Ep 35: Yoga Unfolding: Embracing Growth as a Practitioner & Teacher

Evolving as a yoga student and teacher involves curiosity, somatic exploration and the desire for continuous learning, self-discovery and growth both on and off the mat.

  When I first stepped onto the mat under Terry Cockburn's guidance, I couldn't have predicted the transformation that awaited me and how profoundly her knowledge and teaching would influence my own personal practice and teaching style. 

  Together we unravel the journey of yoga beyond just postures, sharing insights into its impact on personal growth.
Terry and I  discuss: 

• the difference between functional alignment (adapting poses to suit each individual body) vs. aesthetic alignment (visually perfect pose),
• the essence of a nurturing yoga practice,  
• creating an embodied practice - developing a deep awareness and a connection to the body,  the hurdles we’ve had to overcome as teachers, especially during the pandemic, and importance of keeping an open line of communication with students and guiding them toward health and progression in their yoga practice.  
• a shared love of Qigong and how incorporating it into your practice supports a healthy cultivation of energy.

 Through our shared experiences, we aim to inspire and support you in creating a daily practice, enriched by education and community.

Terry's journey from learning yoga to becoming a teacher, trainer, studio owner and a creative energy behind the River Bird Sangha and school, reminds us of the power yoga has that shapes, not only our bodies, but our life’s direction. For thirty years, she has worked in the fitness and yoga industry as a trainer to individuals, teams and yoga schools and owned a vibrant community-based yoga studio, before pivoting to teaching online full-time with her  and partner Josh Summers. 

Links:
Riverbird Sangha Website                 
Instagram
Everyday Sublime Podcast

Mentions:
John Munro www.longwhitecloudqigong.com
Laurel Beversdorf  https://laurelbeversdorf.com
Ken Cohen's Book https://www.qigonghealing.com
Paul & Suzee Grilley

Transcript

Rose Wippich: 0:03

Welcome to Chat Off the Mat, the podcast that explores the transformative journey of healing and self-discovery where energy, spirituality, mind and body intersect. Hi, I'm your host, Rose Wippich, and I invite you to join me and explore ways to invite more holistic practices into your life. I will feature experts and practitioners who provide insights, tips and practical advice. From Reiki to Qigong, Chakra balancing to Shamanism, this podcast will be your guide to understanding how these practices can lead to more harmony and greater energy. Whether you're seeking stress relief, emotional balance or a deeper connection to your authentic self, chat Off the Mat. Provide you with insights and inspiration. Let's start discovering the possibilities that lie within you. Welcome to Chat Off the Mat. This is Rose, and I am so excited to have on the show today my teacher and also my friend, Terry Cockburn. Welcome, Terry.

Terry Cockburn: 1:22

Thank you.

Rose Wippich: 1:24

I just want to say, terry, I've known Terry for a while. We've never met in person, but it all began several years ago when I took a training class with Terry and her partner, Josh, who we're going to talk a lot about their school, and we just are like kindred spirits. I I say sometimes we're like, we're like Not. ot only do we have a love for orange right, we love orange but we also have two boys around the same age and, um, yeah, so we've, uh, we've become friends along the way and I'm really excited that you're here today with with uh, with me, terry thank you.

Terry Cockburn: 2:03

I'm honored and thrilled to receive your invitation to come on the show.

Rose Wippich: 2:12

One of the reasons why I've asked her to be here is because I feel that her style of teaching and her story has inspired me to just become a better teacher overall. But I know my audience and I know that there's a lot of people out there that maybe they want to try something different or new or are inspired to hear about my guest stories and how they've evolved or how they've transitioned from one stage of their life to another. So I'm going to ask Terry, like I ask a lot of my my guests, if you can share with me or us your personal journey. You know how you became a yoga instructor and even when you were a studio owner, and what inspired you especially to become a teacher.

Terry Cockburn: 2:58

Hmm, I thought of the thought of this question. I I've always been athletic and involved in moving my body in a variety of ways and I played sports when I was in high school and beyond high school and I fell right into the gym culture right after high school and even in that gym culture I got pulled into subbing step aerobics classes, step aerobics classes and spinning classes. So just my participation of taking those classes and being a regular at the at the gym it fell. It led into this little side gig of leading group fitness. So I started in leading group fitness and that kind of propelled me towards personal training. So I got into personal training and working with clients individually and I didn't even come even discover yoga until a friend of mine got into it through some VHS tapes back in the day.

Rose Wippich: 4:14

VHS tapes wow. I'll have to put a link and explain what those are, maybe not to everybody, but I know.

Terry Cockburn: 4:21

So I started doing the. Bryan Best, a trio of his power yoga tapes and that was in connection with my, my workouts, my weight training and and and gym type activities. I was also playing at the time. I was playing some extra soccer, like adult league soccer, and the. I love the videos. I thought they were great. I thought the some of his language was a little weird and I didn't understand the Sanskrit and but I loved how I felt.

Terry Cockburn: 4:54

And when I started doing those I was incorporating some of the yoga movements in my group fitness classes. So step aerobics with a little bit of yoga, and instantly people were drawn to it. No one was teaching yoga at this time. I think this was maybe in '97, '98. And my little gym in Brunswick Maine was, you know, just the place where I cut my teeth, I think, in leading some yoga poses to the general public and I continued on with the gym culture and the group exercise culture and it was, I think, in 2003, no 2004,. I went, maybe 2005. I went to a real yoga class with a friend of mine and let me back up by saying when I was pregnant. So I was pregnant.

Rose Wippich: 5:55

I was going to say you were.

Terry Cockburn: 5:58

I had two pregnancies. My kids are um, I didn't have them both at the same time, like you did by 18 months, so they're 18 months apart. So I had back-to-back pregnancies essentially, and during both pregnancies I did a VHS tape of it was that had two prenatal videos and one video brought you through all three trimesters. So it had I don't even remember the name, but it was three women who were in different stages in each, each trimester, so they were showing the variations of the routine and the and the poses. I followed that pretty religiously through both pregnancies and I continued to lift weights and walk a lot and just do what I could do with my time and expanding. Yeah, so that was my. That's really what I did for years. I did VHS tapes. And then in around 2004 or five, my very good friend brought me to a yoga studio. It was an Anusara based studio that she went to regularly and there was a certain instructor that she that she loved. I went to the class and I was blown away by the duration. It was a 90-minute practice. There was breath work. Again, there was all the funky Sanskrit terminology I had no idea it was about and it was lying there in Shavasana, where I felt every cell just vibrating and I thought I have never felt this way before ever and I became instantly hooked and it made me um again.

Terry Cockburn: 7:56

There was, no, there wasn't a lot in in my area. So living in um in the Southern area of Maine not uh about, I'm about we're about an hour plus from the New Hampshire border, so Freeport area, portland, the largest city, about 40 minutes from where we live, that was the Mecca, you could say, for yoga and there were maybe three or four studios there, but then there was maybe one that was an hour away, an hour North, but there really was very. Our options were limited so I threw myself into yoga. I went to my husband, worked, I stayed at home with our young children they were, they were very little at that point and he would three days a week. He would come home. I would basically high five him in the driveway and I would, and I just bounced around among the few studios that um that were available and I I just went into all styles um that that I could, that I could do, and then I found a. There was a studio closer to me in Brunswick. It was a Kripalu based studio and I loved the the Monday class with Jen she's the owner, still the owner and that was the um, the vigorous, uh style power yoga, our power type stuff. Yeah, still Kripalu based, but it was still strong enough where I was excited about, about the physical work we were doing.

Terry Cockburn: 9:38

And then I basically committed to throwing myself into a yoga practice only for a year and I said I'm curious if I only do yoga and I don't lift weights and I don't do step aerobics, and I was getting a little bored with some of that type of working out anyway and that, okay, I love this so much, what if I just did yoga for a year? What would that be like? And I and I would run intermittently around that time. So I committed to yoga only for a full year and I loved how I felt. I loved how I was able to fit it in. I was absorbing every bit of information I could get on the subject of yoga After that year.

Terry Cockburn: 10:27

Get on the subject of yoga After that year. I said okay, I haven't run, I haven't gone for a run at all. Let me see what it's like If I just go for a run right now. I ran three miles effortlessly, no pain, no, anything. So I was again, just, I felt like it was completely um, just I bought in a hundred percent, just in how I felt.

Terry Cockburn: 10:45

So I, from there, I ended up taking a training in North Carolina with Stephanie Keach of Asheville Yoga Center and I think she's still the director and owner and the um, the the head of that that center and I just started teaching. I was given a position at the studio in Brunswick and then I ended up taking a position at a tennis club where, starting with a few classes on the fitness schedule, turned into a specially built studio within the fitness club within the tennis club, I should say and I was able to direct that yoga program. They created a yoga program and allowed me to direct it and I was able to hire teachers and put a schedule together and this was all of. My kids were in preschool and entering into elementary school and then from there, I just felt the calling to open up my own place, my own studio, because I was really craving workshops and input from other teachers and for me to get that I had to travel, I had to go out of state to get any higher education and a big part of my part of my business plan and it's all it was all written down is that I wanted to create a hub for the area to invite teachers from all over so other people can learn in a variety of ways, and I was just hungry for that information.

Terry Cockburn: 12:22

But my lifestyle didn't really allow me to just up and leave every, every weekend with young kids. So that's, that was really my my start in, you know, fitness and group fitness, and then discovering yoga, committing fully to yoga, and now it's sort of kind of full site, full circle, because I'm somewhat back into, you know, into the, I want to say, weight training, strength training, fitness, functional fitness, but with the yoga mindset and principles mixed in with that. So it's a bit of a mixture now.

Rose Wippich: 12:58

So I'm hearing this story and all I can think about is that you're almost like a pioneer in your area, just starting to. You know, bring in more of the yoga, starting at the tennis center and really allowing yoga to, to, to help yoga grow in your area. Because of this passion that you, you were immediately hooked and um, and I could see you just sitting there with all these books and learning so much, because I'm the same way and I know how hard you work. So I could just imagine and it must have been a lot of work putting together this hub. You know you just don't go from I don't know, just teaching a couple of classes and then opening up a center. You know there's so much involved and you know you have a very much involved and you know you have a very entrepreneurial spirit about you and I know that because I know watched you you're, you're a creative force behind what you're doing now. So you, you have all that creativity.

Rose Wippich: 13:56

That was great. When I took your training, You focus a lot on more of the functional approach to yoga or functional alignment. So lots of times let me put it in perspective for listeners when we go to yoga studios lots of times people or teachers put you in a pose and they cue you in a pose. They focus more on the shape of the pose, where what I learned from you it's not more of the aesthetic alignment or the shape, but more of the functionality of the pose and how the pose feels in the body, and I wanted you to talk a little bit or how that came about for you, how you were inspired to teach that or you know what changed for you? Did you do more aesthetic alignment, poses or teaching or or classes in the past? And how that all changed for you and how. How important that is for people to really feel things in their body versus how something should look.

Terry Cockburn: 14:56

Yeah. So I think the way it came about was my introduction to yin yoga, which came early on in my yoga journey. So I received my vinyasa certification in 2005 and or no 2006. And then in 2007, um, Josh Summers, my, my partner in crime life um, he, uh, he led a teacher training that I found that he was leading in Boston, and it was again about I'd been teaching for about a year, thirsty for more knowledge, hungry for okay, how can I expand my teaching? I need, I want to be inspired by another teacher.

Terry Cockburn: 15:43

I had no idea what yin yoga was, but that training illuminated the understanding that our bodies are different, our bones are different. I'd never heard that before. So this is back in 2006, 2007, and not many people were aware of this. This is a yin yoga was very new, new, very new. And the next year I did a training with Paul Grilley Paul and Suzee Grilley, because they came to Belfast, maine, which is further up from from where I live. But knowing that he was coming to the area, I was like, oh, I'm definitely going to.

Rose Wippich: 16:25

So they're like the pioneers of yoga, right?

Terry Cockburn: 16:29

Yes, yes, god, Paul really is known as the Godfather of yin yoga, and it was really then. And I was fortunate in that I didn't have this long drawn out story of years of practicing in a specific way on the yoga mat without an understanding of bone variation.

Terry Cockburn: 16:50

So, that came to me really early on, even though I had been taught to teach yoga in a very specific way. But since the moment I understood that bones were different in every single person's experience, I always tried to teach a class with that in mind. So, yeah, that functional approach that Paul really spoke to, that Josh has spoken to, that was really the kind of that inception point and it took years, and I would say it took me a good six to eight years to smooth out my language and my intention as a teacher in how to address students in front of me. Because and I was, I've been co teacher for multiple 200 hour, 300 hour trainings and I always wrestled with the, the inconsistency of what we're doing with our, with our bodies, with with the human body. And you know, I recall certain teachers saying well, you know, in yoga we do it this way, but in another modality we do it this way. And I'm thinking, well, why? Why are we doing it that way? And is it? Is it beneficial, is it healthy? Is it inviting longevity in one's practice? Or are we just trying to, you know, get the body, get everyone's bodies to look a certain way?

Terry Cockburn: 18:23

And I will say to my years in owning a studio for I owned a studio for about nine years before I closed due to the pandemic yeah, the COVID word and but in that time period I had a lot of the same type, same students that were coming. There were students that came regularly throughout those years and just in, in being being someone who's working with people in this setting and seeing what's working for them over time, what's not working for them, are they feeling better? Are they still coming? Are they? Is anything changing in their experience? So I had the you know, the, the lived experience of being able to work with people over longer periods of time to really to, to fine tune this and to ask questions and to play with things I'm going to try this for a while, how's that going to work? And questions and to play with things like, oh, try this for a while, how's that going to work?

Terry Cockburn: 19:26

And you know, there was a level of trust on their part, which I'm incredibly grateful for, because it's the students. You know it's a cliche thing to say like, oh, those students are my greatest teacher, but they are and you know, and if we're having dialogue and you know, and you know, as teachers we care, we care about their experience and we care about their, their health and their longevity and vitality, and so it was helpful. I had it's like I had living subjects throughout my years of figuring out the best way to speak to this type of yoga practice not just a cookie cutter, okay, to this type of yoga practice, not just a cookie cutter. Okay, let's bang out these you know rote sets of cues and movements, instruction, right, right, and try to really massage something into truly a customized practice for people, even though we're all practicing in the same place at the same time, with the general cues being what they are, the actions being what they are, but everyone's finding their way to do it. And yeah, that's kind of where I was lucky.

Rose Wippich: 20:43

It was a game changer for me. I don't remember how I found Josh as my teacher. He was also my teacher. I took the yin yoga module with him up in Boston in person, which was before everything got shut down, and that's when I was hooked with his style of training. And taking the 300-hour teacher training with you and Josh and incorporating that type of teaching approach in my classes has been a game changer, and it was for me too, and I was barely a new teacher at the time as well, and I remember, as a student, being put into poses and pushed and prodded physically.

Rose Wippich: 21:19

You need to do this and you need to have your leg parallel to the top of the mat. When you're in swan pose, on pigeon pose, I'm like, but I can't do that, my knee's going to break. And I was like you know, I felt like inadequate, and and I was I was a teacher and a student at the same time and then you guys came along. I'm like, oh my God, this is the way to do it, this is, this is how everybody should teach, because everybody's body is different. So, yeah, so I teach that way now, and people are still.

Rose Wippich: 21:52

You know, we workshop poses, we stop, we explore the body. I get people, you get people curious right On how to explore movement in their own bodies and how it should feel, which takes me kind of to segue to my next concept or question about being aware of what's happening in the body. So you know, we're teaching right, so we're saying, okay, let's do this and let's explore this and let's explore that, but it's important for people to tune in that whole somatic approach or embodied approach which I know you talk about. Talk about a little bit about how you encourage people to tune into their awareness or what that actually means, so that people out there right now who practice or are listening or practice yoga, can maybe get a little bit more curious about that.

Terry Cockburn: 22:40

That's a great question. It's a great bubble to raise. I think and I would say I used to say this at my studio and my website had a section on how to get started. How do you even get started with yoga? And I always suggested, if you've never taken a class here, start with yin yoga, because yin yoga is on the ground. It is slow, there's a lot of time in the actual poses to give people a longer period of feeling and settling and acquiring that skill of being able to pay attention to what's happening energetically. What are they feeling in the body, as opposed to coming into a vinyasa class first time? You're standing, you're twisting standing, you're balancing, you're looking around, you know you might arrive late and you have to be in the front row and that's creating this whole other energy right ecological.

Terry Cockburn: 23:45

Yeah, stress around like I gotta perform, and so it becomes a performance for the other people on their mats that it does, or you know, within oneself than it does internally. So I think, for people to be able to understand and then my further understanding of somatics and really how to regulate the nervous system, we want to take away as many stressors as possible. So, being as close to the ground as possible, being as internal as possible, maybe closing the eyes or slowly moving into movements with the understanding of, okay, we're going to, let's say, do a forward fold, this is how the spine moves, this is the intention, this is the area we're looking to target In a yin setting or a quieter, more passive setting, close to the ground. I think most students in my experience and working with people, that seems to be the best place to start becoming aware of intention, sensation, energy, of intention, sensation, energy, and it takes away all the other noise, all the other stress of trying to maintain a certain pace or try to align yourself in a certain way. So that's kind of where I would, just kind of how I see that seed being planted and starting to take root, just getting close to the ground, moving the body through its available ranges of motion, moving all the parts the spine moves forward, it moves back, it rotates and it side bends.

Terry Cockburn: 25:39

So teaching someone literally how their body is able to move and making sure that they're staying away from pain and even being able to identify pain. So sometimes people will ignore their pain, like I'm good, I'm fine, and then there are other times any bit of sensation can be alarming. So it's really meeting the person where they're at. Yeah, yeah, slow students down to get them close to the ground, and it doesn't have to be a classic standard yin yoga class, but at least some portion of any practice on the ground slow, connect, set the intention or or, as the teacher, we're bringing the, you know, here's our, here's the intention for this sequence or this class.

Rose Wippich: 26:41

And speaking to that and then gradually building from there yeah, yeah, you know, um, it really almost forces you to internalize your practice because you're you're sitting there with these sensations and you're like, wow, what is that? And and understanding the intensity and that somebody's you. You know, we talk about mild to moderate sensation when we're in yin poses and my mild to moderate sensation may be different than yours, right? So it's really kind of internalizing and not comparing the way maybe some people do in a standard vinyasa class. How come I can't stand on my head that way? How come my body doesn't look that way? Because it does it.

Rose Wippich: 27:21

It's different for everyone and um, so so I and I'm noticing more and more yin classes being offered and more people really understanding and learning and being more comfortable, and it's a great compliment to the more young type exercises and when we say that, we're saying like crossfit training, running, all all that Pilates, not Pilates, but like cycling and all that. So it really helps to create more of that mobility in the body by exploring those ranges of movement. Know, you talk about movement and major motion, and one of the things that you also incorporate in your classes which I've loved to also explore as a teacher more in my students love is the biomechanics part well, a lot of it has come from my own experience with physical therapy.

Terry Cockburn: 28:19

That's. That's really where I'm explaining. Sharing this with someone the other day and I was like you know and I really think about when did I start to bring other this type of modality into my classes? It dawned on me that it was from the things that I learned in physical therapy. I've had an ACL surgery, I've had a replacement. I've had an ACL surgery, I've had a replacement. I've had a reconstruction. I've had ankle surgery. I've had broke my ankle in a variety of places. Just about five years ago I've had broken my wrist. I've had other surgeries. I've had C-section and I didn't have physical therapy after that.

Terry Cockburn: 29:02

But just that is really what got me interested in working with physical therapists that oh, um, this is a. This is kind of like yoga actually, but smarter yoga and I would pull things. I would always have little things in my toolbox say, oh, 2014, maybe that I got even more interested in, uh, the I would say CrossFit. I did CrossFit. I feel like I've done everything, but it's, it was actually through CrossFit that I learned about the functional range conditioning system. Yes, functional range conditioning system is was my, really my, my big entree, you could say, for inviting what they call moving your joints. They call it controlled articular rotations.

Rose Wippich: 30:01

And.

Terry Cockburn: 30:02

I glommed onto that phrase for many years and so that really got me interested in mobilizing the body in all the ways. That meant to within a pain-free, doable range of motion, and teaching people how to move your shoulder, how to move your spine. This is how you move your hip and see, this is how you move it and this is how someone else might move it. Again, the benefit of a studio you know, owning a studio is that a lot of my classes felt like workshops. So like my weekly classes just felt like workshops and we would, you know, I would use my body as an example and someone else would volunteer to use their range of motion as an example. So educating the students there, how see?

Terry Cockburn: 30:48

Everyone's different, but we're all having some experience, which Josh and I would do in trainings anyway. So, yeah, the functional range conditioning was kind of my big opening into teaching yoga with that sort of that sort of mindset of biomechanics and not just, oh well, do bang out five sun sun a's and five sun b's and and this is this is enlightenment when we really think of biomechanically they're so it's not a, it's not a a really a great sequence for a lot of people, me included after a long time, like all those forward folds, all those you know the aggressive yeah, um, so I I stopped teaching sun salutations back in.

Terry Cockburn: 31:41

You know, just classic sun salutations back in, you know just classic sun salutations, I think in 2016, ish or so, and yeah, so I've been kind of evolving and changing the script. You could say around that. As far as other influences, other teachers, oh, I love Laurel Beaversdorf. I hosted her at my studio. She's a she's a teacher. She was in New York city and now she's she's in Alabama.

Terry Cockburn: 32:07

She has a pretty strong online presence and she collaborates with a physical therapist who and they talk about all the things regarding strength and especially for women and that you know women, our age and you know just going through perimenopause and you know going into menopause and and the importance of bone density and strength and being lifting strong, lifting heavy weight and I, and then how that plays out in a you know, in the yoga context, why we want to do yoga, why we want to work with resistance and why we want to work with heavy weights. So I really get a lot of information from her and I have some local friends and colleagues who are physical therapists and body workers, so I'm bouncing a lot of my ideas and running things by through people in that way and, uh, I'm trying to think of um, who else inspires me in that, in that regard. But that's kind of the the start oh the other thing I wanted to say too.

Terry Cockburn: 33:13

Another interest that I had was, um, I got into the primal movement, the animal flow system, and there was just a lot of really fun and playful energy in that type of work and so, combining all of it, I feel like I'm like I've made a quilt in a way, like a kind of a quilt with, you know, yoga training and personal training like my, my, you know, my education with training people how to lift weights safely, how to how to brace the body, how to, you know, hold your body in a way to allow you to lift load, and kind of staying current with the emerging, you know, and constant changing of the science around that. But the animal flow system brought just another level of playfulness into movement that I've also kind of I've been inspired by.

Rose Wippich: 34:17

Yes, you have. I mean, and I have too. You just combine all these practices in a way that is so different and unique yet so impactful. I'm part of your community. I've attended your trainings, your classes. I take what you teach me and I teach others and I share that. I take them from you and people just love it. Yeah, I just want to say if there's any teachers out there yoga teachers, any type of physical teacher or instructor that wants to learn different approaches to teaching their students how to explore movement in their bodies, that they must come and check out your offerings. I'm going to talk more about them, but it's just game changers.

Rose Wippich: 35:11

I mean really you just take the time to learn and to study and I know the books you look at, because I have a lot of the same books and I'm like sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, there's just a lot. But I know really you're very passionate about teaching and educating. You don't just teach, you educate. And that's the difference between you and what I've seen with a lot of teachers you really want it to to, for someone to, to get a concept. I'm like, yeah, that that really makes a difference in my body and, and that's what I love about your style of teaching or educating, I should say Thank you, I wanted to share that with you'm your biggest fan.

Rose Wippich: 35:50

So I I'm gonna say, maybe next to Josh, but I'm gonna say I'm your biggest fan. So we we have to talk about chigang because you know we both love chigang and you know what's funny is that that's why I think we're like sisters. Somehow we have this intuitive connection, because you started dripping in the chigang but the same time I started dripping chagang into my classes without us even, I think, knowing it. So we both love it so much and we both have it in our teaching toolkit. We both studied under john monroe of long white cloud chagang little plug for our john.

Rose Wippich: 36:28

We've also been inspired by other qigong teachers. I know um Mimi Kuo- Deemer, and I'm sure there's other, ken cohen, who we write a book. You love that chicken qigong uh book. It's our, like our, bible. Um, tell, tell, tell me about what inspired you to start to practice Qigong yourself and also introduce it to your students who were there to to do, to do yoga, to do yoga. And all of a sudden you're getting up and you're doing like a different movement. So tell me a little bit about how you started incorporating it and why you think that energy was a good complement to what you were teaching.

Terry Cockburn: 37:12

Hmm, well, I started incorporating it actually the first time in front of live people, when Josh and I were leading a silent retreat in Massachusetts and I had it had been a part of my own personal practice for I think consistently at that point for about a year. I broke I had broken my ankle the previous year and was non weight-bearing for three months and when I was able to have my leg out of a cast and put my foot down on the ground, I started doing Qigong, just sitting down. I followed a sequence online. I had taken a Tai Chi Qigong class led by a friend of a friend at Kripalu and I loved the practice. I loved the practice. I loved the instructor. She was my first teacher, nina Henriksen, who is still doing her thing with her partner, and I loved how strong it was. I loved the movements. I found them really hard because they were choreographed in the Tai Chi sequences. Incredibly, it's much more complicated in certain ways than Qigong is, but she really inspired me and I wanted to learn more. I kind of put it in my back pocket for a while until I was recovering from my ankle injury and I found a sequence or a class that she had reported on Facebook Live and it was a video of her leading a group of students somewhere in Peru and it was a 40-minute sequence. So I did that every day and it was that sequence, doing that every day, where I was able to actually feel a change in my foot. So my foot had been casted, it had been, just it was broken in three places. It was, it was a mess. And finally, when my foot was free and I could just place it on the ground, I was still wasn't a hundred percent weight bearing, but I would sit in a chair and have my foot on the ground in in in my yard and just try to feel like, try to adopt some of the language that she was using and doing all the movements that I could do. And then when I was able to stand and put more gradually, more and more weight on my foot, over the course of a month or two, I was able to more and more weight on my foot over the course of a month or two, I was able to to do the whole routine standing um on my on my own two feet. And it was that routine. And she had a few other smaller routines on her YouTube channel that I just incorporated daily, and it was. I could feel the buzz in my body, I could feel the tingling in my fingers.

Terry Cockburn: 40:13

So fast forward to leading a retreat, a silent meditation retreat, with Josh. One of my roles as co-leader was to lead the yin yoga practice. So we're silent, all the students are silent all day and going from one activity to the other. And when it came down to the yin yoga practice, I felt I took my, inserted my authority there and said you know what? We've been sitting, we've been walking slowly, we've been mindful all day. We need to stand and move the energies. You know, we didn't.

Terry Cockburn: 40:54

I felt like yin yoga was just, it was too much stagnation. We had to move. We had to move. So I started by I can just, I remember it so clearly.

Terry Cockburn: 41:06

I started by saying at the outset I'm like I'm just sharing part of my own practice. I'm not, I'm just sharing part of my own practice. I'm not trained in this. I've, you know, I've, I've, I've done this through, you know, through one teacher, and this is my understanding. And I'm just, this is part of my, my thing, that I'm just sharing with you.

Terry Cockburn: 41:23

And people loved it and I gained a little bit of confidence and how well that was received through that retreat, and started to teach it at my studio in coordination with yin or even um, at the end of a of a of an active class. Okay, let's, let's smooth out the energy. And then in that time period I I did a few privates, uh, nina and I, but I didn't really like go head on into Qigong. I was like I love this and I just don't have the time right now to overly think about it. And then we met, we, we. We met at at the on an online I think the online training, and I was doing the same thing when I was doing just my little drips, little drips, and then you were like, oh, I'm doing kind of the same stuff, and and then you were already signed up or maybe you had already taken the training or you were in the middle of job.

Rose Wippich: 42:23

I was. I had signed up because I wasn't taking it until after your, your, oh right that's you.

Terry Cockburn: 42:30

you took it. You took the, the 200, his 200 hour. First. It was because of you, I ended up signing up for his 200, 200 hour in in 2000, 2021. And I did his 200 hour. It was. It was perfect for me. I loved the on-demand work at your own pace. Each week there's feedback from you, get to work with an instructor, you get to meet with the community and have questions answered, and the layout was perfect. It was everything that I could have asked for that and yeah, so I have you to thank for that, um, for that, and then through, through your recommendation, I think I want to say like in within our, our sangha um, that Josh and I have, I think I want to say like seven or eight people have taken that training, because oh really.

Terry Cockburn: 43:31

Yeah, oh, I've been. I thought that was great, so you started a trend.

Rose Wippich: 43:35

Yeah, I'll have to tell John that. Yeah, it's awesome, I think that's great, I think that's how it goes, that's how it flows, right, I know. Well, I mean, it was because of you, because you put intuitively guided to do, and I love that, and you're like okay, I'm going to try it and people love it because they keep coming back, yeah, and and and. I think that's great and I'm glad you're doing that and I'm glad that I know my intention is to really kind of spread the word about qigong and teach it.

Rose Wippich: 44:04

I've been teaching it more and more and it's a great way to really tune into the energy in your body and just a different way to move and tune in and it's great and it's being people more receptive to it, so so it's a great practice, so it's it's nice to have other Chagong you know, friends to talk to about that. I think this is a good time to talk about this, this school. You know you, you and Josh have a school and you have so many offerings and I want to ask you to talk about it because, I mean, I could read my notes here and I'm a part of your school, your sangha, your community. It talk about your school and your offerings.

Terry Cockburn: 44:58

Sure, we, yes, Josh and I, Josh Summers and I have a school. We started the school, say uh, in 2015 maybe, and it started with um josh leading trainings in yin yoga, a foundations training, and then he expanded into a meditation training and then we ended up collaborating and making a, creating a 200 hour program. So we had four modules, of which included yin yin yoga, meditation, traditional Chinese medicine and energy module, and a yang yoga module. So that was the module that I taught and I would. I would also teach foundations every now and then. I would also teach foundations every now and then, and so we were. He was traveling to Europe and all over and I had the studio and I was traveling maybe five times a year to teach modules all around.

Terry Cockburn: 46:03

And now, where we're at now is that we have expanded our curriculum, so we still have the 200 hour. We have expanded our curriculum, so we still have the 200-hour. The 200-hour track is a everything is on-demand, online, self-paced, and that we have what we call it our foundations module. So it's the basic, the essentials of yin yoga, of meditation and Traditional Chinese Medicine theory. So that's really the content of our foundations track, and now we are expanding into a second track, as we expanded our curriculum and we have five modules. They're all 20 hours, so this is a 100 hour track and this is on really the energy of, and really chi cultivation is what we're calling it. So each module has a specific theme and the upcoming. We have a module called purifying water and that is what we're calling the flow of qi cultivation, and by flow we mean flowing within in a more yang way. So it's not so much a yin yoga training, this is a course on mobility, stability and flow. And how do we do that? We're primarily focusing on the spine. The next module, the second part of this one, will be it's our wood module and that will be coming in later in the spring and that's going to be the actions and the more young movements of developing strength and we look more intimately at the hips and the legs, so the pelvis and the legs, so think warriors and dragons and things like that. So that's our school, that's our curriculum.

Terry Cockburn: 48:05

So if anyone wanted to learn from us and the modules are a great way for even a beginner, someone who has no interest in teaching. It's a great way for someone to understand what are really. It's a deep dive into the theory of what it is we do. It's not necessary to take a training or a longer course. We have shorter workshops, we have shorter courses on our site, but what we really encourage is participation in our practice Sangha, because that is what we are.

Terry Cockburn: 48:40

We're really emphasizing practice. Like, how many times, how many trainings have all of us if we're, if we're yoga teachers? We've done a boatload of trainings. Do we remember half the stuff? So we're really emphasizing practice and in having a membership to our Sangha, you have access to participate live if it works for your time zone and your schedule. So we have four classes a week. We have a meditation offering, a yin yoga offering, a yang yoga offering and a qigong offering and we have more people attend via the recordings. Not everyone can meet with us live at 7 am Eastern Standard Time, which we completely understand. We also have a monthly two-hour practice, so anyone who's ever done a training with us or any Sangha member can attend that monthly practice and that's a great way to have questions answered and just to get more face time with us. We really try to be available for people. People send us emails or they'll message us in ways that we try to address questions publicly as much as we can, and that is we're finding.

Terry Cockburn: 49:59

Over the last three years we developed the Sangha when we just we changed everything because of the pandemic and join forces in this way. So our community is about just over three years old and it's just been this ongoing, slow movement towards just regular, consistent practice. And in the background, josh and I are also putting out the trainings, the courses, the curriculum around the deeper theory, should anyone want that, but we are. You know it is. I've always felt this. I've always felt strongly about this when I, even when I had a studio and I managed teachers, I had at any given time between 13 and 16 teachers on my staff and I tried to emphasize practice.

Terry Cockburn: 50:57

And practice is practice with yourself. You know. Your practice isn't showing up at a studio three times a week at a certain time. That's not that's taking, that's getting information, that's that's learning, but what's your own practice like. So Josh and I really try to emphasize that, the importance of that. And I know how I feel as a teacher when I'm not practicing and I don't feel like I'm showing up as well as I can and I don't feel integrated in what I'm doing, but when I stick to my daily practice and I am doing something, and it doesn't have to look a certain way. It doesn't have to include all the components that an ideal practice could have, but it's showing up for myself in whatever way that is. That is really what we're trying to impart with our, our community, so that's our. Yeah, that's lovely.

Rose Wippich: 51:51

That's great, and I think that this is a nice way to wrap it up, because I could feel the passion about what you offer, what you just offer, and I know that my listeners, or our listeners here, are feeling that too, and, and I'm sure you've inspired many people to think about at least what their practice is. And, returning to that, and I really hope that people out there will go and see what you and Josh have to offer. And I've seen it grown. I've seen the community grow, and both you and Josh also. It is just a beautiful environment and I'm proud of both of you as well and I'm really, really happy to be a part of it. So thank you, yeah, and, and you also started to do, or or work with with Josh. He has a podcast everyday sublime and you're starting to do cheat chats along with him, so you're a podcaster as well, which is awesome I just show up, he does all the work for it yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, you don't just show up.

Rose Wippich: 52:59

You, you do so much and you both do, and and I'm just very grateful for both of you and I I'm very grateful that you took the time to be here with me and chat off the mat. So thank you, terry, thank you, rose.

Terry Cockburn: 53:14

I'm grateful for you as well. You've, yeah, a sister on the path, and I thank you for all that you've opened me up to, and I look forward to our continued journey together.

Rose Wippich: 53:28

Me too. Thank you for joining me here on Chat Off the Mat. I hope these stories have inspired you. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with those who might benefit. Your support helps me spread awareness about the power of transformative healing. Stay connected with me on social media. Reach out with your own healing stories or topics you'd like me to explore in future episodes. Your voice is an essential part of this community. I hope that your healing journey is filled with self-discovery, curiosity, resilience and the unwavering belief in the power that resides within you. Until next time, I'm Rose Wippich, wishing you a journey filled with love, laughter and endless possibilities.