Last week, I put on my big girl high-waisted yoga flares and asked you for feedback on Nin Yoga.

(also, don't ever look up GIFS for yoga pants; they are much more sinister than I was expecting )

Many of your responses to our feedback form were soothing to the soul, offering us valuable insights, suggestions, and even a few laughs.

However, as I delved into this feedback, I grappled with what Brene Brown famously once called a "vulnerability hangover."

"It's the feeling that sweeps over us after we feel the need to connect and share something deeply meaningful. Minutes, hours, or days later, we begin to feel regret sweep over us like a warm wave of nausea."

I hadn't asked for feedback in ages, and I realized that I was possibly avoiding this feeling; it took me a solid moment to sit with myself after reading both good and not-so-good feedback to acknowledge this.

And when we receive less-than-good feedback, the easy option is...

Fun Fact:

Nin Yoga is a yoga studio.

Yoga studios are businesses.

And for a business to do better and be better in this world, we need to listen to those we are trying their best to serve in the first place.

YOU.

And what better way to find out what you think of us than with the classic online feedback form?

Unfortunately, I'm not creative enough to make it sound even remotely exciting.

I can, however, promise you we will do something exciting with the information 

Anyone is welcome to fill in this form.

New, old, or current students.

We would really appreciate it and I personally promise to read every single reply. If we notice trends, we will even start to pivot accordingly.

Change is the essence of life. We need to be open to receiving feedback, for it is through gentle adjustments and shifts that we find balance and growth in this yoga studio, in this yoga practice, and...

One morning
we will wake up
and forget to build
that wall we’ve been building,
the one between us
the one we’ve been building
for years, perhaps
out of some sense
of right and boundary,
perhaps out of habit.
 
One morning
we will wake up
and let our empty hands
hang empty at our sides.
Perhaps they will rise,
as empty things
sometimes do
when blown
by the wind.
Perhaps they simply
will not remember
how to grasp, how to rage.
 
We will wake up
that morning
and we will have
misplaced all our theories
about why and how
and who did what
to whom, we will have mislaid
all our timelines
of when and plans of what
and we will not scramble
to write the plans and theories anew.
 
On that morning,
not much else
will have changed.
Whatever is blooming
will still be in bloom.
Whatever is wilting
will wilt. There will be fields
to plow and trains
to load and children
to feed and work to do.
And in every moment,
in every action, we will
feel the urge to say thank you,
we will follow the urge to bow.

- Rosemerry...

Yoga sometimes gets compared to Pilates.

And Annika we would know. We answer calls about it allllll the time asking to explain the difference (also, literally x5 reformer pilates studios opened up in the area January this year, so I am feeling the refreshed hype around it too!)

I understand the confusion. Both yoga and pilates are low-impact exercises that can be done with minimal equipment (even zero in a lot of cases) and very little, if no guidance at all (that is, if you are self disciplined enough to think of a balanced yoga or pilates class plan off the top of your head).

In 2016, I also compared the two. I was teaching aerial arts for a couple of years and noticed students were getting a whole bunch of injuries and were just, like, not really stretching or doing any recovery (that included me btw!)

I picked yoga over pilates because doing yoga involved learning about its mother land, India, and I've always been drawn...

I can be a total imposter sometimes.

I know that I have talked about the benefits of staying focused a lot in this newsletter, but trust me, it's more often than not a reminder to myself.

I want to do everything. There is just so much coolness out there. This shows on our schedule too (anyone else wants to do YOGA and BARRE, and PILATES and AERIAL all within the same walls ?).

The same goes for books. I've just counted in my head that I am in the middle of reading four at the moment (two of them for a 2nd time which are both on business, another one on the holocaust, and then this one, which is the only one I have actually gone for this past week as I am enjoying it much more than I expected and have been actioning every chapter as I read them, sorry to anyone who lives with me).

I started teaching daytime yoga classes a couple of weeks ago, and the process of writing class plans usually comes from...

One thing we love doing is sharing them Nin Yoga vibezzzzzz (added "Zzzz" for extra coolness). 

We encapsulated a session from last week's Yoga & Wellness Festival for you, which was the 30-minute Intro to Meditation with Karen Gruber.

This was the only class I got to do on the day (the not-so-fun perk of putting together a festival is the very little festival-ing you actually do some show time) and it brought me back down to earth better than any turmeric and ginger latte ever could.

I hadn't done a group meditation in a while either.

I know right "but arnt you like a yoga teacher Annika and don't you get up at 3:45 am every day with the birds and crickets to wake up alongside them ?" (actual suggestion from Yoga Teacher Trainer Gaurav Malik when he was teaching pranayama to our teacher training group btw).

Sorry, but like you, and like what feels like every single person on this...

You know that feeling of discomfort in the comfort?

I put on my get shit done outfit while it was still dark out (Doc Martens and my bright orange Suk Workwear pants) and headed into the Western Sydney Conference Centre, for my first (but hopefully not last) Yoga & Wellness Festival. 

Disclaimer: I didn't organise the whole thing, gosh no way, massive collaborative effort from lots of people involved, and I was lucky enough to be co-organisers with Hayley from Embodied Breathwork who had already hosted it successfully for the first time the year before.

By 8:30am the vendors had bumped in and set up (thankful for those who showered me with kindness as I continued to realise that you can measure something 3 times and still be totally confused as why the table doesn't fit) and it was time for doors.

Now our guests rolled on in. A few hundred of them 

They breathed in deep,...

Hey There Lovely Friends,

Let's not so randomly chat about sitting with what would usually be considered less desirable emotions.

I remember many moons ago inspecting a house I had purchased a few years prior because I wanted to move back in.

• Of course, this house was purchased in 2008, when it was actually possible with six months of savings and a smile.

(finally, a reason to share this cartoon I adore ).

I saw the state of the bedroom. The whole room was FULL of beds. Literally, a queen bed, a single bed next to it and another single at the bottom placed longways.

I went straight into "Annika in her early twenties judgment mode. " How ridiculous for a family to put all the beds together in one room. You cannot physically open the door to the en suite.

I obviously didn't understand the concept of having dependants at the time.

Fast-forward over a decade, and here I am, moving another bed into the main bedroom so four humans can...

How's it hanging?

Over the weekend, I got a little bit unintentionally dramatic.

Many of the Nin Yoga teachers and I went out for dinner for Indian food (Masala Kitchen at Neapean River because we are fancy and sometimes we like gin). 

It was Saturday night, and if you had found some of us over a decade ago, we would probably have located some sort of a dance floor. Instead, we hunted down some hot chai at 8 p.m. (harder than you think) and found a solid spot to sit next to at the river.

For nine of us, that's the floor #standardyogateacherthings

After removing a massive splinter from the knee and spilling chai on my favorite skirt, we did what any gathering of yoga teachers would do.

A sharing circle.

Just speaking for myself, small talk can be tricky...

Talking about feelings, however? Bring it on.

It was simple. Share something you are grateful for from 2023 and your intention for 2024.

...

Hey hey Friends,

I sit here in the St Mary's studio reception, staring at the blinking cursor, wondering... oh gosh, what the freak am I going to write about this week?

I'll let you in on a little secret... this happens every week (also often happens before I write any class plan!)

I dwell on the subject over the weekend but seem always to be writing this thing at the last minute.

Looking around for inspiration, I start answering emails (not so inspiring), which then remind me to reply to our Google reviews.

We got a bunch last week (thank you, you know who you are!), even though I got the notification to reply immediately. I didn't.

So, I'll let you in on another little secret... I find compliments really uncomfortable.

My partner knows this too. He compliments me all the time cause he's lame and I guess cute like that, and I never know what to say back. I just look at him with a blank and awkward stare like he got some Nori stuck in...