331: Exploring Nature Through Asana with Alison Zak
Spending time in nature can be a part of your yoga practice, but how can you find a deeper connection to nature through asana? Alison Zak is passionate about this topic and joins Shannon in this episode to share her perspective on how we can understand, respect, and learn from nature through our yoga practice.
Alison is an author, yoga teacher, wildlife conservationist, and (a self-described) animal. She loves to encourage her students to find connection with themselves, their fellow human and beyond-human beings, and with nature through yoga.
Alison shares how we can use our yoga practice to honor nature and connect with other beings and why it is so important to seek connection with other animals. She also shares a little more about how we can take inspiration from nature for our yoga teaching and personal practice. Alison offers some practical advice for finding your authentic teaching voice and also has a special surprise for one lucky podcast listener!
Key Takeaways:
[0:00] There’s a book giveaway in this episode!
[0:48] Shannon gives a shout out to sponsor, OfferingTree.
[3:44] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode – Alison Zak.
[6:18] What does Alison do and who does she do it for?
[9:14] Why is it important to bring in the connection between yoga and nature and animals? What benefits does it offer?
“How many hundreds or thousands of times have yoga practitioners and teachers practiced cobra pose? So many. But rarely ever [do they] think about the animal that it’s named after.” ~ Alison Zak
[13:16] Many people experience fear or cognitive dissonance when dealing with different animals. Alison shares an example.
“We can just get curious about what that animal’s life is like and how they perceive the world. And then, that is the thing that helps us to just realize how connected we are to other beings.” ~ Alison Zak
[14:49] Alison gives some examples of how she thinks about and reflects on different animals while doing her own yoga practice.
[18:28] What are Alison’s reflections on pigeon pose?
[22:44] How does Alison find that connection to animals in her yoga?
[26:45] Not everyone has the same access to nature to observe animals and wildlife. What does Alison recommend in those situations?
[30:39] Shannon has some news from the team at OfferingTree.
[32:11] What inspired Alison to share the book and who is it geared towards?
“I hope that that connection that we feel with other animals through a yoga practice, for example, leads to treating them with more compassion in our interactions with real live animals that we share the planet with.” ~ Alison Zak
[35:18] What are some events Alison put together to promote the book?
[36:19] Some people may feel hesitant about making animal noises. Why is that, and how can we work with that?
[44:00] What was the most enlightening or hardest thing for Alison about writing a book?
[48:42] Alison is giving one of her books away to a podcast listener!
[49:20] What is one thing Alison wishes yoga teachers knew about connecting more with nature?
“I will go back to the importance of knowing that we are also animals. We’re not separate from the pigeon or the cobra or the scorpion. When we connect with these other animals, we are connecting with ourselves because we’re all interconnected.” ~ Alison Zak
[50:02] Stay in touch with Alison via social media or her website.
[51:11] Shannon shares her biggest takeaway from this conversation with Alison.
Links:
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OfferingTree Video on Email Updates
Gratitude to our Sponsor, OfferingTree.
Great pod! I was that noisy kid (and still am-but not a kid anymore) who’s mom was always exasperated when I would sound animals. I have a new-found motivation to encourage my yoga students to connect that way. 🦁
I love this so much and it’s inspiring me to connect more with my inner noisy kid!
Moo! Meow! 🙂
I absolutely love this tangible approach to breaking down some of the barriers to understanding the interconnectedness of all creatures and the environment and moving away from the idea of individualism that permeates much of western culture. Thank you for the inspiration!
Right!?! Alison is such a gift to this planet and to the yoga world! Thanks for listening and sharing your thoughts here.
Thanks for listening, Shelly!
Wow! I was very inspired by Alison! She is a kindred spirit with me, as a ecologist who also teaches yoga, I also describe myself as a scientific mystic! If I don’t win this book I am buying it:) I love that my children’s yoga class is not too different from my adult classes:) I always use nature to connect with my yoga and love to play! Alison reminded me to come back to the poses and really think about the “why”. I loved the talk about how can we breath like a fish and I can’t wait to get on my mat and explore how it feels to breath underwater (with gills of course).
Hi Amanda, let’s be friends please 🙂 Thanks so much for listening and reading!
A good listen! Loved hearing ideas on how to connect more with nature and the promotion of it being different for everyone.
Thank you for sharing!
I loved the anecdote about the mourning dove and how it connected her to the experience of pigeon pose. I love mourning doves, and really enjoyed thinking about their characteristics and traits and how I might bring some of these into my own practice. This episode was so lovely and inspiring!
I also enjoyed this episode. I’ve been sharing as a practice cue the “ready to play energy” unique to the downward facing dog pose – inviting more playfulness in my classes. The conversation also gave license to model expressing the breath more actively as a teacher… getting adults out of the thinking mind and into the body and breath – our animal nature. I’m sharing a great Ezra Klein Show podcast that’s related and worth a listen… https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-being-animal-could-help-us-be-better-humans/id1548604447?i=1000618460588
Hi Dan, thanks for listening. I love the “ready to play energy” 🙂
Loved this conversation! Love this book! Excited to do (and share) these practices. So glad you two collaborated.
Thanks, Angela! So glad we got to meet in person. I appreciate your support of this book 🙂
Alison, it was so cool to hear this podcast! I am so excited to check out your book! As a geek about all things nature connection, I think often about something I heard you discuss during a conference presentation during the pandemic… You said that you get kids/teens to consider the idea that they can “plug in” to the energetic resources that Earth has to offer by making a peace symbol with their first & second fingers and plugging them in on the ground beside them…just as they recharge their devices. I think about it often, and I just the other day suggested it to a fellow YTT student who is teaching classes to teens! Thanks again, Shannon and Alison for a great conversation.
Loved this episode, thank you Shannon & Alison. I’m a seasonal yoga teacher and an EcoNidra guide, and would love to learn more about connecting with the animals that have gifted their names to & inspired the asana. I taught a series of yoga classes based on the Celtic trees and took the qualities and strengths of the individual trees to theme my classes most of my students loved it, a couple thought I was weird! I think they would be more open to the animals. Your chat also reminded me of a workshop I went on where the teacher divided us into 2 groups and 1 group took tree pose in which ever form they liked and then the others got to hang out with those trees in whatever way they wanted. It was beautiful. Thank you Lucas again
Great podcast! So refreshing and playful. I’ve always had a deep reverence for nature, so integrating the ancient wisdom of yoga with my innate connection to nature has been apparent in all of my teachings. I’m extra inspired after listening to this episode! Thank you both!!!
I loved the conversation about really connecting to animal poses. I had never really thought about what it really feels like to be a lizard or a cobra. Truthfully I had not really even put much thought into the poses other then they are shapes like a lizard or a cobra. I believe connecting to nature is so healing. I very much enjoyed the podcast and am more inspired to help my clients connect to nature more deeply.
Always great information and new things to consider and learn. Thanks
Enjoyed the podcast, I am always looking for ways to tie in to nature with the yoga practice especially since I teach at a studio which is right at the border of the Gatineau Park. thanks for the inspiration
The remembrance of growing up barefoot and running around as a child is what brought me back to myself through my practice. So thankful for all living and breathing things both in the animal, plant, insect, etc world we have been blessed to explore.