Formerly Queen Street Yoga
Yoga & movement. Rooted in community.
We’re here to create a better world with Yoga as our common ground. We lead down-to-earth classes, expert teacher training, and an engaged intergenerational community.
We opened our doors in 2005, and have become known for our highly experienced teachers, our innovative approach to movement, and our efforts in community care and social justice. Our aim is to make the practices of yoga and meditation more inclusive, more accessible, and more relevant for your day-to-day life.
(A seasonal reflection from Branches’ co-director & teacher, Emma)
As the winter solstice approaches, I am contemplating my relationship to darkness.
Three years ago near the start of winter, I gathered with a group of ten women about this very topic. We sat in a circle and each took a turn answering the question “What is your relationship to darkness?”
As each person answered, we slowly crossed over the border of friendship into the space of intimates. We became more fully human to one another. We gave one another the great honour of bearing witness to some of our deepest pain. We also got to see one another embodying incredible strength or hard-won healing. The pain or difficulty wasn’t necessarily finished or over (as we know that’s not how grief or trauma works) but hearing others articulate how darkness had been part of shaping them was breathtaking.
Darkness is part of the human experience. Whether that is the literal darkness of night, or the metaphorical darkness of harm, loss, grief and pain, we all carry our knowledge of darkness with us.
And if that is true, the opposite is also true. We are all affected and shaped by light; by the beauty that we are and that we see. By the love we have received, and that we have learned to give. By the light of day, by warmth and summertime. Darkness and light are both an intrinsic part of our life on this earth.
As we head into the longest nights of the year, I can feel the darkness calling me. And when I feel the metaphorical darkness arising too strongly, when grief or rage become too much, I lean into my felt sense of darkness. The sometimes magical feeling of being outside on a quiet, snowy night. The twinkling of stars that are only visible because of the darkness. The soft darkness at the end of an evening yoga practice. I remember I can be held by darkness, not only challenged by it.
I have honed my relationship to darkness through my yoga practice; perhaps you have too. I have returned from places of deep sadness by coming to my mat again and again. I have also learned to be with darkness by walking with others at The Branches; in the talking circles of our yoga teacher training communities, and different groups gathering for yoga retreats and workshops over the years.
The darkness of winter and night is regenerative, and cyclical, and there are many ways we make our ways through it. In community with others; with our plethora of practices (therapy, yoga, art, meditation, dog walking, you name it). We make it through the darkness with the long arc of time and the (hopefully) even longer arc of love.
As the year draws to a close, I hope you are finding connection to yourself and community. On behalf of Leena, Wendy, Nicole and all the teachers and staff at The Branches, we wish you a season of rest, renewal and delight.
Solstice blessings, Emma
P.S. Sitting in circle is something we do in our Yoga Teacher Training programs, and something I have both led and participated in in a wide range of contexts over the last fifteen years. If learning how to gather people in community and conversation is of interest to you, I hope to share my experience with this and mentor others to start their own circles in a workshop format in the coming spring. Do be in touch if that’s something you want to hear more about.
(A personal share from Leena as she recounts her own challenges getting a good night’s rest, and excerpts from conversations with Kimmi, Yoga Nidra spaceholder, which led to developing a sleep series for Branches On-Demand)
I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Kimberley (Kimmi) for over a year now, hosting her Yoga Nidra workshops and courses at The Branches. When she approached me with a proposal for an online series called Restoring Rhythmic Sleep, I immediately thought:
Yes! This is the carefully an lovingly designed series I wish I had had when I was struggling with my own sleep issues while adjusting to life with small kids
Any parent knows how grueling the first year(s) can be with sleep challenges. When my first baby was born in 2016, I went back to work at the studio when he was only 4 months old because I needed to negotiate and renew the studio’s lease. There were weeks when my stress was quite high, and my sleep rhythms were so disrupted by nighttime feeding that even once my son was settled back to sleep, I would lay awake with my brain racing. I wish that I had had the tools and practices of Yoga Nidra during that time of stress and sleeplessness.
Kimmi’s passion for sharing practices for sleep comes very directly from her personal experiences. Her journey with Yoga Nidra (sometimes called Yogic Sleeping) began during a period of debilitating insomnia and intense stress about a decade ago. At the time she was doing academic research and was also a yoga teacher, but she was too exhausted to maintain a yoga asana practice. She came across a Yoga Nidra workshop with a guest teacher at Queen Street Yoga (our old studio), and during the workshop she had one of the most restful experiences she’s had in years. While she recognized that Yoga Nidra wasn’t a magic bullet, she had a profound sense that the practice could help her. While on medical leave due to her severe insomnia, she dedicated herself to studying and practicing Yoga Nidra, and little by little her energy came back and her sleep rhythms stabilized. She went on to complete an advanced training in Yoga Therapy focusing on Nidra.
In a conversation recently, Kimmi and I got to talking about how insomnia doesn’t come out of nowhere. So often it’s related to profound stresses, some of which are deep and systemic. As a racialized woman, Kimmi sees Yoga Nidra as “a healing justice practice and a form of soft resistance to systems of oppression.” Alongside psychotherapy, Yoga Nidra was essential to her in working through and healing from stress injuries caused by racism and misogyny.
Kimmi often begins a Yoga Nidra with a reminder like this:
There isn’t anything you need to do to earn this rest. No certain number of items you needed to check off your to-do list. To simply be a human, a human who is tired, is more than enough. It is your fundamental human right, and a basic need, to rest.
In today’s hustle culture, this reminder is quietly revolutionary! Embedded within capitalism are so many beliefs that we are not deserving of sleep and rest. Yoga Nidra disrupts those assumptions and offers an invitation to reclaim rest as a birthright.
I truly hope you’ll check out our Branches On Demand library for Kimmi’s new series, and find some revolutionary rest for yourself. The well-rounded series includes:
gentle movement practices for morning and evening
a midday “Yoga Nidra Nap”
a bedtime Nidra session to help you drift off to sleep
a very chill practice to help you get back to sleep if you’re stuck awake in the middle of the night.
(A note from Branches’ teacher, Nicole, a perimenopausal gal who is passionate about the benefits of progressive overload!)
If you’ve been online lately, and especially if you’re perimenopausal, you may have noticed that menopause(!) is having a moment. As a perimenopausal woman who didn’t even know this was a thing until a few years ago, I’m relieved that this topic is finally being discussed in public forums. I’m also frustrated that it has taken as long as it has to reach the mainstream, considering about half the population will experience this life-altering transition.
If you haven’t been following the “meno-sphere,” I’ll briefly catch you up! One of the hottest topics at the moment is strength training, and specifically lifting heavy. This is essential for perimenopausal and postmenopausal people to build or maintain muscle mass and especially bone mineral density. The conversation around what exactly constitutes lifting heavy has exploded online as this can, understandably, be a point of confusion.
I love this conversation because strength work is my lane. I created and developed the Strength Essentials class over the last few years at The Branches. I’ve gotten super-passionate about both strength training and self-advocacy in my perimenopausal journey, and I find myself at the intersection where one pursuit (strength training) can help me through the other (perimenopause). Here are a few things that I think are important to think about when considering what lifting heavy means.
1. Using weights that feel hard, doesn’t necessarily equate to lifting heavy. Rather, lifting heavy falls into a category of near-maximal effort. For example, if you build up to using weight that you can lift for a maximum of 5 repetitions (or fewer!) and no more, you are working in the heavy zone! (And just to be extra clear, you don’t have to lift in the heavy zone for every single set – or even as part of every workout – to make progress.)
The next one is less technical but something to really contemplate and consider. Which is…
2. You are stronger than you think.
Not only have I learned this to be true about myself, but I’ve become more aware of how pervasive it is for people — especially women — to underestimate their physical capabilities.
Let me illustrate with this quick real-life example. You may have noticed that Leena bought us a barbell; I couldn’t have been more excited or surprised! The day it arrived, she texted me with a photo and said “Christmas came early!” I was pumped.
Prior to the barbell arriving, our heaviest single weight was a 35 pound kettlebell — and while more experienced participants had long since built the confidence to use it, many newer students were of the mindset that it was just too heavy for them.
Imagine my delight when folks were stepping up to deadlift the bar which is 35 pounds on its own— plus 20 pounds (or more) with plates — on day one! The ‘bar’ to entry (pun intended) equaled the former heaviest weight in the room, and people were blowing right past their preconceived limitations on the first try.
So how do we go from getting started to lifting heavy? My suggestion is to begin with weights that feel do-able but challenging, and then increase the weight incrementally over time. When a given weight starts to feel too easy, bump it up by a little. You’ll get better at knowing when to do this with practice. Generally speaking, you’ll use relatively heavier weights for lower-body work (think large muscle groups) than you will for upper-body work (smaller muscle groups).
Remind yourself that building strength isn’t a sprint! And, to yield the bone-building benefits of strength work during mid-life (and beyond), we need to be lifting the heaviest weight possible that we can manage with control and confidence. You don’t have to start “lifting heavy” from day one but you do need to increase the loads you’re lifting systematically over time to get stronger (AKA progressive overload). Getting stronger leads to increased independence as we age, and allows us to do more of the things we want to do, with self-assurance, today.
The hard work of building strength is gratifying in itself but the benefits really seal the deal! And while everyone’s journey is unique, here are some of the quality-of-life enhancements that I’ve personally experienced through consistent training:
Better moods, energy, and an outlet for stress reduction
A sense of personal satisfaction from striving for – and achieving – performance goals
Socializing and good times with like-minded folks
Perimenopause symptom management (it’s not a fix-all but it helps me in a big way)
Increased muscle mass
I would love to hear if these ideas resonate with you and learn more about your foray into strength work — or, to hear what’s troubling you about getting started or keeping up with it. And if you want to join me for Strength Essentials, we’re lifting heavy every Monday and Thursday.
Cheering you on in your strength and/or perimenopause journey,
This is an abridged version of a speech that I (Emma) gave at my college residence earlier this month. I was asked by the dean of students to come and speak to students about attitudes and biases around bodies and how that coincides with my work at The Branches. Afterwards so many students came to talk with me about the content of my speech, to ask questions and to thank me for sharing this perspective. It was so heartening to chat with students about their passion for changing the narrative around body size and pushing back against fatphobia.
Hi. I’m here to talk about bodies.
I think about bodies a lot because I’m a yoga teacher. I teach people about how their bodies move, how their joints work, how moving their bodies in different ways might help them feel more settled or grounded, or more energized. I also think about the language that is used around bodies a lot because I do a lot of writing and marketing copy for The Branches.
At The Branches we are really committed to not replicating the narratives around bodies that are prevalent in wider popular culture. We’re really careful not to signal fatphobia, or invoke self hatred to sell yoga or embodiment practices. We don’t use weight loss as a motivator to come to yoga. We are not the norm. But it’s really important to us not to play into that cultural insecurity around body size. And I would even call it an intentionally manufactured cultural insecurity.
I think fatphobia or fear/hatred of fatness is very slowly becoming more obvious to us. To compare it to a different “ism”, racism, In 2020 after the murder of George Floyd and the surge of Black Lives Matters protests, it seemed like there was the start of a larger cultural awareness of systemic racism and other forms of racism. But I don’t think fatphobia has really had its moment yet, of realizing that it’s everywhere; its the water that we drink, its the air that we breathe. It’s still this shameful thing to be fat. We don’t say fat, we are uncomfortable saying that word. We wouldn’t describe someone as fat. Because that would be considered an insult. Hmm. What’s so bad or shameful about being fat?
As I continue talking about this I invite you to notice in your own bodies, how you feel every time that I say “fat”. And if you would feel that if I was using a different descriptive word like tall or short. Just notice what internal reactions come up when you hear the word “fat”. Is it uncomfortable? And Why?
I think the number one assumption about fatness that leads to this discomfort or shame is that it indicates unhealthiness. Our culture and the medical industry in general look at weight as one of if not THE main indicator of health. However there a number of political movements and a growing body of research that pushes back against that assumption, one of which is a framework called Health At Every Size or HAES (pronounced hays) as well as ASDAH – the association for size diversity and health.
Take that name in for a moment – Health At Every Size. There is emerging evidence that health looks different on everyone. That even if we all ate the same diet and engaged in similar physical activity it is likely we would continue to look about as differently from each other as we do now. Health at Every Size. Your size does not indicate how healthy you are.
Perpetuating this assumption that fatness equals unhealthiness, has dire consequences for bigger people accessing quality healthcare. Research shows that fat people get treated differently by doctors, that their health concerns may be minimized or ignored, and that this can be compounded by other intersectional identities like racial identity, disability, gender. There is a movement within what is called fat activism to abolish the BMI, the Body Mass Index as a healthcare tool. The BMI was a statistical tool developed to measure weight and height across broad swaths of the population and was never meant to be an indicator of individual health. I’m going to say that again. (repeat) But guess who pressured doctors to use it as an individual health marker? The weight loss industry.
Someone that I look up to and respect so much and written a lot and thought a lot about bodies and culture is Sonya Renee Taylor and one question she asks in her book The Body is Not an Apology, is “Who is making money off of your self hatred?”. Who is invested LITERALLY in our culture being afraid or ashamed of their body size? The makers of Ozempic, their net worth is now more than $500 billion. The diet industry, the weight loss pill industry is a serious industry and it has its fingers in healthcare.
So this is the cultural soup in which I am trying to teach yoga and movement. I’m trying to reach people outside of these created biases around health and size, and invite people to connect with themselves amidst all of this.
So I’m here to talk about bodies but I’m also here to talk about culture change. The Branches is a yoga studio but it’s also a site of quiet rebellion against white supremacist, capitalist culture. Everything we do, in as many ways as we can we are working to disrupt that narrative. The narrative that creates a hierarchy of bodies that puts thin, white, able bodied, cisgendered, straight, rich, male on top and then ranks every other type of difference underneath that in descending order of worth.
We can do better than that.
At The Branches we call this aspect of our work “Body Positivity”. Body Positivity is a term with a history. Body Positivity was created by Fat, Black, queer women and femmes, and was intended as a political statement/practice for those whose bodies were the least accepted by the mainstream; racialized people, fat people, disabled people. In the mainstream Body Positivity exists somewhat but has kind of been watered-down to simplified ideas like “love the body you have”. It’s fine but a bit less political. But we think of Body Positivity as valuing and respecting all bodies.
This also doesn’t mean that you come to The Branches and we’re like TIME TO BE BODY POSITIVE. Don’t you hate to be told to be positive if you’re not feeling positive? So while our value is Body Positivity, celebrating and respecting all bodies, in practice, in the class it sounds like neutrality. It sounds like the yoga teacher using language that is incredibly neutral. That’s gender neutral. That’s ability neutral. That’s shape neutral. We’re really intentional that all of our teachers use language that offers different suggestions for ways of moving, ways of doing the pose that isn’t hierarchical. It’s not better to be flexible, it’s not better to be able to do the pose in the way it might look in a yoga magazine. We try to talk really neutrally, really frankly about getting into the poses and how you might need to change it a bit if your body is shaped this way or that way, and that neutrality allows people to have their own experience. Some days it might be positive. Some days it might be neutral or negative. But we’re attempting to give everybody a mental break from the hierarchy that’s often perpetuated in fitness or yoga spaces and allow people to just be.
One of the first ways we started shaping the culture of our studio in this way was in 2013. I took a training with an amazing teacher named Tiina Veer who created the term “Yoga for Round Bodies”. Tiina really opened my eyes to fatphobia, and how excluded so many people feel from yoga spaces. Soon after I started teaching a course called Yoga for Round Bodies. So many people came to that course and told me that they finally felt invited and welcomed into a yoga space because of that title. Because they knew that they wouldn’t be the only person of size in the class. One of them described the class “like a regular yoga class but with room for my boobs”.
And over the last ten years the overall demographic of our classes in terms of body size has really changed. And some of the people who originally started in that class went on to do our Yoga Teacher Training and now they teach that class and other classes. So not only is the student demographic in terms of body size changing; the teacher demographic of body size is changing. We have more fat yoga teachers. Yay. Representation matters.
About 8 years ago we also adopted a practice called “No Body Talk” among our teachers, desk staff and volunteers. All teachers and volunteers first do some training or learning about Health at Every Size, fat acceptance, and then everyone signs an agreement to work to eliminate any body-shaming, fat-shaming or weight loss and diet talk from conversation at the studio. We were already really intentional about language used by teachers in our classes, but we wanted to go further and hopefully have the whole experience of being at The Branches a break, a haven from that kind of conversation.
And now it’s been so long I sometimes don’t notice it anymore, until I’m in a context where I hear someone disparaging themselves or someone else for their size or shape. I feel surprised when I hear that now…that’s when I realize what a refuge The Branches has become for me and what that has given me space to focus on. What broader and more creative thoughts am I more able to have when I’m not preoccupied with how I look or trying to fit into that impossible hierarchy?
So these are some of the ways that we maintain that sense of being a haven, being a quietly radical space for people to come to and enjoy being in their bodies alongside others.
Even though I espouse this value of Body Positivity or Body Neutrality, something that I never say as a yoga teacher, is “love your body”. I’m not the first person to say this but it’s not really possible to love your body if the world hates your body. Whether that hatred is rooted in fatphobia, racism, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, all the isms, even healthism. It’s not possible to love your body in a world that hates your body so we need to do it together. We need to love and respect each other’s bodies.
I called my speech “Nurturing Cultures that Celebrate All Bodies”. I wanted to let you in on the intentional cultural practices that we’ve created over time because these are all replicable in different ways, in different contexts. Leena and I are kind of the hosts of the party that is The Branches – it’s a chill party, not a rager – and we set the stage for how that culture plays out. And it is my hope that you will be creative and intentional as you shape the cultures that you participate in. That you thoughtfully investigate your underlying assumptions about yourself or about people who are different from you and intentionally choose what kind of experience you want others to have, what kinds of values you want to embody. I hope you throw parties or run your clubs with clear intentions to uplift one another, to celebrate and respect one another. We need this in a world full of division. We need this type of small scale, homegrown intentionality, solidarity and unity.
My favourite thing about being pregnant is that it’s temporary. (It’s Leslie here, btw).
Ha! That tells you a lot about how it’s going! No, my real favourite thing about it is growing a family with the best person to ever become a dad (in my opinion). But seriously, I’m really ready to get the pregnancy part over with.
I was saying to a student the other day that I’d spent a good 38 years conditioning my body to do a handful of specific things (like hiking, yoga postures, rock climbing, and sittin’ around), none of which were being pregnant or giving birth. How radical it is to have to adapt to such a new and different demand at this point in life!
This need for radical adaptation feels like a Type 2 Gift (kind of like Type 2 Fun, the kind you enjoy after the fact). I might not entirely love this experience (does anyone love indigestion, restless legs, or a squished bladder?), but even if I never got a cute baby out of it, the upheaval offers valuable lessons that I can appreciate.
It’s humbling to go through physical (and mental and emotional) changes that you can’t control. We all have to do that as we age, and many of us have to do it in response to injury, illness and all sorts of other stuff we can’t predict or plan. I never planned on a pregnancy at “advanced maternal age,” yet here I am, compression leggings and Tums in hand. My yoga practice (and all the other activities I normally love) are dialed down (or are paused completely), and I’m reflecting daily on all the folks in our community, parents or not, who have navigated radical changes to their bodies and lives. Much respect and love to each of you.
Pregnancy has me asking myself old questions in a new light. When should I grip tighter and fight for something even though it’s hard? When should I let go, and surrender to forces stronger than me? How can I be present with all that each moment offers me, pleasant and unpleasant? What choice do any of us have but to try to adapt to the ebb and flow of our capacities? I’m lucky to feel supported enough to think of it this way. Making a mental note to remember this big talk when I’m in the middle of labour!😉
My last classes will be next week, starting August 26th. On my way out, thank you to: -the students in my classes tuning in to my words and their own bodies more keenly than ever as I’ve demonstrated less and less -the YTT grads teaming up with me to do those demonstrations when they can -the teachers taking over my classes: Wendy, Emma, Alissa and Leena -the admin team taking over my management work, including the return of Nicole DeNoble behind the scenes (she last joined us during Emma’s leave with baby Iris)
I’ll see you on the other side of the rollercoaster of labour and birth. Wish me luck!
Yours in embracing the unfathomable adventure of life, Leslie
I have read many essays and articles by climate activists with the message that to address the climate crisis, we must choose things that both have impact, and bring us joy. Because without joy, we will not be able to sustain our commitment to the crisis.
We need joy as an anchor for our commitment.
Gardens are a source of great joy for me. My own garden is a site of solace, a place to connect with the earth and notice the pace of growth. It is a place to practice nurturance and attention. When I step outside my door to colourful new blooms, or the graceful twining of a bean plant up a pole, I am infused with joy. It fulfills so many of the values that I hold; to live in more connection with the land, to contribute to a healthier ecosystem by feeding bird and bee populations, and to share beauty with others. I’m so grateful to greet the garden outside The Branches on my way to work, seeing the bulbs pop up in the spring, and the berry bushes and trees begin to bear fruit.
Leena worked hard on planting the front garden of The Branches with native plants and shrubs a few summers ago. I vaguely knew that native plants were “good for the environment” but I didn’t have a good grasp on the importance and impact of native plants until I attended an info night on native plants in my neighbourhood. And what I learned that night drastically changed my thinking (and my garden).
A mix of native and non-native plants
I had always thought that any sort of garden with flowers and trees could feed birds and butterflies and contribute to a healthier ecosystem. What I learned was that most of the ornamental flowers and trees that we commonly see in gardens are not nutritionally appropriate for this region’s animal and insect populations. Plants native to our bio-region (meaning that they co-evolved with the birds and insects in this area) have the best and in some cases only nutrition able to sustain certain species. There are certain butterflies and birds that are dying out because the plants they need to survive have been replaced either by grass lawns or by non-nutritive but popular flowers and shrubs.
Non-native Irises out front of my house
I thought of the flowers in my garden and realized that while they were beautiful they were also nutritionally empty for the wider ecosystem.
The other important piece I learned that night was about how much land in the city of Kitchener-Waterloo is privately owned, and how much of that privately owned land has the potential to host native species. So much of the land (that is not paved by roads and driveways or occupied by buildings) is covered by grass, which gives zero nutrition to the wider ecosystem, and is also incredibly taxing on the ecosystem as it requires water to stay green. If even a small amount of that privately owned land was converted to native plants, shrubs and trees, it could greatly contribute to the resurgence of local fragile insect populations.
After the event, I marched home and looked at my garden. I looked at the grass on the boulevard, and the non-native perennials I had planted. I saw how much potential this small bit of land had, and I committed myself to converting as much of it as possible to native plants and shrubs.
Many native plants in here, small but growing! Pearly everlasting, wild strawberry, narrow leaf vervain, lancelead coreopsis, feverfew, butterfly milkweed, liatris, aster
Tending to and enlarging the native plant population in my home garden is one small way that I am attending to the climate crisis. When I feel overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge, I am heartened to remember that nurturing gardens on privately owned land is actually a huge point of leverage in the ecosystem of a city. I also hold alongside that, an awareness of the privilege I have in owning land and the complicated and problematic nature of land ownership.
I am not satisfied with confining this commitment to my own garden. I am dreaming and scheming about how I might re-naturalize parts of the school yard where my son will start JK in September, or how I might get a grant to install native plants outside the Kitchener Public Library.
At The Branches, we are also dreaming about how we might spread more awareness about native plants to our community (this newsletter is one step), and get more native plants into the gardens of our members. Stay tuned for ways you can get involved in that next spring.
Depending on your personal relationship to social media, you might have noticed that for a while there, The Branches was on an absolute blitz of creating original, silly, opinionated, and informativecontent, especially on Instagram.
People would sometimes approach us in public spaces to say stuff like, “Oh my goodness, you guys are sofunny on Instagram!” or, “I love your posts! I’m going to come to class one day!”
Despite the fun of making silly videos or the adrenaline of sharing hot takes, we’ve always had a rather ambivalent relationship with Instagram. As a business, we felt compelled to use it in order to compete for people’s attention and maybe someday their studentship. As community leaders, we felt conflicted about using it, since social media has become increasingly addictive, and degrades our own presence and attention – the exact thing we hope to strengthen through the practices we teach.
As our content production increased at QSY/The Branches, we were increasingly taking personal breaks from social media for our own mental health. Each of us found that being on Instagram caused us to overconsume content, leading to feelings of comparison and competition, or simply wasted time. For work, it led to constantly thinking about the algorithm, about how any and everything could be turned into a post or a reel. It caused us to question how we should be showing up on the platform – do we engage in the “performative wellbeing” in the form of positive affirmations, fancy poses, or colourful meals that prove how “deep,” our practices are or “healthy” we are in the eyes of potential students? Or do we overshare intimate facts and experiences from our healing journeys to appear “authentic” and “relatable” (and to do better with an algorithm that rewards drama?)
This focus on creating and maintaining a particular kind of online business persona took time away from going deeper into the embodiment practices that we love to share. It pulled our attention into performing on and for a tiny screen, and away from the rich experience of moving through the world with presence, relating to others with mindful awareness, and taking meaningful action towards the world we want to live in.
If you’ve been reading our newsletter long enough, you’ll know we’re not ignorant to the other side of the coin. Of course social media has its benefits, like the democratization of news, space to organize for social justice, some potential for useful learning, and perhaps obviously, more accessible social connection with communities near and far.
Anyway, you might also have noticed that at some point, we just… stopped trying so hard. And we more or less stopped posting on our individual accounts, too. We’ve wondered from a curious perspective, but we’ve also lamented from an exasperated perspective: does sustainable success really require studios and/or teachers to self-promote on social media?
In the end, we don’t really want to play the game of Instagram. We don’t like what it does to our brains or to our creativity, confining it to a tiny box, and consumed in an endless scroll. We want to be thinking about how we show up in community with others, not how we can articulate that in a post. We want to practice presence as we teach, not make reels about our teaching.
We’d love to hear back from you – how do you relate to your own use of social media? Are you using it to follow yoga teachers, or your favourite local businesses? Are you on there as a teacher or creator, hoping to find success? How do you protect your mental wellbeing while engaging?
Congratulations to our 2023-2024 Yoga Teacher Training graduates!
The end of the Yoga Teacher Training program is invariably bittersweet. It’s a relief to complete such a big journey, but it’s also a big bummer to say goodbye.
Pictured here are a handful of the newly-initiated teachers: a mix of people who were already sharing yoga in movement and wellness spaces, or who have new-found passion for teaching, and some who’ll continue to prioritize their own evolutionary relationship with yoga. Program directors Leena and Emma were continuously impressed by the maturity and thoughtfulness of this group.
Photo Highlights from Final YTT Weekend
Below are some highlights from our grads’ teaching initiations. We were blessed with virtual lessons from our BC participants, and an in-person visit from our Hamilton participant!
The initiations are the capstone creative project of the program: 30 minutes of solo teaching, with a mission: an intention to serve a specific population, highlight a specific action, and communicate a specific learning goal.
All teacher-trainees give and receive feedback on one another’s teaching, according to hard and soft skills they’ve been honing over the course of the program.
Everyone made huge improvements, and we are super-duper proud of them.
WANT TO DO OUR NEXT YTT?
Here are some pathways to participation.
Our next full 250-hour Yoga Teacher Training will take place through the 2025-2026 academic year. It’s a long time to wait, but we think it’s worth it.
That said, there are a couple of things you can do in the meantime to: a) test out our vibe and make sure it’s a good fit b) get ready for a big experiential learning journey
Option 1: Prep Program The perfect toe-dip that you can do anytime. Get: -a 20 Class-Pass -10 Introductory YTT lessons in our online portal -If you do the full YTT, we will deduct Prep fees from tuition, making the Prep Program free.
A 45-hour training that runs over the winter 2024-2025. Includes -three weekend intensives -Yoga Alliance credits -a deep dive into intentional rest -Can be done before, after, or totally separate from the full 250-hour YTT.
Hello, Wendy here. So, I’ve dabbled in strength training at several points in my life. And each time my motivation would eventually decline, or I’d reach a point where I just felt too intimidated and confused to know how to progress. Sound familiar to any of you?
Strength Training for Longevity and Healthspan
As I enter my mid-life journey, I’m learning how valuable resistance training can be for maintaining mobility and strength as we age. For folks who will go through menopause, and especially folks like me with a long family history of osteoporosis, strength training can also help increase bone density and prevent osteoporosis, (this article does a really good job of summing that up if you’re interested). Based on these life stages, I have been feeling really motivated to find a way to add resistance training back into my life.
Recently, I decided to start on my own again, and it was great… for a while. I was learning a lot, getting stronger, and I felt good in my body – all things that kept me interested. But, inevitably, I would get busy or tired and skip a session, or two, then three, and my motivation would begin to wane.
Finding the Right Coach & Community
One thing I’ve learned about myself (and still have a hard time accepting), is that no matter how much I want to do things on my own, I really need other people in order to stay motivated. But all of my past ‘gym’ experiences had been unpleasant. I either got a bunch of unwanted advice, or unwanted commentary that made me not want to be in those spaces. I needed MY people – people who would lift each other up.
Enter Strength Essentials…
From the first time I walked into Nicole’s Strength Essentials class I was struck by just how supportive it felt. It was such a radical departure from the intimidating experiences I had in the past. Nicole presented things in such an easy to understand, accessible way. We learned lots of options of how to progress, and Nicole was there to help folks to find ways to make things work for their body. It was so refreshing to not feel intimidated to ask questions or to ask for advice. With the number of questions I hear each time I’m there, it’s obvious other folks feel the same way.
The Camaraderie Effect
The instruction in Strength Essentials is wonderful (thanks Nicole!), but I’m also blown away by the community of support that has formed among the participants in the class. We celebrate each other’s triumphs, and share lots of laughter to help get through the challenges. I often hear folks encouraging each other (“You got this!”), or commiserating after a particularly hard set (“Wow, that was a hard one!”). We joke about how there’s no way we can do another round of pushups (why are they so hard?!), but then we all look at each other and do it anyway.
I’ve found a group of people who are there to learn and to take care of their bodies. No one is in class to show off or to ‘prove’ themselves to anyone, so it feels so much more welcoming than my previous experiences. I finally found MY people – and I keep going back because of them.
Sound like your people, too? Come join us for casual weight lifting with friends in Strength Essentials – I think you might love it! Just be prepared to laugh a lot 🙂
You know that feeling when the reality of your limitations hits you smack across the face? When presented with a new challenge you can’t overcome (yet, or ever), I call that getting humbled. Getting humbled can offer us a lesson in acceptance and equanimity, and it can also motivate us to try harder.
When we stack up against others, sometimes we are humbled by our peers, or by those who retain the gifts of their youth, and sometimes… we get humbled by our elders.
And when I was the ripe young age of 22, an entire society of grandmas humbled me with nothing less than their commendable squat form.
I was living in South Korea, testing my teaching ambitions in an English-immersion kindergarten. Not only could my 5 year-old students drop down into and hang out in easeful and cozy squats like their little toddler siblings, but so could their parents, and even their grandparents.
Ajummas – Korean grandmas – could be found casually squatting to rest, socialize, gather herbs, connect with their grandkids, do house chores, and simply move in response to their own desires and demands of daily life.
As someone with aspirations towards physical health and freedom of movement, I was both mystified by my own incapacity to squat as well as they could, and motivated to get on their level.
There is some evidence showing that the typical bone structure of folks of East Asian descent supports the deep joint positions required for a squat. This fact, combined with not having grown up in a squat-normative culture, makes me unsure that I’ll ever quite match their ease, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying! Now at 38, my squat is more comfortable and closer to a resting position than ever.
Part of what makes squatting doable is hip mobility. My days as a foreign English teacher in Korea were formative in many ways, but one is that I will never take hip mobility for granted again – it really is a use-it-or-lose-it game.
To that end, if your hips are feeling stiff and sore, or you realize that your hips don’t move as well as you’d like them to, I highly recommend our series Hip Mobility May. It’s got all my best ideas on how to directly improve your experience of your hip joints – both the feeling and the function.
Try it! And I’ll see you in a squat sometime soon 🙂
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Hip Mobility May can be found inside Branches On Demand, our streaming service. You can join for FREE for your first 7 days, then it’s $25/month after that, with no minimum commitment. All the content from Hip Mobility May will be live from May 1 – June 15. Each month, BOD subscribers get access to a new series. Check it out!
The Branches 