Jivana Heyman 00:00:01
(INTRO) Hi, I'm Jivana Heyman, and my pronouns are he and him. Thank you for joining me for the Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga Podcast. This is a series of conversations that I had with an incredible group of Yoga teachers as I was researching my new book, A Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga, and I wanted to share these conversations with you in their fullness. Rather than just pulling quotes for the book, I wanted you to get a chance to hear everything these teachers had to say. So I hope you enjoy these conversations. Thanks for being here.
Jivana Heyman 00:00:39
Hi, everyone, welcome back. Thanks for joining me today. I'm so excited to be here with Kino MacGregor. Hi Kino.
Kino MacGregor 00:00:45
Hi.
Jivana Heyman 00:00:46
Hi. Thanks so much for being here.
Kino MacGregor 00:00:49
Well, thanks for inviting me. I'm excited to dive into the topic today.
Jivana Heyman 00:00:54
Yeah. So I thought of you for this. This topic is, it's a big one I realize. And then we could go a lot of places, so and really, I'm interested in anything that comes to you. But I'm interested in talking about the relationship between being a student of Yoga and a teacher of Yoga. And so I guess my question, my first question is like, how for you, how is your love of Yoga translated into teaching?
Kino MacGregor 00:01:19
Well, for me, I never set out to be a Yoga teacher, I always set out on the student's journey. And it was really, I think, my enthusiasm for really wanting to dive into the student's journey that led me to teaching. For the first years that I was doing the practice, I was going to India and I was practicing with my teachers in Mysore. And there were a lot of people that were Yoga teachers, but I constantly introduced myself, as you know, something else. Even when I was teaching a few classes here or there, I was working as a journalist, like a freelance journalist, and I had this idea that maybe I was gonna go back to school and find a career or something. And I just felt that there was, I just wanted to be a student. And I didn't feel that I was worthy of being, you know, a teacher, even after. And the interesting thing for me was, when I went to India for the first time, it was when I was still in graduate school in New York, and I had the summer off. And so I did the two months in the summer that I could get off, I sublet my apartment in the Lower East Side, and then I went to India for two months. And then when I came back, every single person I talked to that knew me from the semester before said things to me like Kino, what did you do over the summer? You seem different, and I didn't want to talk about it, you know, but then they pushed me and pushed me. And then for example, I was doing a piece on garbage in Gotham, you know, like I was writing a piece on garbage and Gotham and was, and I got an interview I got, I got to interview the City Comptroller. And after the interview, he looked at me and said, you're not really a journalist, are you? And that's the worst thing you want to hear as a young kind of freelance journalist trying to think that maybe that's your career. And I said, no, I'm a journalist, I'm a journalist. This is what I'm also very, I have interned and I was getting internships through my university, and all this sort of stuff. But then finally, he said, you do have to do something else. I started talking about Yoga, what my experience was, and it ended with this guy saying to me, please teach me what you know. And I said, I'm not a teacher and the more I would protest, and say, I'm not a teacher, the more people that I would talk to would say, please teach me. And it was horrible, because they felt like I live in New York City, for sure there are good teachers, and I would have a list of people that I would refer everyone to. This person is really good, this person is really good, this person is really good. And they would say, No, we want you will you please come over. And so I remember sitting in this really, like difficult space trying to refer these people to others. But then they kept contacting me saying, When can we arrange a private? And then finally I talked to a friend of mine within the Ashtanga lineage. And he said, look, if you tried to send them on, and they're not going on, and they're still contacting you, then it's you or nothing, you have to go teach them. If you don't think that you're qualified to accept money, then just do it as donation. So I just did like donation and trades, like there was a massage therapist that I booked for a massage. And after the massage, the massage therapist was like, you do something, don't you? I started talking about Yoga. And then the massage therapist wants to trade me for Yoga privates, but that one I pretty, I accepted quite quickly. That was a pretty good offer. And you know it just so I just started teaching like that. And when I came back to India, for the second time, I felt so guilty about all of these classes that I've given, because I felt like, look, I'm not I'm not a teacher, I'm a student. I'm, you know, I'm first and foremost in the student's journey. And when I went back to India, the second time, I went with, like this guilty face to my teacher and said, I'm really sorry, but I've been giving these classes, it's horrible. Please forgive me. I just want to be a student. And and then he smiled and said, teaching no problem next time you take authorization. And that made me feel really good. And it wasn't until I got that formal kind of approval of authorization. I started to say, you know, I'm a Yoga teacher. And that for me, that's kind of what it took for me to feel like okay, I can actually show up and represent the lineage. If my teacher said, well, now I can see that you're ready, then that's that was kind of the switch that changed for me. But with truth be told, my favorite place is as an enthusiastic student, you know, I'm never happier than when I am just in the student's journey immersed in the learning process. I just, I want to be student forever, and then I have the blessing of being able to share that enthusiam with others and kind of to show up and help the people enjoy being a student in my presence, too.
Jivana Heyman 00:05:43
Yeah, well, first of all, I just want to say the journalism thing makes a lot of sense now, because I know you've written many, many books. So it all makes sense. I actually was a journalist too, by the way, for a short time, you know, and there's something about that combination of being a Yoga student and teacher and journalists that just I think makes us want to do this writing thing. How many books have you written now?
Kino MacGregor 00:06:07
I've written four with Shambala and then two others and then I have another one coming out with Shambala next year. So that'll be that'll be my seventh book that's coming out next year.
Jivana Heyman 00:06:18
Okay, well, this is just my third, and I'm much older, but anyway, no. Okay, well, I want to talk about something else. So I think you're already giving us a great picture of like, what it was like for you to, like conceive of yourself as a teacher. And I feel like, one of the obstacles I see to accessibility is the way that Yoga teachers I think, are portrayed in the media, what people think, you know, what they think a Yoga teacher is supposed to be like, or look like. And I feel like one of the ways to make Yoga more accessible is to begin diversifying the field of Yoga teachers. And that's, that's kind of where accessible Yoga started actually is like, by offering teacher trainings to try and get, I was trying to get my students to become teachers. And I just wonder if we could talk about that. I mean, you know, I mean, you have a huge presence in the Yoga world. And I think people look at you in a way and think, oh, they have to look like Kino. I have to look, I have to do Kino does to be a Yoga teacher.
Kino MacGregor 00:07:16
So you know that I kind of feel like I sit at an interesting intersection in that regard because my first Yoga teacher, you know, in Mysore, when I went to India for the first time, he was not doing postures anymore. And he moved beyond postures. And so he wasn't demonstrating, you know, really advanced looking kind of performative asanas. And yet his presence is what sort of carried the lineage. And he was showing up with complete focus on the students day in and day out. And it was really him that, you know, I really feel that meeting, kind of steered the direction of my life, and he wasn't doing, you know, fantastical, awesome, it was like the promotional pictures of him were portraits. And that was it. And, you know, by some standards, some of the old photos of asanas could be critiqued, you know. And in this way, I think that the, the Western gaze has definitely created a false equivalence in the Yoga teaching world, between physical performance and spiritual development. And that's a false equivalence that needs to be unpacked and needs to be really unlearned, so that we can really experience the presence of people in front of us, and in their, in their practice room and in their, you know, in their aura and in their sort of human qualities. And to understand that Yoga is not the postures, but the postures may help someone on their path of Yoga. And on the flip side of that, I feel that like to be 100% honest, I feel I've benefited from that false equivalence, like people were interested in taking a class from me because I could put both my legs behind my head. So they were like, oh, you must be really spiritually advanced. And I'm like, well, I mean, I did learn something. And people make this assumption that I could just do all the poses from the beginning, it's absolutely not true. My first class when I was 19 years old, I couldn't touch my toes. My first time, I tried to do a headstand and I toppled over. And it was just, you know, crazy. So I have really used Asana as a tool for my own spiritual development. And I feel like it's, I've used it to experience what I've experienced. And I just want students to understand the total picture of Yoga, that what you're using Asana for, cannot be judged from the outside, you can't see someone with both legs behind the head and think, wow, they're a super yogi. And teachers have a responsibility to be as enthusiastic for all levels of students. So this is a mistake that I think that inexperienced teachers make because they get excited about the person who can lift up into handstand or excited about the person who can easily put their legs behind the head or something like that. But then the student who comes in and they can't clasp their hands together, and maybe they don't really, they feel nervous in the room, they have a body shape or an age that's a little bit different than the norm. They just don't fit that kind of, you know, Western image around what Yoga, you know, should be according to that Western gaze, and then that teacher may not really know or have the tools of how to adapt the practice for them. And for me, I think it's about the enthusiasm, showing up and being as excited to give that person a block and adapt the pose for them. As you are in you know this this As person that maybe they just need a little help to do a handstand? Well, you know, the, it's the it's the enthusiasm in the students eye, regardless of what the pose is doing, that I think is very inspiring. My teacher in India would almost be more interested in all the beginners and all the people who couldn't do the asanas and all the people who were doing all the asanas, he would kind of ignore them, and then give a lot of attention to all the people who needed the help that couldn't do the binds that couldn't do the forward folds and all that sort of thing. So I always take that to heart, because it's easy to kind of look around the Yoga room and get attracted to the, you know, the the sort of the high level of performance that one might see in certain practitioners and kind of, you know, gloss over or look over the shy individual in the back, who's a little insecure and unsteady and needs a lot of help, who if you don't go and you know, share your enthusiasm with them and include them consciously and actively, they might never come back and they might leave feeling oh, gosh, Yoga's just not for me, I'm not the right size. I'm not the right shape. And I'll tell you, not many people know this about me. But when I started, I thought 100%, I'm not the right size, not the right shape. Because when I started Yoga, the primary people who were doing Yoga were not women, they were tall, skinny men. And I am not a tall, skinny man. And my thighs are not the smallest part of my body. And most of the people were doing Yoga when I started had like, these thick thighs, and I couldn't do any of it. Like I couldn't lift my body off the ground. And I just it brought up a lot of, you know, body imagery, self consciousness, or my thighs, too big, all of this sort of stuff. And I think that I didn't realize that someone could even look at my body and think, wow, I want to look like you until I started putting out videos on online. And then there would be comments like Kino, I love your legs. It was the exact part of my body. I thought they didn't fit in and wasn't the right shape and wasn't the right size. And here's this person commenting telling me that what can I do to get legs like yours? And I'm commenting back, I spent my whole life trying to reduce my legs.
Jivana Heyman 00:12:48
Yeah. But I mean, I think it's powerful to to share that because I just I feel like so many, again, I'm mostly speaking to newer Yoga teachers, I think you feel really insecure. And I mean, I know how it was, for me, I'm a shy person. And so for me to even take that to take the seat of teacher really took a lot. It took a lot for me. And it was just not only insecurity about how I looked and what you know, my body, but also just being in that role. And I wonder if, so I appreciate you sharing that, I really do, but I wonder if you have advice for that. For people that are just like taking that step, who love Yoga, they want to share it, they've taken trainings, but maybe they just haven't found a way to just put themselves out there. Like how to how to, I don't know if there's some, you know, impostor syndrome or anxiety or whatever. But it's like, what can what do you say to teachers to encourage them to take that step?
Kino MacGregor 00:13:37
Well I think the big issue of why people are hesitant to kind of put themselves out there, I think is there's many issues for many people. But one of the things that I think a lot of people kind of suffer with is that we were self competitive, we kind of think like, well, if I do it, I need to be the best. And then they're not necessarily competing with someone else. But they just want to really, really succeed. And so that self doubt comes in well, there's not going to be 20 people in my class, but only one person might show up, and it's not going to go well for me. And then they doubt themselves and get into a spiral. So I always go back to what what my teacher said, which is you need one student to be a teacher, that student doesn't need to pay you. And that student doesn't need to be a stranger, which means like, you can rope in your family and your friends and just start sharing. If you're enthusiastic and passionate, it'll then people around you will start asking you so you don't need to teach in a formal and official way. If you're truly enthusiastic, just find one person that you can start sharing it with. And then even if you're not officially sharing, if you just practice together, and then they'll ask you for advice. Do you think of doing this pose, right? Maybe you could help me with that, I feel like my balance isn't good, then you'll start helping them. And it'll be more of a relationship of equals, rather than you needing to assume this kind of like pedestal of perfection, where you'll need to like have 50 people in your class all of a sudden and know all the Sanskrit names. It's a process and an evolution. And from wherever you are, you just need one student, whether that student is a friend or family member, or whether that's the one student who came to your community class or your donation class. And then and then I think that that if you hold on to that, and understand that it's about service, not about what am I getting from this. You're serving Yoga by giving back what you've gotten from Yoga, you're finding if you're feeling the need to teach, it's a service it's not, you know, you don't teach make the decision to teach Yoga because, you know, while I think this is a career path. Yes, we can make a sustainable livelihood out of it, but that in initial impetus has to come from your love of the practice, you need to want to live, breathe, and dream Yoga, and you want it to be your life. And if you want that, then then teaching will naturally unfold in that one student will turn into two, two will turn into 20, 20 may turn into 50. And over 10,15, 20 years, you'll start to really develop your teaching style.
Jivana Heyman 00:16:02
No, I had that experience for sure. I remember classes where no one would show up or one person or two people and you just teach anyway, you know, it's like, great, what are we can do the practice, like, you just have to show up? You know? What were you gonna say?
Kino MacGregor 00:16:17
Me too!
Jivana Heyman 00:16:18
You too. Yeah, that's hard to believe. But I believe you.
Kino MacGregor 00:16:22
So when we first opened Miami Life Center, about 18 years ago, I contacted all my non Yoga friends, because I'm from Miami. And so I have all these, like friends that are leftover from various aspects of my life that have nothing to do with Yoga. And I roped them all into coming to class, when they come to class, come to class, come to class, come to class. And there was one class that there were only one student and it was my friends from like, you know, from another time period. And, you know, she did a little bit of the asanas. And then she did like a few sound salutations. And then she started to sweat profusely, and it was just really like, she and then she stood up and she did I think like five sun salutation A and three sun salutation B. And then I'm like, Okay, let's do some standing poses. And then she looked up at me. And she said, you know, wouldn't you? Isn't it better if we just go get something to eat together? And this is my friend. So I was like, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, let's just go for coffee, I think. Yeah, that sounds great.
Jivana Heyman 00:17:19
Yeah, that does happen, too. I mean, I definitely just hang out sometimes people but but yeah, I think that said, it's like, I think what I hear what I hear you, you're saying, and I feel it, too, is just like, if you love it, you'll commit to it. And it's service, which means you just show up, and you don't have an expectation of what you're getting back. You're just there because you want to share Yoga with someone. And hopefully someone shows up, you know, to talk to you or practice with you, or take your class. So I think that's awesome. I just wondered if you could talk about well, can we talk about your new book? Is that okay, can we talk about? Well, maybe you could just tell us a bit about it, I just wanted to know because it feels so connected to this, to Accessible Yoga.
Kino MacGregor 00:18:04
So, first of all, you were the inspiration for the new book and all of your pioneering work in accessibility. My mom is also the inspiration for the book because my mom really wanted to, at some moment after my father passed away, she really wanted to kind of develop the foundations of some sort of spiritual practice. And she has two total knee replacements. And so this is a clear case where there's no amount of hip opening or stretching, she's never going into lotus position, she's never going to do a jump back or jump through. Like it's just not accessible for her period and story. Nor should it be these are she poses her knee more than 90 degrees, she's gonna go back and get another operation, like no. So between your pioneering work and also just the the reality of wanting to share the practice with my mom, I started to work on adapting the poses and asanas of the Ashtanga Yoga method so that people could who want it to show up and do the work and have the tools to do the work of the practice. My foundational principle is that the work of the practice is defined by tapas, you know that we that we come to the mat, we come to the practice, and there's some element of purification, some element of challenge, and that it's up to the teacher and the student to find out what that challenge is. And I wanted to create this book, because there are so many Ashtanga teachers that think that adaptations are taboo. And then if they're willing to adapt the asanas, then they are, they don't, they don't have the tools of how to adapt the asanas. So I wanted to create this book in order to give them the tools so that they could do that. And I wanted to empower the students so that they can have greater agency and their own practice. But more than anything else, I wanted to create the sort of bridge to make this lineage based practice truly accessible in our contemporary era so that more people can take benefit from it.
Jivana Heyman 00:19:51
Right, exactly. I love that. I appreciate that. I'm glad that I'm glad you're focusing on that work. And I also, I mean, before we started recording, I was saying it, to me some accessibility makes is a much more challenging thing for a Yoga teacher to do then repeating like a traditional series with students who can kind of perform all the poses. So to me that being an accessible Yoga teacher means that you're able to serve whoever's in front of you. And that takes a lot of skill. And so sometimes I feel like I'm, I'm taking people, often newer teachers and like, kind of giving them like a master's degree in Yoga right away, you know, and I'm saying like, you have to do it all because I'll have a group where everyone's doing something different in the same room. Right, and you have to be able to do that. Yeah.
Kino MacGregor 00:20:34
I mean, that's the Ashtanga method everyone's supposed to be doing something different in the room. And this is also why, you know why I think Ashtanga can truly be adapted because we're all this was this was the essence of the lineage from the beginning. This is the idea that here's a series of poses. And this is something that you work on together with your teacher that's adapted for your body. So this is kind of like how the original method was taught. And then as we kind of created, you know, a system and a rigidity and a dogma around it, then we created these rules that were never there. In the first place. I used to watch Pattabhi Jois teach the, like groups of of all different types of students. And, you know, it didn't look like this rigid dogma that Ashtanga Yoga is known as, and to see him teach, some people would not get up from the floor. Some people, you know, would do some different series of asanas. And some people would highly adapt some of the asanas that maybe you couldn't recognize them. And so that was really, really insightful to see. And unfortunately, that's something as you mentioned, that almost needs to be done on a smaller scale, rather than on a large scale. So when suddenly is 400 students, then things need to be more systematized. And so I feel that that systematization, has kind of left the adaptability of the practice kind of in the past. And sometimes I regret how much knowledge my teacher kind of carried with him when he passed away. And I mean, I'm grateful to receive what I've received. And I hope that that spark and spirit of you know, his commitment to really show up and meet the student where they are, is carried through in kind of the this this new work on accessibility and adaptability that is happening within the Ashtanga community. It's not just me, there's so many voices of inclusivity within the Ashtanga community that I also include in this upcoming book, including Shana Small, who does a lot of work in accessibility and teaches in the Charlotte area.
Jivana Heyman 00:20:54
One of my contributors to the book, actually.
Kino MacGregor 00:22:11
Oh, wonderful.Yeah, yeah, exactly. She wrote the foreword to the book.
Jivana Heyman 00:22:31
Oh, she wrote the forward to your book? Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz she's a contributor to my book, I'm saying too.
Kino MacGregor 00:22:40
Fantastic! She's doing such great work. Wambui, she's amazing. And so she's made a contribution and numerous other people. So it's not just me, it's the Ashtanga community as a whole, I think that is evolving.
Jivana Heyman 00:22:55
That's amazing. And you said something earlier around tapas, I think of trying to, like use the practice to, as purification. I think it's what you're referring to. And I just want to highlight that for a moment. Because I feel like sometimes in the world of Accessible Yoga, we lose a bit of that idea that you can push someone as far as they're comfortably go without being injured or straining. And I think it's almost like, I get frustrated about this, because I feel like people think that Accessible Yoga is always gentle, right, that there was like this gentleness to it. And I think, I don't know, I just love that you brought that in right away when you're talking about adapting practice, because I feel like, that's it. It's like, how do you get someone to really be moving and pushing and doing the most they can do even if they're paralyzed, right? The most they can do without injury.
Kino MacGregor 00:23:46
Absolutely. I agree. 100%, you know, and that, it's like, you know, people think, Oh, it's a chair. It's easy. It's like, no, it's a restorative relaxing class, then you can expect that. But if it's just because you're using a chair doesn't mean that now it's easy for you, like, No, we're doing so Yoga has this tapas element. So how can the teacher meet the student in that way? And maybe that's a good, that's a good note to leave people on so that they can kind of explore what their tapas is, you know, and figure out, you know, where that is for them, whether it's emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, and, you know, I think that I think that the student really plays a big role in finding that for themselves.
Jivana Heyman 00:24:28
All right, well, thanks, Kino, anything else you want to share?
Kino MacGregor 00:24:31
I think I'm good. I just want really grateful for every student that comes to practice with me. And I'm really grateful to leaders in the Yoga world, like yourself that continue to really embrace the authentic heart of Yoga and keep bringing the practice to people.
Jivana Heyman 00:24:46
Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for your time.
Jivana Heyman 00:24:48
(OUTRO) Thanks, again for being here. I really appreciate your support. And I hope you'll consider getting my book, The Teacher's Guide To Accessible Yoga. It's available wherever you buy books. My hope is that the book will provide additional support for you in your teaching journey. For me, I always need to have a community of teachers around me to learn from to inspire me to keep me in check. And I hope we can do that for each other. So thanks again for being here. All right, take care. Bye.
