Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #48 – Yoga Shapes Your Perspective of People and of the World – Yoga in Nigeria with Motolani Aransiola 

Welcome to Episode #48 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! This week, I welcome Motolani Aransiola onto the show. She is a yoga teacher from Nigeria who received her 200hr yoga teacher training with the Africa Yoga Project. She is the founder of Rhodes Yoga Nigeria and Rhodes Healthy Kitchen. She is a girl child advocate and strives to foster healthy lifestyle habits within her community through yoga, corporate yoga, and yoga retreats.

My conversation with Motolani Aransiola, a yoga teacher from Nigeria, was so powerful as we looked at how she serves her community in Nigeria and how she incorporates healthy living and eating into her methods and mission. I hope that this conversation made you curious about how yoga can teach you that there is good in the world and that people are inherently good. Yoga can help you shape your perspective of the world.

If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode that is all about yoga giving you a different point of view on the world, then this is the conversation for you.

Tell me more about Motolani Aransiola

Motolani Aransiola is a Healthy Lifestyle Ambassador and Coach. She is a goal-oriented, passion-driven yoga enthusiast and girl child advocate who believes that a society with confident, credible, and responsible leaders is possible, hence she contributes her quota to make her corner of the world better. 

A Certified Yoga teacher with 200hrs (Africa Yoga Project in Kenya), 500hrs (Madoka Wellbeing Yoga in Nigeria) and Level 2 (Africa Yoga Project in Kenya) Certification in Baptiste Yoga Methodology. She is the founder of Rhodes YogaNg (@rhodesyogang) and Rhodes Healthy Kitchen. She teaches Yoga with a specific interest in Corporate Yoga; taking yoga to the office environment (physically & virtually). She has been practicing and teaching yoga since 2017; organizing Yoga Retreats, Yoga Workshops and Yoga Brunch by the Beach for private individuals as well as groups of friends or work colleagues. She’s committed to fostering healthy lifestyle and habits within her community. She teaches Baptiste Power Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and YOD (a combination of Yoga and HIIT)

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

After the death of her father in 2017, Motolani began her journey in yoga. She did her first international trip to Kenya to complete a yoga teacher training with the Africa Yoga Project. She started offering free yoga classes for 6 months after she completed her yoga training. 

It’s recent that people have started waking up about their mental health and wellness in Nigeria. In 2017, this wasn’t there yet. It was all about fitness. First people assumed it was a religious practice with only chanting and worshipping other gods. The vaguest awareness was that it was an Indian practice. This was a challenge for her to reorient people to what yoga actually is. Slowly, people learned. Acro yoga was one of the ways she was able to get more people to come to her classes. Now, she has founded Rhodes Yoga NG and Rhodes Healthy Kitchen.

I loved how Motolani talked about how yoga changed her life, and the lessons she has learned from the practice. She talked about taking a step backwards when circumstances arise to be more human when dealing with daily circumstances. And about how yoga has helped to shape her perspective on the world.

Curious? Tune into the whole episode to find out more about yoga in Nigeria!

For the skimmers – What’s in the yoga in Nigeria episode?

• Educating her community on what yoga actually is
• The greatest lesson learned through yoga is that people is inherently good
• Yoga can help you shape your perspective of the world
• Yoga Teacher Trainings are good for everyone! 
• Explore Nigeria with Motolani

Favorite Quote From Motolani Aransiola

“What I do understand right now is that yoga is not like a fantasy or some feeling yoga is more of a discipline. Sometimes you don’t want to do it, you know if you do it, if you do your practice, you feel better. And sometimes you have to overcome your own laziness. You have to overcome yourself to stand on your mat to do your regular sequence to your pranayama and to be on the path. So for me now yoga is more of a development, personal willpower. And it’s not a fantasy. It’s really hard work. So the constant self development practice is what yoga is.”

Connect with Motolani Aransiola 

https://www.instagram.com/Mohtorlahny/

https://www.instagram.com/rhodesyogang/

Want more?

https://wildyogatribe.com/thepodcast/

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

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #48 – Yoga Shapes Your Perspective of People and of the World – Yoga in Nigeria with Motolani Aransiola

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Namaste family. And welcome back to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Today, I am so excited to welcome a yoga teacher onto the podcast from Nigeria. Her name is Motolani Aransiola and she’s involved with the Africa Yoga Project and has completed two yoga training with them in Kenya as well as a 500 hour yoga teacher training in Nigeria where she’s from. So she’s the founder of Rhodes Yoga NG and Rhodes Healthy Kitchen. She teaches yoga for the corporate world, as well as being a Girl Child Advocate who strives to foster healthy lifestyle habits within her community. So thank you so much to Motolani for joining me on the show notes. 

[00:00:47] Motolani Aransiola: Thank you, Lily, for having me on this podcast. It’s really an honor.

[00:00:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: So let’s get started and hear more about how yoga first came into your life. How did you even hear about It in the first place?

How did yoga come into your life? 

[00:01:00] Motolani Aransiola: Okay. It was 2015. I just completed my institution education and I was waiting for my collaborator. So in Nigeria we have these national youth service corps that it’s like a mandatory service for all Nigeria. Graduating from universities. It’s a way of serving our fatherland.

[00:01:22] That’s what it’s called. So while I was waiting for my collaborator in 2016, on Facebook I saw this advert. So prior to that I had recently taken up a healthy lifestyle, I started going to the gym. I was just interested in staying healthy and fit. So while on Facebook that day, I saw Facebook advert about becoming a yoga teacher.

[00:01:46] So I signed up for it. I was just like, um, let me try it out. I wasn’t expecting much. I just signed up for it. And from then I started taking yoga classes, via applications. That was my first introduction to yoga, then I felt the application and months later, I got an email reminding me that if I were still available to continue on, take the scholarship and all that and set up an interview, and that was it. Since then, since 2016, I eventually went for my teachers 20 in 2017, April. And it’s been a beautiful journey since then.

What was it like to do your yoga teacher training in Kenya?

[00:02:27] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow. That’s amazing. And what was it like to get to Kenya and do that first yoga teacher training?

[00:02:34] Motolani Aransiola: Going to Kenya. That was like my first international trip. A lot of things were going up for me during that time. I had to go to Kenya in April of 2017 and my father had just died in March of that year, March 2017. So it was a trial period. It was, um, like an exciting moment. And I was also in a moment of grief. So in a breath, when I would talk about a beautiful year and also a very challenging one, because I was on that training.

[00:03:12] I was in Kenya and, um, my father’s burial was happening back in Nigeria and I could not be there neither was I in Kenya because my mind was on all day. I was crying all over the place. I was enjoying the people. I was enjoying the experience. I was gaining new skills. I was meeting new people. Kenya was very beautiful.

[00:03:36] Like I met a whole lot of beautiful souls. I can’t forget that time in my entire life. I still have most of them as my sisters and brothers. It was a beautiful time for me then, but then I was grieving. So it was like mixed emotions for me, but I tried as much as I could to make the most of it.

[00:03:57]  I really fell in love with yoga while in Kenya. I felt like I found my purpose while I was there. It felt like my life is really meant to be about, because I know that I like to help people.

[00:04:09] I just couldn’t pinpoint exactly how to help people. Knowledge sharing, my knowledge of people felt like the best way I could be of help to my community and everyone around me. 

[00:04:22] Lily Allen-Duenas: 2017 was a big year of transformation for me as well. And it’s the year. I also became a yoga teacher. So we have that in common. I also am curious about how you use yoga to serve your community. I know you do so many interesting things with corporate yoga, with brunch yoga, and beach yoga and founding this Rhodes Yoga NG and Rhodes Healthy Kitchen.

[00:04:47] So can you talk to me more about how you’re involved with your community and maybe what kind of response you’ve noticed your community has had to you teaching yoga in it? 

How does teaching yoga serve your community? 

[00:04:57] Motolani Aransiola: Okay to get our certification. This is how you pay back by going to your community and taking free classes for six months.

[00:05:06] So you teach free yoga classes for six months. However you can, you’re expected to teach at least two classes for six months, it is a non-paid class. So during this time I go to schools. I reached out to organizations. I tried starting circles so that I would be able to just teach. One of the places I went back to was my school, where I just completed my to tertiary institution Nigerians School of Communication. So I reached out to the management explaining that I needed an opportunity to teach yoga freely to students, if they would be interested in coming to class. In 2017, yoga I would say much about fitness wellness. Wasn’t really that much of a theme within African society, especially in Nigeria. It’s recently that people started waking up about wellness, about health, about their mental health, about your physical health and all that. So in 2017, it’s really very tough. Going out to people to see that you get each year and you would like to teach them yoga. First people would think, okay, I got to understand that people’s knowledge of yoga is that it’s like an authority practice. It’s like another kind of religion and that form of religion with just and the probably.

[00:06:34] Worship another god. If you meet some that have maybe just vague knowledge of yoga, they would say it’s an Indian practice and why do we like bringing it up in our practice and culture and all that into our space. So my major challenge then was to first be able to disabuse people’s minds about what yoga is.

[00:06:56] Like a real orientation about yoga to several different people in spaces. If I’m in a community or a space, and I get to introduce myself as a Yogi or a yoga teacher, and they look at me and ask, Okay, what is Yogi or what is okay, what do you mean by yoga and all of that?

[00:07:15] So first I explain myself that yoga is a mindfulness practice, it’s a form of exercise and all that is to do a lot of explanation, to just get people to accept it, at least in their minds first, before they experience it.

[00:07:33] So I was able to do that. I got to enjoy doing that. I enjoyed the challenge of introducing something, not so familiar to people around me, in my community. And then as time went by, it got easier. And because I could, I started having track records of the things I’ve done.

[00:07:54] People can see, I can show them my Instagram poses posts and all that people can see that this is actually just practice people that have been to class testify, talk about how they slept well after coming to yoga class, they experienced a better feeling like it was a good one in their body.

[00:08:10] They experience change and all that. And then I introduced them to acro yoga. People go to practice ACRO yoga, which they love. This is actually one of the ways I was able to come to my class, especially in the schools, people love to get involved in AcroYoga. 

[00:08:25] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, So cool. Yeah. I hear that a lot there’s this vague understanding of yoga as something religious or just something from India. And I agree with you that, you know, that was really big in 2017 or in the past that there wasn’t that awareness, but it really has kind of grown more and more over time.

[00:08:47] Um, and also, so what exactly did you founded the Rhodes Yoga NG and the Rhodes Healthy kitchen. What exactly are these two things you founded?

What is Rhodes Healthy Kitchen and Rhodes Yoga NG?

[00:08:56] Motolani Aransiola: Okay. So after my yoga teacher training, in 2017 and going forward to 2018, I needed a yoga space I could belong to, so I’m an alumni in AYP now I finished my three-year academy in 2020.

[00:09:16] So during those times, one of the benefits of being in academia is that you get the opportunity to belong to the yoga classes that are already registered. We get classes available in your community, and if there’s none, they can help you set up all by providing resources to get a space, at least for some time too, get it going yourself.

[00:09:41] So I was able to have a yoga studio for a while. I believe that part of yoga is a healthy lifestyle, like that is the totality of yoga. It’s actually the healthy lifestyle and it cannot be talking about a healthy lifestyle without talking about what we take in.

[00:09:58] It’s not really about just the physical aspect of it alone. Mostly. The people that come to your classes are those people that if they are really looking for how to lose weight, people that have major earth concerns that they come to yoga classes for, like their doctors really really prescribed going to yoga classes for them. I started learning about healthy eating, so it’s been something that I love to do. And I love sharing. So Rhodes Yoga NG, and Rhodes Kitchen is just like a subsidiary of Rhodes yoga where I give meal plans. I give fruit plans, like for people to maintain your weight or lose weight, or if you just need to eat healthy. So does added things, the services we provide basically.

[00:10:45] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, that’s great. yeah, I’m also a vegan nutritionist and I love helping people with meal prep and recipes and different ideas as well. So I love that you’re into that too. Also, what do you feel like is something that yoga really taught you? Is there a big lesson or a big takeaway or something you feel grateful that yoga brought into your life?

What are you grateful for that yoga brought into your life?

[00:11:07] Motolani Aransiola: I’ll tell you that the greatest lesson from yoga is that people are inherently good. I know that there’s a lot of evil in the world and it just gives you the opportunity to be able to see people separately from situations. So when something is happening or when somebody is doing something, I’m able to know that, okay, this is this person, and this is the situation.

[00:11:31] And I’m able to better judge the situation better. See like from a better point of view, instead of just generalizing. I know that there is good in the world and people are good, like there is still goodness in this world, this world is not totally bad.

[00:11:48] So, it has helped me shift my perspective of the world because I’m naturally someone that doesn’t have patience I’ve been able to at least take a step backward in judging or in just coming to conclusion situations or circumstances arises, I’m able to get a bit that opinion, like be more rationale, be more human in dealing with situations or people, or generally the world around me.

[00:12:20] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, I’m so grateful you shared that. That is a powerful lesson and it is something I love that I hope our listeners will also consider about how yoga can help shape your perspective on the world and kind of lead you to the conclusion that people are inherently good. I’m hoping that’s something that our listeners will contemplate and chew on and think about even after the episode is over.

What is your definition of yoga?

[00:12:46] Lily Allen-Duenas: So thank you so much, Motolani for sharing that. And also, I would love to check in, I ask every guest on the podcast, this question, what is your personal definition of yoga?

[00:12:59] Motolani Aransiola: Okay. My personal definition of yoga, that it is a lifestyle. 

[00:13:03] So if you see my introduction or when I introduce myself, I say that I am a healthy lifestyle ambassador and coach. Since I took up yoga, literally everything like everything in my life relates to yoga.

[00:13:19] Now I’m able to deal with things better. I’m able to see things at least clearer, I would say I have a clear grasp on life. So I, it gave me the understanding that yoga it’s a lifestyle because we spoke about a lot of things like the eight limbs of yoga. Is that just about physical practice? Like it has in-depth meaning that it helps you relate better with the world. And that’s like the best thing that can happen to any of us in this world. Because sometimes when I see things, I feel like I wish this person actually takes a yoga teacher training because if you do, you would have. Maybe a better knowledge of things. I know I’m not saying that you got each as or yoga practitioners are the best humans on earth. I’m not saying that they are saints, but I would say that it provides for a deeper knowledge, some perspectives, or like a different point of view from the general knowledge one would usually have. So yoga actually changed my life. So it is a lifestyle for me. It’s not just a practice. So just about shapes or being on the mat, it encompasses of on and off mat, life, relationships.  

[00:14:39] Lily Allen-Duenas: That’s very true, that yoga is a lifestyle and it is on and off the mat. It isn’t just about the time spent , doing cat and cow and doing Shavasana or plow pose. It really is about the perspective, the mental elements, all the subtler layers that yoga kind of gets into, so, and I agree, I often think that too, yoga teacher training could change so much in so many people, even if they don’t want to teach, even if they just want to go deeper in the practice. So, also, could you share with our listeners more about Nigeria? I would love to hear more about your country, where you’re from and just kind of shine a light on Nigeria overall. 

What is Nigeria like?

[00:15:21] Motolani Aransiola: I’d be glad. So I know that there’s a general misconception about Africa. Like people talk about Africa, like it is just one country, not Africa as several countries, like within it. So Nigeria is in the West African part. 

[00:15:37] Nigeria has several tribes, but the major tribes, like majorly known tribes, are Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, the three major tribes in Nigeria. So I am from the Yoruba speaking tribe of Nigeria.

[00:15:53] And I’m a Yoruba girl from choir, my parents are from choir states Nigeria is a very beautiful place. I am living in Lagos state. I live in Lagos state. It’s like an island of course, like we have a lot of water bodies. Like it is believed that the state is actually bigger than the land space. All of the weekends in April for me, we spent at the beaches or at the resorts and I tell them point, I spent a week just being at the beach. I was at Tampa bay beach. It’s one of the beaches around Lagos state. Nigeria is a beautiful country with loving people. Nigeria is filled with loving people. We are hardworking. We have other beautiful cultures and food. My favorite food is beans. We have a lot of local cuisines that are enjoyable. I particularly enjoy Amala amylase. Also my look, our cuisine, it’s a meal for Yorubas. Like I said, we have various diverse tribes. We are collaborating peacefully to an extent, is there like it’s, um, totally peaceful because every now and then there’s just some issues here and there and all that but generally we cohabit peacefully. Lagos state is the center of commerce. I’ve been to half of Nigeria. I’m trying, I’ve tried, throughout this year to visit at least one different state within the country. So in January I went to, or your ado, our way for a camping trip. We camped on the mountain. And then in February, we can’t be in a forest. The first is indigo states and the fussy park. And then in April, I went to several different places. So I’ve been trying to at least go to different states within Nigeria, just to have a few at least experience all of the geopolitical zones within Nigeria. Nigeria is a beautiful place. 

[00:17:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: That was amazing to hear more about Nigeria and even like the food dishes that you’ve liked. I agree. I love beans. I eat beans all the time. And I know that there’s, I think over 200 

[00:18:09] Motolani Aransiola: yes. All 

[00:18:10] Lily Allen-Duenas: spoken in Nigeria. Has that ever created a problem for you when you’re teaching yoga classes, doing outreach or something else or not so much? 

[00:18:19] Motolani Aransiola: Uh, not really. I haven’t experienced any of that because basically I go to chains in English. So I teach in the English language and that’s it. That has been it. So I’ve never really encountered any language problems while teaching.

How many languages do you speak?

[00:18:34] Lily Allen-Duenas: Okay. That’s good. I’m happy to hear that. How many dialects do you speak?

[00:18:38] Motolani Aransiola: I would say that I speak, let’s say three.. So I speak English and Yoruba fluently and I have a very basic knowledge of French. I started sometimes ago and, um, life just got in the way and I’ve not been able to pick it back up. So, I’m very very interested in picking it up sometime soon. 

[00:18:59] Lily Allen-Duenas: It’s a hard language. I speak it at a basic level as well. It’s hard, I think, to progress really far in it, because there’s just the grammar. There’s so many verb tenses. I’m very comfortable in like three tenses. I just don’t want to get into more than that. 

[00:19:16] Motolani Aransiola: Gender confuses me a lot in French. You have to deal with the gender of whatever you’re talking about after having to wrap your head around verbs and have conversations with the gender of whatever topic you’re talking about. So it’s like a very complex language and it takes so much interest. You have to be very very interested to really learn it. I think that’s it.

How do get in touch with Motolani

[00:19:43] Lily Allen-Duenas: Completely agree. Yes. And so also I was wondering if you wanted to share with our listeners how they can find you online, if they wanted to follow you or ask you a question or get to know you better, I will definitely put the links to your Instagram in our show notes and all on my website, wild yoga, tribe.com. But if you just wanted to mention where they can find you and get in touch.

[00:20:06] Motolani Aransiola: Okay. So, um, if you would like to get in touch with me, you can find me on Instagram at Rhodes, you can enter that. RHODES YOGA NG. Rhodes Yoga NG. That’s for my business page and for my personal page, it is spelled as M O H T O R N E H N Y. So that’s my personal page.

[00:20:33] You can reach me on either page and you can also find me on Google at Google My Business, just find yoga classes in Lagos. So just type in Rhodes Yoga NG and you’ll find me. 

[00:20:47] Lily Allen-Duenas: Perfect. Well thank you so much. for joining me on the show today. It’s been a joy to be with

[00:20:53] Motolani Aransiola: It’s been interesting speaking with you too. Thank you so much. 

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Outro

[00:20:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. My conversation with Motolani Aransiola was so powerful. She’s a yoga teacher from Nigeria, and as we looked at how she serves her community in Nigeria and how she incorporates healthy living and eating and to her methods and mission, I hope that you found this conversation powerful, inspiring, and then it made you curious about how yoga can teach you that there’s good in the world and that people are inherently good as well. Yoga can help you shape your perspective of the world. And I think Motolani did such a beautiful job of conveying that.

[00:21:40]  Thank you for listening to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Be well.

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