245 - Introducing Yoga Teacher Circle

Last night in Portland, I hosted the first gathering of Yoga Teacher Circle (YTC), a community space for yoga teachers to come together, learn, collaborate, and support each other. 

YTC is something I've wanted to create for a while. Because it's powerful to be in a room together. And it's important to create and gather in spaces where all voices are valued and respected, and where there is room for abundance and cooperation over competition. And this is something I want to experience in other cities, too. 

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

Transcript

Bonnie (00:01.176)
my gosh, we are here together. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I'm going to tell you about last night. Last night was the first quarterly Portland yoga teacher circle. So if you live in Portland, right now, I want you to go to the link in the bio and there is a button for you to push.

to get notified for when the next one happens, because it's gonna happen in October. So go to the show notes right now, find the link, enter your email, because then you will find out and I will send you an email for when the next one is happening. So it happened last night, we are in July, so the next is gonna happen in October, in the second half of October, then we'll do January, then we'll do April, right? So we're gonna do this quarterly. So to do that, I've gotta come back here.

and if you are not in Portland and you're like, what the hell are you even talking about? Well, anybody like, let's continue on. this is something I'm just going to put it right out there at this very moment. This is something that I would love. I'm going to experience, I'm experimenting with it. I have hosted a yoga teacher circle everywhere that I go and do workshops over years, the years that I've traveled and done workshops. one of the, the times that we meet together, I always have hosted a yoga teacher circle.

So that said, wherever you're at in your city, as you listen to this share that I have for you today, if it feels like it lights you up and you want to create this where you are, then I would love to support you in that. There's a couple key things that I feel like are really important for this that I'm going to share with you and then reach out. So that will also be in the show notes is a button for you to make an appointment.

Make a social call with me. Let's talk more about it. If it is an ongoing thing, like I can drop it, drop, you know, you're going to take anything from this conversation to start it yourself. But if you like support to do this and to step into this space as a leader of teachers, wherever you are at in your city, wherever in the world you are, and you want support to do that, then that is a great reason.

Bonnie (02:25.678)
to number one, have like a free social call with me for like 30 minutes and number two, to maybe sign up for some mentor sessions. Let's be together for a couple weeks, a month and get you rolling to then kick this off. So that is upfront. Woo woo, I'm very excited. So let's talk about this. What is the yoga teacher circle? It is a touchstone place for yoga teachers to come together. It is a place where in the city it is,

It happens regardless of the studio that you're at. This is not the studio teacher community, which I am a full support of teachers in their studio to be connected and to be supportive of each other and to work through the interpersonal sorts of issues that come up with being in community with each other and having really powerful leaders of studios to help facilitate those conversations. And it

be tricky. It can be really hard. And there are a lot of different personalities that we all have. That's part of why each voice is important. So a couple of really key things is that there is more than one way to be right. And we have to believe that to make a yoga teacher circle, you have to believe that there's more than one way to be right. There's more than one way to teach yoga. There's more than one voice that's important in the room.

There's more than one way to show up. Right? There's more than one type of body that can be a yoga body. There's more than one temperature that a room can be to call it yoga. Like there's more than one way to be right. That is a very key ingredient for creating a yoga teacher circle. There's also a really, a powerful piece that this is a community experience. This is a co -creation. So

The yoga teacher circle here in Portland is not about me. This is not a Bonnie yoga teacher, a Bonnie teachers, a Bonnie circle. I like how it just eliminated words. This is not a Bonnie circle. I happen to be part of the circle, but the circle would not exist. It would not exist without everybody else who showed up. So last night at 13 people show up, 13 people showed up. So shout out if you listen to the podcast, Sybil, Sophie, Kira, Heather.

Bonnie (04:49.582)
Karen, Abby, Christie, Alice, Allison, Sunny, Glenn, Dana and Vince, you showed up. You showed up with me and we co -created that circle. And it's really important that we set up in a circle, that there's no head to a circle and that every single person there has something to share, more than one thing to share.

and that we are there to learn because y 'alls, we have a lot of time commitments. We have a lot of things pulling our attention. We're trying to show up in so many places in our lives. So if we're gonna take time out of our lives to meet, we're not there to shit talk. We're not there like to just like turn our wheels. We're there to learn. We're there to collaborate. We're there to celebrate. That's what we're gonna do together. So, you know, one of my favorite teachers, Rocky Heron, he,

always would say, make your teaching a disruption. So I am here to say like, well, yoga teachers, I work with yoga teachers all the time in a flow school. And if you're looking for creative sequencing and QLab, and like I have some fun things happening with that that are coming that I'm kind of reformatting some of how I'm doing flow school that it's going to be for the better. And so I've worked with hundreds of yoga teachers and I mentor one -on -one yoga teachers. so, so I get it. I am a yoga teacher.

I get it. And if we want to let our teaching be a disruption, the way we show up and own our voice and do it authentically in our way, 'all's you're like, listen to me and my voice and like my own journey with that and your journey with that and the ways that we can support each other and how close you feel like you get with the people and your teacher trainings and in other courses you might take. Let's, that doesn't have to be a one -time experience. Let's create a space.

that is focused on abundance, where there is room for all, where it's cooperation over competition. And let's talk about money. Let's talk about business. Let's talk about competition. Let's talk about these things. Let's have this be a place of growth where we hold open -palmed and hands to heart. Where we're saying, I'm open to receive and to learn and to not grasp on too firmly to my own ideas with the ideas of others that I'm here open.

Bonnie (07:11.802)
And hand to heart, I'm taking responsibility for myself. I'm trusting myself. I'm trusting the yoga. I'm trusting where we're gonna land. So these are really important tenets of having yoga teacher circle. And that...

and that we create a space where all people are welcome. And we also understand that not all people feel safe in a space. That's the same as anywhere we might go. And where we want to build something together, where it doesn't matter what you teach or how you teach or where you're at in your teaching journey. I love that people showed up last night who have not even stepped into teaching or still in the yoga teacher training. People showed up who aren't teaching currently at all.

Some people are teaching multiple places. Some people are just teaching online. So some people are teaching in hospitals. Some people are teaching private. like it doesn't matter. Some people are weaving herbalism within their classes. And so many people last night are teaching Yin and restorative. I'm like, where's my vinyasa, my flow people like you too, right? There's

Portland city here is rich with amazing yoga people. And I held this event at a place called Paws Meditation. It's a meditation studio. It's not a yoga studio. It feels important to me to host it somewhere that is like, doesn't feel like it crosses yoga teacher lines where I'm like, you don't have to be part of this studio to be able to participate. This is the whole region. I had people come from Bend, which if you don't live in this area, it's like,

three -ish hours away and I have people come from up in Washington. I live a little bit west of the city. So this is at large, right? So you can come and receive and share. I went and opportunity to have an introduction space and it was really beautiful. And I got to introduce why the Yoga Teacher Circle, why I think it's important.

Bonnie (09:20.35)
and my goals with us and really that we are there together. And I truly believe that the community that we can build can be more impacted in positive and abundant and expansive ways, the more that we support each other as leaders. And that as Brene Brown says, leaders are people

Bonnie (09:46.766)
who trust in the potential in, wait, it trust? I'm paraphrasing. In the potential of people and processes and have the courage to develop it. So the process of yoga and the people that show up and we're having the courage to show up and to do the thing. So y 'all are leaders and to support each other as leaders and figuring out how to do this and how to do it well.

and how to do it responsibly and respectfully and compassionately and also fierce and honest and like we give a shit.

and to play with it as much as we work with it. So shout out, if you're in the Portland area, come to our next event in October. At the, like half of our time, because this is a co -creations, is not just about whatever I want to talk about and whatever I want to learn or whatever I want to share, and I'm happy to share whatever I have. This is a free event. This is community event.

And I know that this is taking some of my time, but it feels really important. The second half of our time together, I asked everybody to share something that they wanted to learn. Like what's present right now for them as a teacher and a leader was something they want to learn. And then if they have anything they wanted to share, we didn't go around a circle. just let people like, whenever you feel called, like just shout it out. Like, and if you have something to share, can write down your name. And so we have a group of people, we have 14 of us.

who are like, okay, here's some, like we have so many amazing ideas. So I'm read through a couple of these ideas. I'm not gonna riff on any of these, but these are some of the things that we are going to be talking about. So I'm sending out a form to let people like choose some of like our direction because we're co -creating this, right? So we're gonna talk about the questions of things that people wanted to learn. And let's see if any of these resonate with you. Or about brand identity and voice, authenticity and how to be really.

Bonnie (11:54.442)
straightforward about your messaging and what you have to offer and thinking about social media. So really this whole entire way that you might show up and how you help people participate and build a brand. Okay. Next one of how to simplify and explain complex topics through a class. Like talking about philosophy and Ayurveda and how to bring that into class. Next one is how to be deeply inclusive and accessible and talk about bias. Next

how to approach learning how to speak to many body types when you can only teach from your specific body type and how to help others even if you are not don't have experience with that and the nuance in that. Another one is creative sequencing and figuring out how to scale a sequence from the ground up so that it's available like a lot of options are available for students.

Another one is business and bookkeeping and taxes and money. And then creative hands -on assists and yoga biomechanics and functional movement. How to work one -on -one. How to blend different sorts of movement loves together.

Appropriation, Polyvagal theory, Somatic yoga, Trauma -informed yoga, Herbalism. These are a list. This is so many conversations when we're going to pick one of these topics. Quarterly is enough to meet. We have a lot of things happening. It kind of helps us be like, okay, we're going to come back to that. I am going to be figuring out a place of how we communicate in in -betweens.

so we can share things that are upcoming, we can attend each other's classes if that's wanted, and we're gonna let this evolve. So this is just a shout out to invite you to co -create something with me, to make something that has not existed that needs to exist, a place where all people can belong, this is a place where all people are welcome, where nobody is more important than the next. But that because their voice is there, it makes our group more dynamic.

Bonnie (14:08.642)
That's what we're after. That's what we're after in our rooms. When we bring our teaching to the room, we want those people to be there. This is the same for our yoga teacher community. And I think this can change the ways that we operate within a community and how we can serve. So thank you. Thank you for being a yoga teacher. Thank you for being here with me. And I cannot wait to see you in October. And if you're hearing this after October,

then we're still going. And if you're not here in Portland, reach out to me if this sounds interesting to you and we can talk about what is possible. Okay loves, go, be brave, be curious. I'll talk soon.