238 - The Power of Permission and Playfulness in Movement w/Venus Lau

Venus Lau is a movement coach whose approach combines holistic and scientific elements and is about offering permission for the mover to explore beyond the rules and truly become strong in body, mind, and soul.

She joins us today to discuss the physical practice of movement as a gateway, including its impacts on confidence and physical, emotional, and mental well-being. We talk about why we need to give ourselves permission to experiment, ask questions, and be playful in our movement.

We also explore what it means to listen to and explore with our bodies--including how to understand the different types of discomfort and pain we can experience--the benefits of collaboration and learning together with others, and the importance of finding joy in fitness and personal growth.

To connect with Venus, visit her website, Instagram, or Facebook.

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Connect with Bonnie: Instagram, Email (hello@bonnieweeks.com), Website
Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie (00:01.987)
Welcome back to the podcast, my loves. I love finding people who I could just talk to for, you know, really be like, it's been six hours and we're still talking. I think that's when you know, you're like, okay, these are my people. These are the people that we can just hang out with it. Everything flows with. And I think the gift of knowing so many people within the movement community as well is so exciting because it gives us an even.

broader range of topics because movement touches every part of our lives. It gives us permission and power in a lot of different areas. And today, the guest that I am here with to have a conversation is going to go a billion places, I know, is somebody who really does an excellent job of supporting people to really expand and own all the directions that they are moving.

And it is physical, it is mental, it is emotional. It's all of the different ways that we're being human and really tapping into how those play together and giving ourselves permission to experiment and to ask more questions and to be playful in it. And I think that's one of my favorite things about you. So welcome to the podcast, Venus La 'au. It is a pleasure to have you.

VenusFit (01:29.294)
Hello, thank you. I'm so happy to be here and thank you for having me. And I can't wait for another one of our very long conversations.

Bonnie (01:38.595)
I mean, I don't think we've actually talked for six hours straight, but I think it's because we cut ourselves off from like, okay, cool.

VenusFit (01:43.63)
Yeah, we're like, wait, I have a light, I have to go do things. Yeah. I have a job.

Bonnie (01:48.259)
Yeah. Well, I think that's like the shout out too, to like, I mean, we've been Instagram friends for like so many years. And then what's like, it's been within this past year that we've had a couple of conversations where like, Hey, we should just talk on the phone and just not have like the random, like, that was cool as like, like in our DMs.

VenusFit (02:07.79)
Yeah. I'll send you a DM. Really love that post. Where'd you come up with that? Yeah. Love that. wait, by the way, did you see this funny joke?

Bonnie (02:16.995)
Right, right. But for people to actually, I don't know, I think that's the fun part about social media is like actually you could just call each other. I mean, people, you could literally call on Instagram and not even give your number out, which I've accidentally.

VenusFit (02:30.606)
Yeah, but don't do that. Please don't do that, people. People have tried to do that with me.

Bonnie (02:35.715)
Well, like set it up, set it up ahead of time. Don't just like do it at random, set it up ahead of time. So you have consent. It is kind of wild. People don't, I don't feel like people do use that feature every once in a while accidentally. And I'm like, sorry, I did not mean to call you.

VenusFit (02:50.606)
Yeah. Well, it's funny. Yeah, consent is very important on the video chat on Instagram. Even a friend has accidentally done it to me and they're my actual friend. I'm like, that's weird. What am I doing? Yeah.

Bonnie (03:09.283)
Yeah, yeah. But I don't think that even people might have not even realized that it's possible, because I mean, all the different buttons and you're like, what does what here? But yeah, there you go. OK, everybody just message Venus and I first before you call us.

VenusFit (03:20.558)
Well, way to go, Bonnie. You just shared it with the whole world.

VenusFit (03:29.326)
No, just call Bonnie.

Bonnie (03:32.419)
No, no!

VenusFit (03:36.686)
Like I heard it, you just need to be listening on your podcast.

Bonnie (03:37.091)
gosh. Well, if you wanna make social media social, Bonnie, here you go.

Bonnie (03:47.043)
Okay, we don't want to like consent. Let's have some conversation about it and then let's have some chats. but I think, you know, part of this, and, and I guess if we're going to, let's talk about social media for a second too, then is that we had followed each other for years and we did, I feel like seeing people show up and doing their thing and saying the thing over and over and people who are really interested in helping others.

and being brave enough to actually share their voice and to do the thing and to show up day in and day out and be like, this is what I'm about and this is how I'm honing it. So.

VenusFit (04:24.622)
Yeah, I saw your page and I was like, she's like the yoga version of what I do. And not that you only do yoga, because I know you lift weights and you do all kinds of things, but I was like, I feel like we're already on that same wavelength of how we see movements and how it translates into our daily life, how we also process information and everything else. And that, you know, I've,

Bonnie (04:31.683)
Mm.

VenusFit (04:52.078)
I think it's like it goes from the physical to the emotional and the mental all the way down to the soul level and then inside and out. And I saw that in your page and how you explore and the fact that we both love wearing jeans when we work out. But I love how you are always inviting people to explore different things and saying there's no wrong way.

Bonnie (05:03.299)
Hmm.

VenusFit (05:18.766)
or be intentional about it. And that's how I feel this, I feel this exact same way. If the body wasn't meant to move in a certain place, then why can we do it? So there has to be some sort of purpose for it versus all the traditional thinking when it comes to anything with exercise, fitness, whether it's yoga or traditional strength training or movement training in general. And I think a lot of people think that way. And it's like, well, if we have the capability to go there, then what makes it wrong?

Bonnie (05:19.331)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (05:26.595)
Yeah.

Bonnie (05:30.627)
Yeah.

Bonnie (05:40.483)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (05:48.291)
Mmm.

VenusFit (05:49.166)
You know, like, there's gotta be an intention behind it. So where can I find the intention behind it? Or are you just doing it because it's default mode? And I always say that, I'm like, even neutral, perfect posture and spine, if that's your neutral and you're always in it, that's also not great because we don't want to always be in default mode. We want to be able to explore outside those lines.

Bonnie (06:05.859)
Yeah.

Bonnie (06:11.939)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I like that you're saying, you know, if we can do that, then there has to be a purpose with it. And I am like, now that kind of makes me think like, okay, well now I have to name a purpose, but I don't even know if you have to name a purpose. It's more like to me, I think if our bodies can move in these other ways, why not play with it? And maybe there's a purpose, maybe the purpose is a little bit bigger and saying like to just move your body, to just actually be able to, as you always say, to own it in...

VenusFit (06:31.054)
Yes.

Bonnie (06:41.443)
in all directions, right? To say like, I can do it in all different planes of motion. I can own my movement. And so maybe that's like the bigger purpose of like, just own it. Like just to be able to own it.

VenusFit (06:52.526)
Yeah. Own it. Hashtag own it.

Bonnie (06:56.383)
Yeah, well, and I think in the movement world and I agree, like I guess in like yoga land, there is a very traditional sort of way of movement, right? Of doing the things. And so I do try to bring like different planes of movement and sequencing or to alternate the planes of movement, which there's not a lot of alternation, which makes it feel like a dance and what, and the sequencing that I do.

VenusFit (07:19.054)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (07:21.955)
but there's a lot of crossover I feel like between animal flow and between, I could love like all your cut -a -bell work and all the things. Cause then I'm like, it's all the same. I'm like, how do we find the fluidity in the strength?

VenusFit (07:35.374)
Yes. And I mean, and that, and that's to me, I always link it to language. it's like, so I always tell people you have to know your ABCs before you can start learning like words. And then you learn words, then you start to learn your grammar and you start to learn sentence structures. Then you are able to start to speak in paragraphs. But then once you learn all the rules, then you break it with poetry. And so it's the same.

Bonnie (07:54.819)
Hmm...

Bonnie (08:03.459)
Mmm.

VenusFit (08:04.078)
thing, like I think with movement, you Yes, it's good to learn the neutral spine, the neutral squat, the, you know, all the general stuff. But don't stay there for that long, learn it and quickly move on and see where else you can take it on purpose. And or intention and it and when I was saying when I say on purpose, it doesn't mean it has to have a purpose, but you're just doing it intentionally. And from there, you can explore more and

Bonnie (08:19.811)
Yeah.

Bonnie (08:29.443)
Gotcha.

VenusFit (08:32.846)
That's where people get that true body confidence, that self -confidence to go, I can now go try this new thing that my friend invited me to that I've never done, never heard of, and know that if I fail, it's still gonna be a good time, versus I know there's a lot of people that try new things, or they won't even attempt to try new things because they're so afraid of failing. They're so afraid of quote unquote embarrassing themselves. And really it's just that.

Bonnie (08:48.323)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (09:01.486)
Just be okay being unfamiliar with things. Right? And so it starts with finding those baselines, but quickly going, what else can I do with this baseline?

Bonnie (09:04.675)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie (09:12.963)
Mm, so good. So good. I love, I mean, I love referring things like back to poetry in ways. And I bring up Mary Oliver when I talk to yoga teachers and as a way to experiment with what we're doing and learning how to write poetry and the way that Mary Oliver kind of guides that in some of her books. So this idea of letters to words to paragraphs to then looking at the grammar, which is a little bit more nuanced.

and then being like, okay, let's fuck it up. Here's some poetry and the poetry is gonna be this way this time and then in totally a different way the next time. And I'm gonna make up a word here actually and end in the middle of a sentence. And I don't know, like then it gets, it's funky. So that's a fantastic analogy. I often use how to drive a car. It lacks the poetry. I would have to like take another step, but I always think, okay, you have to like get in a car. And as it,

VenusFit (09:41.294)
Yeah.

Bonnie (10:08.835)
As a teacher, I'm like, if you're going to teach yoga, you have to be like, here's a vehicle in my driveway. Okay. So this is the color of it. This is like the shape of it. Now I have to figure out how do I get in this car? Okay, cool. Now, how do I start? Is this a push start? Is this a key start? Like which pedal do I push with which foot? How do I, you know, so you're just have to like, you're sitting in the driveway and you're like, what is the car? And, and like, what are the buttons do? And I think of when, when I was a little kid and if,

If we went somewhere as a fam and like rented a car from somewhere, it was so exciting. You have to like, we would open up every little compartment and be like, Ooh, what's in this? Totally. yeah. You're like, Ooh, this is a little like secret pocket over here in this back corner. so that's what I think. Yeah.

VenusFit (10:46.51)
Yeah, I remember that. And the smell of the car. Yeah.

VenusFit (10:55.946)
Yeah, it's that exploration of this. And when we're like, what can this also do? But I'm also linking it to like, I want to, I also want to link it to function. It's not just to, I mean, yes, expression is important, but it's also function. Like we have to be able to move through this world. And, my, one of my best buddies, he called me the other day and he was talking to me about how he was trying to help. I actually was hanging out with him one day and there was this.

Bonnie (11:04.867)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (11:24.942)
dog on the street. And it was like just in the middle of the street. But then we saw this guy chasing his dog. So we stopped the car to go out the car to try to help him find his dog. And this dog just kept getting away from everybody. They finally got it. Whatever. He calls me the next day and he was like, dude, this dog is this morning I went on a walk and that same freaking dog ran away from its owner. And now it was like the wife and she's chasing it.

But she's, she's older. She's probably in her six years, seventies is what he said she looked like. And he was like, I got so frustrated because we're both coaches. He was like, I got so frustrated because I finally, we finally cornered the dog. This was like 30 minutes in chasing the dog and it was right at her feet. And he goes, grab your dog. And she just looked at him and smiled and she, he didn't realize, and he thought about it for a second. He's like, why isn't she bending over to grab her dog?

It was only like a 10 pound dog. It's cause he was like, he realized she doesn't have the mobility to do it. She couldn't bend over and pick up her own 10 pound dog. And he was like, it was so frustrating, Venus. He was like, I felt so bad for her, but also so frustrated that this is the society we live in. So where it's like, this is a normal thing. When people, they think they're, I'm older, I'm aged. And so I can't do this bend over movement or whatnot. And so we have a very dysfunctional society where we,

Bonnie (12:29.571)
Mmm.

VenusFit (12:52.718)
We think age is going to prevent us from doing things, but really it's, I call it like your age is your number of years that you've been able to do certain skills. Looking at age as like, I'm just aging. So like, you know, I've been a trainer now since 2007. So I don't know, do the math. What is that? Like 16, 17 years. I say that's my age as a trainer, right? Before that.

Bonnie (13:03.843)
Hmm.

Bonnie (13:17.379)
Mm.

VenusFit (13:21.358)
I played college golf before that. I had always worked out. So it's like, I have all these different ages in me versus, you know, going back to the point of how do we explore movement to make it functional so I can have that longevity. And I think that's really the biggest key. Like, yes, expression is extremely important. I feel like it's like yin and yang, right? The yin is expression. The yang is like the functionality.

Bonnie (13:37.539)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (13:48.003)
Hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. And it is, yeah, well, it's fascinating. I think that's such a good example of saying like why this work is important. And I've had a lot of conversations recently about folks, about teachers teaching older folks and people who are aging and who maybe haven't been moving very much. And the need for just sitting to standing,

VenusFit (13:53.038)
and how we can just conceive.

VenusFit (14:01.102)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (14:21.091)
and balancing on one leg. Just those two things even. And it's part of the reason why I know for me that I try to incorporate so often seated postures all the way to standing in a flow. And it's a lot of work, like it's more work to do it, but it's so functional. It's actually like, but how do we get down to the ground and how do we get back up? How do you pick up your dog and get back up and think in the way that you lead flow and.

VenusFit (14:23.246)
Yeah.

Bonnie (14:49.411)
incorporate strengths within this. It's the same. It's like how do we own ourself in all angles and be able to have the freedom to move? Then we can live. Yeah.

VenusFit (15:02.158)
and how our physicality, those abilities in our physicality really affect our confidence and our belief in ourself in so many ways that we don't realize that the carryover is there.

Bonnie (15:14.659)
Yeah. Well, I think that, I mean, gosh, I have my left SI talks to me and it started talking to me like over two years ago and the past several weeks, it is a little bit angry right now. So just talk about physical, to talk about pain, especially in the physical body and the way that can affect how we might move or not move. It a hundred percent affects how I'm, what I'm thinking about or how I'm processing the world or what I think my capacity is.

VenusFit (15:35.022)
Yeah.

Bonnie (15:44.451)
And I have to like stay really present with myself to be like, okay, Bonnie, what are we doing? What are we not doing? What does wellness mean? How do we look at this as like a larger thing, not just one thing, which it always is. And even to like sort of the, because everybody, there's so much chronic pain that exists within the world and for people and their bodies and how that affects them outside of something that's just physical is really important.

VenusFit (16:07.086)
the

Bonnie (16:14.403)
to like kind of acknowledge, but there's so much that's physical that can be done to help aid that. And the story that you tell about pain or about what your body can and cannot do is so important. Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (16:23.278)
Yes.

VenusFit (16:30.894)
Yeah, because pain is a signal. Pain is a signal that your body is saying something needs to shift, something needs to change, or this is uncomfortable. And what I also find is that a lot of people don't know how to actually categorize their own pain. There's different kinds of pain and a lot of people just... Any kind of pain, it's always the same category to them. It means it's dangerous.

And sometimes I really try with my private clients especially of like whenever they say, this kind of hurts. And I'm like, okay, describe the hurt. What kind of hurt is it? And some hurts is totally legitimate. And like, yep, that's real pain. Let's stay away from that. Let's shift the exercise, it's modified or let's do something different. And then if it's something different where it's like, they don't say sharp, they say, it's a...

Bonnie (16:58.595)
Mm.

Bonnie (17:08.771)
Yeah.

VenusFit (17:29.038)
feel a little bit of tension or it's a little bit hot or it's burning or whatever, I'm like, okay, well, let's explore that. What does that really mean? And it'll either be a very legitimate pain or it'll be something where it's just, it's just different. They've just never felt that area of their body so, so isolated or speaking to them. And it's always,

Bonnie (17:37.219)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (17:44.355)
Hmm.

VenusFit (17:52.494)
Generally when I have them with their hands and feet on the ground where they're in that closed chain position So the nervous systems like I'm actually pretty good. I'm I know I'm not gonna fall I'm gonna hurt myself So their body is speaking to them more and they're just like I've never felt these sensations So it's like is it new or and not explored or is it actually legitimately like we shouldn't be doing this and I think that like that also transfers over into a

Bonnie (18:07.715)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (18:13.443)
Yeah.

Bonnie (18:18.211)
Mm.

VenusFit (18:21.774)
emotions and a lot of other things in our life, how people as soon as they feel any kind of discomfort, they just want to bail versus like, can I sit in this a little bit longer and actually experience it and actually understand what this means for me.

Bonnie (18:32.003)
Yeah.

Bonnie (18:39.427)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Well, because being a noob is, it brings all of those things. I, this is an excellent, I think, point conversation because, and because you are also like referencing doing new things. But if somebody is new and putting their hands and feet on the floor at the same time and yoga, there's so much, there's so often hands down too. I'm like, if you don't put their hands on the floor is, it's kind of like common walking around in the world. And like that feeling that,

VenusFit (19:05.302)
Yeah.

Bonnie (19:09.315)
you know, doing things with your body, a hundred percent then affects the way that you're thinking about yourself and brings up the things that you don't know that it's going to bring up and it helps. And it makes you think about yourself in different ways. It changes your whole perspective because now you've moved your body, like moving yourself physically moves you on the inside. You can't not be changed from, from like the physical part to the inside part, like they're tied together.

VenusFit (19:18.99)
Thanks.

VenusFit (19:37.394)
Yeah. Now a lot of people, they, they, we know it. It's like in every Instagram quote, but like to actually just do it, you'll feel it. And that's another thing. I had a post recently. I was actually, the post was actually a joke and it actually has been doing quite well. And I was talking to my friend and I was like, it's so annoying how people were always like, well, how come, how does crawling make you stronger? We did it as babies. Yeah. But how does crawling make me stronger?

Bonnie (19:46.404)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (20:07.15)
And I'm always like, just do it, just try it. And the first time I did that, I was in like a boutique bookstore, they sold like crystals and candles and stuff like that. But I was talking to the person who owned it and she was like, what do you do? I was like, well, I teach flow and primal movement and I get on the floor and I crawl a lot. And she's like crawling and I was like, yeah. She was like, how does that help you? And I talked about the developmental movements and how it helps our left and right.

you know, hemispheres are for our brain, but really it's about the connection to our body because we have hundreds and thousands of nerve endings in our hands and feet, blah, blah, all that stuff, right? All the science. And then I was like, and it's really good for your core, because that's the trend word, and your hips and your shoulders and your spine. And she was like, well, how would this make my core stronger? And I go, you know what, instead of me describing it, let's get it out on the ground and want you to try it. She's like, like brain.

Bonnie (21:04.035)
in the bookstore.

VenusFit (21:04.91)
Yeah, in the bookstore. She's like, you looked at me like, like right now? I was like, yeah, get on the ground and do it with me. She's like, okay. So we get on the ground and I just have her start in this simple position. Then I have her lift limbs and she was like, my God, this is so hard. And we were like 10 seconds in and she was like, okay, I get it. And so last week I did a post of like, what are you doing right now? Get on the ground with me. I was like, are you sitting down? Are you on the couch or in the toilet?

Bonnie (21:24.899)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (21:34.638)
get off the toilet, get on the ground with me. And it's awesome. Like it makes me so happy when I get comments and responses of people being like, how'd you know I was on the toilet? Or I was on the couch and I got off the ground and I did it. And now, my God, you're right. And like, that's the point. A lot of people don't even try. So it's like, and it's so simple, right? But the point is just that the fact of just trying to feel it for yourself.

Bonnie (21:54.307)
Mmm.

VenusFit (22:04.622)
If you're listening to this podcast right now and you've never crawled on the ground, try it. Get down on the ground, put your hands and feet on the ground, start with the knees on the ground first, lift opposite limbs, opposite arm and leg, march them, then eventually just hold them off the ground. Just hold. You can even keep the knees on the ground. Then eventually you take the knees off the ground and do the same thing and you really see how that affects your body. And it follows the gait patterning. And you know this, right?

Bonnie (22:05.251)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (22:33.838)
You know, you may not crawl when you're doing yoga, but we do other versions that match a crawling style. And movement is movement. Whether it's yoga or animal flow or whatever your primal movement, you know, kettlebell dance, it all follows the same rules. Anatomy follows the same rules.

Bonnie (22:40.515)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Bonnie (22:57.171)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think not all, I think your list of kettlebell, I guess there could be different, there's some different type of kettlebell folks out there too. but you know, I think animal flow, I think dance and primal flow, like those for sure are all have some crossovers and then kettlebell, there's some, quite a bit of variance. I feel like some in kettlebell world, like very

VenusFit (23:08.622)
Yes.

VenusFit (23:22.254)
Well, it depends on your teacher. Yeah. Yours is confessional.

Bonnie (23:24.099)
Exactly. How you teach or practice it. But I'm like, there's definitely some like strict, I feel like holding a posture and then other ones that's a little bit more brings that animal flow fluidity with it. I don't know. There's, I feel like there's a mix and I'm not super tapped into that world, but just like from the outside looking at it kind of seems like that. I love kettlebells, but yeah, that's yeah.

VenusFit (23:28.718)
Yes.

VenusFit (23:43.47)
It's, it's very similar to the yoga world where some people are very strict on postures and where the foot should be turned in and where she should be creating the tension points. and then, and there's traditional versions of how to do a kettlebell clean and a kettlebell snatch. And then there's, there's more where it involves more spiraling and coiling and rotation, which I think is actually much more functional because I was an athlete before and, and.

Bonnie (24:03.395)
catcha.

VenusFit (24:12.718)
It was interesting. I went to Baylor on a golf scholarship and I always trained pretty functionally. And then I went to Baylor and we had strength coaches and I gained five pounds of muscle with my freshman year of college, which is like the opposite of what's supposed to happen in college. But I gained five pounds of muscle and it was great aesthetically, but my golf game suffered.

I was a better golfer my senior year of high school than I was my freshman year of college because the movement patterns of the strength training that we did was more towards traditional training. And now I look back at the movement I do now and I wish I trained in college the way I do now. And I play golf maybe once or twice a year now. And when I do, I actually hit it better than I did in college. So it's like, it's crazy.

Bonnie (24:40.899)
Hmm.

Bonnie (24:51.778)
Wow.

Bonnie (24:56.163)
Hmm.

Bonnie (25:08.899)
Yeah. this is, I love, I love this conversation because I haven't done a lot of, I mean, when you're talking about spiral, rotation, I talked about rotation all the time, but how do you, does that the same word to you just said differently spiral and rotation, or how would you differentiate the two?

VenusFit (25:27.39)
Yes. Well, it depends. Rotation can be on different accesses. Spiraling is rotation on different accesses. So I think, like, you think of traditional rotation as just turn left and turn right, right? But I think functional rotation is actually more spiraling because of gravity, because it starts from the ground. So we have to...

Bonnie (25:52.451)
So a spiral you're thinking of more full body versus like rotation might just be like feet face forward, but like torso turns right.

VenusFit (25:57.902)
Yeah.

VenusFit (26:02.158)
I mean, yeah, I mean, like, so like, if people can actually see my hands, if you're listening to this, you're not gonna be able to see it. But, you know, rotation is to me just rotation. Spiraling is when I'm like rotating from a base point and then stretching. So the actual visual I give a lot in my courses is I'll take a piece of fabric.

Bonnie (26:12.963)
Huh?

Bonnie (26:22.243)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (26:29.422)
And if you pull the fabric apart, that's gonna create tension. But if I spiral the fabric and twist it, this is actually much stronger than that, right? So same goes for the body, right, because ropes are twisted and that's what makes them so strong. Or if we think about it with gravity, right? And we think of the human body, our feet are touching the ground.

Bonnie (26:40.899)
That's true, yeah. Like a rope, like a rope gets twisted.

VenusFit (26:55.79)
throughout our spine, we say lengthen our spine, we say drive our hips into the ground and our feet into the ground, and lengthen and all that stuff, but what if we took our body and we twist it? Everything we do from gait patterning to walking to running to swimming to throwing to kicking is rotational, and really it's spiral rotation, and so it's rotation in multiple planes of motion. And that's much more effective. And if you actually look at the anatomy of the human body,

the actual musculature. Nothing is square 90 degrees, right? Our chest muscles come in at an angle, our shoulder and how our ligaments aligned are all these different angles. And so the way I swing a kettlebell, I try to match a lot of those angles of the primary driver muscles from my glutes to my lats when I'm doing kettlebells. And same with doing, whether I'm doing,

Bonnie (27:42.915)
Hmm.

VenusFit (27:51.598)
Animal flow or yoga or primal movement or mobility or whatever I'm trying to match those angles and find those drivers of tension and push and pull And whether it's the obliques anterior sling or the posterior sling like all those things, right? Well, this is where we get nerdy in the science But it really is to match what our body is the movement should match Your body lines your body lines shouldn't match some random movement that some guy or girl who?

Bonnie (28:00.419)
Yeah.

Bonnie (28:06.691)
Mm -hmm.

Totally.

VenusFit (28:20.942)
has a completely different body type than you, says. So when I teach my clients or my students, I say, well, how does it feel in your body? I'm like, this is how it feels in my body and how I'm doing it, but your body might be slightly different. I have a long torso and short legs, so the way I move is gonna be, my hinge is gonna look completely different from someone who has long femurs, right, and a short torso.

Bonnie (28:26.691)
Yeah.

Bonnie (28:50.275)
Yep, some anthropometrics for us.

VenusFit (28:50.782)
class 101 but yeah

Bonnie (28:57.027)
Yeah. Well, but I mean, this is the kind of conversation I love having with yoga teachers. It's like, I'm like, well, torso length, limb length, the rotation ability, like this, it all affects the way that we move. And I guess I really like this though, spiral rotation, spiral being a rotation in multiple planes of motion all at the same time. Because I think, I mean, this is a shout out to you for, for.

I think bringing different worlds of movement together and learning the language from different worlds to better describe or to expand, I guess, the ways that you can describe what it is you're doing and why you're doing it. And I really try to bring this to teachers in yoga because there is the traditional, like, this is how you do it, Ashtanga. You cannot spread your fingers apart when you bring your hands to your heart even, right? There's like a way you do the things.

or Iyengar and like the way, right. And, and I was like a place for that. And that is fantastic. And it really lands for some people and that's their way in. And that's, that's great. And, and like, when I teach people in flow school, how to build sequencing, it is this really fun way of, of helping people be like, okay, here's some science. We're going to talk about gait. We're going to talk about cross -crawl.

VenusFit (29:56.814)
You flunked and touched, but nothing else.

Bonnie (30:22.819)
we're going to talk about and it is the spiral rotation. That's really what it is. Because if you followed the gate of the body and the way it works, that's not what you normally see in a vinyasa class. And so it is different. And that's like, what are you doing? It's different. It's like poses, but it's different order and it's on purpose because it is following our human gate. So people get ner - like we can get real nerdy and sciency about it. But then it's like my favorite when people are like,

but this feels really natural. Like it feels really good in my body. Or they say, I am just listening actually to what my body wants to do. Cause I tell them, I say, just stay in one pose for long enough. What does your body want to do next? Stay there. Just stay there.

VenusFit (31:07.534)
Well, that's the thing too. If you look at how people's bodies, what they want to do, I love that question, what does your body want to do? Well, even the position I'm in right now, if there's, if you can watch the video, I'm like shifted in my hip. I got one knee up, I'm sitting on the couch. Your body loves to sink in to all these angles. Your body, the reason why most people have crappy posture is because we're not actually supposed to be in neutral spine all the time. We're...

Bonnie (31:23.619)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (31:35.374)
we're supposed to move around. It's, you know, children, babies and children know this best. You know, I was that kid where my mom always like, stop, you can't sit still, you know? And to this day, I go to movie theater and if you're sitting next to me in movie theater, I'm the annoying person that's constantly moving. And, but that's how our bodies are designed, you know? If you look at a dog, a dog doesn't stand with perfect posture, unless it's a show dog and you have a treat in front of its nose.

But like, you know, they're always coiled up and spiraled in and they have their legs spread and as animals, like we're supposed to move. That's why we have a spine. Our spine is all these vertebrae that are supposed to move around like a whip and float around, but we have forgotten how to do that. And that's why I was, one of the first moves I always teach people is spinal waves. Whether you're standing or you're down in,

Bonnie (32:16.067)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (32:28.931)
Yeah.

VenusFit (32:31.758)
In the yoga world is the spinal Chhina Ranga and the animal world. It's called the spinal wave There's so many names for it, you know, but People don't connect to their spine and that's also crawling and then Talking going back to where you were talking about when you're like just do what feels good when we allow ourself to Oscillate the hips and shoulders our spine is doing this

Bonnie (32:39.811)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (32:45.315)
Yep.

Bonnie (32:58.595)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (32:59.022)
It's moving, it's fluid, the spine is also spiraling through these movements and that's why I feel so good. So I don't need to stretch that much before I work out because my workout, it will extend through those ranges of motion on its own. So you're getting a stretch while you're doing strength training. Not that I don't believe in stretching. So I don't want people to be like, she doesn't believe in stretching. I do believe in some stretching. It depends on what you're doing.

Bonnie (33:21.091)
Yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie (33:28.515)
Well, and I can feel good and it's, and it's calming. I think sometimes stretching too, I mean, there's a whole bunch of science on stretching and there's a woman named Jules, Jules yoga is her Instagram. She talks about the science of stretching. She approaches yoga from a research papers point of view. She teaches yoga teachers kind of like almost like a college professor. I like to say.

VenusFit (33:48.822)
Okay, let's check this.

Bonnie (33:49.699)
yeah. So she's, she's cool, but I think of sometimes stretching too. I mean, yoga feels good and it feels good to stretch in it and it is beneficial. And also it's more, it's not just like everything. It's not just beneficial to our physical body. Like, how does it feel to like stay in a place and just pause and hold something for 30 seconds and not move? Like.

VenusFit (34:11.534)
Mostly we can't do that.

Bonnie (34:13.571)
All right. So, so I think it's more than, it's more than just, it's kind of like cold plunging. I actually like cold plunging, not for the physical. I like it for what it does to my brain. I like what I have to like think about and how it makes me stay. I like the head talk practice of it. That's mostly why I like cold plunging.

VenusFit (34:32.015)
Yeah, same. The physical, I absolutely hate being cold. But I love being able to get to a place where I am forced to adapt. And the cold plunge itself totally sucks. I'm not gonna sit here and be like, no, I love my daily practice. Like, no, it totally sucks. Every time I, I've been doing cold plunges for years.

Bonnie (34:36.291)
huh huh huh

Bonnie (34:44.579)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (34:51.075)
Yeah, it does.

VenusFit (34:59.438)
before even this cool thing on Instagram, hated it every time. But I always, when I'm in there, I'm always like, I'm gonna feel so good the rest of the day. From the science of my capillaries and everything are gonna be nicely dilated and all that stuff and all the blood flow is gonna be going to the mental of like, I just did something really hard. The rest of the day is gonna be so simple. And I think that.

Bonnie (35:10.115)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (35:25.795)
Yep, totally.

VenusFit (35:28.206)
Most people don't challenge themselves enough. They don't put themselves in discomfort enough. And when it shows up, they immediately have this knee -jerk reaction. And whether it's a mental thing or a physical activity, a lot of people really, they shut down.

Bonnie (35:33.123)
Mm. Mm. Yeah.

Bonnie (35:47.651)
Well, I think that's the power of the body. And like, I think, I mean, you and I have been movers our whole lives, but I think as we get more and more nerdy about it and teaching and guiding it, right, is that it's an easy way into that mental and emotional and spiritual space, which is sometimes hard to sit in. If you can sit in the physical plane and say, I'm going to learn how to do this thing and I'm a complete noob.

and I don't know what I'm doing and it's uncomfortable. If you can, and it's a touchable thing, like it's tactile, you can touch it with your hands. Then it's a tangible thing that you can do and it can help you then learn how to do it on the other parts of you as well.

VenusFit (36:32.59)
Yes, and the physical is much easier than the mental and the emotional. And so that is hard for some people, but if you can start the practice physically, it will carry over into your mentality and your emotional stuff. And not enough people realize that. They just, unfortunately, fitness is seen as this only aesthetic, you know, source.

Bonnie (36:36.707)
It is, it's so much easier.

Bonnie (36:48.515)
Yeah.

Bonnie (36:54.307)
Hmm.

VenusFit (37:00.622)
And there's so much more that comes from it. And it's important for people like us to share that message. And if you're listening to this, share that message.

Bonnie (37:07.331)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and even, you know, my, my oldest kiddo, he's, he's 18 and he has found lifting and it's so fun to watch him build his body and he's fucking strong. Like he's six, four and just like ripped now. And he's like, I've got cake now. He's got, he's like, he is like, he hated legs days. And now he's like, actually he's been missing like days cause he's doing track.

VenusFit (37:29.39)
I'm gonna kick now.

Bonnie (37:37.379)
where actually like this, I kind of want to go this way direction anyway, but like where he started to learn the hurdles as something new, which is super cool. But before I kind of step into that space, one of the things that he said to me recently on thinking about the body is only aesthetic. He's like, you know, mom, this one, one day where he said I went out in the garage and he was, I don't know if I was spotting him or what we were doing, but I was out there with him in the gym. And he's like, you know, I think that as much as I work,

and build muscle and do the things, I think it will always, there will always be a way to be dissatisfied with the way that I look and the way that bodies are portrayed online and like the fitness that like is out there that you know you can have or get. And he's like and then...

VenusFit (38:28.91)
Were you, was that like a stupid proud mom moment?

Bonnie (38:32.259)
I have so many like Venus, these kids are like unreal. And so like for him, he has, I'm like, yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm like, if we always are looking at that, like there's, we will be dissatisfied. Like there is, you know, and he's like, man, my body's long and my legs are long and this is how this muscle looks on me. And so it provides an opportunity for me to say like, you know, one of my favorite parts, like I love lifting. I love like,

And it's so important, I've spoken so much on like building backside strength, especially this past year. And I'm like, you know, I really love lifting, but I love lifting for a purpose that's not just lifting, because lifting helps you do all of the other things. Like everything else you want to do with your body, lifting will help you do it. And so to have things that I'm doing with my body that I can put that lifting to work.

and say, ooh, I lift and it's helping me do this thing. I mean, of course, now if we take your golf story, like which way are you lifting? How are you lifting? Is going to impact like your sport or like if there's really an app, like you can mess up athletes if you are having them in the wrong lifting program. But in generally speaking, I'm like, it's gonna help wherever you go. So it was a cool combo.

VenusFit (39:41.422)
Yeah.

VenusFit (39:48.75)
100 % and ironically, so a few years after I graduated college and then moved out to LA and then eventually I became a trainer, I actually got in touch with my old strength coach from Baylor and he saw me on Instagram, he messaged me, he was like, I wanna remember me, I was your strength coach at Baylor, I was like, of course I remember you. He was like, let's meet up, let's do a workout. So we met up and at this point, this guy has trained multiple NFL combines.

NBA players, professional soccer teams, and at the time he was training the Chinese Olympic weightlifting team. And he was like, show me this flow stuff that you've been teaching. So I was like, okay, so I showed him really basic stuff. Within the first five minutes, he looked up at me, he was sweating bullets, and he looked up and he goes, this is so hard.

Bonnie (40:23.651)
Hmm.

VenusFit (40:38.19)
You know, and this is his, he's like, he trains professional athletes and he's like, sweat, he's like, I'm sweating and this is so hard and all I'm doing is my hands and feet are on the ground and we're just rotating. He's like, this is so hard. And he was like, I'm gonna teach, I'm gonna go get certified and I'm gonna teach this to my athletes. And so it was really incredible. Like, and I was also kind of like, yeah, you know, the way you train me in college, fuck my swing up. But like, it's incredible how this,

Bonnie (40:57.731)
Hmm.

Bonnie (41:04.515)
Yeah.

VenusFit (41:07.822)
we call it movement expiration or we can just call it more functional training. This is how we're supposed to move. And I think that that's the thing that a lot of people don't realize. They're like, well, the social media or my trainer says this, that, and that. And I know people who train professional athletes and they're still not, some of them like the rotational stuff and they believe in that and some of them don't.

Bonnie (41:15.171)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (41:37.038)
and you can see it when how their athletes move. And, you know, I was...

Bonnie (41:41.899)
Well, there's an ease. There's an ease to it when you train rotationally.

VenusFit (41:47.214)
Yes, there's this carryover of efficiency and how you load power and drive power, right? And then also absorb movement, kinetic energy and power. So I think that's really important too. Yeah.

Bonnie (42:05.859)
Yeah, yeah, mm. I love that you had that moment where you got to teach him.

VenusFit (42:12.526)
It was actually really cool.

Bonnie (42:14.659)
Yeah. Well, because I think that's the, some of I've had different teachers who I've been the teacher to now, right? And that we all have different things to offer or different lenses that we are filtering through the world. And, you know, I gave this talk this last week, last week, last week, a week ago, week ago today. And, I gave a talk to like 50 people, non -yoga people, just general people were talking. I was talking about owning your voice.

And I told them, I was like, any one of you could be up here talking about your voice, right? And then what is like to have your voice and what it feels like to share things out loud. And is it scary and does it, and what feels hard and what feels good? And today it's me. And really that all of us really have something to offer each other and we just kind of take turns. So, yeah, yeah.

VenusFit (43:04.078)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, I love that. I think owning your voice is such a thing that not enough people stop to think about. You know, you ask most people and they will tell you, I don't like the sound of my own voice. They'll say that. They'll say, I don't like the sound of it when I hear my recording or I see I watch myself on a video. And I get that because I was like that long time ago. And then moving out to the La La Land in LA,

I actually moved out here to be a comedy writer. And I started taking writing classes, then I started taking acting classes to become a better writer. And those acting classes taught me how to be better on camera. So I was taking on camera, I took theater, but I also took...

Bonnie (43:49.731)
you

VenusFit (43:53.806)
on -camera acting classes and that actually helped me more than even like an improv class. They always tell people take an improv class. I think it's actually more important to take an on -camera acting class and because you can't use your own words, it forces you to go outside your own box. It forces you to be a better listener to the reader if you're having a dialogue with someone off -camera and it forces you to see how you are and what the faces you make.

Bonnie (44:10.243)
Bonnie (44:17.923)
Mmm.

VenusFit (44:22.414)
and how truthful you can be in that scene. I always tell people, yeah, so even if you're not an actor, especially if you're a coach or a teacher, take an on -camera acting class. It really teaches you a lot of skills of how to communicate to people effectively. And then you see your own tics.

Bonnie (44:25.859)
that's fun.

VenusFit (44:45.678)
but I don't remember what my point was. I had a point to that, but your voice. So, and when you can see that and you understand what your driver is and you know now your endpoint of what you're trying to communicate, you can be a lot more effective with your communication. And that's what's gonna help you own your voice too.

Bonnie (44:46.019)
Hmm.

Bonnie (45:04.707)
Hmm. That's good. I think about it often when I am working with different people who want to get online and maybe, I don't know, do you have that often? Do people ask you often about how to build a business online and now that you've been online and, and yeah.

VenusFit (45:20.302)
Yeah, I've taught other coaches. Like, I'll be like privates with them and I'll talk to them about what they're doing and be like, you know, this is what I suggest. But it depends, and every individual is different, you know?

Bonnie (45:27.779)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (45:34.787)
Totally, but I think that a piece of it, especially for folks who might be wanting to build an online presence or brand, the piece where you're on camera and you're talking and you are seen and your body expressions are seen, it's a piece that I think about a lot because it is uncomfortable. It is a place that you have to do a lot of reps to be able to like, I don't know, embrace that discomfort and then hone it and then turn, make it into.

VenusFit (45:57.934)
Yes.

Bonnie (46:03.107)
Poetry of sorts. But it's a learning. Yeah.

VenusFit (46:05.262)
I mean, yeah, and it's always awkward at first. Everything's awkward at first. I feel like I'm pretty confident and good at it now, but I was not when I started. And I've had to work for multiple companies. I've done the whole thing where you're teaching on camera, and because you're on camera, you have to teach the opposite side. So I'll be doing my right side, but I'm calling out left.

Bonnie (46:31.331)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (46:31.438)
And so your brain has to switch around and things like that. And you're talking to camera and you have to make sure it looks good. Some companies want you to hit the right mark. Some companies want you to also like say the right words and make sure you have the bullet points. And, you know, so I've been able, I've been lucky enough to experience that. But I will say that like, I'm going back to it. It's because I took on camera acting classes. And that's also why like, when I

Bonnie (46:46.435)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (46:59.598)
when I film stuff for social media or teach my online classes, I feel very at ease. But it's that practice. And like, it takes a few years until you feel a little bit more comfortable getting into that place. And also knowing that like if you mess up, the audience actually likes it. I like use it. When I teach my live classes and I mess up, like I'm like, I miss out a call, I'm like, whoops, sorry, keep going.

Bonnie (47:07.619)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (47:27.363)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (47:28.206)
And I just move on to the next thing. I'm like, made a mistake, whatever. And I laugh about it and I move on because they get it. They're like, she's human. And it makes them feel like they're a part of it. And I think that a lot of people are so afraid of making mistakes, but it's like, we all make mistakes. There's actually this love that people have when you can make a mistake and be cool with it and then also move forward. You're being an example of like, okay.

Bonnie (47:37.507)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (47:53.891)
Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. Well, you're owning it.

VenusFit (47:57.774)
Yeah, you're owning and you don't have to be like, I own it. You just be like, whoops. Okay. Anyways, on.

Bonnie (47:59.779)
You're like, okay.

No, it's, I think to me owning it is, is giving yourself permission and not having to apologize for everything. It's like just, I get, I get to exist. I'm worth existing and I can give myself permission to try and to do the things. Yeah. Okay. so speaking of new things, do you have anything new currently in your life that you are feeling awkward at or stepping into new bland?

VenusFit (48:30.638)
Hmm.

Noobland, well before we got on your podcast, I was telling you how I have been procrastinating for years to start my own podcast slash show slash whatever you wanna call it. So that's one thing, we don't have to get into that because I haven't really started it yet, but I really want to. And then stay tuned. But as far as like activities in my life, I have rock climbed for

Bonnie (48:52.803)
So stay tuned.

VenusFit (49:03.79)
few years, but it was always it's always been on and off. I've never been consistent at it. I started to get consistent at last year, then I tore my meniscus back in November in a dance class. And then so I had to rehab it. And now I'm starting to kind of get back into it again. I have an amazing girlfriend and she's an incredible rock climber. So it's so fun to go with her and to I feel like I get to be like a student slash I'm just here for fun, you know, and it's really nice when you're

a teacher because usually when I'm doing something, I'm always teaching people. So it's really nice to like let that go and just kind of follow that. And I'm not that great at it, but I have decent movement skills already because I'm a teacher. So apply that to the wall and I'm still learning. That's fun because it's like a puzzle when you climb. And then the other...

Bonnie (49:55.331)
Mm -hmm. You're crawling on the, you're just climbing vertical rather than like horizontal.

VenusFit (50:00.494)
Yeah, I'm crawling vertically versus crawling on the ground. And the other physical thing I've been doing a lot, and these both have a lot of good carry over, is I, the last, I'd say, year and a half, maybe almost two years now, I have been consistently taking a hip hop beginner dance class at Millennium. Millennium is like this very famous dance studio in LA that a lot of big people train at.

Bonnie (50:03.799)
-huh. -huh.

VenusFit (50:29.806)
But I'm taking the beginner version, I'm not anything hardcore. And I take it like two or three times a week. And I did not grow up a dancer. So, I remember being in high school and going to an aerobics class and I remember having a really hard time with my left and my right. So all the flow work I've been doing the last few years have really helped me become a crappy hip hop dancer. And so that's another thing that I've been doing that.

Those two things are what I'm students in right now that have been really fueling me and making me excited about movement again, because I'm sure as you know, when you teach something all the time, you're kind of like, I just want to follow someone right now.

Bonnie (51:14.659)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. It's nice. One, it's nice to be in a learner seat. It makes it exciting because then you get to bring those same lessons. There's things that are going to light you up about climbing and about dance and about being in a learner seat that you get to bring as a teacher seat to the people that are learning from you.

VenusFit (51:18.67)
So.

VenusFit (51:33.518)
Yeah. It allows me to be more compassionate to whenever I am teaching. Sometimes like you get, I'm straight up, I'm being honest. There's times where I'm a teacher and I'm like, I've said this so many times, why aren't they not getting it? And then I go to dance class and I'm like, I get it. I get it. That one little thing, didn't get it. Teacher had to say it a thousand times. Now I got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bonnie (51:37.667)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (51:54.755)
You're like, please do it 50 more times and then I will get it. Yeah, I think when I go somewhere new or I'm learning something new, it reminds me that I can slow down and that people will appreciate it and repeat it more times. And there's so many people that I talk to as teachers who will question how many times I might repeat something, but then they try it. And I'm like, repeat the same flow 10 times, at least, if not more.

in a class and watch people and then people love it and they love it and you actually teach less but you teach more in a way and you just teach it better and people actually get to embody it. And so it totally changes the experience for everybody.

VenusFit (52:25.934)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (52:37.454)
Yeah.

Well, I think I think if as long as the student knows that the goal is skill and Use repetition to develop your mastery and your skill don't use repetition as a way to burn more calories a Calorie burn is already gonna be there just breathing and sitting here requires calories

Bonnie (52:47.171)
Mmm.

Bonnie (52:56.579)
Mmm.

VenusFit (53:03.726)
Right? The workout itself doesn't burn more calories. And that's like another thing of fitness that drives me nuts. Right? But the stronger you are, the better mover you are, the more efficient you are burning calories in your metabolism. Anyways, that's now I'm starting to shift too far off. But the point is, is that like what we can do is use those reps and continue to build that mastery.

Bonnie (53:30.339)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

VenusFit (53:30.83)
And that's when we find the joy in movement. I don't know how many people are saying, they always say, you must be a masochist. You think this is fun? I'm like, yeah, we're humans. Humans love doing things they think they're good at. It's that simple. And when you think of anything you're doing, whether it's movement or you're playing piano or learning an actual language or whatever,

Bonnie (53:36.163)
Yes.

Bonnie (53:48.547)
Mm -hmm. That's true. Yep.

VenusFit (53:58.478)
When you're, when you start to get good at something, you feel good. You get a high off of it. And we all know, you know, it's too, you know, we all know movement is good for you. So learn how to enjoy it. How do we learn how to enjoy it? We build skills.

Bonnie (54:11.171)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (54:15.619)
Yes. yes. Exactly this, exactly this. This is like such a case for repetition. I actually had...

VenusFit (54:24.942)
Right. That's when you don't need motivation. You don't need motivation when you're like, I do it and I'm so good at it. Awesome. I love it.

Bonnie (54:31.235)
Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I had a conversation in flow school this last week where I had a teacher who like, they, they put it really succinctly and excellently where they're like, wait, so I should have them repeat, like not, I shouldn't keep them on their toes and like cut down on the reps. so they aren't able to tap into that, but you're saying to like really repeat enough time. So they actually learn it and then they get to feel it in their bodies. And I was like, yes, exactly. Like that's, that's what we want them to.

be able to try to tap into.

VenusFit (55:01.486)
Right. And depending on the student, like if it's a big class or individual, and then you know, you read the energy of the class, or if it's you read the energy of the student, if it's just a one on one, but it's like, I try to layer it. I think you talked about this in your posts, and I was like, yeah, right on. Where the first round, I have them focus on something. And then I'll be like, okay, cool. On this next round, I want you to only focus breathing through your nose.

Bonnie (55:04.931)
Mm -hmm, totally.

Bonnie (55:09.923)
Yes.

Bonnie (55:14.467)
yeah.

Bonnie (55:26.019)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (55:30.766)
Then on the next round, I'll be like, now on this next round, I want you to only focus on how much you're gripping the floor. Then on this next round, you know, and I'll do that in my live classes, where I talk about that and I progressively build a flow throughout each week and each week I try to give them something different to think about. And I think because that's me trying to get them to master the skill so they enjoy it more.

Bonnie (55:30.819)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (55:36.771)
Mmm.

Bonnie (55:49.667)
Yeah.

Bonnie (55:56.259)
Yeah. Yeah.

VenusFit (55:58.094)
And I think that when you can teach people to master it, and then they enjoy it, and they're like, I don't need the motivation, this feels great in my body. And for those of you who are listening and you're also a teacher and you're like, I don't wanna give away my secrets, you're not. They're already out there. Anybody can find it. We all know how to move better if we, all you have to do is look at, find a good Instagram account, right? It's about like.

Bonnie (56:07.075)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (56:26.478)
It's not getting people to be like, I have a good time with you. So and that's what I want people to do. I trust you. And I want that's what I want with my Venus Fits students. I want to be like, I have a great time being a Venus Fits member. And that's and that's when people are like, I'm here. I'm here to stay. If you're thinking about it on a business level, you're not going to lose students by giving them giving them all your secrets because how they how they take your tips is going to be different from individual to individual.

Bonnie (56:29.571)
Hmm. I trust you.

VenusFit (56:56.942)
You know, we all like different things. And I think people get too worried about that kind of stuff. And it's like, there's so much free information out there already. But if you can get people to really enjoy what you do, they're going to stick with it and they're going to enjoy it and it's going to benefit them.

Bonnie (56:57.955)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Bonnie (57:11.619)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (57:15.523)
Yeah, yeah.

Hmm. So in this lifelong, right? Lifelong exploration of movement then, and you're swimming, you're golfing, you're lifting, you're dancing, you're climbing, you're animal flowing. Like, I like to use the phrase freedom to move, right? If we're doing things in the body that we're building more freedom to move. And we've been talking so much about physical.

VenusFit (57:36.782)
you

Bonnie (57:48.099)
pieces of that. But I would love to hear, and this could go a billion different directions, so feel free to take it wherever it feels like you want to share. But where has this physical freedom to move and owning of your body shown up in other parts of your life that are not physical, that has helped you find freedom to move in those parts?

VenusFit (57:57.166)
Yeah.

VenusFit (58:14.318)
Well, I think my initial thought is going to be socially. I think that, you know, I don't know if I'm born this way or whatever. I don't think I was. When I was a kid, I was really shy. I was that kid that hid behind my parents' leg when they would introduce me to people. I didn't have a lot of friends until I was probably in...

junior high and around that same time is when I started to be more of a competitive swimmer, playing golf, soccer, volleyball, and there was definitely a correlation of owning my body and being able to have a little bit more courage in social situations. And I think that

Bonnie (58:52.899)
Mm.

VenusFit (59:05.262)
And it's not about how my body looked, it's the fact that I felt confident in what it could do. And it was, I was very shy until I got older. And then I was forced to be like, okay, I need to learn social skills. And I think that...

Bonnie (59:10.275)
Yeah.

VenusFit (59:25.486)
Movement itself, if you're like, I have this freedom to express, even when it's really freaking awkward, if you're like the biggest, introvert, shyest person in the world, you will take that slight chance. You'll just take a little bit more chances. And I started learning, and I applied, because that's how my brain works, I'm like, how do I do this thing? How can I apply it to this thing? How do I move physically? How do I apply that to how I interact with the world and people?

And I was able to really start applying that and learning how to, it's weird, it's a skill of making friends and talking to people and listening to people, just like a listen to my body and exploring those relationships as far as like conversations go. And I think that especially now after quarantine, the world is a much lonelier place, even though we are actually much more connected through social media.

and not enough people take those chances to reach out to someone and connect to them and ask them a question that's outside of the box. You know? Like, we're all very comfortable saying, how's your day? Not many people are very comfortable saying, like, what's the last time you cried? And, you know, when's the last time you felt like shit? Like, be honest with me.

Bonnie (01:00:33.443)
Mm.

Bonnie (01:00:37.795)
Yeah.

VenusFit (01:00:47.086)
You know, when's the last time you laughed so hard you pissed your pants? You know, when's the last time you said something that would have gotten you canceled? You know, like, like things like that were that scary to people, but it's it's a muscle. And when you get to a point where you're like, whatever, is this going to matter in a year? You know, and then also like I,

Bonnie (01:00:47.427)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:00:56.419)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:01:01.443)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:01:05.507)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (01:01:12.43)
It's not really a segue, but I lost both of my parents to cancer in my 20s. And that was a big lesson, was the fact that when my parents were dying, I was having conversations with them, like, what really mattered. And not caring what people thought so much. And it's not like I don't care, because I do. I'm human, okay? I'm human, I have a nervous system, it cares.

Bonnie (01:01:26.147)
Hmm.

VenusFit (01:01:41.614)
but really getting to the point of what really matters the most. And I think that like...

I think that if that didn't happen, I think, and this is a weird thing to say, not that I haven't been adventurous, because I live in LA and I do a lot of crazy things, but I think that I would have thought that I was defined by all the things that I do versus the connections and the people that I know and.

developing strong relationships that are full of love. And I'm very proud of the fact that I have a lot of amazing friends and that I can call like best friends and that I have had vulnerable conversations with, whether it was embarrassing or funny or heartfelt and deep or just going out and just having a good time, you know, and trying something new together.

Bonnie (01:02:26.915)
Mmm.

Bonnie (01:02:32.003)
Hmm.

VenusFit (01:02:51.246)
I think that to bring it back around, I think it's the fact that movement has been such a big part of my life, it gives me that courage, somehow has that carry over into my nervous system to be able to do those things with people and to really connect to them. And that's so much more important to me than...

Bonnie (01:03:09.987)
Yeah.

VenusFit (01:03:17.326)
have I been to 100 countries or whatnot? Not that traveling is not great. Traveling is great. But I think it's more important to how many connections, true connections can I make with people? Not like this, you know, not just like surface level. I'm talking about like, it's heartfelt. I see you. I feel like you see me. And I think that that's the biggest driver.

Bonnie (01:03:28.995)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:03:39.363)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:03:43.683)
Mmm.

Bonnie (01:03:48.771)
Yeah, I think that's such an important call out too for post quarantine times.

And especially because a lot of us, at least in social media land and who maybe like built something, if you built something during that time, I know for myself even, you know, like you've been here for a minute as well, but like our work is like a lot online. We might have in -person people as well, but there is like an online component. And so the effort it is to get out and even for people who maybe don't have a business online, but perhaps have small children.

VenusFit (01:04:04.302)
Thank you.

VenusFit (01:04:08.366)
Yeah, for sure.

Bonnie (01:04:24.611)
or perhaps have work from home in some other capacity or don't work from home, but don't hang out with those people. So I think there is such an effort that's required to build relationships and this social kind of gathering that really sustains us and inspires us. I'm like, I wanna, let me hang around people who show me different places that I can move.

VenusFit (01:04:24.878)
Yes.

Bonnie (01:04:53.731)
I am to walk next to and to be inspired by and to play with and yeah, all of that.

Yeah. I mean, I've even been thinking about recently, I'm like, you know what? I think I need more touchable, touchable, I have to explain to this, but like more touchable friends, but not that my, right. But like, but touchable could be like in real life, right? Like if, if nobody's like you and I cannot literally touch each other, cause we are not in the same state right now, right?

VenusFit (01:05:16.174)
Touch my... Okay.

Bonnie (01:05:31.843)
But for people who are in our lives who there's more physical contact with, and I think that's part of it too, is like just touch in general. And I know at least for the yoga world, we have all the conversations of consent. And do you want to be touched within this class or not? And live your best life. Like if you want to, great. And if you don't, great. And that doesn't mean as a teacher that I will or won't. Like there's all conversations to have there, but in general, the...

separateness that we have, I think can be a in the same room with other people, but also a touch with other people. And those, there's a little bit of nuance, I think, with that as well of actually having touch and not even just same room, room vibes.

VenusFit (01:06:18.734)
Yeah, I get that. And I think it's important, it sounds weird, it's important to touch your friends. But I mean, like, I hug my friends, you know, I hug my friends when I see them. And I love doing that. It's a really way of communicating, hey, it's safe. I'm here for you. And I'm excited to see you. I think that's so important. And whether it's your friends or it's just, it's a complete stranger, you know, I...

Bonnie (01:06:20.643)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:06:30.851)
-huh.

Bonnie (01:06:38.339)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (01:06:48.174)
I will say though, I will say, I don't always like it when strangers hug me. I am, I'm very like, get to know me first. But, it's a lot of body. I don't know who you are. I need to feel your vibe. But I do believe that, yeah, we tend to keep our, even if it's a person in the same city, we have our relationships on our phones.

Bonnie (01:06:51.747)
Well, that's fair. That's fair.

Yeah, like that's a lot of body. That's a lot of body.

Bonnie (01:07:03.683)
Yeah.

VenusFit (01:07:16.878)
or on our computers and we don't make enough time to actually hang out in person. And so when you're saying touchable friends, yeah. And then when we do hang out, are we actually doing activities? Are we doing things? Are we just sitting and eating or whatnot? And nothing's wrong with sitting and eating. 100%, I'm into that. But I know it's really important that we're... wrong podcast.

Bonnie (01:07:22.531)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Bonnie (01:07:30.188)
Yeah. Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (01:07:39.907)
What kind of eating are you talking about? I'm just joking, keep going.

VenusFit (01:07:44.91)
But are we collaborating, are we learning something new together? It could be a class, go to yoga class together or something. Or it could be like, I've been telling my friends I would really love to take a pottery class together. Or yeah, something like that. Or something random. I got a text invite today from a friend who was like,

Bonnie (01:07:59.235)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (01:08:05.443)
Yep, same, same.

VenusFit (01:08:12.782)
I really want to go out to Temecula and yes, we can go to the wineries, but I really want to go and look and collect rocks and collect rocks from nature. And I was like, okay, that sounds kind of cool. Like I was, I was a dorky kid who didn't have a lot of friends. I collected rocks as a kid. So, you know, yeah, I do too, but yeah.

Bonnie (01:08:31.235)
I still collect rocks.

They're all over my shelf, so I'm like, well, that's rock over there. There's my whole pile from this last weekend. It's fine.

VenusFit (01:08:43.886)
Like this is Lapis Lazuli. This is the tiger's eye.

Bonnie (01:08:50.979)
yup, yup, yup. Well, I think two for you, Venus, is because you don't have any siblings, correct?

VenusFit (01:08:54.83)
Yes.

VenusFit (01:09:00.526)
yeah, it's one of those, well I do and I don't. So my mom was an immigrant and she had a lie about her age and she had an arranged marriage to a guy she didn't know and by the time she was 18 she had three kids. And yeah, very joy luck. If you're my age you know the reference, if you're not you're like what is she talking about? It's a movie. And so.

Bonnie (01:09:03.939)
Okay, yeah.

Bonnie (01:09:19.395)
Wow. Wow.

VenusFit (01:09:30.062)
she had me years later with a different husband. So I was raised like an only child, because by the time I was born, my older sister was 18 years old. She was already a full -blown adult and was living on her own and stuff. And so I was raised like an only child. I'm actually, on social media sometimes I'll be like, it's my little sister's birthday or whatever. My little sister?

Bonnie (01:09:43.683)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:09:57.347)
Yeah.

VenusFit (01:09:58.478)
quote unquote, is my actual niece. And we're closer in age than I am to my actual sister, which is her mom, if you get that point. Yeah, so, but I was raised very much like an only child, even though I had my niece that I would babysit and hang out with and stuff, who was six years younger than me. But I would say, yes.

Bonnie (01:10:02.019)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:10:06.947)
Ehh, yeah yeah yeah.

Bonnie (01:10:20.355)
Gotcha.

VenusFit (01:10:24.334)
to what you're saying, like I didn't really have siblings. My actual siblings felt like older aunt and uncles. But so, yes. One story short, one story.

Bonnie (01:10:31.363)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (01:10:36.035)
Yeah. Yeah, that is, I mean, well, like your, your mom's whole story. That's all that's wild. That's a lot. That's a lot. Well, and a lot too, for you to see or to like hold to is like a piece in her line. I had a piece in her story too. And, but anyway, so like your parents not present there's also, I just want to tie this back to like the social kind of.

What are you building? What's the, what are the people around you bringing to you? What are you bringing to them? How do you consciously build a community? Especially where you're like, okay, what is happening in my family life? Right. And there's so many people that we move away from our families and, and how do we, how do we do that with each other and the effort it requires and the vulnerability it requires in order to build something that you give a shit about.

And so it makes it even more important, I think, and more impactful that you have found it or are building it. It's an active thing that everybody's building together. And especially because there are pieces of your own personal life that you're like, well, okay, my parents are no longer here. So what am I doing? How do I make the best of all of this?

VenusFit (01:11:51.438)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I think whether your parents are still here or not, you're always, we're always evolving and being like, okay, what's the purpose of this now? Like when I started as a coach or a teacher, I knew I was like, I just got to make money doing something I enjoy. That's what it started with. And then it was like, wait, there's, there's more of a purpose here. I'm really helping people. Those first few clients you get that are like, wow, you've really changed my life, Venus.

Bonnie (01:11:58.467)
Right.

Bonnie (01:12:03.875)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:12:18.051)
Hmm.

VenusFit (01:12:23.854)
I was like, holy crap, this is great. And then it just grew from there and the more I nurtured my career, the more it nurtured me to go, I wanna give back and I wanna help more people. How can I do that? How can I do that and still sustain my life? How can I do that and also continue to grow? And I think in those first five to seven years is that really amazing rapid.

Bonnie (01:12:26.787)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:12:31.683)
you

Bonnie (01:12:35.587)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:12:43.939)
Mmm.

VenusFit (01:12:51.374)
growth period, right? And you hit about year 10, and now I'm going into like, I think year 17 right now, but you hit year 10 and you're kinda like, my God, I've been in this for a decade? And then you look back and you kinda go, wow, where I started from where I am now, like now what's my purpose? And even though you're doing the same thing, you're looking for a different purpose, because you've already been doing it for so long. It's...

Bonnie (01:13:16.451)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (01:13:19.054)
It's almost you've run that course of purpose out and you're like, what's the next purpose? And then it happens again when you get to year 14, 15. And now I'm in year 17. And I'm like, again, I'm constantly trying to redefine my purpose in this. And I think that's part of just life. Whether you're a teacher or a doctor or an accountant, or whatever your career of choice is.

Bonnie (01:13:23.747)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:13:35.747)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:13:39.427)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (01:13:46.574)
And the same goes for like the family life as well. You know, you're a kid, you're a teenager, you're in college or in your twenties, in your thirties. We have all these constant redefining moments and there's these big Instagram accounts like 30 something. What's that account called? I don't know. There's all these different accounts for her different generations. But it's so funny.

Bonnie (01:14:08.811)
Yeah, something like that.

VenusFit (01:14:16.046)
Because now I'm in my 40s and I look back and I'm looking at now what the Gen Zers are saying, right? Or even what the millennials are saying, because I'm technically, I'm a Gen X. I'm like a young Gen X. And so it's funny when I see quotes of like millennial accounts going, this is what the Gen Zers are saying and like making fun of them, but like we did the same thing to the millennials, you know? And it's just like,

Bonnie (01:14:27.907)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (01:14:45.518)
It's just everything's repeating itself. And we're making it bigger than -

Bonnie (01:14:48.675)
Yeah. Well, and now I'm like, my youngest kid is a gen alpha. And I'm like, which is 2010, 2013 or 14. The other day I was looking that up and.

VenusFit (01:14:54.318)
my gosh!

Bonnie (01:15:01.891)
Okay, it's gonna be so many to keep track of. I was like, that's only like a four, three or four year period that that age range is. I was like, what?

VenusFit (01:15:06.254)
You know.

VenusFit (01:15:11.726)
Also, who names these generations? How do you go from X millennium, millennial, to Gen Z to Alpha? Like who's doing anything? Who's doing anything? Just like when people are like, it's National Donut Day. I'm like, who the fuck names this shit?

Bonnie (01:15:13.411)
I don't, yeah, right?

Bonnie (01:15:22.499)
Right, we've started at the beginning.

Bonnie (01:15:31.875)
Yeah, okay, here's a question. If you could have a national something, there's probably a national day of everything. But if you could, you don't know that there's a national day of, what would you make it?

VenusFit (01:15:42.478)
I don't know. I gotta think about that one for a second. You go first.

Bonnie (01:15:48.483)
I say what you did, I say what you did. There's literally a national day I think of everything, which again, who makes that calendar? I don't know.

VenusFit (01:15:59.95)
Who makes that calendar? If you're listening to this and you know, message us. Tell me, I want to know who decides this shit. Okay.

Bonnie (01:16:05.063)
Okay, okay, I have one for you, inspired by a picture that's on my board behind my computer. So last March, like just over a year ago, I did a project, a personal project called Naked March, where I made naked pictures of myself every day for funsies. And my...

VenusFit (01:16:13.806)
What is it?

VenusFit (01:16:26.318)
Awesome.

Bonnie (01:16:27.715)
My lover made most of them. And anyway, they're like, they range like so broadly. Like one day I had my hand in a jar of peanut butter. I was like, what if I just have peanut butter? And then I'm like naked with like this peanut butter, right? So it was like, do that. The other day I have like in leather straps and whatever. Like, so it's like a whole range of things. But the very last day I had had this idea and I was like,

this is what I want to do. And it's one of my favorite pictures. And so I have it on the board behind me. And so what I would have it be, which I don't think this exists as a national day. So I would have it be national tie little ribbons around your nipples day.

VenusFit (01:17:10.174)
Okay, I'm gonna look it up.

VenusFit (01:17:20.302)
It's very long. Doesn't really roll off the tongue.

Bonnie (01:17:24.323)
Or does it?

VenusFit (01:17:29.198)
I mean, I don't think I could tie that around my nipples. I don't think mine are big enough.

Bonnie (01:17:34.115)
Okay, well, so, and it does not work for all nipples, but you know, like national grandparents date, like what if your grandparents have died? Then like, what, what are you supposed to do on that day? Like you can't call them. So.

VenusFit (01:17:38.254)
Okay.

Bonnie (01:17:48.899)
What if you hate donuts? Like you don't, you're not going to celebrate donut day.

VenusFit (01:17:53.487)
Well, like, what's the point of celebrate, like some of these days I'm like, what's the point of celebrating that? But I mean, I guess, I guess there's always a celebration. I don't know the answer yet. I need to continue letting my brain explore this because I feel like there already is a day for everything. So I feel like anything I come up with people are like, there's a need for that.

Bonnie (01:18:01.955)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:18:10.403)
Yeah, but I don't think it's true, but I don't think ribbons around nipples exists as a national day.

VenusFit (01:18:19.438)
I don't think nipples around nipples exist. But I'll ask my girlfriend, she would know better than me. She's gonna kill me.

Bonnie (01:18:27.811)
Anyway, I did do this for a picture. It's like one of my favorites. It's like, it was more delightful. You have to have outies. So that's like gonna be important for it, but you know.

VenusFit (01:18:40.366)
I'm even not okay. What about ribbons around Audi belly buttons?

I don't have an outie. I don't have an outie belly button, but...

Bonnie (01:18:52.483)
I don't have an Audi either. That's a smaller population. No.

VenusFit (01:18:54.99)
Do people have outies? I feel like I haven't seen outies in a long time.

Bonnie (01:19:00.387)
Yeah, me either. I mean, and pregnant people that are totally not working. I mean, that's when it's like kind of outy, but you just like, there's not enough skin to even tie anything around because it's so tight.

VenusFit (01:19:10.35)
Yeah. This is a weird segue. I still can't think of one, so I'll have to keep thinking about it. But a weird segue is, and I know a lot of people are gonna really disagree with me on this one, but I don't celebrate the death of my parents. I will acknowledge their birthdays, but I don't like to celebrate.

Bonnie (01:19:12.547)
Yeah, okay. Well, okay, I'm ready.

Okay, segue.

Bonnie (01:19:36.003)
Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (01:19:38.414)
I commemorate the day they died. And I feel like a lot of people do that. And I feel like that's really, I feel like it's morbid and I feel like my parents wouldn't want me to do that. But I don't know. I mean, I guess it depends on the parent. But I know my parents would not. My parents would be like, don't celebrate when I died. Celebrate when I lived. You know, that's what I kind of feel. But I don't know. Where are you on that stance? And that's okay if you're different. I'm just curious.

Bonnie (01:19:42.243)
Hmm. Like, okay.

Bonnie (01:19:50.467)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:19:59.843)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:20:06.467)
You know, I like this as a conversation because I think in our thinking about social relationships, right? And relationship, if you're like you and your girlfriend or within your friend circle, et cetera, right? Like, what is the way that you like to be supported around the death of your parents? And I think that's a really conscious conversation to have. And it extends to kind of all dates. And some people don't care about dates. My lover doesn't care about dates at all.

Like, like, like he's like, wait, what year is it? What year was I born? Like, what, what, what's, you know, like, like it's like no dates. So the dates don't matter, but then some people, you know, I have a family member, a family member who lost a baby who was 22 days old when she died. And so her angel day of like her death day was, they call it a her angel day. That is a day for them that they think about her and.

VenusFit (01:20:42.03)
You always said Lord, I don't know.

Bonnie (01:21:05.155)
have it be part of their conversations. And so that, and like knowing that and knowing that they want her talked about, right? That that makes them feel good. So in the same vein of for you to say like, if this doesn't feel good for me, like that doesn't make sense for my relationship with my parents or the way I know them. I think yes, like, okay. And then other people, they would want that. So I like the, I mean,

VenusFit (01:21:23.278)
Right.

Bonnie (01:21:34.627)
There's one of my favorite songs is called Funeral and it's by Lucas Graham. And I have listened to that song like, I don't know, 100 times, like truly maybe. And my kids know the words to it. I have some really lovely experiences with my kids. Like we're all working on the garage and we're like lifting weights and like one of my kids is running music and like turn that song on and we're all belting it together, you know? And I'm just like, this is a core memory from my mom heart.

But it's the song is that, you know, the song is that the, I would say the main character of the song is, has died. And that's the voice of the song. And he's like saying, you dress me in my best suit and you all are partying because of the life I lived and the people I was connected to. Like I want to be celebrated that I was alive and that it made a difference and that I was with you.

And like this, like the, it's an upbeat song, but it's about a death of this person. And I love it because it is about celebration of their life, like of this person's life. And so I think about that for me, I'm like, you know, I threw my own 40th birthday party this last year. And I was like, if I'm going to like celebrate being alive and being 40, then it's because of all these people in my life. It's because of the connections that I have.

VenusFit (01:22:56.142)
Yes.

Bonnie (01:22:57.955)
And so I want to do something that celebrates that and that it's this community sort of experience in that way. So that's my long take on it.

VenusFit (01:23:07.822)
It's beautiful. No, I love that. I'm gonna have to look up that song. I love that.

Bonnie (01:23:12.099)
Yeah, yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one.

I know that you are, I'm gonna switch up the question like this because you are so intimate with your friends. If there's somebody who is listening to this, who wants to find the strength at every angle, who's like, this is really interesting, crawling is interesting to me, like this sounds really fun to know about. My original question, so I'm gonna use this, but I want you to like use this as,

and then we'll switch it up is what's something you wish your friends knew about you that they don't? But because you're so intimate with your friends, I want you to switch that around. And what's something that you wish people who are gonna work with you knew about you, but they don't, right? So it can be, there's a range that it can show up in the answer.

VenusFit (01:23:54.99)
Thank you.

VenusFit (01:24:10.094)
What's something that I wish people knew about me that they don't? There are so many, a lot of things. The first thing that comes to my mind, and I don't think this is something I want people to know.

Bonnie (01:24:20.099)
But especially if somebody was going to come and work with you.

VenusFit (01:24:27.278)
Okay. I always tell people this, I interview them before I work with them. And I always be like, hey, can we do a zoom call, I want to make sure we're a match. And because I've worked with people who are where I'm like, I don't think I'm the trainer for you, you know, like I can teach you anything you want. But at the end of the day, I think the our personnel, we have to jive.

And I used to not do that. So when I interview people, one of the things I tell them is, hey, I get that I'm your trainer and I do wanna unintentionally motivate you, but I'm not here to be your motivational coach. I need you to be a person who is committed. I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to do anything. I want you to want to do this and there's gonna be times where it's hard.

Bonnie (01:25:16.867)
Hmm.

VenusFit (01:25:25.326)
And there's gonna be times where I'm gonna make it easier and I will show as much compassion as I can. But at the end of the day, this is an exchange and I'm exchanging a lot of my time and my information for you to be open to absorb it. And I always tell them when I first work with you, the first couple of months is going to be all about learning. Once we can get through that,

and we build that foundation, then we're gonna be getting to the workouts. And that's how I approach a lot of things. I want people to come from a place of really understanding it and learning it. It's just like if you were learning an actual foreign language. If you were learning Spanish or Chinese or German, you're not gonna just be like, okay, teach me this new language and speak all these interesting sentences to me. No, we would start with the basics. And so I very,

Bonnie (01:25:59.011)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:26:22.659)
Yeah.

VenusFit (01:26:22.926)
I tell people that, I'm like, you have to be patient. And it's pretty amazing how one of my most recent clients I've been training now for almost, about two years now. Yeah, we just hit one of our two year anniversary. But I remember the first six months we were working together, it finally clicked in her head in about six months and she goes, wow, I just realized, you know, I'm on a five year plan with you, Venus. I'm.

And she was like, I used to approach fitness like, in six months, my body will look like this and I'll be able to do this. And because she has stuck with it with me, she said, Venus, I realized I'm on a five -year plan. And I think people need to approach it that way, right? If you were just graduating from college and going into your first job, it takes you five years before you really understand it, right? If you're learning a new language, Spanish, Chinese, German.

Bonnie (01:26:57.059)
Hmm.

Bonnie (01:27:09.059)
Hmm.

VenusFit (01:27:18.51)
It takes you five years until you can, maybe less, depends on if you submerge yourself, but once you're in there for five years, you're pretty fluent in that language. But movement is the same thing. Movement's body language. And I think that a lot of people wanna skip a lot of steps. And then that's why they don't enjoy working out. You're never gonna enjoy anything if you're not great at it. And the only way you're great at something is if you put the time in. And that's one thing that I always tell people. And...

Bonnie (01:27:19.267)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:27:35.395)
Hmm.

Hmm.

VenusFit (01:27:46.542)
The other thing is gonna be the complete opposite, is that most people, once they get to know me, they always say, Venus, I was really intimidated by you, but you're just a big dork. And I'm like, yeah, I am. I'm a very intense, big dork. And I've had a lot of my friends say that to me, where when they first met me, they were like, I thought you were gonna be just this intense person. And I realized you're just a big teddy bear dorky person. And...

I love that. So I guess those are the two things. Other than that, you know, that's my coach side and then that's my, my actual self side. I love to have fun, but I also take it seriously.

Bonnie (01:28:16.739)
Yeah

Bonnie (01:28:25.059)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:28:31.459)
Yeah. No, but I think it's serious work. That's, that's like serious. It's serious. Sorry. It's serious play. I like to say that where I'm like, we're doing something serious. We're doing it on purpose. It has an intention behind it, but we're going to play with it because like for both of us, if we're going to step into a coaching realm and guide people, like we want to have fun. Like, I want to show up and be like a full ass self.

VenusFit (01:28:41.646)
Yes.

VenusFit (01:28:56.366)
Yeah!

Bonnie (01:29:00.099)
Right. And it's not going to be have a longevity and an ability to like keep going with it if we're not tapping into a little bit of playfulness along the way. Yeah, totally.

VenusFit (01:29:12.174)
Yes. And like the way we started this conversation, you start with the foundations and then you have to explore. And I think that's the thing, like it's never ending. It's not like, you learn a thing and that's all you do. It's like, okay, what can I do next with it?

Bonnie (01:29:22.435)
Mm -hmm.

Bonnie (01:29:26.179)
Yeah.

Bonnie (01:29:32.259)
Yeah, yeah, totally. Again, we're going to go back to poetry. I love your analogy so much from the beginning of letters to words to paragraphs to grammar to poetry. I think, you know, I had somebody talk about jazz music recently that I listened to. They were talking about Miles Davis and how Miles Davis would think about what was going to come next by what had already come before. And...

VenusFit (01:29:40.974)
Thanks for watching!

Bonnie (01:29:59.971)
when you're first learning music, there's different routes to learn music. We'll take like a very traditional route where you're saying, okay, these are the notes, these are the scales, this is where, if you're gonna play the piano, this is where the notes are on the piano, right? So you have to learn the scales first. You have to learn which hand pushes which key. And then it grows, your musicality grows to eventually where you're like.

doing jazz and you're doing impromptu. You're like, okay, I've done this, now I'm gonna do that, now I'm gonna do that, which is in essence poetry. So you're just out to write poetry, Venus.

VenusFit (01:30:38.062)
Yeah, I think it.

VenusFit (01:30:42.862)
I'm writing poetry with my body, you know. Also don't take yourself so seriously, Tim. Take yourself seriously and then don't.

Bonnie (01:30:47.331)
riding poacher with my body.

Right. Right. Go do something new. Go be the noob. So I love it. I love the way that you encourage people and you do it in such a good way. I think the way you break it down for folks and you make it really accessible while it's also a difficult thing, right? It's serious. Like we're doing something really serious and you do it in a way that you know how to meet people. You've been doing this for a long time. You know what you're doing.

VenusFit (01:30:52.718)
VenusFit (01:31:01.038)
He is in the room. He is in the room!

Bonnie (01:31:21.891)
So yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being here today. Thanks for sharing.

VenusFit (01:31:26.062)
I contribute that to I consider myself as a lower.

Bonnie (01:31:32.035)
Mmm.

VenusFit (01:31:32.718)
You there? Hello?

Bonnie (01:31:34.627)
Yep, I'm here, I'm here. You say you consider yourself a slow learner?

VenusFit (01:31:36.11)
there you go.

Yes, so I contribute what you just said to the fact that I consider myself a slow learner. I don't pick things up right away. I'm very much someone who I'll learn something and I'll have to repeat it and try to really understand it, not just do it, but really try to feel it, understand it, explore it. And then I feel like, okay, now I think I got it. And I think that's why I love teaching beginners.

Bonnie (01:31:42.371)
Yeah.

VenusFit (01:32:10.894)
Because I understand that beginner mindset. I understand how it's like to really judge yourself and get frustrated and be like, well, all these other people in this class are doing it. And how come I can't figure out my left from my right or whatnot? And so my brain naturally is like, I know the struggle you're thinking. So I'm going to try to teach that person. I'm trying to teach that struggle.

Bonnie (01:32:14.563)
Hmm.

VenusFit (01:32:39.694)
And, cause if I know if I can teach that person, everyone else can follow along too.

Bonnie (01:32:41.795)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm going to share all your links in the show notes because everybody go check out Venus and you have, if I'm not wrong, Tuesdays. Tuesdays are your monthly, you started new monthly live class kind of like group.

VenusFit (01:33:03.982)
I do a weekly. Yeah.

Bonnie (01:33:08.547)
Go for it. You say it.

VenusFit (01:33:08.942)
Yeah, I do a weekly, that's okay. Yeah, so my actual site is venisfit .com. I have a membership. With the membership, you have access to every single one of my programs, from the beginner programs to the intermediate and the advanced, and my weekly live class and the monthly programming. So every month is a new month of programming and calendaring, and it includes bodyweight flow and kettlebell flow.

And every Tuesday at 9 a Pacific Standard Time, this time could change, but it's been like this for a little while. On Tuesdays, I teach a live class. And at the beginning of every month, I teach the beginner version on week one. On week two, I teach the combos and I start to progress the movements. Week three, I teach the same movements in the flow sequence. And week four is flow going back and forth with kettlebells and bodyweight. In every class, we're doing both.

But in the fourth week of the month is where it's more of like this intense workout. Because that's how I believe, right? I believe you got to learn it before you can actually do the actual workout. A lot of people want to jump to the workout. Yeah, now I'm also going to be offering a monthly workshop either for a specific body area. So like this month is going to be healthy hips, or it'll be like a specific skill like learning a kettlebell snatch.

Bonnie (01:34:21.091)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

VenusFit (01:34:38.766)
or learning a certain body weight flow movement. But I'm offering that for free for my members. And then obviously, if you're not a member, you can always pop in and buy things individually. But yeah. Yeah, and I'm on all the platforms.

Bonnie (01:34:51.875)
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Everybody go move, go move, go move with Venus and find her on the gram. And seriously, like, I think that's what it is, is like, go move your bod. And I mean, we talked, I love the nerdiness that we've got to in this episode. And there's so many ways that it's going to affect all the other aspects of who we are.

VenusFit (01:34:57.166)
Cool.

VenusFit (01:35:01.262)
I don't know!

Bonnie (01:35:21.091)
how we arrive in the world and how our brain functions and what we pay attention to, it all ties together. So Venus is here. We'd love to hear about this episode. Share it, share it with your peeps and give a shout out to Venus. If you find her on the gram, then I'll put it all in the show notes and we'd love to hear about it and what your takeaway is. And until next time, ciao.