Ep 85: The Case for Teaching Students w Injuries

Transcript

Monica: 0:00

You know me, I talk a lot about teaching students with injuries. I mean, it is my thing, honestly. So today I want to pick my belief apart for you so that you see exactly why you play an important role in helping students with injuries. Welcome to the Essential Conversations for Yoga Teachers Podcast with me. I'm Monica Bright and I've been teaching yoga and running my yoga business for over a decade. This is the podcast for you. If you are a yoga teacher, you're looking for support. You love to be in conversation, and you're a lifelong student. In this podcast, I'll share with you. My life as a yoga teacher, the lessons I've learned, my process for building my business and helpful ideas, tools, strategies and systems I use and you can use so that your business thrives. We'll cover a diverse range of topics that will help you, whether you're just starting out or you've got years under your belt and you wanna dive deep and set yourself up for success. I am so glad you're here. Listen, I don't take myself too seriously, so expect to hear some laughs along the way. Now let's do this together. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Monica, and I'm so glad you're here. Here we talk about the anatomy, the injuries, the nervous system insights, and all the real life knowledge you wish had been included in your yoga teacher training. Okay. You know me, I talk a lot about teaching students with injuries. I mean, honestly, it's my thing. So today I really wanna pick my belief apart for you so that you see exactly why you're in an important position for helping injured students. Like it really is part of your role as a yoga teacher or a movement educator. As I see some teachers call themselves, all I need is about 20 minutes of your attention and an open mind Deal. Okay, let's get started. I want you to imagine two yoga teachers, both have a student with chronic shoulder pain walk into their class. Both teachers completed the same 200 hour training and both want to help this student. But teacher one says, here's a bolster for child's pose. And skip any arm movements that don't feel good. The student leaves feeling unsupported and eventually stops coming to yoga altogether. Teacher two, and this is you says, let's understand what your shoulder is telling us and work with your nervous system to create safety while we explore gentle movement. A few weeks later, this student has improved range of motion, feels safer when they move and tells everyone that yoga saved their shoulder. What if I told you the difference between these two teachers is the limiting belief that's keeping most yoga teachers from truly helping their injured students? What's that belief It's thinking. All I can do is offer modifications and props. This belief is costing you the opportunity to be a transformational yoga teacher, and today I am going to prove that you already have the scope, the ability, and the responsibility to do so much more than what you're currently offering. Now I know exactly what just went through your mind. Maybe you thought, but Monica, I can't diagnose or treat injuries. That's not in my scope of practice. I could get in trouble. Or I'm not qualified for that. That skepticism is completely valid. I felt the exact same way for years. I watched students struggle with pain and told myself I was staying in my lane by only offering props and modifications. But what if the very thing you believe is protecting you and your students? Is actually the thing keeping you from being the healing centered teacher you dreamed of becoming. What if modifications and props are just the beginning of what you can offer, not the end. What if there's a whole world of therapeutic support that's absolutely within your scope that you've never been taught? Over a decade ago, I was exactly where you might be right now, a yoga teacher who felt helpless. Every time someone with an injury walked into my class. I remember the student who changed everything for me. This student had a meniscus tear and she'd come to my class because she still loved practicing yoga. In my 200 hour training, I was taught to offer her props, modifications and tell her to listen to her body and skip poses that. Don't feel good. After a couple of months, she wasn't better. She was actually getting more fearful of movement, and I began to realize I was failing her. Not because I wasn't qualified to help, but because I wasn't using the full scope of what movement educators can actually offer. I committed to learning everything I could about pain, science, nervous system function, and therapeutic movement. I've since completed over 2000 hours of continuing education in biomechanics, pain science. Injury recovery and nervous system work, and I'm going to help you understand ways you can help injured students beyond modifications and props. Why this is absolutely within your scope of practice and exactly how to implement these approaches starting in your very next class. Here's how. First I'll show you the monetary cost of limiting yourself to modifications and props. Then I'll deconstruct the myths, keeping you stuck. Finally, you'll realize you already have some tools in your toolbox to help injured students right now. First, let me explain to you exactly what it's costing you to believe that modifications and props are all you can offer. The average yoga teacher gets paid 20 to$35 per class and teaches eight to 12 classes per week. That's roughly two to$400 weekly or 10 to$20,000 annually. Teachers who specialize in working with injured students. Can charge 40 to$60 per class. Teach private clients at a hundred to$125 an hour, and often develop specialized programs. They're making anywhere from 40 to$70,000 annually From the same time investment, but let's get deeper than just money. Every injured student who leaves your class feeling unsupported becomes someone who tells others that yoga doesn't help with injuries. That's a negative word of mouth that impacts your entire community. Every injured student you could have helped but didn't because you felt unqualified represents a missed opportunity to create a genuine healing experience. It breaks my heart that most yoga teachers entered this profession because they wanted to help people heal and transform. But when you limit yourself to modifications and props, you're settling for being a pose adjuster instead of being a transformational. Yoga teacher over a 10 year teaching career. If you help just one student per month through comprehensive approaches, that's 120 lives transformed. Each of those students, tells others, refers friends, and becomes an advocate for therapeutic yoga. But if you stick to modifications and props, you remain invisible in the therapeutic space. Struggling for students while specialized teachers are building waiting lists. The question isn't whether you can afford to learn these approaches. The question is, what's it costing you every single day to not know how to implement them? I wonder if this happens for you. Every time you think about doing more than modifications, that little voice pops up and whispers. That's not in my scope of practice, but let's examine what's actually in your scope. Versus what you've been told is in your scope. You are legally allowed to educate students about movement and anatomy. Teach breathing techniques that affect nervous system regulation, guide students through progressive movement experiences. Provide information about pain, science and healing and create environments that support nervous system safety. Notice what's missing from that list. Diagnosis, treatment, or medical advice, but education, guidance and creating healing environments. That's absolutely what movement teachers do. The truth is saying that's not in my scope, has become a way to avoid the discomfort of learning something new, Not a genuine legal boundary. If you think to yourself, I don't know enough about injuries, the thing is you already know enough to offer modifications and props, right? So you do know something about injuries and how movement affects them. The question isn't whether you know enough, it's whether you are using. Everything you already know and whether you're willing to learn the additional pieces that would make you truly effective. You probably know more about anatomy than you think you do. You just don't know how to apply it therapeutically beyond pose modifications. Here's what I used to think. What if I make someone worse? This fear is completely understandable, but let me ask you this. What if your current approach of modifications and props isn't helping and students are getting worse anyway? What if by not addressing the nervous system component of pain, not educating about movement, not working with breath and stress patterns, you're actually missing opportunities to help them improve the approaches I'm going to share with you are designed to be safe, progressive, and based on how healing actually occurs in the body. You're not going to make anyone worse by helping them understand their nervous system or teaching them therapeutic breath. The fundamental myth underlying all of these little voices in our heads is this, helping injured students requires medical training and puts me at legal risk. This myth has been perpetuated by yoga teacher training programs that are terrified of liability and by a medical system that wants to maintain monopoly over anything related to pain and injury. The reality is movement educators, like yoga teachers are uniquely positioned to help injured students in ways that medical professionals often can't. We see students weekly, sometimes multiple times per week. We observe their movement patterns, their stress responses, their relationship with their bodies. We have the time and space to address the psychological and nervous system components of pain that medical appointments rarely allow for. Let me tell you about two teachers. That I've worked with in the past. Teacher A believed the myth completely. When injured students came to class, she immediately referred them to physical therapy and told them to come back when they were better. She saw herself as unqualified to help. Teacher B understood that movement. Education is therapeutic. She learned to work with nervous systems, educate about pain, science, and create healing environments. Her classes became known as safe spaces for people with injuries. A year later, teacher A is still struggling to fill her classes while teacher B currently has waiting lists and is making twice as much money working with the exact students'. Teacher A was turning away. The difference wasn't their training. They had identical certifications. The difference was their understanding of their role. Teacher B realized that yoga teachers aren't trying to compete with medical professionals. We are filling a gap that medical professionals can't fill. We are the movement educators who help people rebuild trust with their bodies, understand their nervous systems, and develop sustainable self-care practices. This isn't about overstepping scope, it's about fully stepping. Into the scope you already have. It's time to completely reframe how you think about your role with injured students from, I'm a yoga teacher who offers pose modifications to accommodate injuries. Two, I'm a movement educator who helps people heal their relationship with their bodies through nervous system regulation, education and therapeutic movement experiences. But how, think of healing from injury as a triangle with three essential components. The first is medical care, where people get a diagnosis, they get treatment and medication if needed. The second part of the triangle is physical therapy, specific rehabilitation exercises, and maybe manual therapy. And the third is movement education. Nervous system work, pain, education, movement, competence, building long-term self-care practices. Most injured people get components one and two, but component three, which is where yoga teachers excel, is often completely missing. You have something medical professionals don't have ongoing relationships. Group support, holistic approach, time and space for education and focus on the whole person and not just the injury. You're not trying to replace medical care or physical therapy. You're the bridge between rehabilitation and long-term wellness. You are where people come to rebuild confidence, learn self-care and develop a sustainable relationship with movement. When you understand this, everything changes. Instead of seeing injured students as people you need to accommodate, you see them as people you're uniquely positioned to help heal. Instead of offering modifications as consolation prizes, you offer comprehensive experiences that address all the components of healing that often get overlooked. In medical settings, when you make this shift, you don't just help individual students. You change how your entire community understands the role of movement in healing. You become part of the solution to our healthcare crisis, not just someone who accommodates its limitations. Let me ask you something that might make you uncomfortable. If you have the ability to help injured students heal and you choose not to because it feels outside your comfort zone, what does that say about your commitment to your students' wellbeing? Okay. Every day you limit yourself to modifications and props. You're actively choosing to let students struggle with pain. You could help address, reinforce their belief that yoga isn't for people like them. You miss opportunities to create genuine transformation and you maintain a limited view of your own capabilities and impact. Here's the contradiction I see constantly teachers who say they became yoga instructors to help people heal, but then refuse to learn the tools that would actually help people heal. Teachers who spend hundreds of dollars on workshops about advanced poses that serve healthy students but won't invest in learning to help students who need them the most. Okay. Teachers who confidently guide students through complex physical poses, but feel unqualified to teach breathing techniques that could reduce their pain. To be honest, when an injured student leaves your class feeling unsupported, they don't think, oh, she was just staying in her scope of practice. They think yoga doesn't work for people like me. When you refer every injured student to physical therapy, you are essentially saying, I can't help you. Which may be true now, but only because you're choosing not to develop the skills that would allow you to help. Every week you wait to learn these approaches is another week of students walking into your classes hoping for support and leaving disappointed. Every month you stay in the modifications and props. Only mindset is another month of missed opportunities to be the transformational teacher you dreamed of becoming. This is a choice you're making every single day. You can choose to remain limited or you can choose to step into the full potential of what movement education can offer. Which choice aligns with why you became a yoga teacher in the first place? Let's talk about what you're really afraid of. That little voice that says, what if I try to help and I make things worse? What if I hurt someone or what if I get sued? I understand. When I first started working more comprehensively with injured students, I was terrified. Every time I suggested a breathing exercise or explained pain science, I worried if I was overstepping. But here's what I've learned in 13 years and working with thousands of students. The approaches I'm talking about, nervous system, education, therapeutic breathing, creating safety movement, reeducation. These are inherently safe practices. You're not manipulating spines or prescribing treatments, you're teaching breathing, providing education and creating supportive environments. The risk of harm from these approaches is virtually zero. What's actually riskier? Teaching someone therapeutic breathing techniques or leaving them in a chronic state of nervous system dysregulation that perpetuates their pain. Educating someone about how pain works or leaving them with catastrophic thinking patterns that make their condition worse, Or creating a safe environment for movement, exploration, or reinforcing their belief that movement is dangerous. The way you protect yourself isn't by avoiding helping people. It's by helping them with appropriate boundaries. Document your approach. Stay within educational frameworks and refer when appropriate. Here's what changed everything for me. I realized that confidence comes from competence. The more I learned about nervous systems, pain, science, and therapeutic approaches, the more confident I became. Fear decreases as knowledge increases. Right now, you feel afraid because you're operating in unknown territory, but once you have frameworks, tools, and understanding that fear transforms into competence. You don't have to figure this out alone. Your fear is valid, but it shouldn't determine your. Impact every transformational teacher has felt this fear and chosen to move through it anyway. So you have a choice to make right now, and it's not really about learning new techniques, it's about deciding who you are as a teacher. Path one. Continue as a modifications and props teacher. Keep referring injured students elsewhere. Keep feeling helpless when people in pain walk into your classes. And in five years you'll still be wondering why you can't seem to build a practice you dreamed of. Or you could take Path two, become a comprehensive movement educator, learn to work with nervous systems, educate about pain, and create genuine healing experiences. And in five years you'll be the teacher that injured students specifically seek out. The next time an injured student walks into your class, ask yourself, am I going to be the teacher who accommodates their limitation, or the teacher who helps them transcend it? This isn't about adding more to your teaching. It's about using everything you already have in service of healing. You already know anatomy. Breathing movement and how to create safe spaces. You just need to know how to apply these tools therapeutically. If you're ready to stop limiting yourself to modifications and props, if you wanna become the transformational teacher you enter this profession to be, then I invite you to get curious about more formal training. You can learn more about my teaching Students with Injuries mentorship program where yoga teachers learn to work more confidently and comprehensively with any student who walks into their class, not through more pose modifications, but through understanding how healing. Actually works and how to facilitate it through movement education because the world doesn't need another teacher who accommodates injuries. The world needs teachers who help people navigate their recovery from them. Okay. Was I able to shift your thinking about teaching students with injuries? Even if you aren't a hundred percent convinced? As long as I've planted a seed, I'll take that. Understanding anatomy, biomechanics, and the effects. Yoga also gonna have on the body helps you understand your students. If you've been enjoying these episodes, then I know that you are a yoga teacher who's ready to teach with more intention and less fear around injuries. Let's continue to raise the bar for how yoga supports real bodies in real life. It is so important for us to have this conversation so that you remember that students of all shapes, sizes, alignment, and abilities come to your classes and you can serve all of them. You know that my goal is for you to love the yoga teaching life, and it's important to understand movement in the issues students come to your classes with. Subscribe to the podcast so you're always in the know when a new episode drops. And share it with another yoga teacher who you think would love to be in on these conversations. And finally, thank you for helping to spread the word about this podcast. Alright, thank you for listening. That's it for now. Bye.