Episode #71
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Lisa Greenbaum started as a competitive dancer, drifted for a couple of years after university, then got pulled onto a Body Flow training by a group fitness manager who would not take no for an answer. Yoga arrived properly a few years later, when a philosophy text landed in her lap the same season her dad was diagnosed with cancer. Twenty five years on she is an award winning educator, a certified yoga therapist and the founder of Sangha Yoga Collective, a school built so anyone curious about yoga can take a bite or take the whole whale. This one is for operators. There is a lot of yoga out there and it is hard to tell what is good from what is not. Lisa walks through how to bring yoga into a club properly, how to hire for it, how to schedule it, and why the recovery programming most operators are pricing up in equipment may already be standing in their studio. We also get into trauma informed training against yoga therapy, why philosophy is the most underrated part of any teacher training, and what Yoga Alliance accreditation does and does not tell you. : Hire the way you hire everyone else. Watch them teach. Check where the certification came from, then read the school's curriculum rather than the logo. Check references. Read the curriculum against the eight limbs. Yamas and niyamas, asana, pranayama, and the four limbs covering meditation. Most schools load almost everything onto asana and advanced postures your members will never use. Complement the schedule you already have. If every class on the timetable is high output, the yoga slot is where recovery lives. Programme to the time of day. Strong practice in the morning, down regulating in the evening. A power class at eight at night works against the reason people booked it. Stop calling all of it yoga. Naming every class yoga is like naming every class gym workout. Put the practice on the schedule: yin, restorative, pranayama, meditation. Keep yoga and Pilates apart. Both are excellent, the breath work is not the same thing, and filing them together as mind body tends to lose you one of them. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisagreenbaum/ Sangha Yoga Collective: https://sanghayogacollective.com Beyond the Pose, pre-order and events: https://sanghayogacollective.com/beyond-the-pose/ Retreats: https://sanghayogacollective.com/yoga-retreats/ Beyond the Pose, from Lotus Books and Human Kinetics, out October 2026. Othership, the Toronto sauna and cold plunge brand. Believe Safari, running the Kenya retreat. 02:26 Welcome 03:48 Connect the dots: from competitive dance to yoga 06:19 The philosophy book that arrived at the worst time 10:57 Designing a school around the person 13:53 The full offering: 200 hour, 300 hour, therapeutic 17:21 The accessibility problem with pricing 21:50 Retreats, and who they are for 28:33 Kenya, safari and a giraffe conservation 30:20 Boss of the world: a club chain wants yoga 32:20 The three step hiring test 33:37 Work out, or work in 34:48 Recovery is already on your schedule 35:20 Ayurveda and programming by time of day 37:42 Yoga is not Pilates 39:17 What yoga is, past asana 43:30 Democratising recovery without the equipment 45:49 Trauma informed and yoga therapy, drawn apart 48:56 Talking about it, holding it in the body 54:19 Telling one 200 hour school from another 59:42 Patanjali, the kleshas and the anxiety spiral 01:02:25 Yoga Alliance and what accreditation is worth 01:05:22 Beyond the Pose 01:08:00 Collective spotlight: Paula Comfort
