#7 - Joan Gerosa

Joan Gerosa shares her story as she inspires those approaching retirement age, to reinvent themselves and start an second act in life. Whether it's starting a business, volunteering and sharing knowledge in an inspiring way or just creating more movement and space in personal lives.  Joan has a story that inspires and relates to many. 

Joan is a retired human resources professional who is adamant about staying active, learning and enjoying new adventures in retirement. She has reinvented herself during her retirement by becoming a certified yoga instructor and facilitating yoga classes on Zoom three times a week (chair, mat, yin). 

Listen to Joan's story as she shares how she transformed her retirement years into helpful and productive services that allow her to interact with her community and bring joy to both herself and others.

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Chapters

• 0:40 Introduction
• 1:40 How Joan Started Her Second Act
• 3:23 Reinventing Self with Chair Yoga Instruction
• 6:24 How Chair Yoga Makes Exercise Accessible to All
• 9:12 Active vs. Passive Meditation
• 10:34 Types of Exercise that Are More Accessible
• 12:17 Book: Yoga 365 (Link to Purchase)
• 12:30 Book: Meditations From the Mat (Link to Purchase)
• 13:37 GuidePosts by Norman Vincent Peale
• 13:53 Strength & Grace Daily Devotions
• 14:01 Journey to the Heart by Melody Beattie (Link to Purchase)
• 14:52 Activities that Keep Joan Sharp
• 17:53 Joan's Inspiration and Experiences
• 21:16 Learning Experiences
• 24:46 Honoring Yourself and Listening to the Body
• 25:11 Props in Yoga
• 25:18 Yoga Blocks (Link to Purchase)
• 25:20 Yoga Straps (Link to Purchase)
• 26:35 Importance of Using time Wisely and Creating Movement
• 28:29 What the Heck is Ojjayi Breath?
• 32:21 Yoga Mat with Poses in Sanskrit and English (Link to Purchase)
• 33:18 Accessible Yoga for All
• 37:30 Lessons from Mom

Transcript

0:11

This is Angela Grayson from the Living Life Fitness Podcast. To help others in their fitness journey. It's All Possible! It’s time to wake up. Here we go. Hi, Joan. How are you doing today? I'm great, Angela. And how are you? Very good. So excited about having you on My Loving Life Fitness Podcast where I'm trying to help others on their fitness journey. Joan and I know each other from not only the gym that we use to go to, Fitness One, here in Flagler Beach, Florida, but also we went to yoga teacher training together back in 2020. 2019. Was it 2019? See, I've lost track. It's been such a journey. You lose track of time. What I’d like to talk to you about, Joan, is about how you decided to go to teacher yoga training after you retired from your previous job. Tell me a little bit about that story. What transpired in your life to make you want to go down this path and take you where you are today? So I had done yoga like in high school. My mother took my sisters and I all the time. But then the years got by, you know, I worked and had kids and everything. And I didn't get back into yoga until I had retired, which was like coming up on 15 years ago. And the reason I went into training was because I needed to have a knee replacement done. And I had that happened in February of 2020. So I went for yoga training before that time because I wanted to learn how I could do yoga poses that would work for me. I didn't want to do anything on my knees. I wanted to continue to do yoga, even with the knee replacement, you know, thought that was like, you know, prohibit me from doing that. That's what drove me to do it. And I also thought what I would do with it was I would go and volunteer at a retirement home and just teach yoga to people in a retirement home. Just volunteer my time. At that same time, my husband would go and visit people, older people that didn't have any visitors because he's great with that. And then that was my plan. But then COVID happened, the pandemic. And so that just squelched that whole idea. And what happened was the gym closed and one of my instructors started doing yoga on Zoom when the gym was closed. And I think it was closed or was it closed for three months? I'm not sure. When the gym opened again, she went back to teaching and I just said, okay, I'll just continue to do the the the yoga that she's done on Zoom. And so that's that's what I've done. And I'm it's been for over three years now. Yes. And you've been helping so many people while reinventing yourself. Let's talk a little bit about that, reinventing yourself after you had a career for how many years in human resources? Yeah. And human resources for almost 35. 34 and a half years. Yes. I worked in New York City. I worked in Connecticut and I worked in Houston, Texas. Yes. And that's a big people person job. You're definitely needing to get along with people and be sociable. So you had that experience behind you. It's interesting that I realized when I was 40, it was a very reflective time in life. And then now I'm 70 and it's also a reflective time. And, you know, I thought back on and I realized like some things have unfolded. So I was a sociology major. I went to Jacksonville University, was a sociology major, and when I graduated, I thought, what am I going to do? And I ended up getting a job working for Exxon Corporation and started in there. Human resource, most employee relations or personnel back then had a number of different positions, but it came to me that I really enjoyed being with people and working with people. So that was just kind of like, okay, that's what I've done. I've continued to do that with everything. So that's just who I am, you know, I enjoy meeting people, talking to people. The jobs that I had mostly were helping people. You know, I was in benefits. And so I was like helping people understand their benefits and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, just realized that. And then that's how it worked out. So, yes, you were used to being around people. You enjoyed that part of your job. However, teaching is a completely different thing and another aspect where we have to get up in front of a group of people and lead them. And I know for me it was, you know, a little unnerving to get up there and to be teaching something new that I had never taught before. Did you feel like that? And if so, how did you work through that and work past that and not feel intimidated and just say, I can't do this? I just I never say I'm a yoga teacher. I say I lead yoga class and I always tell everybody, do what feels right for you. And I do. I lead my classes by what feels good for me. And I'm thinking it's good for me, feel good for other people. So I've never really I've never really felt intimidated by that. But, you know, I also just do it on Zoom. So, you know, I'm not I mean, I have I have taught classes. I've filled in for other people and stuff, but I haven't felt that I just solely because I just take it for how I feel and think everybody else is going to feel good, too. That's all we're trying to do. Keep moving and feeling good. No matter what level we're at. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so that's why after I did the yoga training and I thought I would go to a retirement place, I thought I needed to learn a little bit more. And so I went to the Lakshmi Voelker chair yoga training up in Saint Augustine, and that's what they do. Their whole thing is all just in a chair because there's so many people, I mean, even some of the people that come to, you know, our Zoom classes now that can't get down on the floor. And so there's a ton of things you can do from a chair to make yourself feel better. That's what I enjoy doing. And I do that once a week. I do a mat class once a week, and I do a Yin class. And it's not of just getting up and getting down because, you know, I mean, people are older and it's not that comfortable. I don't do that. I know that's traditional. My sister always tells me traditional yoga is sun salutations. You know, I don't do those that often. I mean, I don't ever do them in my class. Which leads us to the conversation of people, not everyone understanding what chair yoga is. So I have clients that may go through some sort of injury or downtime and I tell them, come to chair yoga and I can tell by the look on their faces or even something they might say, What's chair yoga gonna do for me? I'm used to being on the mat and doing all these poses and getting this great stretch. And you can get great, great stretches in chair yoga and you don't have to get down on the floor and you can be comfortable. You know, it's all about stretching and just using every part of your body for flexibility and to just feel good. And feel so good when that practice is over. Yeah. In so many ways. Do you also integrate meditation into your into your classes? I haven't yet done that. You know, I'm still I'm a member of Yoga Alliance, so that requires continued training. And so I've done some training on that. But no, I have not done that meditation. I do and I haven't done that much breathing, although, you know, I mean, I always focus on breathing because that's like the answer to everything. I mean, other than obviously keeping you alive. But I remember when I was 27 and I quit smoking, what cut me off of cigarettes was taking deep breaths. So I had, you know, had an appendectomy and I was in the hospital for a week. And the thought of having a cigarette which would make you cough after you haven't had one for a while and the pain on my stomach is what kept me away from smoking. But then when I had any incidents of that, I had an urge. I would just do deep breathing and that is just amazing how that worked. So I attribute that to being able to help me stay off cigarettes. So I haven't done that. I haven't done the meditation yet, but you know what the future holds. With the meditation It doesn't have to be a long period of time. So when we started our teacher training, we were introduced to the app Insight Timer. On Insight Timer they have meditations that can be as short as a couple of minutes on to an hour. You choose what you like. Some of it's guided, some of it's silent, A lot of it is breathing, some of it stories. There's so many different kinds. And I've listened to so many and meditations on a daily basis helped me to get my mind in the right place for my day. I think a lot of the Insight Timer meditations, I like to do that. At the end of the day, that's like, you know, I like to put my legs up the wall and listen to Insight Timer at the end of the day. Very good. So you do listen to meditations for your own self practice? Yes, I do. I definitely do. Yes. And what does that do for you? It's very it's just very calming. Makes you think inward, just very relaxing, positive, you know, positive things. You incorporate any other types of physical fitness into your routine? I don't think so. It's really it's just yoga. When I do the chair yoga, we start we do a half hour in the chair and then we stand up and we do about 15 minutes of standing poses, warrior poses, down dog, a number of different standing poses and balancing. We do a tree, and then we go back to the chair with a strap and do it and do some work like that. And in my mat class, it's just all it's all on the mat. We're not getting up and down. I one time at Fitness One coming into a class, a new person come in and they were standing up and she said to the instructor, What do I need to get down? Because I don't want to get up. Yeah, So I really don't. At the beginning of each class, what I do just my thing is I have a 365 days a year yoga book. It's different yoga readings. So when we settle in to whatever class it is, we just start breathing. Then I read the daily yoga wisdom. Whatever it is at the end of each class, we do a complete body scan for our savasana and we lay there and relax everything. And then just visually, our minds go through. And I mention every body part and just relax it. And then that's how we end each session like that, going through, starting from the head and going down toes and back up to the chest. Just listening to you talk about your yoga class from the beginning to the end there for that short time has just brought me a sense of relaxation. It's nice. That's what yoga does to us. Absolutely. So in your own way, by reading from your book and by the way, is that called Meditations on the Mat? No, that's not. It's called Let Me Get in Here called Yoga 365 Daily Wisdom for Life On and Off the Mat, doing your reading before your class from that book. That is a type of meditation because I still have my book that I read daily Meditations from the Mat, which was one of our required reading in our Training. With Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison are the authors of that book and same thing, Amazing daily Insight. And it really, really does help us to think deeper, maybe look at things a different way, accept things a different way. Every reading is so different. It's short and sweet. It's just all positive, you know, which is what I like. So the older I'm thinking, I don't need to deal with all that negativity. I just don't need to. While we're on the subject of books, are there any other books that you go back to or recommendations for the listeners today? Well, I do a number of readings every morning, but you know, the yoga book is one of them, but other ones are just other different readings that I that I've done. And one of them is interesting. It's called Guideposts. Are you familiar with Norman Vincent Peale? And so there's a daily guide post that I've been reading. I feel like 30 or 40 years. So all the authors in that I feel like I know them all each year when the book comes out, I'd like to see what's going on in their lives. I'd even call them. I like that. And then they've also done new additions of Strength & Grace Daily Devotions, which is like mostly caregivers are writing about. Anyway, I like that that I read is that Journey to the Heart by Melody Beattie. All right. It's always good to get book recommendations so that we can go out and read what others are reading or trying to live by. When it comes to living life on a daily basis, we all go through trials. Joan, What do you do to keep yourself on track with life? Oh, I'm not so sure. I am on track with life. I do try. I do like yoga. I lead the classes three times a week and I do some training. You know, other times during the week I have found I loved our gym. I thought it was wonderful. I love the pool, the indoor pool. And so we haven't been able to replace that. But I go to swim classes and the nice weather every morning and that every night. And it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings. But I do have another form of physical fitness in your life besides yoga. Yes. Yes. I go to the Belle Terre Swim Club for water aerobics. It's the Flagler Technical College that does this, and they're up the street on a1a day. I go to an exercise class there on three times a week at ten in the morning. So very good. This is what our listeners need to hear, that even though you're you've turned 70, Joan, not only are you keeping up with your physical fitness to stay healthy and strong, but you're also inspiring so many others by teaching you, saying you don't, you don't to say teach, but by being young classes to so many people. Another another great thing has nothing to do with exercise that I love doing is I play mahjong. When I was living in Texas in Sugar Land, we had a group of 16 women that we all started learning like in 2009. And so we played for years and when I moved here six years ago, I found it. You know, I met some people, mostly through the gym were up to 12 or 14 people in our group, and we play march on every week and they're all great players. They all enjoy it. It's a great game for socializing. So like you can't talk much during the game because it does require some thought. It's not like, you know, you can't do nothing but it's just been great for a lot of people. And I thought friends of mine from college that live up in New Jersey upset some friends and Sugar Land and everybody's like, kind of enjoyed that minus rising a numbers game as now it's a Chinese or Japanese game and we play in the American way. It's a great game, it's fun and we play once a week, at least 3 hours every afternoon. It's a great way to meet people. The National March on Leagues in New York City and it says it's like I think it's in its 86th year of playing march on and developing friendships so and works for charity that everything they do is works for charity, keeps the birkenshaw sharp when we play games with others. Yeah, socializing aspect, you know, having friends, being surrounded by friends. So many days. We had book clubs when we were in Texas where Book club here were in a book club, and that's a great thing to do with people. Yeah, we all alternate deciding what we're reading and who's hosting and everything. And so, you know, we do that every month and that's a lot of fun. So being in a book club, I'm sure you've read a lot of great books. Yeah. Yes. But you know, it's interesting, as you get older, it's like you read them and you can discuss them all. But don't ask me like what I read last year. I can't remember that they all start running together. Right, Right. Which story was which. But at least you're enjoying it while you're doing it. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Tell me about inspirational people in your life, maybe mentors, teachers, relatives. My husband is a great inspiration. He's very disciplined, very structured, has a lot to offer. He's been an inspiration all my life for 38 years. We'll be married, not each other, almost 50. I'm trying to think. I'm sure there have been a lot of people that have inspired me to do different things. I can't stand right now. Just think of how many of them are who they are or what they've done. But all I know is that people have been important in my life. That's what's been my life, is people going back to our yoga teacher training at Renew Yoga in Daytona Beach, Florida. We had six different teachers there throughout almost the one year that we were going there. And a lot of the students who were taking the training course with us were mostly younger. You and a lot of all the older ones, and they were all youngsters in our eyes. And I was the oldest, you know, obviously years ahead of you. But it's so funny because I was remembering one of them. We know how we had to go around and say something about everybody. One of them said, You are so brave. I thought, brave. I guess she thought that because I was older and doing this. Yeah. And a respected you for it. But I've got to say, I'm so sorry. I don't remember her name, but one of our teachers was an older woman. Yeah, Yeah. Is what gave me the drive to keep on going. When I walked in there and I saw all the young new students. Yeah, this I was very happy to see her there, too. She might have been a couple of years older than me, so I knew I wasn't the oldest one. And it didn't matter that she couldn't sit on the floor Indian style. She couldn't bend her knees all the way. You know, she couldn't do all the poses that everybody, the younger students were doing. But she still changed everything so that she could do it her way. Yes. Really impressed me and made me realize that that point, yoga is for everyone. And actually she's like one of the first things that we had to do as a presentation, you know, after get the first session, she said we needed to lead a class. And she said, But no sun salutations. I was fine with that. I know that a friend of mine is going to be listening to this recording she has just shared with me that she wants to go to teacher training when she's older. Both of us. I'm so excited for her. I know that she can do it and I know that she's going to face these different issues on her journey. And nowadays, ever since COVID, some of the places that were teaching training are now only doing it online. What what you wondering about is somebody that is going to be going through the training to do it online or to really seek out somewhere where you can go to the classes like we did and experience it the way we did. What do you think about that? You know, I think that no question, when you're able to be with other people and interact with other people right there in their presence, I think that's the first choice. I think that would be the best way. I know other people who have done everything completely online and to get their training. And a lot of what I do through Yoga Alliance is all online. It's interesting, but it is it's a solitude thing. You know, a lot of people like to get out and be with other people. So I think whatever she can find that would work for her would be great. I think the online thing has just the whole it has changed our world and how we zoom is like one of the positives that came out of COVID because we're able to just connect and do some things with the classes that I lead. It's so interesting, the people that do it, it's like if somebody has a friend, they have a cousin, somebody in Tennessee, I don't know who they are, but they do it. My best friends from college once in Oklahoma City joins us once in New Jersey, joins us. And know these women over 50 years, I mean, Zoom has allowed that to happen. So that's been a very, very positive thing. My sisters do. I have a sister up in New York. I have a sister in Charleston. They join, you know, So that's been really nice for the training. I know our training was fine and I enjoyed that and I'm glad we got it. I think either way would work. Whatever she can find that would work. I actually know somebody else who went through teacher training with an online course and she can go as faster or as slow as she wanted to. There was no timeline, so she did as many as much of it as she could, as fast as she could. She wanted to get it done and go and teach somewhere. But she also missed the aspect of teaching like we did as we went along. As we went along and we learned about meditation, we all had to actually do a meditation in front of class. Absolutely. But we learned about sun salutations. Then we all had to do the sun salutations in front of the class and breathing our breathing practice. We had to choose a breathing practice and do that. And I think that hands on experience made us ready to dive in. I agree. And I think that being able to watch everybody else and, you know, everybody's watching each other, we all learned from each other. And so that was really important. So that's something you would miss with the zoom or the online training. You know, you would be interaction. I'm glad we got our training. So I'm hoping that my friend can find a place that will teach hands on in a classroom in hours on a Saturday for almost a year. It was a commitment, but it was a wonderful thing. Yes, it was. And it was it was great. Okay, so now diving in to the class of chair yoga a little bit more. I like to talk about people who I said before might have injuries or feel they're unable to do it because their arm can only go so high or they have knee issues about easing into a program and taking it step by step, starting small and not expecting a whole lot in the beginning, but giving it time. Do you try to help your clients through that at all? Well, what I always say is, you know, whatever we're doing, it should feel good for you. So what I'm suggesting doesn't feel good. Then don't do it. It when Bend to the right. You don't have to go that far. Just a little bit. You know, some people may go way over, but, you know, you do what's right for your body and that's you just honor your body's what everybody needs to do. And I say that I think everybody that does that understands that they do what they can for themselves. And what about props? I mean, even the chair is considered a prop and chair and blocks and and straps all the things that help us reach a little farther, get better balance, better flexibility, all these props. Yes, absolutely. Depending on the class, I use a strap, a block, a pillow. Sometimes we on our yin classes and you need to be near a wall. So we end up with legs up the wall for about ten or 15 mats, doing different things with legs of the wall, which is very, very relaxed. You know, it's supposed to be very good for you. And I just suggest these things because we all mute and nobody sees each other. You do what's right for you and nobody else hears you. Nobody else sees you. I think some people, when they go to a life class, think that other people are looking at them. Me personally, and in a life class I usually have my eyes closed. So I'm never looking at anybody. I don't care what anybody else is doing. I listen to the instructor and I do what I can best for me. You listen to your body. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And the more you do, the more you can do. And doing an hour of yoga with limitations is so much better than not doing it at all. And your body will talk to you after doing that for a while and say, I'm appreciate, though. Absolutely. You know, sometimes I look around, I look at people who have such a hard time just getting around. It's probably just because they haven't moved enough. You know, I feel very fortunate that I have the time that I'm able to do it and I don't have to rush up to do a whole bunch of other things that's behind me. So that's one of the nice things about getting older. It's your time now. It used to be everybody's time, but now it's more your time. It's your time, but you are still finding the time to give back. Yes, that's exactly what I think this time of life is for myself and my husband. It's like we feel very blessed with everything, and so we feel it is time to just give back. That's exactly how we feel about whatever it is that we do. That's how we like to think about it. And you are you are giving back to so many people mental, emotional and physical wellness all go hand in hand with yoga and balance. Let's not forget balance, flexibility. That's only a few words, but it says so much when it comes to how we feel. Yes. And I love I love what you're doing with your podcast, with everything that you're doing. I think it's all positive. It's all great for any age. I think it's wonderful. I've enjoyed listening to your different podcasts and following what you're doing, so thank you for that, Angela. You're doing a great, great job. You're welcome. And thank you for being on so that we can share your story with others. And my goal here is to hopefully get people off the bench that have been thinking about taking chair yoga and putting it off for whatever reason when they could be enjoying so many benefits. Absolutely. I mean, they're sitting all the time anyway. Why not do a little bit of yoga while you're at it? Let's talk about Ujjayi Breath. So Ujjayi Breath, it's always been kind of a joke to me because not actually doing the breathing because it's wonderful. But more about the word itself, Ujjayi you know, it's like, okay, how do I say that? You hear the teacher say this. OOshee, Ooshy, how do you how do you say that? How do you spell that? What does that mean? And then you try to explain to people how to do it and it feels strange and you try to get them through it. How do you ever use that in your practice? Those I breath, I don't do it enough. I need to take more training on it to be more comfortable doing it. We always do take deep, long breaths. Inhale and pause. Exhale. Pause. I don't do all the different variations that I've had when I've been a student in classes, which I've enjoyed, but I'm just not yet comfortable enough doing that. I need more training, so be comfortable with that. Okay. I'd like to go through a little bit of Ujjayi breathing with you here during the podcast to help our listeners be familiar with it and also to see how the breathing process feels. Okay, So just go ahead and close your eyes and we're just going to keep the lips closed and go ahead and start breathing in and out through your nose. Do that a few times, breathing in, breathing out, focusing on the sound of the breath. And now we'll start to breathe in a little bit deeper through the nose. And then when you exhale, keeping the lips closed, just kind of force the breath through a constricted throat. And when we do that, we hear a little bit louder of a sound. And that sound helps to soothe us and keep focus. And we try and make those breaths a little deeper, coming in and slower and longer, going out with the throat constricted and the lips close. Do that a few more times. Then we'll open our eyes and resume our breathing again. normally. If it was even a minute of doing Ujjayi breathing is calming. Do you feel like your nervous system has calmed? Every relaxing, Very calming, yes. And centers you. And not only is it a good breath to do at the beginning of any yoga class, but if we continue our Ujjayi breathing throughout our session, we will find it easier to move in and out of the poses because any time we any time we breathe in, it helps to contract the muscles and make me stronger to move into a pulse. And then when we breathe out, it relaxes the muscles so that your body can move in to relax and maybe stay in that pose for whatever length of time you need to or want. Or can that. The breath is so important when it comes to going through a yoga practice. Yes, I agree. I agree. Okay. So I just wanted to do that with you. And by the way, it is pronounced(Ooo Jye). I'm not good with any of the Sanskrit words on things like hardly any of them. But I did get that yoga mat with the 70 positions that you had. Well, I saw it at your at your house and I loved it. So I love it. It's a it's a great yoga mat. And so thank you for that. You're welcome. Then anybody can go to my website and look that up. It is on there. It helps us to learn the Sanskrit words, which is really helpful when we do go to a place where the teacher does say the poses in Sanskrit only can be challenging. You're constantly looking around if you don't know the Sanskrit words. So making chair yoga accessible or should say making yoga accessible for people with disabilities. Do you have any people with disabilities in your class? A lot of the chair Yoga, You know, because people do have restrictions and do have disabilities that prevent them from getting on the floor or do any any of the harder yoga poses. And so it's important to know you can do things, you can stretch, you can make yourself feel better sitting in a chair and doing it. And teaching yoga is a continuous journey work and just equally trying to learn more ways to get better at what we do. Absolutely. So our education is never ending. Also always ongoing, always on. And we learn a lot from the people that we do yoga with. You know? Yes, you teach three different kinds of yoga in three different classes. Yes. And did you start doing that because of the different levels of your people or just because you wanted to offer three different types of yoga? I wanted to I wanted to do three different types. I started with like the first year I did, I think it was just twice I did a chair class and a math class. And then I added after a year, the class and a lot of a lot of the moves that we do in all three classes are very, very similar. But I try to change it up a little bit, depending on which class it is. Explain to our listeners exactly the description of your three different classes, because not everybody understands what your yoga is. So just go ahead and take that and roll with that for a moment. The Chair Yoga. We really do most of the work 5 minutes share, but as I said, and we do some standing poses mat yoga, we just get on the floor, we don't get off the floor and we don't do any I don't do any down dance. I don't do any plank stand up to any of those. And we're not up and down and it just kind of like flows. I like to go start at the top and then just go down through the body with the moves that we do. And so it just kind of like all flows together. And then with the yin, that's a lot of the same poses, but not as many because we try to hold those for 2 to 3 minutes each, you know, each pose. I mean, we do some movements during the class. Mostly we try to hold the pose for 2 to 3 minutes and I, I have to keep working on that to get better at doing that, because I know that, you know, they've said that Yin is a really relaxing form of yoga. It's not strenuous or anything like that. And, you know, we do focus on holding the poses for, they say, three, 2 to 5 or 8 minutes. I think we get up two or three and I keep trying to do it longer. It feels good when you do that. You're holding a close for a longer period of time. You see that during the course of that you can go even further into each pose a longer you. You're holding it though the benefit of Yin is getting more range of motion flexibility. Yes, it's really relaxing. You know, it all feels. But most of what I do is all in my mind it all feels good because that's how I lead it. It's like I do what feels good for me. If I wasn't feeling good, I wouldn't be doing it. You know, I'm not one of those strong athletic people that's going to really go over the edge on things. I went to a yoga class one time where the teacher had all the poses from anywhere to 5 to 8 minutes, but she told a story during the class. Yeah, it was amazing because. You lose track of the time that you're in the pose, you are paying attention to the story. Instead of thinking about being stuck in this pose for 5 to 8 minutes and adjusting if you need to hear so you can listen to the story. That's nice. I've done some classes where people do talk a lot during the class and talk you through everything. I don't do that much talking. I think that some of the people, because we're all in our own little environment, I think a lot of the people do put on some nice soothing music while they're doing it. And you know, nobody else hears that, just them. I think a number of people probably do that. And I like ending, you know, positive quotes. Like at the end of each class. I told you, I start reading from the the yoga book at the beginning, at the end of each class, I read one of my what I call lessons from Mom that I things I've sent my children and they're all just positive thoughts. I try to end it like that with a positive look. I was saving that for the end. I'm glad you brought it up. We can talk about it now. So Joan has told me about these letters for mom that she started writing to her children many years ago. They're lessons for mom. It's lessons for mom. And I email it to that. You know, there were 27 and 24. I started doing this in 2015, and I said to them, you know, I think that, you know, you're off on your own, you're doing your thing, you're finished college. You're you know, I said, but I think there's still some things you can learn from me. So I said, So I'm going to do what I call a lesson from mom. And it's mostly like it's interesting how it's unfolded. I was planning to do it every day. My older son said, Mom, please, just once a week. I'm like, okay, I'm so glad he said that because, you know, I try to do it every Sunday. It doesn't always get out on Sunday, but nobody's perfect. So, you know, as long as it gets out and sometimes I miss and that's okay, but it's just mostly sharing some kind of positive thoughts. Like, you know, there's tons of reading is out there. Wonderful, positive thoughts, strength builders. Some of it has been you were talking about like when I started it, we lived in Texas. So they have how it transpired. My husband and I moving to Florida and they see each week what we were doing differently when we were moving. So it's something that they're always going to have. And so I email it to them during the year and then at the end of each year I print them all out and they have a mostly binder we all have lessons from. We put that in there. So they're always going to have that with them. When I'm long gone, they can still go back and remember things. And I was reading there the day that our lessons from 2020 with that pandemic and just unbelievable the things that we all went through during pandemic. And I was trying to tell them all kinds of positive things and, you know, always see the silver lining in clouds and stuff like that. So it's really interesting that it's been now going on eight years and they both enjoy it. They both like it, and it's just something that we do. So I would love to start doing something like that. There's things that I want to share with my children and you think of things, but you're not always together when you think of them. So why not? And not only could my children benefit from it, but also my grandchildren later on down the line, I'd be glad to share my book with you and see like the kinds of things like what I've done and said and so forth. So do you ever encourage your clients to get off the chair and go on to the mat if it's looking like they're ready for that? Well, you see, the thing is, I mean, when I do it on Zoom, I don't see anybody. Oh, you don't either. Okay. Everybody stops their video and everybody mute. So everybody is just doing their thing. So I know. And nobody's going do anything that is not going to feel good for them. They know that right progression is a wonderful thing when you're ready for it. Taking it at your own pace. Yeah, yeah. When we start, when we start our classes, we're all on together. Each other can say hi and whatever. But then once it starts, everybody stops their video and mute and it's just me leading the class. Do you do the same sequences all the time or do you mix it up? You know, I kind of do the same. And I keep thinking I need to try to mix it up a little that some people have said, you don't need to mix it up, but I'm trying to with the more training I do, trying to get more things and to mix it up a little bit, I have with each of the three classes I have in my head how to do it and which way to go. And and so it makes it easier for me. I just to me, it flows easy, you know. So some people like routine too. They enjoy the routine because they know how to do it. They know what's coming next. Also think that changing things up not only helps to stimulate the mind because we need to think about what we're doing, it also stimulates the muscles and the body in a different way, which is really challenges muscle memory, which is really good for the body and the brain. And we don't always have to keep on doing the same thing because how are we ever going to progress? I keep thinking about that and I keep working on that. So it's always a work in progress. Yes, it's a journey, but we're loving our journey our way. Right. All right. So this has been wonderful. I loved having a conversation with you today. Thank you. Is there anything in the future going on with Joan, any kind of new experiences that you're wanting to experience, any new goals? You know, I always have goals. I have goals and objectives every year. I don't always get to them all. But I'm beginning to think that now the pandemic is like, we're kind of like, that's behind us. I need to go back to my original thought of volunteering at a retirement, so that's what I'm going to look at, doing it just if there's any places and I don't know, you know, I know my husband has gone to some places, but I think there's a lot that you have to do to be able to go there and do that without. I'll just find out. I'm going to just start exploring that. I am going to try through to reach out through social media to get more people to listen to this podcast, maybe that work at nursing homes. Maybe somebody will give you a call or send you an email because you've done this recording today. Great, Wonderful. Right. We're all going to try to listen and share the podcast so that maybe Joan can soon be volunteering at a nursing home near us. All right Joan, thank so much. Thank you, Angela. You're so sweet. Thank you so much for wanting to do this with me. Really very touched. Thank you. Enjoy your journey in yoga. Okay, You too. Thanks. Angela Grayson from the Loving Life Fitness Podcast. To help others in their fitness journey. It’s All Possible! It's time to wake up. Here we go.