Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #23 – Yoga and Pelvic Health – Yoga in Canada with Shannon Crow

Welcome to Episode #23 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! This week, I welcome Shannon Crow onto the show. She is a yoga teacher from Canada. My conversation with Shannon Crow was so informative as we took a deep dive into the world of pelvic health—understanding how it works, what tension we carry there, and about the root chakra. 

We talked about yoga in Canada being vast, but now the yoga scene in Canada is now looking to recenter and to really understand the roots of yoga with more education and ethical awareness. 

We also talked about the niche work and why it’s important for yoga teachers to find their specialities, and also what that looked like for Shannon.If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode all about pelvic health—the science and magic of the human body, then this is the conversation for you.

Curious about yoga in Canada? Readers, read on!

Tell me more about Shannon Crow…

Shannon Crow is the host of The Connected Yoga Teacher podcast and a consultant for yoga teachers. She shares what she has learned (and continues to learn) as a yoga entrepreneur. She became a yoga teacher in 2006 and continues to teach weekly group and private classes in Owen Sound, Ontario, with a specialty in Yoga for Pelvic Health. And she is also the co-founder of the MamaNurture Prenatal Yoga School and she developed the Yoga for Pelvic Health Teacher Training.

What to expect in the Yoga In Canada episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

Shannon Crow is such a phenomenal resource. As a yoga teacher, yoga podcaster, and yoga entrepreneur, I feel like I could have talked to Shannon crow for hours and hours. The focus of our episode was on Shannon’s two professional pillars— pelvic health and niche work for yoga teachers.  

“When we are feeling a lot of stress in our lives, we notice that our shoulders are holding tension or maybe some part in our back, or our jaw, the pelvic floor isn’t something we notice holding tension— but it is!” And a pelvic floor that is holding a lot of tension doesn’t work well. You can’t strengthen your muscles all the time and that’s the answer, or relax the muscles all the time and that’s the answer. The pelvic floor supports our balance, our pelvic organs, our sexual function and so much more. Shannon expands upon the five functions of the pelvic floor in the episode so make sure to tune in!

In terms of niche work for yoga teachers, when Shannon started teaching yoga, she was teaching such a vast array of yoga classes, driving around to so many different studios, and spreading herself so thin that she burnt herself out quickly. Shannon’s thought was, “I just want to share yoga with everyone.” But, as Shannon says, “Being spread thin isn’t effective.” Shannon honed her skills and found her passion for pelvic health. Shannon talked about collaborating with the professional peers around her, directing people to others teachers, and letting go so that she could be of greater service to her community and clients.

We wrapped up our conversation together by talking about yoga in Canada and about what Canada is like as a country. We even talked about the most beloved Canadian treats. Have you tried butter tarts?

For the skimmers – What’s in the Canada episode?

• Stress Response in the Pelvic Floor
• The five functions of the pelvic floor
• Stability, Support, Sexual Function, Sump Pump, Guarding or Protection
• Balance Between Relaxation and Tension
• Why niche work is so important for yoga teachers
• Collaborating with professional peers around you, direct people to others teachers
• Letting go so that you can be of greater service to your community and clients
• Unlearning what you think yoga is 

Thank you so much for tuning in the Yoga in Canada episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast with Shannon Crow.

Favorite Quote From Shannon Crow

“Being spread thin isn’t effective.”

Guides & Resources 

https://pelvichealthprofessionals.com/pelvic-floor-anatomy-function/

Connect with Shannon Crow

https://www.theconnectedyogateacher.com/

https://pelvichealthprofessionals.com/

https://www.facebook.com/watch/connectedyogateacher/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/connectedyogateacher

Want more?

https://wildyogatribe.com/thepodcast/

Everything you need is just one click away! Check out all the resources here: https://linktr.ee/wildyogatribe

JOIN ME FOR LIVE-STREAMED YOGA CLASSES!

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #23 – Yoga and Pelvic Health – Yoga in Canada with Shannon Crow 

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. I’m your host, Lily Allen Duenas. Together we’ll talk about the world of yoga and we’ll talk to people from around the world. Join us for authentic conversations about the global yoga ecosystem and we’ll cover yoga philosophies and methodologies along the way Inhale. [00:00:29] Exhale. We’re about to dive in.

[00:00:35] Namaste family. Welcome back to this episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. I’m so excited that you joined me today and on the show with me is Shannon Crow. She is a yoga teacher from Canada, and she is also the host of the Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast, which is one of my favorite yoga podcasts out there and make sure you check it out.

[00:00:58] And she’s also a consultant [00:01:00] for yoga teachers. She shares what she has learned and continues to learn as a yoga entrepreneur. She became a yoga teacher in 2006 and continues to teach weekly group and private classes in Owen Sound Ontario with a specialty in yoga for pelvic health. And she’s also the co-founder of mama nurture prenatal yoga school, and she developed the yoga for pelvic health teacher training.

[00:01:27] So thank you so much, Shannon, for joining me on the show today. 

[00:01:32] Shannon Crow: Thank you so much for having me here. I am so excited. 

What do you do and why do you do it?

[00:01:36] Lily Allen-Duenas: Me too. And I would love to borrow your question from your podcast to feel that back at you. Shannon, what do you do and why do you do it? 

[00:01:47] Shannon Crow: Oh, my goodness. Thank you for asking this. So right now I have two hats that I wear that are work-related.

[00:01:55] So I have the connected yoga teacher podcasts, as you said, [00:02:00] and I also founded pelvic health professionals. That’s a group where people who are working with any individuals who have a pelvis come together and talk about the latest information, the most current and up-to-date information about pelvic health, because it’s something that gets skipped over a lot in yoga teacher training, also in PT school, even for our medical doctors, it gets skipped over.

[00:02:25] So that’s been a growing passion of mine. And then in my spare time, I’m a mom of three. I like to hike. I love to garden. I love to be outside. It’s a struggle for me when it really starts to snow up here in Canada. But I try to get out every single day when it starts snowing. That makes it a little bit easier for me to cope.

[00:02:49] Lily Allen-Duenas: Absolutely. It’s snow is a challenge. I lived in Iowa for about seven years and I was born and raised in California. I know that snowy life can be rough. [00:03:00] 

[00:03:00] Shannon Crow: It can be rough. And I’ve found that when the pandemic hits, I usually travel and go away for the winter. When the pandemic hit, I was like, you know what, I’m going to have to make this work.

[00:03:10] I’m just going to have to ski more and walk more outside. And I made this deal with myself that I would go outside every single day, even if it was just for five minutes in a blizzard. And I started posting about it on my Instagram account. And a lot of people have said that it really has motivated them to also get outside.

[00:03:30] So it’s been fun. 

What are some of the most important things yoga practitioners or people in general should know about pelvic health and yoga? 

[00:03:32] Lily Allen-Duenas: Beautiful. Yeah, it is important just to have a little bit of fresh air every day, even if it’s like negative 10 and crazy winds and you don’t want to be out there, but you know it’s good for you. But I’m glad that Shannon, you mentioned, of course, during my first question about pelvic health.

[00:03:49] You mentioned the pelvic region is often overlooked and ignored or it’s even shamed. So what are some of the most important things yoga practitioners or people in general should know [00:04:00] about pelvic health and yoga? 

[00:04:01] Shannon Crow: I think that’s the biggest thing is that knowing, okay, you’re not getting all of the information because I’ve had yoga students in my class or in my workshops, tell me [00:04:12] Like when we go to palpate the pelvic floor, which you can completely do, to tell me, oh, I was taught to never touch myself down here or my family never talked about pelvic anatomy and I think it’s really wild that this also trickles into our medical professional training and our yoga teacher training.

[00:04:32] Cause you think how in depth we go in anatomy, in yoga teacher training, like we’re learning all the bones, all the different muscles, how they work, like so many things about the body and yet. We’re not learning how the pelvic floor works or that the pelvic floor and the diaphragm move together. Like some really basic things were missing.

[00:04:53] And I realized this. So I gave birth to three babies. [00:05:00] Tried to read all kinds of books about birth, taught prenatal yoga for years, and taught prenatal yoga teacher training. And it wasn’t until we hired a pelvic health PT. So a physiotherapist here in Canada, a physical therapist and other places in the world.

[00:05:18] We hired one to come in for three hours and that’s when I was like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. So our yoga students who are walking in, whether they’ve had babies or not, that’s the other thing to know about this. It doesn’t matter if you’re what gender you are, what age you are, and if you’ve birthed babies, you have a pelvis, you have a pelvic floor.

[00:05:42] We all have the basic pelvic anatomy with some differences and variations, and that can be gender differences, but also just differences in variation because we’re human, we’re all born different. And [00:06:00] I think that was the biggest thing to realize, wow, these pelvic health issues are actually impacting a huge number of our yoga students.

[00:06:09] So I taught a yoga class once. We talked a little bit in the yoga class about your bladder, urinary incontinence. So leaking urine. And I was just learning all of these new things and I wanted to share it with this yoga class. And I had some cards up at the front and I said, if you’re dealing with any of this, make sure you go and see a pelvic health PT.

[00:06:34] I’ve brought some cards with me today. And half the class came up and took a card. Now, I don’t know if they just wanted to pass it on to a friend, but we know that urinary incontinence statistically affects one in four women, one in nine men. And I think it’s actually much higher than that at some point in their life.

[00:06:53] So these are issues that you don’t hear about all the time. Someone might tell you, [00:07:00] oh, I have to be careful in my yoga class because I have a bad knee. They’re not necessarily coming up to the front of the room and telling you I have some bladder issues and I can’t do certain things or I leak urine, or I wear a pad because I leak urine.

[00:07:14] And what I realized is probably from talking to many of the pelvic health PTs I started to work with is that as a yoga teacher, I could reach a large group of people with this information. They could learn about their pelvic health and then they could decide, okay, do I need to go see a pelvic health PT to get some more help with this?

[00:07:36] Which lots of them did. It’s so hard to answer this question of yours. What do I wish yoga teachers knew? I wish yoga teachers knew the statistics out there around pelvic health. Like how many people are dealing with pelvic health issues and saying nothing or going to their general doctor who doesn’t actually understand pelvic health, the way a pelvic [00:08:00] health PT does.

[00:08:02] And even a PT, like a physiotherapist or physical therapist, isn’t trained in pelvic health. They have to take specialized training and then they need to take more and more. I was just shocked, okay. I’ve had three babies. I studied anatomy in college. I studied anatomy and yoga teacher training and no one told me these basic things about the body.

[00:08:23] And yeah, I just want to shout it from the rooftops, 

[00:08:25] Lily Allen-Duenas: I totally understand that I, when I read Bill Bryson’s book, The Body: An Occupant’s Guide, and it’s 800 plus pages and each chapter has to do with one element of the body, like a whole chapter on the brain or the eyes, the sense organs, all of these different elements.

[00:08:43] And I just repetitively said how do I not know that’s physically inside of me? Part of me, it has functions, it has jobs and it does something every single second of my life for me, but I know nothing about how it operates. Like it’s nuts. [00:09:00] 

[00:09:00] Shannon Crow: It is. And we live in this body. It’s one thing when we drive a car and we’re like, yeah, it runs, and it starts to make a noise.

[00:09:07] I take it to the mechanic, but we live in this body. We experience it and to know, to really understand how your body works and functions, especially around the pelvis is very empowering. Yes. It’s life-changing for some people. 

[00:09:25] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, and what we talk about, I was reflecting, I think the most in yoga classes, besides the breath, of course, we talked so much about the core, activate your core, brace your core, or we always are referring to what our core can give us.

When you teach yoga, are you constantly referring to the pelvic floor?

[00:09:39] So we very rarely mention the pelvic floor, unless we’re just briefly mentioning we’ll let our Abunda in that regard, so when you teach yoga, are you constantly referring to the pelvic floor? And I also have this feeling that I’ve learned once that our pelvic floor is usually actually [00:10:00] tensed. It’s not very often that we’re actually consciously relaxing it and it should be relaxed more often, is that something I’m making up.

[00:10:08] Shannon Crow: I’m so glad you asked this question. It’s such a good question. And I want to tell you that this is why I started pelvic health professionals, because there were questions like this. What are we doing when we say engage the core? Or even if we start to learn about the pelvic floor and we think, okay, how do we cue pelvic floor relaxation or engagement?

[00:10:30] Or why would we in a yoga class? These are the questions that I was having. And I was asking experts and paying for their time on my own. And then that’s when I thought, Hey, wait a minute, we could come up with all of our questions as a group, as a collective hire pelvic health experts to come in and talk to us.

[00:10:50] And that’s exactly what we do. And we have a call actually coming up tomorrow. It’ll be over and done with, by the time this podcast comes up where [00:11:00] I’ve started to revisit my own thoughts and what I’ve been learning about the pelvic floor. So I want to say. 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I don’t know.

[00:11:10] I can’t say when kegels came in and were started, but, if you’ve never heard of a kegel it’s like engaging the pelvic floor and a lot of people hear or they believe they read an article about how important it is to do your kegels. Like some people say, when you’re sitting in your car, do your kegels at a stoplight, and please don’t just take this blanket advice for the muscles of your pelvic floor.

[00:11:37] So I love that you brought up that the pelvic floor can be holding a lot of tension. There’s actually some studies that have been done where people are exposed to different images that are stressful. And the pelvic floor is the first muscle that engages and protects us. And it makes sense, right? That’s [00:12:00] where we would guard.

[00:12:01] There’s a lot contained around the pelvic area that we want to protect. And so when we are feeling a lot of stress in our life, we notice. Okay my shoulders are holding tension or maybe some part in my back or my jaw. The pelvic floor is maybe not something that you notice where you’re holding tension, but you are.

[00:12:23] And so overall, I would say then the message started to swing from okay do kegels because you need to strengthen your pelvic floor. And there’s a lot of messages that came in around that were not healthy. Like messages, like you need to have a tighter pelvic floor so that your partner is more pleased during sex.

[00:12:42] Like this, these are myths. This is not the way sex works. And then swinging the other way. I’ve seen this and I’ve taught this. We need to release and relax the pelvic floor as much as possible because as a society where [00:13:00] we’re stressed out, we’re holding tension there, a pelvic floor that is holding a lot of tension

[00:13:05] Doesn’t work well either. And you know what, honestly, I’m coming back to more and more. There’s a middle ground. Like you can’t strengthen your muscles all the time and that’s the answer. You can’t relax all the time and that’s the answer. It’s this balance of let’s strengthen those muscles and let’s also let them lengthen and relax so that they work effectively when we need them to, because the pelvic floor needs to be able.

[00:13:34] If you think about all of the things that it does for you all day, one of the key things is when we laugh, when we cough, when we sneeze, when we jump, we don’t want to be leaking urine or feces. And then when we go to the bathroom, we want to be able to release and relax the pelvic floor so we can easily go to the bathroom.

[00:13:55] That’s one of the main functions. When we think about the pelvic floor, but there’s actually five [00:14:00] of them 

What are the five functions of the pelvis?

[00:14:02] Lily Allen-Duenas: Go for it. Shannon. Let’s hear the five. 

[00:14:05] Shannon Crow: I don’t have my notes right in front of me. So I’m like, oh my gosh, do I have them all? I have an article and I can definitely send it to you where it goes more in depth.

[00:14:13] There’s the stability that the pelvic floor provides. So when you talked about the core, that’s the other thing. Don’t let don’t, let me forget to come back to these five things. But when we talk about, okay, you need to have a strong core or strength in the core. That’s another thing I want to start questioning.

[00:14:32] What do we even mean about that? And we do know that the pelvic floor is. Supporting in many ways, it’s supporting our balance. It’s supporting our pelvic organs. So the bladder and the rectum are there. And in some humans, we also have a uterus sitting there as well, and it’s all being supported by the pelvic floor.[00:15:00] 

[00:15:00] So we’ve got stability, support, sexual function. For all genders there is. And I already mentioned that sphincteric we want the pelvic floor to be able to close when we don’t want to be going to the bathroom and then opening when we want to be going to the bathroom. And then the fifth is one that we don’t often know about or talk about that’s there, this some pump action.

[00:15:28] So when we breathe, The diaphragm and the pelvic floor both move down on the inhale and they move up on the exhale. And that’s ideally, how the pelvic floor and diaphragm move together. And when we start messing around with things like, let’s say we wear really tight pants because we’re trying to have skinnier looking waste that can impact that.

[00:15:53] Or if we’re hunched over all day working on our computer and we’re not looking at the way we’re sitting in our posture. [00:16:00] That can impact that as well. And then this, some pump action can’t work as well. And when that doesn’t work as well, we might have more congestion in the pelvic area. So it’s important to work together.

[00:16:12] So those are the five and I always say like your pelvic floor is like a superhero. Has these five functions as well as there’s like, this is the thing. Once you start learning about it, you learn so much more. The sixth is guarding that protection that happens there as well.

[00:16:29] Yeah. That’s why it’s important that I get you the article, because it goes way more in depth on this. 

[00:16:35] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, perfect. And when you send it to me, I’ll make sure to link it here in the show notes, so all my listeners can check it out. And the unsung hero of the body, I feel like there are so many unsung heroes though.

[00:16:47] There’s all these different elements. It’s like the more I learn about my ear, the more I’m like, wait, that’s why it does that. Or that’s how, that’s why I actually get vertigo is because my body thinks it’s been poisoned and it knows [00:17:00] that when I become dizzy, I could vomit and then it could evacuate the poison.

[00:17:06] Shannon Crow: Isn’t that fascinating? 

Would you say constant tension of the pelvic floor is average in the Western world?

[00:17:07] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, yeah, I love the body. I’m similar to you. I totally geek out over all these different things I learn and I love it. So something I wanted to ask about the pelvis and the pelvic health specifically is that whenever I’m just going about my day, typing on my computer, brushing my teeth or eating or whatever I’m doing.

[00:17:27] Randomly will think about my pelvic floor. I notice it’s tense and then I exhale, and release it. It’s something I never noticed. It is in a state of relaxation. I only noticed the tension because I’ve done some meditation for relaxing the pelvic floor about a month or two ago, and I loved it and I thought, okay, I do think I need to relax this muscle more.

[00:17:50] I have so much tension on it. Would you say that’s just average in the Western world, this constant tension, like literally constant. [00:18:00] 

[00:18:00] Shannon Crow: That’s such a good question. I don’t know. There have been some studies done that are relating pelvic floor holding a lot of tension to low back pain. But I don’t know if we have any studies that look at overall, are people holding less?

[00:18:20] Or too much tension, like not enough or too much tension in the pelvic floor. That’s a great question. Generally, when I was working with people in the physio office, when we were back working in person, Most of the people that I would work with. And maybe that’s because I’m a yoga teacher and those were the people that the PTs were sending my way.

[00:18:41] Those were the people that were typically holding a lot of tension in the pelvic floor. So I’m not sure that’s not a scientific research study. It’s just that I saw over and over again, people would be doing kegels or trying different things to strengthen their core or strengthen their pelvic floor.

[00:18:59] And [00:19:00] it was causing issues in their body. And so we would go through how to really send a relaxed, pelvic floor. And when you said I exhale and I release my pelvic floor, I get that on, because we do that a lot of the time. And in yoga we’ll like, say inhale and tighten the muscles around your shoulders.

[00:19:20] And then on the exhale release them, I would be really tempted to say, try coming into the table or child’s pose. And try to imagine the pelvic floor releasing on that inhale because that’s typically where release is down. Like physically it releases down. 

[00:19:42] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh yeah no, I, it makes sense to inhale with the diaphragm.

[00:19:46] That’s both relaxing. It’s relaxing. It makes sense, but it’s more, I think the conscious thing for me of the meditation on the exhale, we’re just like, okay, now I’m really relaxing. 

[00:19:57] Shannon Crow: Yeah. And that’s the thing. Every [00:20:00] body is different and it changes over time. I have friends who went to see the pelvic health PT.

[00:20:07] Learned about yoga and how it helps with pelvic health and really move to this place of okay all I’m going to do is relax my pelvic floor. And those same people now are finding, you know what? I need some strengthening as well. I need to find this balance and this maintenance through life. So I wouldn’t make any blanket statement.

[00:20:30] And this is what bothers me, if I go to a yoga class and I hear someone say, engage your core or engage your pelvic floor. First of all, what are all of these people around me doing when that cue is given? And second of all, do they need to, so if you’re noticing, okay, I’m holding tension in my pelvic floor all the time.

[00:20:54] And I need to release it, probably the last thing you need in a yoga class is to be cued. [00:21:00] Now I say that, but I do know some PTs that use that engagement to help people to find that relaxation of the pelvic floor. So it’s so complex. And here’s the best thing that you could do. Go see a pelvic health PT who is well-trained in internal exams.

[00:21:19] It’s not as bad as your pap exam. Trust me. Find one that you really connect well with and they can let you know what’s going on with your pelvic floor. If you have questions, they can also let you know about what’s going on with so much in your pelvic area, as well as your whole, like how your whole posture is.

[00:21:41] And to me, it’s the difference of, would you go to your doctor if you had a toothache? No, you would go to a dentist. You would go to someone who specializes and pelvic health PTs are amazing at the work that they do. So it’s [00:22:00] I feel like everyone needs to go see a pelvic health PT. 

Do you talk as well, about the chakra elements?

[00:22:04] Lily Allen-Duenas: So the pelvic region is where our root chakra lies.

[00:22:06] So I think it’s even more important in a way to draw awareness to it and really understand it because it’s like the source of where all of the energy lies. Do you talk as well, about the chakra elements? Do you get into those subtle bodies? Are we sticking with science? 

[00:22:23] Shannon Crow: Oh my gosh.

[00:22:24] I love looking at the subtle body and the mystery. And how this all connects with yoga. So I’ll just tell you my personal experience with the chakras. As I went to a training session, it was called let your yoga dance. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be so much fun going to Costa Rica. I’m going to dance around in the jungles with mega who was leading it, then I think she’s still leading let your yoga dance.

[00:22:51] And we did the first chakra, which was. It was so cool to really embody it. We played drumming, tribal [00:23:00] music. We got, we were really low to the ground. We got into the second chakra, and I’m all still happy, moving with this, we got into, so the second chakra was more flowy, hip moving. And third chakra.

[00:23:18] I was still having a great day. We did the third chakra on the third day. And then I remember hitting this wall of boom, like moving from third chakra up higher for me was a real struggle. I came to class that day. Didn’t want to do anything. I definitely think that if anyone’s ever had an experience like this, where you’re really talking about your chakras and connecting with that energy, I definitely think there’s something there, but I realized in that experience, okay 

[00:23:50] I’m really comfortable floating around in my first three chakras. It’s when we get up higher, closer to the heart where I was guarding and holding. So I [00:24:00] would say for sure, look at that side of things. The really cool thing that I started to realize when I learned about pelvic health, when I took different trainings, is how well it connected with yoga training that is maybe less rooted in science.

[00:24:20] So I would say for sure, look at these. 

[00:24:23] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. Because of the root chakra, if you have a very healthy root chakra, you’re going to experience good health, vitality or to feel grounded, you’ll feel comfortable in your body. You could also have that sense of trust in the world.

[00:24:37] Feelings of stability and safety, prosperity, the ability to relax. There’s so many really amazing elements of all the chakras, but the root chakra I think having this, the safety and stability, this sense of nourishment and home and health, it’s so important too, to make sure to have a healthy pelvic area, which will only [00:25:00] support the chakra.

[00:25:00] I just definitely wanted to touch into that for our listeners to make sure I just talks about what some of the elements of a balanced characteristics of the Muladhara chakra was because I, when we’re talking so much about the pelvic area, it of course just lights up in me. Okay. We should talk about the root chakra as well.

Other than pelvic health, what lights you up the most about yoga?

[00:25:18] But I would love to ask you about Shannon, other than pelvic health. What lights you up the most about yoga? 

[00:25:27] Shannon Crow: I realized that I’m just a better version of myself. Like a better parent, a better partner, a better friend. When I’m able to ask myself, at least once a day, okay, what do I need today? That doesn’t mean that it needs to be an hour and a half long practice where no one’s interrupting me.

[00:25:49] These are hard things to find as a parent. And it doesn’t mean that all of my thoughts go away as a business owner in that time. It’s like in the [00:26:00] messiness of life, and this is what I started to realize when I talked about walking outside or, I find a lot of comfort in gardening and growing food.

[00:26:10] These types of things can be yoga and I especially think connection to nature is one of mine that makes me feel really grounded. When I move away from those, because inevitably I do usually around the change of the seasons, I struggle a little bit more like as we move into fall, I’m sitting back and thinking like garden time is going to change.

[00:26:34] I need to come back to fall practice. I think having that, first of all, is my foundation. I’m grounded. And then second of all, what lights me up more immediately than what I wanted to jump to was the connections that I make with people and the, because I think that’s definitely yoga when we are listening to people.

[00:26:57] When we’re asking questions, when we [00:27:00] are really working in relationships with people, that’s in my personal life, but also in my business life. And I’m really lucky as a podcast host to be like, that’s my job. I get to connect with people and ask them questions. That definitely lights me up. But if I don’t have that, like grounded in my self care practice in my yoga practice, [00:27:28] it doesn’t work the same. 

[00:27:31] Lily Allen-Duenas: No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t at all, does it. And I love that you brought up that yoga can be outside and it can be in nature. Yoga isn’t just time on the mat. I think that’s such a dangerous assumption that people make when they’re like, oh, did you do yoga today?

[00:27:49] I like my Asana practice or just me going about my life mindfully or my time in meditation, or I spend five minutes every morning, chanting om, [00:28:00] like that’s part of yoga as well. I’m glad you mentioned it that way. 

[00:28:04] Shannon Crow: Yeah. And I also want to say that there have been times in my life where I did not think that.

[00:28:11] I used to think, okay, people are cheating when they say everything is yoga because I wanted this very disciplined practice. And I think there is some magic when we come to this like disciplined routine. But honestly it was my friend Shara Carruthers, who is also a yoga teacher and a podcaster who we were doing an interview

[00:28:33] And she said, her practice is basically just pausing for a moment in the morning and saying, what do I need at this moment? And then it might just be five minutes. It might be lying on the floor for five minutes. It might be rolling around, it might be doing a longer practice, but that checking in that was like magic for me adding that into my morning practice.

[00:28:59] So I would [00:29:00] say, find those pieces that really resonate with you. Sometimes it’s journaling for me as well. That really helps me to connect with that. 

Can we talk about why it’s important for yoga teachers to choose a specialty?

[00:29:08] Lily Allen-Duenas: Absolutely. So how about we spend a little time Shannon talking about niche work. I know your niche is pelvic health, but can we talk about why it’s important for yoga teachers to choose a specialty since you were a consultant for yoga teachers,

[00:29:24] I, and I know niche work is one of your passions, I was hoping we could dive into it. 

[00:29:30] Shannon Crow: For sure. I love talking about niche work and I think it’s important to say that it can be different for everyone. I love that you said specialty because I like to talk about your specialty as a yoga teacher and it also

[00:29:45] Pushes into some edges of discomfort, for sure, for everyone, no matter if you’re a yoga teacher or a different entrepreneur, because I really do think that yoga teachers are running small [00:30:00] businesses. If they’ve decided on large businesses. If a yoga teacher has decided, okay, I am going to share this with the world and somehow get paid for my time

[00:30:10] You are running a business, you are an entrepreneur. And to specialize, I learned the hard way. So I came out of yoga teacher training and was teaching at one point like 16 classes a week, everything from baby and me, to prenatal, to hot flow, to restorative yoga, like all in the same week, all variations of yoga.

[00:30:34] And I think my thought at the time was I just want to share yoga with everyone. So when someone asked me in my prenatal class, I wished there was a class for babies and parents. I was like, sure. We’ll invent one. We’ll do this. I’ll learn. Even though there was no training. I’ll learn how to teach this and make it my own, which I did, but I burnt myself right out with [00:31:00] that schedule.

[00:31:00] So I was driving around to so many different studios. I was spread thin at that time. I was a single mom. I raised my kids on my own for five years. In that time I had to make ends meet. And I was doing that by managing different studios. That’s what got me into consulting.

[00:31:18] Like I would work on websites doing many things to make ends meet and it actually wasn’t like this spread thin isn’t effective. So teaching 16 different classes. Seems like okay, now I have, what’s that saying, like all my eggs in different baskets, but the more you can take off your plate and focus on taking things off.

[00:31:46] So I was like, what class needs to go? I got to the point of burnout, so a lot had to go off my plate in a hurry. And I do not suggest getting to that. I suggest yoga teachers looking at or anyone, what do I wish was off of my [00:32:00] plate right now? What would it look like? What would it feel like to take this away and to do that for a while and learn when we are new yoga teachers, sometimes we just don’t know.

[00:32:11] We jump into subbing a class for this person and teaching this class over here and following what people are asking for. But as you go and as you become a more experienced teacher, you’re going to see, okay, I’m really passionate and curious about this thing over here. I want to learn more about that.

[00:32:34] I want to share that more in my classes and you get to realize what your yoga isn’t. I know someone asked me once if I’ll teach goat yoga, and I think goat yoga looks really fun, but I was like, no way. It feels to me like toddler yoga. I also don’t like to teach toddler and me yoga. I do like toddlers.

[00:32:55] I just don’t like to try and organize them in a yoga class. I know [00:33:00] what I don’t enjoy doing. I don’t want goats climbing all over everyone in a class. It’s something I don’t feel comfortable with. Would I go to a goat yoga class with a friend? Sure. It would be fun. It would be funny. I just don’t want to be the one leading that.

[00:33:15] So when you start to realize, there are some types of yoga where I think, no, I would never do this. I don’t feel like I ever want to teach, something that’s like yoga, that’s fixated on making your body look a certain way. That’s against all of my values. Are there people doing that? Yes.

[00:33:37] It’s not, and it’s okay to back away from those things and then stand in what you believe in as a yoga teacher. Some people think I don’t want to push people away. Really. I learned over the years you actually do want to, I don’t want someone coming to my class that thinks that all we’re going to do is [00:34:00] this sweaty work.

[00:34:02] I, I really, that to me, that doesn’t feel like yoga and it takes a while to find this. So I’m, there’s a lot of my own experience and judgment coming into this. But at the end of the day, what started to happen in my own business, in my own life, when I took things off my plate I started to actually make more money.

[00:34:22] As a yoga teacher, I have more students in my class that are really aligned with my values and how I wanted to share yoga. And it’s just, it opened the door to also sending people elsewhere. So when someone was like, Hey, I want to take a class that has goats. I’d be like down the street doing that.

[00:34:43] Or, I want a hot Vinyasa flow. I don’t teach that. But this teacher over here does, and it makes it so that you’re really collaborating with your peers, the professional peers around you as yoga teachers. 

[00:35:01] Lily Allen-Duenas: And that’s a powerful community then. The more that you can continue to direct people to other teachers like that’s such a gift of paying it forward.

[00:35:06] Shannon Crow: It is such a gift when you can refer to other yoga teachers. And I think we can start to think, oh gosh, if I refer people to them, I’m going to lose business. That’s not what actually happens, what I saw. So I used to teach yoga to everybody in my class. And then I thought, I really want to teach gentle yoga.

[00:35:28] So I switched the name to gentle yoga for everybody. But then I thought, what I really am passionate about is pelvic health. And that was a hard transition for me. So instead what I called the class was gentle yoga for hips and shoulders. So I thought everyone’s coming to me telling me that they have hip pain and shoulder tension.

[00:35:53] Let’s call it that. Even though I was basically teaching yoga for pelvic [00:36:00] health to those people, I was afraid to call it that. I was afraid that as soon as I put that label on there, that I would have less people. Well I didn’t, I had way more people sign up. When I finally took the plunge named it yoga for pelvic health, it was.

[00:36:17] 11. It was an 11 week series, which is the most I’d ever done. Mostly I was sticking around registered sessions of six to eight classes, and I thought, no, I want to do this for 11 weeks. I want people to sign up if it’s $18 a person. And this was quite a while ago when I was teaching group classes and it was full.

[00:36:42] Like we had, our capacity was 20 people. And I think we were at 18 and I was thinking that’s a lot of people to go through all of this with. And so I saw immediately when I started to niche down and this still happens, I’m still doing it. It is [00:37:00] a process. So when you were reading my bio, I was like, oh, that’s gone?

[00:37:04] I no longer lead mama nurture. I don’t even teach prenatal yoga, anything at all. I recently let go of teaching in person or online yoga for pelvic health to individuals. And that was really hard to let go. I love doing that work, but I realized the more I let go, the more I can focus on the podcast.

[00:37:27] And on pelvic health professionals. So that’s the other thing I want to say. I do two things. I used to do many things. I am like, I have so many different passions and so I know what it feels like to think oh gosh I don’t want to let this part go. I really felt that around the prenatal yoga teacher training, that Kim McDonald and I put together mama nurture.

[00:37:54] I really did not want to let that go. I saw so much good coming out of that, but [00:38:00] at the end of the day, I knew something had to go for me to grow these other parts of my business. Does that answer that question? 

[00:38:07] Lily Allen-Duenas: No, I think it absolutely does. It’s just such a struggle to surrender like that, to just let go and say, okay.

[00:38:15] Okay. Take those metaphorical scissors and just snip things away. I think it’s very painful for people to let go of anything really. We don’t really want to let go of one old t-shirt that we’ve turned into pajamas do we? We struggle with letting go. So I think that just seeing how you’ve done it, and then continuing to say, you know what, I continue to let go more and more so that I can be an even greater user service to the audience [00:38:41] That really needs and really is reaching for this information. I think that’s just so powerful. Shannon. 

[00:38:48] Shannon Crow: Yeah. And the other liberating piece about this is that when you get in front of an audience, let’s say on your social media, maybe you’re on YouTube or like this [00:39:00] today, the podcast, you said to me, or somewhere in my form, it was like, what was.

[00:39:05] What would you like to talk about or whatever the question was. And I know it’s really easy. I talk about two things, pelvic health and niche work, niching down and specializing. Those are the two things I talk about and I talk about them over and over again. I probably could do a better job on my Instagram.

[00:39:21] I definitely talk about gardening there as well, but I can’t not do that, but it makes it so easy. Let’s say you’re a yoga teacher who teaches about sleep. And how, and you might think how many times can I tell people all the things that would help them to get better sleep a lot, you could just continuously do it.

[00:39:44] And the thing that happens is when you talk about that thing over and over again, you get known for it. People start tagging you in social media posts. So this happens to me all the time. I get tagged for pelvic health topics. And that’s what you [00:40:00] want. You want to be the yoga teacher that gets tagged for your specialty.

[00:40:04] I know who to tag when it comes to yoga for scoliosis, I’m going to tag my friend, Christine. If someone asked me recently, do you know a yoga teacher who teaches in two languages? Yep. I know who I’m going to tag for that. There are it’s, that’s something magical that happens. It makes it so much simpler.

What is your definition of yoga?

[00:40:23] Lily Allen-Duenas: So Shannon, I like to ask every yoga teacher on my podcast. What is your definition of yoga? 

[00:40:30] Shannon Crow: Gosh, what a good question. What is my definition of yoga? So good. It’s so hard, I feel like there’s this immense pressure. I want to say union because that’s what we’re taught, but I think it’s going back to, definitely the union pieces there, but I would say my definition of yoga in my own experience is that I am continuously forever the student.

[00:40:56] I feel more and [00:41:00] more as I learn about yoga, I feel like I really don’t know what yoga is and I, and that might seem scary to some people, it’s a humbling place to be. But I think at the end of the day, that’s really, when you have way more questions and answers, it lets the pressure off it lets you explore a little bit more.

[00:41:25] It’s like I am learning over and over again. What yoga can be. And that’s, in part, because I get to talk to amazing yoga teachers, yoga practitioners all the time on the podcast and get to see different perspectives of what yoga is or where yoga came from, or, and, but it’s the unlearning part,

[00:41:47] The thinking, I knew the answer and then having a question, my brain and then needing to unlearn what I thought yoga was. I [00:42:00] think that’s what it’s continuous for me. And then weaving it into so many parts of my life. Like I said, with relationships with my own self care, it’s so many things it’s so much, and there’s no way that I can know.

[00:42:18] Like the full extent of yoga. I was just interviewing someone yesterday who said that yoga has been passed down for thousands of years. So for us to live, let’s say we live to be a hundred years old as humans. There’s no way that we can understand yoga in the way that yoga itself is in its fullness.

[00:42:40] Lily Allen-Duenas: Very humbling place to come from. We will be students for the rest of our lives. And I say that over and over again, I am a student just like you. I’m a teacher, but I’m definitely still a student. And my students are my teachers as well. It’s just that cycle.

[00:42:55] Shannon Crow: It totally is. Oh, that’s such a good place to be as well.

[00:42:59] If we’re all [00:43:00] learning. One of my kids said to me something the other day oh, I messed up on this. And I was like, really? That’s all we’re doing all the time. As humans, we are just messing up, call it a mistake or a failure. I don’t know. Those are pretty loaded words, but that’s all we’re doing all the time and unlearning and then learning something.

Can you paint us a picture of the yoga scene in Canada as it was in the past and as it is now?

[00:43:19] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah absolutely. So I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you a little bit about Canada. Can you paint us a picture of the yoga scene in Canada as it was in the past and as it is now? 

[00:43:30] Shannon Crow: Again, I feel like I don’t know all of Canada and the yoga scene. I know such a small part of it, but where I am, I remember going to a yoga class in my early twenties.

[00:43:44] I’m 45 now. And it was just a girl’s night out at some class at the library or something led by a teacher. We were giggling in the back. It was really new. And where I live in Canada is a [00:44:00] conservative place. I say that, and I realized that’s a different thing than a conservative place in the U S we’re pretty, Canada feels like a pretty liberal place up here.

[00:44:11] Overall, when I was learning about yoga here in Canada, I didn’t remember learning anything about cultural appropriation, South Asian yoga teachers and the history of yoga and how it was stolen. And how people in let’s say India or other places where yoga was where yoga originated from actually were oppressed and not allowed to practice.

[00:44:41] So I didn’t know any of the roots of yoga and I think that’s pretty standard for a North American yoga teachers. And so yoga became this very whitewashed watered down thing here in North America. Now I was lucky enough to study with a teacher whose teacher was from India. [00:45:00] And so I learned a lot about meditation and I didn’t at first.

[00:45:07] I want to say meditation, the philosophy of yoga mantra, all of the subtle body stuff was all really there. And my very first yoga teacher training, shout out to set Darren, who’s a Kundalini yoga teacher still, but I also didn’t learn the, I didn’t know anything about how there’s also an imbalance of power in many of the yoga lineages.

[00:45:31] As well. So I feel like there was this moment where I was like, yeah, yoga makes me feel so good. I don’t know why I’m learning all these cool and weird things. And I think a lot of people were in that and then we really westernized it. We made it very much a practice about the body and how the body looks.

[00:45:52] I think there’s been this, this way that we have done a disservice to yoga, because it’s so much more than. [00:46:00] How your body looks or sweating out toxins, which is a total myth as well. And so yoga went through a shift, yoga teachers and myself included in those years started to feel like I want to break up with yoga.

[00:46:15] I want to throw this all away. I’m speaking from personal experience as well as talking with colleagues of mine. We started to see yoga injuries from repetitive strain injuries from doing 108 sun salutations. And now I think about how the yoga scene in Canada is coming along with the rest of North America in terms of, okay, let’s look at all of the limbs of yoga or maybe I’m an optimist.

[00:46:44] And that’s what I see. Let’s look at how we can recenter south Asian yoga teachers. Let’s look at how yoga was stolen, how people weren’t allowed to practice. It would be illegal for them to practice this. And then we took it here. And how can we [00:47:00] become educated in these things. So this is definitely what I’m seeing across the board.

[00:47:05] When I talk to yoga teachers in general and still, I have to look at the way I have talked about yoga or not learned enough about Sanskrit or did things like put on a Bindi and a yoga teacher training because everyone else was. I have to look at those things and ask a lot of questions as a

[00:47:25] White North American yoga teacher with privilege. I don’t know if I’m answering your question. I’m really going on a bit of a rant about North America, but I think that I think we’re moving forward and moving away from, I hope that we are more into making yoga accessible, honoring the roots of yoga, teaching all of the eight limbs of yoga, looking at the philosophy.

[00:47:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: It’s just this rich tradition with a million different elements that you can dive into. And so I just think it’s [00:48:00] exciting that more people are wanting to get deeper or more curious about all the elements. That’s what I’m excited about. 

[00:48:09] Shannon Crow: Yes, me too. I also think in Canada, we do fun things like snowshoe yoga, classes that are outside classes.

[00:48:17] We have a lot of classes that are at people’s homes or in church basements, or we’ve had to get really creative. It wasn’t something where we now speak more rurally in the cities we definitely had studios, but I also want to say that there’s some pretty cool and inventive ways that I see yoga teachers sharing yoga here in Canada.

[00:48:38] And when I started teaching yoga, I knew a handful of yoga teachers in my area, and now there’s over a hundred yoga teachers in our two counties. I know because we have a Facebook group and it’s just really amazing to see the variety and the spread of yoga, for sure. 

 How would you, just in one minute, describe Canada?

[00:48:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: Amazing. And so for just one minute, [00:49:00] if someone had never heard of Canada before, [00:49:03] a total newbie to the world of geography and the world of Canada. How would you, just in one minute, describe Canada?

[00:49:11] Shannon Crow: Oh my gosh. I’m so glad you asked this question because when I go to the U S we’re the Northern neighbors for the U S when I go and visit friends, oftentimes there’s like a map and it just cuts off and people say, and to the north, or whether it’s coming down from the north and I’m like, why aren’t you showing our country?

[00:49:32] So we’re a very large country. I’m not great at geography, but I’m over on the west coast of British Columbia. I do know our Canadian geography pretty well because it’s easier than the U S because we have 13 provinces and territories in Canada. Gosh, I hope I’m right on that. It changed while I was somewhere in school, but I would just say there’s just this vast Area of [00:50:00] Canada’s a huge, vast area.

[00:50:02] And even to the north, most Canadians don’t realize how huge our landmass is. The difference is that a lot of people assume that Canada, we all, if they don’t know, they think we all live in igloos. We have many different seasons of weather. We don’t have snow all the time. Where I live has a lot of snow, but there are much more Northern places than me.

[00:50:28] Does that help or do you have more questions about Canada? Yes. We make maple syrup. Yes, we do have moose up here. Not where I live. We have black bears where I am. What else do you want to know about Canada? 

Anything about culture or lifestyle or anything like that to comment on?

[00:50:41] Lily Allen-Duenas: Anything about the culture? I know we always say Canadians are nicer than the United States. Has there been anything about culture or lifestyle or anything like that to comment on?

[00:50:51] Shannon Crow: It’s interesting because I live with someone from the U S so we actually get to know there are different culture things, which we didn’t even realize were there, I remember going [00:51:00] to visit the U S one time in this total stranger walked up to me and was like, how does it feel to live in a socialist country?

[00:51:06] And I was taken aback because we don’t call ourselves that, but we do have free healthcare. Yeah. We’re known for being nice and

[00:51:17] I, if you bumped into a grumpy Canadian, I think we’re also just people and you know what the level of politeness is really amazing when you go to different places, like where I live, it’s very rural and it’s totally normal to wave at someone you drive by them or go over to your neighbor and ask for

[00:51:40] Some flour if you’re, if you’ve run out of some I think that’s definitely there. And I also want to say that our culture is one that embraces diversity. If you go to Toronto right now, which is really exciting, I think as a white person, I’m the minority there now. And I think [00:52:00] that gives us a lot of potential as a country and Canada overall.

[00:52:05] Not everyone embraces that. So that’s exciting as well. And we have butter tarts here as well. We like to eat a lot of sweet things. Dinamo bars, butter tarts in the U S you call them, you call smarties. We call those rockets. There’s all kinds of fun things about Canada to come and visit.  

[00:52:29] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, I’m glad we talked about that.

Is there anything else our listeners should know about getting in touch with you?

[00:52:31] Good to always know the status of the treats, right? Wherever we’re going. Oh Shannon, thank you so much for joining me today. If our listeners want to get in touch, I’m going to have all of your links here in the show notes, as well as on my website. Wild yoga tribe.com. And so Shannon, is there anything else our listeners should know about getting in touch with you?

[00:52:52] Shannon Crow: I would say two places if you’re a yoga teacher and you just want to hear overall, podcasts to support you as a [00:53:00] yoga teacher, head on over to the connectedyogateacher.com. And if you want to learn in depth about Pelvic health professionals is the place to go. And there is some crossover as well.

[00:53:12] You will find lots of pelvic health podcasts happening on the podcast cause they can’t not talk about it over there as well.

[00:53:20] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you so much, Shannon, for joining me today, it has been a joy to be with.  

[00:53:25] Shannon Crow: It’s been so fun to be here. Thank you so much for this. Thank you for your podcast and all of the work that you do to put into this and to really highlight what yoga is like around the world. [00:53:35] That’s amazing. 

[00:53:38] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you so much.

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Outro

[00:53:41] Lily Allen-Duenas: My conversation with Shannon Crow was so informative, as we took a deep dive into the world of pelvic health. I hope that this conversation made you curious about pelvic health, understanding how it works, what tension we carry there. And also, maybe even about the root chakra. [00:54:00] We talked about yoga in Canada being vast, but now the yoga scene in Canada, looking more to recenter and to really understand the roots of yoga with more education and ethical awareness.

[00:54:11] We also talked about niche work and why it’s important for yoga teachers to find their specialties. And also what that looked like for Shannon herself. Thank you so much for tuning into the yoga and Canada episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast with Shannon Crow. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Be well.

[00:54:35] Feel like getting social? Connect with me and the wild yoga tribe on social media, on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, head on over to the wild yoga tribe.com to tap into some pretty awesome resources. Meditate with me on insight timer, a free app on Apple and Android devices. And join me for a yoga class on YouTube. Jazz up your week, and get a bit of yoga in your [00:55:00] life.

[00:55:00] Remember to hit subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And if you feel called, please share this episode with someone that you think could benefit from it. Leaving a review would also be so appreciated. Thank you again, dear listener for being with me, may your day be light and bright. May you be peaceful and happy and lead on the right path, free of suffering and free of sorrow. Be well dear one, be well.

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