The Inner Fire of Yoga

Grief, Pain Relief & Transformation Through Yoga & Tips for Teachers with Rebel Tucker

• Liz Albanis • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Liz sits down with yoga therapist, naturopath, and senior yoga teacher Rebel Tucker. To explore how yoga goes far beyond the poses. And can become a lifeline in times of adversity. Yoga is often misunderstood as just a physical practice. But its true power lies in its ability to heal the mind, regulate emotions, and build resilience. Rebel shares her personal journey with yoga. How it helped her through grief and loss. The deep philosophical roots that make yoga a powerful tool for transformation. This episode filled with wisdom for both teachers and students. Highlighting the real potential for personal transformation through yoga. How it can support healthy relationships, spiritual growth, and mental clarity.

Key Topics: 

Yoga as a Lifeline for Mental & Emotional Well-Being

  • How yoga helped Rebel process grief and loss
  • The profound impact of yoga on emotional resilience
  • The journey of personal transformation through yoga starts with simplicity. Curiosity, and consistent practice.

Yoga Beyond the Poses: A Mind-Body-Spirit Connection

  • The misconceptions about yoga as just a physical practice
  • The true definition of yoga from ancient texts
  • How yoga helps cultivate self-inquiry, acceptance, and peace

The Healing Power of Meditation & Breathwork

Yoga Therapy vs. Yoga Teaching: What’s the Difference?

  • What makes yoga therapy a tailored approach. 
  • The importance of understanding scope of practice as a teacher

The Role of Yoga Australia and the Benefits of being a member.

Yoga is not a Religion it is a Spiritual Practice

  • It’s an intuitional science that can support people of all beliefs. In cultivating healthy relationships with themselves and others.

Starting Your Own Yoga Journey

  • Why flexibility isn’t required to begin and how to find the right class or practice that suits your needs


About this episode's Guest: Rebel Tucker is a yoga therapist, naturopath. And senior yoga teacher with over 40 years of experience. She runs a yoga studio on the Mid North Coast of NSW. Where she specialises in helping individuals restore well-being through the energetic body. Traditional yoga practices, and evidence-based methods. As a board member of Yoga Australia. Rebel is dedicated to the professional growth of the yoga community. And making yoga accessible to everyone.

https://yogarebel.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/yogireb/?hl=en



If you’re interested in being a guest or know someone who might be head to my website: https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/podcast

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Join the Facebook community: www.facebook.com/groups/yogaformentalhealthyinyoganmyofascialrelease/
Visit website for more about what I offer: https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/


I feel like I am who I am because of yoga. And when I say that it's not because of the fancy poses and the flexibility and the mobility and the health benefits. But primarily for me, it's been the benefits for my mind. I think that yoga essentially for me in certain times of my life has been life-saving. It's kept me together.

It's helped me pull myself together in moments of great adversity and challenge. He was 25 and he took his own life. He had been diagnosed back then with manic depression. Yoga was the thing that allowed me to accept what was going on, to be able to ask some of the tough questions of the universe and of myself.

Can you do your yoga practice? Can you go to a class? And go for the experience of the yoga rather than the entertainment, right? I think often we think we need to look a certain way before we get there. Or have a certain flexibility before we arrive on the mat. Now, yoga is not something you can just get and learn and share and pass on in a month. Yoga is a lifelong dedication to the study and practice. 

Welcome to the Inner Fire of Yoga. A podcast about transformation, resilience, and the power of yoga beyond the mat. I'm Liz Albanis, senior yoga teacher and yoga therapist in training. This podcast was born in 2024, after I survived my second fire. Fire has been a recurring theme in my life, not just in the literal sense, but as a metaphor.

It has asked me to burn away what no longer serves me, to transform and to rise stronger each time. This podcast is about that fire, the one that challenges us, but also fuels us to grow. 

Today I am very excited to introduce Rebel Tucker. We've known each other since 2012 on a yoga teacher training in Bali.

And we've stayed in touch since and, uh, Rebel amazes me with her knowledge and wisdom. And I've reached out to her many times for advice. Rebel's a dedicated yoga therapist, naturopath, senior yoga teacher and practitioner with over 35 years of experience in natural health. Practiced yoga for over 40 years.

She runs a small studio on the mid north coast of New South Wales where she also trains aspiring yoga teachers. Rebel's approach is centred on helping others. Restore well-being through a blend of traditional practices and evidence informed methods, specialising in the subtle, Energetic body  powers individuals to take charge of their health and cultivate self-leadership.

Rebel believes that yoga is for everybody. Long standing board member of Yoga Australia and an active volunteer on the Yoga Therapy Committee. She is committed to contributing to the growth of the yoga community. Welcome Rebel! Thank you, Liz. Oh, listen, it has been a, um, road in the practice of yoga and it's been definitely something that's been firmly part of my life for such a long time now that I've listened to that.

Yes, a very long time. So, can you tell me a bit more about how you started your yoga practice? I was 12 years old and my mum took me with her to her yoga teacher which was the very enigmatic Swami Saraswati who was On TV, starting in about 1969, she was on the television from my mom was doing yoga with Swami and she took me and I remember walking up the stairs.

I remember smelling the incense, seeing her with her amazing long black hair in her orange leotard and being delighted by her humour and just absolutely enthralled by the practice of yoga. And essentially I was hooked. Ever since that day. The young age to start yoga. It was really young, wasn't it? Look, it's been on and off.

There was not much of a dedicated daily practice in those early years because I was 12. However, there was a fire that was lit within me. And as you know, fate would have it early 2023, I was interviewing Swami's son, Jay, at Swami's retreat. In Sydney there, in regards to her contribution to the amazing practice of yoga and as a forerunner of yoga in Australia, her contribution to yoga in Australia, I was at the retreat and I was very fortunate to meet Swami again, and it was just before she passed on, so I felt like I'd come full circle that I'd met her.

Come back and I was able to put my hand on my very first teacher's knee and say, Swami, thank you for lighting the torch of yoga within my heart. And I'm so pleased that I could reconnect with her in that moment. So, it was special. It was serendipitous and it was special, very special to me. Oh, definitely.

It would be what timing and fate. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing contributor to yoga in Australia. So, that's one of the interviews we did for Yoga Australia for Yoga Week in 2023. What benefits have you personally gotten out of your personal practice? Look, it's, it's, um, hard to separate the me that doesn't do yoga from the me that does do yoga  because I was introduced at such an early age to the practices of yoga.

I feel like they've served me the whole way through my life. And I feel like I am who I am because of yoga. And when I say that it's not because of the fancy poses and the flexibility and the mobility and the health benefits but primarily for me it's been the benefits for my mind. I think that yoga essentially for me in certain times of my life has been life-saving. It's kept me together. It's helped me pull myself together in moments of great adversity and challenge. I feel like yoga shaped me, given me resilience, given me the ability to remain equanimous, even keeled in the face of curveballs, the curveballs of life.

And I don't know who I'd be without it. Really, Liz, because it's always been there for me. So, it's like a very well worn shoe. No wonder you're such a balanced person. Are you willing to share one of those curveballs with yoga? Yeah, I certainly can. I was about 25 years old when my brother, he was almost 25 and he took his own life.

He had been diagnosed back then with manic depression and yoga was the thing that allowed me to accept what was going on, to be able to ask some of the tough questions of the universe and of myself and to feel like I had a rock to ground me. It gave me acceptance of loss. And it certainly gave me practices to still my wandering mind at that time.

One of the things that kept happening for quite some time after that was me thinking I'd see him. Yeah, I knew he was gone, but I thought I'd see him and yoga was able to bring me back to is this really here? Um, what's happening? Um, this is a memory and it's okay. It gave me the skills. To ground myself, to essentially rein in my senses from experiences that weren't real and come back  to what was real.

Through self study, self inquiry? Yeah, definitely. I think because of some of those experiences, and also my early exposure to yoga, I did ask myself the deep questions. For me, yoga is inclusive of Vedanta, and Vedanta to me is the great inquiring questions, the Mahavaktas. Who am I? What's this all about?

These sort of questions to me are ones that I have certainly let myself sit with, and to experience what arises. My understanding is yoga doesn't exist without Vedanta and vice versa. Yeah. Do you have any nice stories you'd like to share about any students obviously not identifying anyone? Hmm. Dangers you've seen in people because of the power of yoga?

Yeah, look, to me, over the years, collectively, I've got many experiences, both personally, but with some of my yoga therapy clients recently, a lovely lady who was housebound due to chronic pain and chronic fatigue. We just gave her some simple yoga practices. Essentially, it was the practice of yoga therapy, being a yoga therapist and really attending to the client's needs and developing a practice just for her.

We realized quite quickly that the things that worked for her were Some of our Pranayama techniques, so the breathing techniques and some meditation techniques. These things enabled her to quiet her mind, but also her nervous system. And we were able to get her out of the house and attending physical yoga sessions in a studio.

We got her driving again. Wow. Yeah. The things that she found most useful were some of the traditional haha yoga, queer style meditations where we are  developing concentration on the breast and the feel of the subtle movement of energy within the body. This helped her dial down her pain quite a bit so that she could then move and get about the house and to help her just get through the pain, to help her breathe and to help her get through the day.

So the gift of yoga, Liz, oh my goodness, the skills that we have as yoga teachers and yoga therapists are incredibly empowering, not only for ourself and who we, who are we not to share those with other people. Liz, once we know that they're so powerful, the ability, the ability to hand these on to other people so they can use them for themselves and receive the benefits of the practice.

And that's all she did. She practiced daily, simple things, breath work, meditation, and it's been life transforming for her. That's her lifeline right now. That's fantastic. It's amazing how some of the simplest practices can be the most powerful. And also that yoga can help reduce chronic pain. I've  had that with one of my clients.

Wonderful. Because a lot of people don't realize that. Yeah, there's been some great studies done in regards to the way the brain changes with pain and then how the practices of yoga can actually begin to very encouragingly bring the brain back to a more normal looking brain through the practices of yoga.

So I think it's Villeneuve, Chantal Villeneuve, some of her work that's been done in regards to yoga and pain would be really interesting to look into. I'd love to get some links to share. As you know, I have a beginner's mind, so I'm always wanting to learn more about that to help my students and myself out.

So that's wonderful to hear about that. As you know, yoga is very much misunderstood as an exercise class. to get physically flexible and do splits or whatever and partly the way it's been marketed anda lot of people don't realize that these are modern yoga poses, the ancient yoga. If you were to explain in really simple terms, what is yoga, what would you say to a student?

What is yoga? Well, if we took it strictly by a little old book written 350 BC, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which is considered a great summary of yoga. Essentially, yoga would be defined as a still mind. And I actually really like that. So, I think of yoga as a set of practices and philosophies to help us live well.

Now, for me, one of the most powerful things in helping us live well is the mastery that we have of our mind. And yoga as traditionally defined is yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of mind. And when we're able to quieten our mind and experience yourself as that which is observing our mind thinking and our body doing things, we can see that we are more than our body, more than our mind, more than our thoughts.

We have our experience as that. Being that pure consciousness yoga to me is anything that gives us that experience of being our true nature, experiencing our true essence. It's an experiential practice. We could say it's philosophical and that it's a set of philosophies, but ultimately it is definitely something that is an experience.

It's a way to experience life, a lens through which to look at life and to interpret the world. And the act of quieting down our mind allows us to be with what is, with what actually is, rather than what we might be imagining or hallucinating or hoping for, that we actually get to be with what is and be present.

So for me, yoga is anything that teaches us to quiet our mind and experience the  present moment. Beautifully put. I love it. It's great to get your opinion on things. One of the other great myths about yoga, in my opinion, is that yoga is a religion, which I disagree with because I've had students that are devout Catholics, like my late mother, Muslims and Jewish people, which is fantastic.

But what else would you say that? What would you say if someone said, Oh, look, I can't practice yoga because I'm this religion. I can't do it because of that. Yeah, well, Liz, I actually did have somebody turn up to this very studio that I'm sitting in now and did a class and then never came back. And I remember kind of waving at her in the local area and her not paying any attention to me.

And I thought, Oh, gee, what's happened there? You know, one day she came and said, I have something to confess to you. And I said, Oh, what might that be? She goes, I really loved your. Yoga class. Absolutely loved it. Thought it was fantastic. But you had a statue  in the room, which is my beautiful little statue of Ganesha.

And she goes, and it's in conflict with my religion. So, I can't practice yoga at your studio. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, I was like, Oh, okay. Well, tell me more about this and we had a bit of a conversation about it and I'm quite happy with Ganesh in my studio. So, Ganesh is still here and she doesn't practice yoga because she now does believe it to be in conflict with her religion.

Now, that's because she then thought that yoga was religious in and of itself and she couldn't divide her religious practices between two different things. She was just on one path. I did explain to her that in my experience. I believe yoga is not a religion in and of itself. Now, I lean on some of the works of people like Ramesh Bajones, who's written a beautiful book on the history of yoga.

And he often does quote Ananda Murthy,  his teacher, who says it's not a religion or a belief, but it is an intuitional science and a way to experience Through that lens, yoga is not a religious practice or a religion. Mark Singleton and James Mallison both have contributed or written a book called The Roots of Yoga, and they do discuss the history of yoga and their conclusion is.

I'm not going to say exactly firmly that yoga existed prior to the advent of the religionification of yoga into something like Hinduism or Jainism or Sufism and the likes, but that the collective practices of yoga certainly would. well before and have been demonstrated to have existed through archaeological artifacts prior to the advent of religion, and that in and of themselves are not religious practices, but essentially an intuitional science for living life well.

Yeah, I'd say it's not a religion, but  if you'd like to incorporate it into your religious belief, it affiliates well for many people into different religious practices as a supportive tool to be used for physical and mental health benefits. Beautifully put again. I like how Georg Feuerstein said that religion is about worshipping a god and yoga is a spiritual practice.

I think my personal opinion is one of the reasons we've got this myth is because of Yogi Bhajan and Sikhism with Kundalini yoga and One of the things that have caused this confusion, because a lot of Kundalini teachers converted to Sikhism, and you can tell they're Sikhs by what they wear, but it doesn't mean you have to become a Sikh to become a Yogi.

That pathway that he created in the U. S. We found bringing Kundalini to the West and yeah, a bit of conflation isn't that is between what is a  spiritual practice and what is a religious practice and both a spiritual in nature yoga, however, would consider that the ultimate guru that which dispels. The darkness, the light which shines into the darkness is the light that shines from within.

And so maybe perhaps the light within is in each of us. And that that can be interesting if we look at what is the light is that God. So, I know that there is a conflation between spirituality and religion. And perhaps even this whole guru thing has been a little bit confusing for people as well. You know, to think that there's got to be somebody outside of ourselves that we've got to go to and lay down at the feet of in order to have the light of yoga illuminated within us.

And certainly this, certainly practice like some of the Shakti pattern, the endowing of grace and these practices can be seen as requiring somebody else. However, The spontaneity of being able to discover that light within ourselves can quite  basically happen with simple yoga practices. I know myself when I did the Vipassana retreat in my very early 20s.

I had a horrible time. I found it really difficult. It was torture. I thought I'd have a problem not talking because clearly I don't mind speaking and having a chat. However, for me, I was delighted to not talk. The hard part was not moving, just sitting still. And Liz, of course, I'd look around and I thought everybody else was sitting there like an absolute perfect Buddha and that I was the only one who was moving and wriggling and get myself under control.

My body was in physical pain. So Day six in the evening practice, I forced myself to sit still through absolute pain in my body and then I felt very accomplished. I got up in the morning and I thought, okay, morning practice, day seven, I'm going to, I'm going to get myself some props. I'm going to get some bolster.

I'm going to make myself comfortable. I'm not going to torture myself. I've done the suffering now. I'm just going to sit. I sat  comfortably. Listen to my body because my body was supported, my mind was free from being pulled into this constant pain in my body and I had the most amazing experience. I, for quite some time, felt absolutely connected.

It was that aha moment that the Marty Listful moment that perhaps we think of when we think of meditation or we think of yoga perhaps. And it was such a, a beautiful experience. That unfortunately for the next three months, I was chasing it like a little carrot. Ah, I want that experience back. And of course, because I was chasing the experience, I never quite arrived there.

So what did I have to do? I had to peel it back and think, what did I do? I sat, I made myself comfortable and I quite simply did the practice. The practice gave me the gift of the meditative state and I experienced that beautiful bliss that came with it. That oneness. Beautiful. The  most interesting thing I've heard about yoga, and I've got a family member who said that yoga brings out the devil in you.

I thought, well, that's an interesting anonymous. Yeah, look, I actually, when I first moved to town, somebody who subsequently became my friend, if I can say that word. Later, once she told me that, oh, yeah, I go to a church and my church has told me that yoga is the devil's work. I was like, oh, okay. Welcome to the street.

She's come out to welcome me, found out I did yoga and this is what she tells me. She goes, I'm not so sure about that. So let's get to know each other. And so we're still friends. Agreeing to disagree. Yeah, so talking about yoga and all these myths. I think it can make yoga feel not so accessible Because they go.

Oh, no, I'm not thin. I don't wear active wear. I'm not female. I'm not flexible I'm not fit. So, a lot of people get stumped on how do I start practicing yoga? They go to a group class and they go to a vinyasa class get completely lost. Yeah, and it's interesting to know how you would feel if someone came up to you and said, look, how do I start yoga?

How do I start practicing? I think one of, um, the things that I like to do is to say, find something that's simple and that simply suits you. And certainly modern postural yoga has become this behemoth of a thing where the focus is on extreme flexibility and mobility and great postures. But one of the things that I like to constantly remind myself and my students is that sometimes the magic is found in repetitive, simple practices.

Chop wood, carry water. Can you do your yoga practice? Can you go to a class and go for the experience of the yoga rather than the entertainment? Um, because we all like to be entertained and there's a million different things that can do that at the click of a button  or remote control,  but getting ourselves to a yoga class can be a feat in and of itself in a busy world.

And if we can just embrace. The simple things in the practice, looking for the quality of curiosity that we bring to that practice, then it doesn't necessarily matter, essentially, the quality or the personality of the person teaching, although those things can help. But if we're looking for simplicity.

and the yoga itself. My advice is just look for something simple that's near you, that's accessible, that you can get to. It's got easy parking, it's affordable, that you can show up to on a regular basis and appreciate the yoga. Be curious about what the yoga is doing for you. What the physical practices are doing for your body, what the breathwork practices and the visualizations and meditative practices are  doing for your mind,  and begin to self-evaluate.

What's this doing for me? How's it serving me? Then it becomes about what yoga can do for you, as opposed to how entertained am I? Yes, unfortunately, especially in places like Melbourne, because of the cost of living and we had the longest lockdowns, we had a rough time. It's really sad, but a lot of yoga studios have closed down.

I reckon nearly 50 percent and that's tragic for the business owners and it's sad for the yoga community. One of the, the challenges in modern yoga, Liz, is how accessible is it? Can I show up and be myself in this practice? I think often we think we need to look a certain way before we get there, or have a certain flexibility before we arrive on the mat.

But when we begin to realize that yoga is less about touching our toes and more about what we learn on the way down, such a popular yoga saying, then we  can just Turn up as we are. I've recently kind of converted back to organic cotton wear instead of active wear to teach my yoga and practice my yoga and I'm feeling quite liberated that I'm not putting on my active wear anymore.

Yes. No, because that's one of the things you need to wear active wear brand. Yeah. And look a certain way or be flexible yourself in order to teach yoga. There's poses that my students can do that I cannot do. That's okay. Yeah, we're all different. We're all unique. Yeah, so you're a yoga therapist A lot of people don't know the difference between what a yoga teacher is versus a yoga therapist.

Blame that one. I'd love to shed some light on that. If we took it at a very sort of basic definition, it's at least Six hundred and fifty hours more worth of training on top of a level one yoga teacher training. Yeah. So by the time a yoga therapist has completed all their study, they've done about a thousand hours or over of yoga and yoga therapy specific training yoga.

Therapy is the application of yoga in the broader sense, so all the tools and practices of yoga, including practices for mastering the mind, including inquiry for self study, and also including mastering the subtle. Um, movement of energy within the body. So, these three things are taken into consideration when we're designing a practice for an individual.

So, it is the tailored and therapeutic application of yoga in all its glory to an individual for a specific outcome. Now that outcome might be in the area of physical health, mental health, it might be in the  area of life goals and experiences, spirituality. So working with the client, with the student to help them arrive at, at their goals.

We might also do it in a small group setting where all of the students have the same goals or needs or requirements and tailoring it to a group practice to suit those individuals. And what would be an example of that sort of thing? Well, some of the work that you do, Liz, where you're looking at the specific use of the practices of yoga for individuals with mental health concerns, such as anxiety or depression or trauma.

They're required to be not only aware of trauma and its existence for the general populace in the class, but then to specifically tailor a class around that is a much more greater challenge and requires skills. One of the things that yoga teachers need to be aware of is not overstepping their scope of practice.

Yoga Australia outlines that nicely for yoga teachers and yoga therapists. There's a very different scope of practice and this is a term that exists within the healthcare systems in medical and allied health and we're not part of those systems yet or maybe It will be, but maybe we can work alongside them, but we need to be able to step up and use the language that they use.

We need to be aware of our scope of practice and what that is as a yoga teacher, not overstep our mark. We're not going into diagnosing. We're not going into therapeutic applications when we're a yoga teacher teaching a general class, but as a yoga. Therapist. We are working with people who come to us with diagnoses that need help with managing those conditions, perhaps alongside already given medical care that they're receiving.

And that's a great explanation because I think it's something else that's not understood with the difference. And a lot of yoga teachers  even don't know. The benefits of Yoga Australia and I'm proud to be a member of Yoga Australia, but it took me too long to become a member. Because I didn't realize the benefits.

Could you briefly describe what Yoga Australia does and the benefit of the members? Because I'd like to promote that as a member. Yeah, fantastic Liz. Look, I joined Yoga Australia myself because I like to belong to a group of peers who are professionals. I've been a member of naturopath since day one at college 1990.

So, I got one of those. Special badges because I've, I've been a member for so long and I intend to keep up my membership with Yoga Australia because I like belonging to a group of professionals who are all interested in sharing their experiences, learning from one another and contributing to a set of resources that we can all use as yoga  teachers and yoga therapists and also yoga students can also have access to these resources to, um, continue our professional development.

Because that is important as professionals who perhaps would like to aim to work alongside allied health and the health care system, then we need to professionally develop. We need to have the requisite insurances and first aid and show that we're keeping up to date with latest information. Yoga Australia does all of that.

And look, it's just a member led. Peak body for yoga teachers in Australia that aims to advocate for the profession and to support yoga teachers as professional. Fantastic. I like how you've explained that and you're a member of the board. I am. I joined the board. I got asked to join the board and. Oh wow, you got asked.

I did. I got asked to join the board and I didn't really know what that meant, but I did it anyway and I ended up as the secretary, which as I found out was quite a challenging role and I had to upskill. So, I got onto the Governance Institute and did a course to make sure that I knew what I was doing in that role.

But after about two and a half years decided I didn't really. like that role. It was too much stress for me and I handed it on to somebody who had a bit more compassion for doing that and I stepped into the role of the board representative with the yoga therapy committee which suits me much better is it's such a such an ideal role for me because it's yoga therapy slanted and I'm a therapist at heart.

It's a way for me to contribute to the development of this profession and advocate. For myself and for the members to listen to, to what other yoga teachers and yoga therapists want for themselves as professionals in this industry, what they want for yoga and yoga therapy in Australia. In my mind, we've got to  listen to the people, the professionals in the industry and gather up the grand majority collective of where people want to move this profession.

And do that together, a few members on a board doing their best to volunteer their time. We might move and shake it a little bit, but when we've got membership behind us and we're listening collectively to our members, that's where we become a real force for good for yoga in Australia. The more members, the better.

I just love it because now we've got some really great resources. We fixed up our website and it's much better to navigate through. And there's great courses that you can do that are both free and paid. There's insurances that you can look at how to do that and your first aid and a whole bunch of stuff and resources to educate us and help us do a better job and keep us in the game a little bit longer so we can be sustainable.

Yeah. Notice that I've done some great short courses and it also keeps yoga teachers accountable for upskilling because a lot of people think I've done my 200 hours and 200 hours is basic. I don't believe it's enough and more research comes out like. Mental health is a big thing. We need to take that into account when we teach, and legal issues, and unfortunately some people when they've done a lot of training, they lose their beginner's mind, and it's growing, so I like the accountability for it, and I love the short courses which I've benefited from, and I can go to if I need it.

Yeah, it's really had a great revival in the last couple of years through the update of the website. So members really have access to so much more now. And you're right, Liz, this beginner's mind. First and foremost, I consider myself always a student, always learning. And there's nothing wrong with learning the same information from a slightly different perspective to deepen that knowledge.

And sometimes, as much as I think  200 hours is a great Beginners point, the 350 hour training's really where it is at because there's just a little bit more breadth of information and then we can go deep from there. What we learn in a yoga teacher training can really set us up for life. There's enough in that 350 hour training to really keep us going as teachers and students for life and to honour those practices.

Is to keep studying. I think. So yeah, I really love the access to the CPD courses. It's great. With the insurance industry tightening, who knows one day be able to get insurance if the training is registered with something like Yoga Australia and senior teacher to actually register like a 350 course, I believe so.

And as senior teachers. Got a lot of qualifications, 10 years teaching, 20 hours, and I think it's great to do a teacher training with a teacher senior, someone who's just done teacher training themselves. That is a challenge, Liz, because without a regulatory body, and Yoga Australia is not a regulatory body, however, we do self -regulate.

We say here's the standard that we set as yoga teachers in Australia and we all believe that this is a great basic standard. Of course if you'd like to do more that's great but this minimum standard is great because there has been the circumstance of somebody who's had a beautiful career doing something completely different.

All of a sudden deciding they'd like to be a yoga teacher and within the scope of a month has a beautiful website set up and all of a sudden they're teaching people how to be yoga teachers. Now, yoga is not something you can just get and learn and share and pass on in a month. Yoga is a lifelong Dedication to the study and practice of yoga and all its philosophies and practices.

And to think that we could just do that within a month, it would behoove us all to be discerning consumers and perhaps look for a stamp of approval. Yoga Australia members have a little icon, little logo thing that they can demonstrate to the public by way of.  Putting it on their social media or their website to show that they've had the requisite training and they've done that minimum training.

They've got the experience, even to become a level two. Miss, I remember becoming level two and thinking, Oh my God, I've got a five, five years of experience to get to level two. And then I got to level two and I'm like, yeah, check that box. I've been teaching yoga for five years. Hot tip. If you are a new teacher, start logging your teaching hours.

Yeah. Keep a note of everything you teach, get the people who you teach for studios to sign off on it every now and again, maybe once a year, so that when you come to present your experience to a membership body like Yoga Australia, you've got it, so here you go, I've done it all. That's great advice. Do you see any issues within the yoga industry at the moment?

Yes, I think that yoga has become very much a postural practice. Yes. This modern postural yoga phenomenon has really become what people think of yoga. What do you think of when you think of yoga? Oh, down dog. And the jokes come down dog, up dog. And we know that it's more than that. So the other thing that might go with that is.

That yoga is a bit of a, a hippie, woo woo thing. And I think one of the most encouraging things is that there's now a growing body of evidence to show that yoga is quite efficacious in things like mental health, but also with things like stress management, cardiovascular conditions, pain, anxiety.

Depression, some mood disorders. So, there's a growing body of evidence to show that actually yoga has a great science base. It's more than a hippie woo woo thing. One of the things that I think yoga teachers might also need to consider is that we've got some practices that have been long standing practices that have been around for thousands of years and we've seen recently an explosion in breathwork practices.

I call them the Huffy Puffy breathwork practices. They're quite hyperventilative and some  of the way people are practicing these things and the language that goes with it doesn't really match the science behind what they're actually doing. So I'd like to see that yoga reclaims breathwork. Quite personally, I think that we are the original breast, but Pranayama practices.

And what is that? That is Prana, energy, life force, vitality. I, Yama is the illumination of or Yama, the control of Prana. How do we learn to control Prana within the body? We use best practices to do that, to really know that yoga is more than for the body. It's for the mind. And it's for the subtle body.

That's true. As yoga teachers, we also need to be careful how we teach those pranayama practice because there can be contraindications. Is there any way you'd see this getting improved on? For yoga teachers, just to share from the heart, but to first be practitioners, to teach from what you know, practice, embody it, feel it, gain the experiences, talk  with your peers, your fellow yoga teachers about your practices.

Yeah. And then share them so that you're sharing from a Place of lived embodied experience, not just theory, not just a pretty course you did on the weekend, but from lived experience. Well practiced. Walk that road, walk it, walk it, walk it, know it well, and then share it. Walk your talk. Walk your talk. Yeah, no, fair enough.

Do you think your yoga practices evolved a lot since you started? I mean, you started very young. Yeah. Oh, goodness me. My yoga has seen shapes and changes over the years. In my early years, I did a lot of Ashtanga, Iyengar for a time. I did Bikram yoga for two and a half years in Melbourne and I've come back to really the roots of my practice, which is a very traditional Hatha practice all.

I think I was very lucky to be exposed to a lineage of Sri Vidya in my early twenties. Um, at the same time I was studying  at nature care college, which really culminates. or brings together the practices of, uh, yoga, Vedanta and Tantra into a beautiful practices taught and handed down by the Himalayan masters.

So over the years, it's certainly evolved, but I think it's really come back to those practices and the simple teachers of Swami Saraswati, you know, yoga teaches us to be more of who we are and doesn't it just. It teaches us to know ourself. Yeah, so I've been hot, I've been fast, I've been slow, I've been And now I very much practice according to what my body and mind need.

And I teach accordingly as well. I assess who's in my room and I teach to the students in the room. That's important. Could you give us one example of what one of your regular practices are? Specifically? Um, my regular practice is a mantra based meditation. I practice the Mahamitranjaya mantra. I have done over 125, 000 repetitions.

I've done it that regularly. I can get it very quick now. Beautiful. Out loud or in your head? Mostly now it's just repeated in my head. My earlier practice was repeating it out loud. I've gotten into more of that myself, especially after talking to you about the Gayatri Mantra. Beautiful one. Do you have a favourite quote about yoga?

I'm very fond of saying in my classes, not a traditional yoga quote Liz, but it's from Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh and his best mate Piglet were sitting on a log in the forest and Winnie says to Piglet, I don't know why people say nothing is impossible because I do it every day. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, just being okay with nothing, doing nothing, being present, just enjoying the moment. That's true, that's what it means. Do you have a favourite yoga sutra, one that really resonates with you? 1. 2  yoga chitta vritti nirodhaha 1. 3 tada drastu svarupe vastanam 1. 4 vritti svarupyam itratra. Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.

When we achieve that we will know ourselves as that which is doing the observing and if we don't do that we will think that we are our thoughts and suffer because of it. Just two more questions. Yeah. If you could give your 18 year old some advice as you are now, is there anything you would say to yourself?

Start that mantra meditation practice earlier. It's good. I was really averse to it in my younger years for whatever reason. I thought it was weird, but I've come back to japa mantra practice and I love it. Great. And is there any final words you'd like to end with? Um, remain curious. Be curious about who you are, how your practice is serving you.

Ask questions of your teacher and ask questions of yourself. I like that too. That's fantastic. Thank you, Rebels. Thank you, Liz. Thank you for joining me. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired and informed and empowered to take meaningful steps towards your well being. If there's a topic you'd like me to cover or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you.

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Liz Albanis

Host
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Rebel Tucker

Guest