you mean? But I like the idea. I do like the idea of living with the understanding. I should let me say this differently instead of saying I like the idea living with the idea, living with the understanding of that the universe is conspiring to my greater good. Oh, that takes some pressure off. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. That's an Oracle. That idea connects with something deeper in you, something you already knew. It's not something I taught you, yeah, it's, it's, oh, you know, I I say this just really quickly, please. You know, I'm okay. I have lots of time. I just don't want to hold you up. I know you might be busy. I love this. I'll do this. Well, I'll keep going. Well, I'll just say this really quick. So in a training environment, sometimes, you know, get together, people start talking, and they sort of have, start having breakthroughs. Yeah, about something. And, you know, I always joke. I always say, like, Hey, listen, if you get enough people together and you just ask people chocolate or vanilla ice cream, somebody's going to have a breakthrough. Somebody's going to, like, have a, you know, have an Oracle moment. They're going to really, they're going to really come to life. They're going to start crying, you know, you're going to have all these human experiences. It's not so much in what's being said. It's in the interaction and how that interaction sort of triggers what we already know to be true. I think that makes the biggest difference. I like that just something so simple, right? Chocolate or vanilla ice cream. I don't know. I haven't put that to the test, but I'm opening trainings where, yeah, I feel like the questions inert enough, but it gets a big enough response. And I'm like, I get that. Just ask if people wanted, you know, boxers or briefs, and let's just see what happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you managing conflict resolution in okay, we're in a group. You're the teacher. There's 20 teacher trainers, and one of the 20 has to interject. And to the point on everything you say, so much so that you start seeing eyes rolling around the room. You start seeing other people getting along, comfortable from the mentor role in the realm of where we want to be gentle, but at the same time direct. What is your strategy in that setting? I know everything will be a little different, but this is my vanilla chocolate question for you, like, what's your strategy? Well, I'll say a couple things. You have to know that people are drawn. A lot of people are drawn to the teaching of yoga because they want to, they want to create a world in which they get to lead and be heard. And so in any training, you'll likely have that, you know, that a dynamic where somebody, somebody wants to share what they already know, or they want to share about what they already know, they want to be seen as valuable in some areas. It's, it is, you know, common archetype as it sounds like you're very familiar with, you know, I would say a couple things really set you up for success in those areas. Number one, most. Again, this is a precision and a tool if your program and your section have clear intentions, okay, so say I've got somebody who you know maybe say we're touching maybe lightly on anatomy, but somebody's got a lot of experience in anatomy, and they really want to weigh in on what they know about anatomy or how what they know, right? It's so important to have that intention up and alive in the room. So when somebody starts weighing in and sharing, not only can we a celebrate their insights. That usually helps, right? Is to actually say thank you. Oh, gosh, that's really good. Thank you. And then also, in the case that you need to course correct it, it's pointing back to the intention. So yeah, that's a really good insight. But, you know, just as a reminder, so the intention of this training is that you leave here, you know, able to lead a power yoga class, not that you leave here being an expert on anatomy. So we don't really cover it at that level of depth, although there's a lot of great resources. You got to find a way and some things that you've all agreed upon on some level, so like an intention or a promise of the training, where we've all kind of agreed to this, and now we've got a place to point you back to. But my experience is, you know, I learned. I mentioned my great mentor, Kirsten Mooney, the other day, so I used to travel with her a bit, and we used to teach at like, do you remember Yoga Journal conferences back in the day? Oh, yeah. So we used to go teach at Yoga Journal, and she was the master at this such a kind and authentic leader. And it would always happen. She beat she had a background in kinesthesiology, anatomy, and she would be teaching something, and there would either be disagreement or somebody wanting to weigh in or contribute or collaborate. And she was just the master of of inviting them to speak and hear, and then also kind of really being able to share what she had to share and it, it, you know, generally, really had profound impact on getting that person to feel heard, but then also nice, yeah, stop, stop talking. But, you know, I think, yeah, if you've, if you've got to have a clear promise, you've got to have clear intentions, you've got to have something to point back to, because nine times out of 10 what somebody's sharing likely falls outside of that intention, and then all you have to say is that's outside of the intention. That's not why we're here. So yeah, I love that you're sharing, and this is where we're going come with us. Yeah, great answer. That's so cool. Luca, do you when, what type of format when you do your 300 hour training? Is this all online? Or are you getting only altogether, or are you hybridizing? Yeah, we listen. I'm going to tell you we started in the pandemic. So we started all online 12 weekends. We've now for 2025, it starts in March. We've boiled it down to 10 weekends. It's basically like a nine to five ish on Saturdays and Sundays about once a month, say. And we have talked a great deal about, should we hybridize it? Should we go live? And I'm going to tell you, there's something I'm watching you here. I don't know if we're probably just listening, but I get to watch you because we're here on Zoom. There's something that you learn in seeing yourself, teach you probably, maybe you get this, you could share on this, maybe a little bit. But like, I know what my face is doing when I'm not looking at myself, because I'm either looking at myself or watching a video of myself, because we edit and we send out all of the training materials the day or so after so you know, in the case that somebody can't be there, we're going to send them the recording. Or in the case that you wanted to hear it again, you could refer back to it so you can you can't do that when you're live, it's just a one time shot. And if you can't be there, you can't be there. But there's something that happens. Now, I'm not recommending people teach virtually. I'm just saying it's a great platform through which to learn how to teach, because you really get a sense of who you are, objectively, sort of from out here, and what you look like, what you sound like, Yeah, good point. Yeah. It's like, you're almost like, surprised. It works so good, yeah, like, you would have been very critical of it potentially 15 years ago, thinking there's no way I'd ever do a teacher training through the computer. And now you're actually going, Oh, my goodness, this is better than being in a room and well, and we can have people from their houses and all over the country, and, you know, they don't have to. You know, the training is very inexpensive. It's under $2,000 for what is an extremely high quality product, you know. But we're able to offer it, you know, we're not here to get rich off it. We're we're able to offer something really magical at a really you know, without having to worry about hotels or spaces or any of that. And it's checks all of those boxes. And we've talked about it over the years, and we've really heard such wonderful feedback from our participants that they're like, Hey, listen, I gotta wait for this guy to deliver my washer dryer. I'm here with you, but like, I'm waiting for the washer, you know, like they're sharing like, Oh, I gotta go pick up my kid. I can listen from the car. And of course, the training works best when everybody's there and everybody's present. But it does leave for people to have, you know, especially at the 300 hour. You know, the reality of real life. Yeah, you got to go through the whole boom of yoga in relation to see what was going on back in, you know, late 90s, 2000 you saw it from the Los Angeles culture, like you said, almost like celebrity these, you know, celebrity teachers, so to speak. And then through where we are now, 2025, you know, a whole quarter of a century. And I'm not saying that this is like such a long period of time, but you got to see a lot of ups and downs. Do you feel like, Oh, geez. Like in terms of yoga teaching them, I think the thing with the online thing is that it opens up the possibility for every person who finishes a teacher training, they could teach either online, or they can pull their parent or their family member. They could teach in the park. Like there's a way to figure out a way to offer yoga. Teaching in terms of studios and the amount of availability for jobs. In my impression from what I'm noticing, it doesn't seem like that there's very many opportunities within the studio realm. And one of the big things that I noticed as a yoga studio owner, my wife and I been here be 19 years in the next month or so, is that, you know, we just are always looking for someone that's going to stick around and actually be here long term and not give up, like you said, quickly, like hang in through the tough times and keep going. And when classes are slow, stay keep coming. When classes are busy, keep coming. And that's one of the biggest challenges I find. I'm just curious, from your perspective, what are you observing in the relation to the amount of quote yoga teachers and the amount of opportunity there is, what are you feeling and seeing? I'll just say, Listen, I think embracing attrition is a really healthy business strategy. I think, you know, in just in looking really quickly at what you just said, I think there's something around embracing that a lot of your teachers, it will be a part time or semi part time or a passion project, and life is always going to be more important. And though those teachers are still really fun, and they're fun for a short term and for studio owners, I'd say, if you've got a training system that actually just puts teachers in the space that they're able to hit the ground running, you don't have to worry about attrition as much you know, making sure that it's not about the teacher, it's about the structure of the classes and the time of the classes. And it removes this, this need for the for teachers to stay a long time if they don't want to. And it allows for teachers to stay those who want to grow. It gives them a clear pathway of, hey, we want you teaching workshops. We want you help leading the training. We want you as studio manager. We want a pathway for you. And I think that that is the number one thing I'm seeing out in the world is, you know, if you look at boutique fitness, which is dominating, you know, like that, you know that all of the different types of boutique fitnesses, you know, one of the things you'll notice is that it's hardly ever really about the instructor. It's really about the product. And I would say that's the bigger shift that yoga businesses need to embrace is no, no, no, don't just put on a Pilates class because that's the only person who's available to teach. Tuesdays at four. Tuesdays at four is a great time. You've got to, you know, if you if you're limited to who's teaching as a business, that you're going to really suffer for it. And I think that's the biggest change we've got to make. We've got to, we've got to get more on board with the systems and how to, how to, I don't know if that makes sense, and how to get, you know how to, there's something to be gotten for everybody out of like, hey, if, if, my, if, the students who come to my four o'clock will also come to your four o'clock. We all benefit, you know, versus this very singular idea of I've got, I need to do. Well, yeah, yeah, in my classes, yeah. Good point. Good answer, man. Well, I mean, I'd just love the opportunity to speak to somebody who's, you know, we've been, we've both been at it for a while. And I mean, I love it. Thank you so much. I mean, that's one of my most favorite things about having this opportunity to interview and converse and learn. I learned so much having this opportunity, Luca and I, I just, I'm just so thankful for you being gracious with your time, for responding to me so quickly so positively. Like, yeah, man, let's do it. Let's go right now. I'm ready, so I feel really excited for the new year. I'm excited to see what this year is going to bring. Anything that you would like to share to now officially close our session together. Yeah, I thought the oracle was going to be it, but I had three more questions for you. It's good, it's fun. Thank you for doing this. Is all I have. Thank you for doing this, and thank you for your commitment to great conversations and and and to sharing what it is that matters to you. And gosh, what a fun space to be invited into. So I I really just acknowledge you for what you've accomplished, and acknowledge you for staying in the game, you know, and influencing, you know, years of of students and teachers and letting me be part of this. So thank you. Thank you, Luca. That means a lot to me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, cool man. Well, maybe, let's definitely do it again, and I'll build a little scat, a little more scaffolding and and then see if you're, if you're thinking my scaffold building is reasonable, it's. Yeah, reach out anytime. I love to talk about systems. I love to talk about precision and scaffolding and and hopefully, hopefully we'll, we'll get a chance to talk soon. All right, thanks, man, thank you. Native yoga Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com, and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends, rate it and review and join us next time you for you know you.