The YAY!YOGA Podcast

Lisa de Jong (@lisa_dejong_coach) is an Ireland-based women's health coach specialised in the menstrual cycle. Most of her work is about creating menstrual cycle awareness and in our conversation she explains exactly what that is, why it’s important and how you can start to connect more with your cycle even if you don’t have one at the moment. In this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast we get very practical about balancing hormones through diet and lifestyle changes. Lisa speaks about her own healing journey through endometriosis, we discuss hormonal and non-hormonal birth control methods and cover way more hormones and cycle-related topics. Grab a pen and paper because Lisa shares a lot of valuable information and you might want to make some notes for yourself. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Olivia Allnutt is a highly experienced strength and flexibility coach, based in Australia. She's the co-director of Stretch Therapy™ together with her partner Kit Laughlin, who is the founder of the Stretch Therapy Method. They both have great knowledge on the human body and they have researched and developed stretching techniques for every body, regardless their experience or 'restrictions'. Their main focus is to help people feel comfortable in their body by removing any restrictions, tension and tightness and develop a sense of body awareness. I was super excited and felt honoured to have this chat with Olivia on the YAY!YOGA podcast. In our conversation Olivia's shares many words of wisdom and advice for teachers who want to teach in an intelligent way. We discuss a range of techniques in the Stretch Therapy system, such as partner stretching and how to do it safely, we talk about the importance of the breath, the use of language and touch when teaching and we talk about offering variations of (yoga) poses for each student in the room. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

My first conversation with Victoria Hyndman (@victoria_tory_raven_hyndman) was the most listened to episode on the YAY!YOGA podcast and I am super excited that I got to record and share a second edition. In this summer special, Victoria shares Ayurvedic tips for keeping it cool during those hot summer days. We get very practical in this episode as we discuss ways to adjust your lifestyle to the season. We talk about cleanses for different body types, ice baths and cold showers, sun exposure, how to deal with hay fever and so much more. A lot of information is shared here so grab a pen and paper and write along! *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Sebastiaan Pagano (@sebas_pagano) is a strength and flexibility coach from Amsterdam, who has a lot of experience and knowledge in flexibility training for adults. In his search for the best method to increase his own range of motion he explored a broad range of disciplines, such as yoga, martial arts, movement and gymnastics. Through this journey he researched and experimented with many different stretching methods, among which some very efficient and aggressive ones that we will discuss in this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast. We also talk about the misconceptions and myths in flexibility training, the difference between mobility and flexibility, yin yoga and the role of genetics in increasing your range of motion. I very much enjoyed this in-depth conversation and hope you get something out of it too. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

David Kam (@davidkamkw) is a London-based teacher of movement. His classes are non-traditional and are probably best described as a fusion of yoga, dance and animal flow. He likes to surprise his students and offers them space to play and explore new pathways. The sunny side of the current lockdown is definitely that I get to practice with teachers from around the globe through Zoom. David is one of the teachers that I was lucky enough to practice with during this Covid crisis and I am very grateful that we got the chance to record a podcast episode too. In our conversation, we talk about embodiment and the use of language as a teacher, the importance of play and changing things up, how growing up in Malaysia taught David the art of fusing different element, David’s handstand journey and so much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Enjoy listening! *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Erica Jago (@erica_jago) is a yoga teacher, graphic designer and creator of two books: Art of Attention with Elena Brower and Angelus with Roos van der Kamp. The latter is a beautifully designed modern workbook on the chakras, a topic that we’ll discuss into details on the YAY!YOGA podcast. Erica used to live in Amsterdam and moved back to the US where she was born and now lives with her daughter, close to her family. I was so inspired by this conversation as Erica speaks so beautifully about the ancient science of the chakras and her own healing journey. We also talk about Kundalini yoga, dealing with heavy emotions, overcoming addiction, and how to discover chakra imbalances if you don’t feel an obvious block. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Djilani Sprang-Purperhart (@djilaniwithabeard) is a yoga teacher, anthropologist and sociologist. He recently published his book Sunde – Sunday in Surinam – in which he shares his personal story and writes about topics such as life, death and love. In this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast we continue this conversation as we’ll dive deeper into these themes. We talk about Djilani’s childhood and how his mother taught him to love wholeheartedly. Djilani explains how yoga helped him in dealing with a great loss, we talk about being a black heterosexual male in the yoga world and we share thoughts on making yoga more inclusive and diverse. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Victoria Hyndman (@victoria_tory_raven_hyndman) is an Ayurvedic practitioner and yoga teacher, who studied with Dr. Vasant Lad at The Ayurvedic Institute in New Mexico. I recently met her at Delight Yoga in Amsterdam, where I joined her Foundation course on Ayurveda. This course left me feeling inspired and enriched, not only by the knowledge and insights that I received, but also by the way Victoria was sharing these beautiful practices of Ayurveda and Ayuryoga. On the YAY!YOGA podcast we dive deeper into Ayurveda and Victoria's personal story of how she got into this ancient wisdom. We talk about the cycles of life: birth, death and dealing with loss. Victoria shares Ayurvedic tips on how to ease into fall and make it through winter and also gives some advice for women that want to live in sync with their moon cycle. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Susanna Barkataki (@susannabarkataki) is a yoga unity activist, teacher, speaker and author of the book Embracing Yoga’s Roots (to be released in November 2020). Susanna’s main work is about sharing ways in which we can teach and practice yoga in the modern world, while honouring it's roots. In this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast we talk about cultural appropriation and how colonisation influenced the way yoga was introduced to the West, the ethics of yoga, how to preserve yoga culture, whether you should speak Sanskrit and say ‘Namasté’ at the end of a yoga class and so much more. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Lara Heimann (@lara.heimann) is a yoga teacher and physical therapist who is specialised in neurodevelopmental training. Through this deep understanding of body and brain mapping, she created the LYT™ method, which we will obviously talk about in this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast. In this conversation we cover lots of interesting topics, such as the importance of touch, mobility versus flexibility, the yoga butt and how to prevent it, the impact of technology on posture, hyper-mobility and yoga, active versus passive stretching and the difficulties in yin yoga from a brain perspective, raising kids when you are a vegan and much much more. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Julie Martin (@brahmanijulie) is probably one of the most inspiring yoga teachers right now and I am so grateful to have had this conversation with her. She empowers many students and teachers to step away from traditional yoga asana practice and tune into a practice that allows people to feel and move their bodies in a more natural way. In this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast, we talk about Julie’s Vedantic background, the old school way of becoming a yoga teacher, how and why she moved from traditional Ashtanga yoga towards an embodied movement practise and we talk about the process of elimination as a way to come back to the present moment. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Megan Mulrine (@yogatrotter_) is a yoga teacher who is living on the so-called Island of the Gods: Bali, Indonesia. It makes total sense that she’s living there as she spends most of her time studying and teaching about the Hindu gods and goddesses. I was very excited to speak to Megan on the YAY!YOGA podcast as she was one of the lead teachers in my first teacher training and she told me how the yoga poses that we practice are named after Hindu gods and their stories. In this episode, we talk about Buddhism, Hinduism, how to teach about Hindu gods to students from different cultural backgrounds and the importance of non-attachment when it comes to your self-practice. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Gregory Lennon is a yoga teacher who grew up in the US and has now been teaching and living in Amsterdam for a long time. He has a lot of knowledge about yoga philosophy and also does a great deal in sharing that knowledge in his teachings. I specifically love his dharma talks at the beginning of class, where he speaks from ancient texts as well as from his own experiences in daily life. He’s a great storyteller as you will hear in this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast. We talk about religion and how that relates to yoga philosophy, how to incorporate the teachings from ancient yogic texts in your classes and we also touch on inclusivity in the yoga world. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Moena de Jong is an Amsterdam-based yoga teacher who has studied a variety of yoga traditions and lineages, ranging from Hatha to Vinyasa to Jivamukti. I invited her to the YAY!YOGA podcast as I visit her classes whenever I can and always leave feeling enriched and inspired by the way she structures her classes with music, dharma talks, philosophy, pranayama and asanas. Her classes are a complete package of nutrients for the body, mind and soul. In this episode, we talk about a lot of interesting topics such as Yoga Nidra, Jivamukti and the importance of holding space and creating a safe environment for students to practice. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Daphne Koken (@dayogini) is a prana vinyasa teacher, who inspires me a lot and also showed me the true beauty of this practice. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to study and practice with her a few times last year. In one of her teacher training modules, she taught me the art of lunar sequencing and that vinyasa is not only an active and energising practice, but it also has a very gentle aspect to it. In this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast we talk about prana vinyasa, the importance of teaching from the traditions of yoga, how to connect with the cycles of nature, how knowing your own body doesn’t always mean you know what works for your students and much much more. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Sebastian Valensi (@aries_sv) is a teacher in yoga and Eastern philosophy. Born and raised in Patagonia, Chile, he was introduced to Eastern philosophy early in his life as his dad was a Thai Chi and Qi Gong teacher. However, it wasn't until later that he chose to change his life completely and explore the ancient Eastern traditions. I was so lucky to have Sebastian as a philosophy teacher during my 200 hours teacher training at Santosha and I am very grateful for this opportunity to reconnect with him again for the YAY!YOGA podcast. In this episode we talk about Eastern philosophy and Tantra, how to teach from these traditions with integrity and authenticity, and much more interesting topics. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show

Anna Scott Miller (@annascottmilleryoga) is an Amsterdam-based yoga teacher with an extensive background in both practising and teaching movement. From a very young age, she started practising gymnastics and throughout the years her practice and teachings gained more and more focus on self-development. In this episode of the YAY!YOGA podcast we talk about Anna’s self-practice, her teaching style and how she empowers students to explore their own needs and capabilities. We also talk about Black Lives Matter in the yoga world and Anna shares some great resources to educate ourselves on this topic. *** If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe and leave a short review. It only takes a minute and by that, you're supporting me a lot in sharing these stories. Find the show notes at www.yayyoga.nl/podcast Connect with me: Instagram @reneeleeuw YouTube YAY!YOGA by Renée WWW yayyoga.nl Support the show