On and Off Your Mat Yoga Podcast

Do you struggle to speak and shin while you teach? No matter how much training you have as a yoga teacher, public speaking can be very challenging. If you’re not a teacher, some of the skills you learn on the mat can also help you in your next work meeting. We all have spaces where we need to tap into our presence so our message comes through.

For today’s episode, I sat down with Sylvain Hache, Aka Sly for you anglophones out there. He is an ex-chronic stutterer that morphed into an award-winning, international-touring musician who has been interviewed on live TV & Radio in multiple countries, in 2 languages. He has been coaching and training people to ‘’End-Stage Fright & Master Public Speaking, Anywhere From a Zoom Call to Carnegie Hall’’ using Rockstar Presence Principles that he distilled from over 500 shows in 35 cities around the world. Since he’s also a yogi, I wanted to sit down with him and talk about public speaking for yoga teachers.

Listen to the full episode here:

If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast anywhere you listen. Find out how here.

We just transitioned our Premium Membership to this new platform: www.withribbon.com/u/erikabelanger. As a member, you can get a ton of exclusive audio and video content. We added a new library of almost 200 recorded full-length yoga classes in a Netflix-Style Membership. Finally, you can sign up for any live-stream class I offer! Everything yoga-class-related is now in the same place! If you’re new to With Ribbon, here’s a walkthrough video I recorded to help you find your way around.

Know that as you become a Premium Member, your contribution ripples to thousands of people every week, allowing me to offer accessible quality free content to a wide community of yogis. This podcast is one of the away I contribute to the community, and this membership is a way you can too. It allows you to share everything yoga offers with the world by supporting me in the creation and production of this podcast while I choose to keep it ad-free. 

I’ll be leading an Eco-Luxury Yoga Retreat in Mexico, in November 2021. I heard you, you’ve been craving to immerse yourself in yoga, nature, and community again so you can feel renewed and re-enliven. Many of us are suffering from zoom fatigue. So I’m offering you to hit the beach and the reset button so you can let go of this last year. You’ll find all the info for that retreat at erikabelanger.com/yoga-retreat-mexico.

In parallel, I have launched a Go-Fund-Me campaign. I know yoga retreats are an investment and I know how hard the last year has been. Yoga retreats were in my personal growth, so I wanted to give back. I’m raising money while investing alongside the community to make the experience of a yoga retreat available to students who wouldn’t be able to participate otherwise. If you’re able to donate anything you could transform someone’s life. And if you’re in need you can apply for the scholarship. And either way, I’d love for you to share it with the people you love and on social media. That’s a simple way you can directly impact others’ lives in a positive way. Find the Go-Fund-Me Campaign here.

We are at episode 95, so getting close to our 100th episode. For the occasion, we have an incredible bundle of gifts for you! From yoga props to clothes, to classes, and so much more. We have joined forces with brands we love to celebrate the occasion: Athleta, Liform, Ajna WellBeing, Yoga Tune Up, Sprits Wellness London, and some guests from older episodes for some books, including Jason Nemer from our episode on Acro-Yoga. To participate in our giveaway you have to vote for your favorite episode and you can do so here.

Every episode until then, I’ll present to you one of our sponsors. We are starting today with one that has supported me as a yoga teacher for a very long time and this podcast right from the beginning: It’s the clothing brand Athleta. They make yoga and fitness clothes, athleisure and so much more. Their mission is to ignite a community of active, healthy, confident women and girls who empower each other to reach their limitless potential. Instead of using fitness models, they have diverse women athletes of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds in their ad campaigns. They are a B Corp focused on fair trade practices, sustainable materials, and production. So Athleta has generously offered to give a $100 gift card for our giveaway.

1- You don't need to know everything. You just need to be a few steps ahead of your students. Don't think your teaching to yourself or other teachers, remember that most of your student just need self-awareness, to get into the present moment, to relax, to quiet down their minds. Things that are a given for you, where you are in your journey are new to a lot of other people. Get in a value-giving mindset. Be there to give. It will take some of the pressure off.

2- Saying you're nervous can be helpful. It takes away the power behind the uncomfortable emotion. That way, you don't have to fake anything. It might help you connect on an authentic level with your students. You can also try a technique called image streaming.

3- Don't speak about things you haven't emotionally processed properly yet.

4- You need to also distinguish between a real mistake that holds consequences and something consequence less like a slip of the tongue. When you do such a mistake, you can point it out, laugh it off and keep going. Oftentimes, other people didn't even notice. When it's something really big, you might need to stop, officially correct what you said, and potentially apologize.

5- You can't 100% trust your own heightened judgment of what is happening in real-time. A way to prevent making too many mistakes or getting too much in your head about the perceived mistake you're making is to stay anchored in the present.

• What is public speaking and why is it something we should care about as yoga teachers even if it's not really covered in TT?
• How do we become less self-conscious? Get rid of self-doubt or our unconscious patterns that get in the way?
• How do we embody authority or power, presence, and aliveness?
• What do you think about announcing to your class that you are nervous?
• What can we do when we forget what we were saying or make a mistake to keep our composure?
• How can we use our own yoga practice to set our internal presence in a way that reflects an external presence of calm and leadership?

Sylvain Hache aka Sly is an ex-chronic stutterer that morphed into an award-winning, international-touring musician who has been interviewed on live TV & Radio in multiple countries, in 2 languages.

He has been coaching and training people since the age of 16 and now helps you ‘’End-Stage Fright & Master Public Speaking, Anywhere From a Zoom Call to Carnegie Hall’’ using Rockstar Presence Principles he distilled from over 500 shows in 35 cities and 5 countries on 2 continents.

His website: www.RockstarPresenceSecrets.com

''The Imposter Syndrome Crusher Course''