381: Making Yoga More Inclusive with Billie Smith

The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast

381: Making Yoga More Inclusive with Billie Smith

 

Description:

How can we make yoga more inclusive? How do we make movement more accessible by adopting a different approach to yoga poses instead of a one-size-fits-all approach? What does it mean to teach in an anti-diet, queer-affirming way? Billie Smith shares their insights.

 

Billie is a queer yoga/movement teacher, trauma/abuse/ED survivor who is disrupting the norm and going against the grain. They are dedicated to eliminating diet-culture, spiritual-bypassing and other excluding narratives from the yoga spaces they create, and helping their students learn to check in with how they feel instead of how they look. Through group classes, one-on-one sessions, and workshops, Billie leads with an open heart and strives to hold safe, inclusive space for folks seeking to move their bodies for emotional health, increase mobility and strength, and feel good in their body for longer.

 

In this episode, Billie shares how they ended up doing work to combat diet culture messages and how they help people start checking in and listening to their bodies. They also share deep insights about letting go of control as teachers and how we can better empower our students to make the decisions that are best for them and their bodies in the moment. Billie also shares some tips on how we can create more inclusive yoga spaces and reflects on how social justice ties in with yoga. 

 

Key Takeaways:

[0:07] Shannon briefly shares why she is so excited about this podcast!

[3:53] Shannon gives a shout-out to the sponsors, OfferingTree and Shannon's 20-hour Yoga for Pelvic Health Training.

[6:02] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode - Billie Smith.

[12:59] What does Billie do and who do they do it for?

[16:27] What led Billie to start on this journey of making sure their yoga spaces are inclusive and against diet culture?

[21:33] Shannon and Billie discuss the common perception in yoga classes that the teacher knows the student's body better than they do.

[24:12] One thing we can do as teachers is really reflect on what is the goal of each pose, and consider how else we can achieve the same benefits without the pose having to look a certain way.

[26:49] Why is it such a gift when a student approaches a teacher thinking that the teacher knows more, but the teacher uses the opportunity to invite the student into a moment of self-inquiry?

[30:49] Sometimes, we may have trouble letting go of control of what our students should be doing in our classes. What is Billie's advice to the teacher who may feel upset that a student is not following their lead?

[36:58] Shannon pops in with a message of thanks for OfferingTree.

[39:14] How can we make our classes more inclusive and accessible even if we don't have the lived experience?

[46:48] What are Billie's thoughts that anything to do with social justice is out of our scope of practice as yoga teachers?

[51:19] Get in touch with Billie via their website or check out their podcast, Rebel Movement Podcast.

[54:13] Shannon shares her key takeaways from this episode.

[56:48] What's next on the podcast?

Links:

• Billie Smith, Move with Billie

• Rebel Movement Podcast with Billie Smith

• Billie Smith on Instagram

• Move with Billie - Anti-diet Workshop

• Instagram Post by Billie Smith: 4 Diet culture messages in yoga and movement, and how to reframe them

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 265: Teach LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Yoga with Gabi Parkham

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 199: Creating Inclusive Yoga Spaces Erin Ajayi

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 108: Inclusive Language for Prenatal Yoga with Shannon Crow

• Anti-Oppression, Inclusion and Accessibility in Yoga (Podcasts & Articles) Resource 

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 369: Struggling to Write Content is Normal with Billie Smith

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 307: Taking Diet-Culture Out of Ayurveda with Diane Finlayson 

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 292: Taking Diet Culture out of Yoga with Jessica Grosman & Elyssa Toomey

• Rainbow Registered (Canada)

• Aubrey Gordon - Maintenance PHase

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 284: Beyond Pronouns and Pride Month with Shannon Crow - The Connected Yoga Teacher

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Episode 219: Yoga for Abundant Bodies with Dianne Bondy

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Team

• Shannon Crow on Instagram

• The Connected Yoga Teacher Facebook Group

Gratitude to our Sponsors, OfferingTree, and Yoga for Pelvic Health 20-hr Online Training with Shannon Crow.

 

Quotes from this episode:

"The more I learned, the more I didn't want to go back to teaching in ways that I learned were not feeling very inclusive."

 

"There are so many ways of adjusting how we approach postures that are not blaming the body for things that the body didn't do wrong."

 

"If you think of it more of as an experiment, it's giving the student the power to make the choices about what feels best. It's sending the message that there's nothing wrong with their body. And it's also not a big deal if the posture is not fitting."

 

"The thing that's gonna make the most impact is the actions rather than the words."