FEEDING SUCCESS
Jyoti Jo Manuel - Founder of SPECIAL YOGA: Making A Profound Difference To The Lives Of Special Children Through Therapeutic Yoga
Today, I'm really thrilled to welcome a wonderful woman, Joti Joe Manuel, the founder of Special Yoga, a training school which is global with a mission to enhance the lives of special needs children and adults and those who care for them. I believe that any parent of a special needs child would benefit from learning from Joti's simple practices to restore calm and serenity. And if you know anybody struggling with a special needs child, please share this podcast with them 'cause it could actually transform their families' lives forever. Now, my name's Fana and I'm the eating behavior expert, working with you to reclaim a healthy relationship with food, eating and your body. So welcome, Joti. Thank you so much for joining me today. - Oh, thank you so much for inviting me to be here with you. It's lovely. - Yeah. And Joti, you've been using yoga to bring more calm and joy to families with special needs children and adults since 1990. And your personal journey with yoga started in 1974. Where did you get introduced to yoga? - Joti, I don't even know how it happened, but I found myself, I was 17 in 1974 and I found myself in a yoga class and, you know, in those days, nobody knew what yoga was really. Richard Hittleman was on TV a little bit. So it was just beginning to drip feed into the world, but really at a very, very, very small level. And my recollection of that session was extraordinary because I don't remember the physical practice. It was such a sensory experience for me and kind of almost a spiritual experience for me 'cause everyone was dressed in white and there was incense burning and they were chanting and I was like, oh, this is how I come home. I've come home. And they sent me home that day with one of the spiritual texts of yoga, the bug like Gita to read, which is really about the battleground of the mind. And I loved it. I just loved it. And I felt like it was one of those aha moments for me where I thought, ah, this is the path where I could take to heal my own traumatic childhood. And why is special needs children in particular? Do you know what? I don't really know. It just kind of evolved. I didn't even know I was gonna be teaching yoga. I practiced yoga. I was just using it for me, you know, over a period of time. I moved to New York when I was 20. Shortly after walked past a neon sign that said yoga and stepped in and the teacher was saying, you know, use your body as a vehicle of prayer to the student and run to write that, well, I'm home. And it's kind of evolved from there, really. And I used to try and tell him my dog walks to when he was walking his side could stand next to him and just absorb that just beautiful centered, phenomenal energy. And so I think I've always been a, you know, kind of seeker of truth, seeker of freedom, spiritual seeker. I've had that as long as I can remember. And yoga kind of guided me into that. But then when I came to teach much later, I didn't have any plans. It just kind of was presented to me. In my very early days of teaching, I had a woman with cerebral palsy showed up and then a man with a blind man and his dog showed up. And there was a woman in the class that was terrified of dogs. So that was interesting. And then a head teacher invited me to go into a school. It was a school in a very deprived part of London. And of course, in the late '80s, early '90s, there was no diagnosis of autism or ADHD. I mean, people weren't walking in those languages. And I watched these kids sort of disassociated kids, you know, kind of fitting and jumping and, you know, what they labeled as bad kids. They weren't bad kids. They were just struggling. And I thought, oh, this is interesting. This is me, this is what I feel like, you know? 'Cause for years, I couldn't do anything without movement. I couldn't concentrate unless I was moving or I was drawing or, you know, sometimes I'm still a bit like that too. The tools that yoga had given me had helped me to find my own inner peace at some level, I guess. And so I thought, well, let's see how it works if I play around with what I know and give them to the kids and whatever child-friendly way I can. I've always loved children anyway. And it kind of just evolved from there, right? And the pioneer of children's yoga in the UK did lead the first training course in, I think it was 2002, just a thousand miles from around there. And now the whole world is different because yoga is popular. Children's yoga has taken a whole new trajectory and so on and so forth. But it was, and the special needs just kept coming. And I found myself very comfortable in that environment and very, yeah, I felt like there was a need there. - I think there is too. My mother was a nurse of Down syndrome children in Norway. So this is in the 1950s that they were actually trained to resist any physical touch with these children and they weren't allowed to hug them or anything because these children can become very emotionally dependent on the nurses. But you just think, these poor children, if they went into a mainstream school, then they were bullied, they were teased. I mean, it was a horrible way of growing up. Did you experience anything like that? You said you had a bit of a traumatic time growing up. Did you experience any of that at school? - Well, I was bullied at school, but not because I had special needs, just I was just bullied at school. And I was in a Christian school and I wasn't Christian. So that didn't help. I wasn't raised Christian, so I was different by default. I don't know whether that was why I was bullied or if it was just my energetic being that was a murder, but children can be very mean. But I think more than that, I remember at one point my father brought home a blind little boy and I loved him and I wanted him to stay with me and stay with our family and my mother would nab it. And I don't remember the whole story around it. I just have a very visceral memory of loving, completely loving this child. And I think I've got a very strong mother archetype anyway in me. So those children, you just want to kind of, I don't know, wrap them up and love them because they're amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think they're all vehicles of unconditional love. And society doesn't treat them that way. Treats them as disabled and not having a value. And, you know, if we could see the world through their eyes, say we would be better people. Yes, completely. And I noticed it as a teacher in the 1980s. I noticed there were a couple of teachers there that were just horrible to what they call naughty boys. And it sounded to be boys rather than the girls, I have to say. And I don't know whether that was, they were female teachers or what it was. But these poor children, when I was helping in another teacher's class, I just used to stay by this particular boy because all he needed was attention and just to help him through it. He wasn't any trouble at all when he got attention or he was dealt with the way he needed to be dealt with. Society in general, especially when we grew up, was missing something and definitely, definitely did not support those that really need it most. Unquestionably, unquestionably. That's where my path just took me, really. And did you have siblings growing up? Yeah, I grew up with two brothers. One was significantly younger than me and the other one's quite close and aged. And it didn't have a very good relationship with the one that's just closer and aged to me. But I was very, very close and partly supported the raising of my youngest brother. So, yeah, I did. Did you have any kind of sort of spiritual upbringing from your parents? No, no. I had it. It was in me. I used to have kind of conversations with something. I didn't even know what I would have in conversations with, really. And as I got older, the downloads of kind of knowing things before they happened, all those kinds of things that you hear about are quite intense. And somebody took me to spiritual teachers who showed me how to close that down so that it wasn't so overwhelming for me. And then for a period of my life, I did close it down. I don't know why I just did. And then it's really open, you know, then it opens up again. It did open up, Megan. And now it's just getting stronger and stronger and stronger. But I know how to work with it. Right. You've traveled extensively, implementing special yoga programmings in orphanages, social care, education and health care for pediatric therapists and psychologists all around the world. Do you have a particular project that you're most fond of? To be honest with you, I love working with the children who have had the most physical limitations. So children were quite complex needs there. That's what really rocks my boat. And then I can work with all of them and I love all of them, but they have a kind of salt wall for me. And I think one of my favourite projects was probably in Sri Lanka. So I was asked to go and work in the North East of Sri Lanka post-war, where the war had kind of closed off that part of the world for 25 years. So there was a lot of very, very, very deep trauma. And there were a lot of children who were born with very difficult physical bodies. You know, with S-shaped spines and, you know, really things you don't see here or very rarely see it to that degree. And there was a day when they had asked me to, the midwives were the interconnecting piece between the committees and meat, I suppose. And there was a day when they'd asked me to come and, you know, work with some families and I said, sure. And, you know, I rock up and police and all, there'll be about 20 families here and I'm thinking, well, that's fine. My head, I'm going, oh, that's fine. By lunch time I can be on the beach. Well, by the time I got off the floor that day, there was, I'd seen 70 children, 70 plus kids. And I didn't leave the floor. And I gave every parent something for their child. When I went back a little bit later, a few months later, a number of those parents came back to see me again and went, oh my God, you've changed my life. Can you give me more? And there was something so just, I don't know, profoundly moving about that because I didn't have language with them. I don't speak Tamil, but I connected so deeply with these kids' others and sometimes the fathers as well. And the amount of kind of emotion and the tears and the gratitude, because they had nothing. You know, they didn't have a wheelchair, they didn't have a diagnosis, they didn't have anybody to talk to, they didn't have all the things we take for granted here to some degree, even though I think here there, you know, the services are pretty shoddy these days and pretty hard to get for a lot of families and getting harder and harder and harder. This is, and I'll never forget that day. And then there was another day in an orphanage in Peru. I'd been asked by this kind of swanky yoga school in Lima to come and teach for them. So I did, and I said, look, I'm only gonna come if we can go to an orphanage, because I want to make sure that the children that don't have anything are also serviced. And so it's not just about the classes of people that can afford to take the training and can afford therapies. I want to go and do more than that. So they're looking at me like I'm crazy and they have some newspaper bring me and go, why are you, why? 'Cause I said, if you don't do that, I'm not coming. And literally said that to them. So anyway, to cut my whole story, shortly go into this orphanage. And it was, I mean, everybody was in tears. I mean, I took the whole trainings school with me and everybody was in tears 'cause then no one had ever seen anything like it. And I had them all by the end of that session beginning to work with some of the kids. And it was a little thing with Downs and German, got a stab wound and children with contorted bodies and 14 year olds this big. And, you know, I mean, it was really, it was really shocking. But as a result of that, the orphanage became the studio's charity. And the second time I went, they had facilities, they had wheelchairs, they had a medical arm. They had, it was a whole different world so these children were being taken care of properly. And I felt like through the yoga, that was what they were gifted with. And it's what they needed to make the difference that made the difference. How amazing, how powerful. - I had the stories, you know, 'cause it wasn't just the yoga, but it was the, 'cause I always think that yoga, the way that I approach yoga is is that what I'm teaching is love of through the vehicle of yoga. And so love can come in a lot of different forms. But when you open the doorway with yoga, all sorts of things can happen. - Yes. And that's all a child needs, isn't it? Unconditional love, safety, food, and the feeling of being loved. You miss one of those things. And you end up with a different adult. The work you do is so important, so important, Joti, really is. Going back to the Western world, I know that in the UK, you've worked with an education for the NHS and you co-lead the pillar on education for the all-party parliamentary group for yoga and society. We in the West seem to have lost connection with our spiritual selves. - How do you can your establishment open to implementing yoga as a therapeutic tool, would you say? - Well, it's interesting because I think that there's a, what goes on in the West is this kind of mindset that yoga is about being a pretzel. And, you know, if you can't touch your toes, you can't do yoga. I mean, I've heard all sorts of nonsense. And when I had a studio, when I first said, especially yoga, we had a studio in London and I get calls from parents with children who were bouncing around and couldn't sit still know, my child will never sit still on the mat. Let's find out. So, and then you get calls from parents who go, "Well, my child can't voluntarily move anything, "so how are you going to yoga with them?" Because their perception of yoga wasn't what I understand yoga to be. - Yes. - But I think it's reframing that piece that actually yoga is a way of being, where your system is regulated, where that will then impact how you live, how you eat in terms of your life, the way you work. And it impacts everything, just impacts everything. - I remember one boy, a cerebral palsy, I know it's okay to see me. And I have to tell you the story because you're a food person. But after two sessions, his mother, I mean, you'd never guess what, he was that 16, I think. He's eating vegetables. (laughs) Just like, wow, okay, hilarious. So, really about how you position the value of what you do and why it isn't, what you think it necessarily is. - It seems to me there is a connection made during the yoga process. It's all about connecting, either to yourself and your body, or with another being, which sometimes is missing. Am I anywhere near the mat, then? - Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, a lot of the parents, when they train with us, come back and say, oh my God, I've got a different relationship with my child. I've seen things in my child I wasn't able to see before, because I was able to meet my child and see what their potential was. My child didn't start walking, or talking, or whatever it might be. And I'm not saying every child is gonna suddenly, you know, get out of the wheelchair and walk. But if the potential is there for that to happen, and you believe it, you never know what's possible. - Yes, and I guess you have to work with the parents and the child. I can imagine there's some very stressed and challenged parents out there having no idea how to deal with their children and fulfill their needs. It must be really upsetting as a parent. I'm so grateful I haven't had that challenge. How do you help the parents, Joseph? - So one of the things that I learned a long time ago, both as a parent myself, but also observing other parents, was that there's a tendency for all of us to go and take care of everybody else first. And a disregulated child cannot regulate around a disregulated adult. We are their rock. And if the rock isn't stable, because we're stressed out, we're overwhelmed, we're frustrated, we're wherever we may be in our emotional dysregulation, the child can't regulate, what's the child got? Where's the child? How can the child balance around you? So I think that it becomes really important that as the parent and primary care are educated, whatever you are in the child's life, that if you can start to actually be more present to you and your state and work with that, it's not a selfish thing to do. People think that taking care of themselves in those environments is a selfish thing to do, but actually you have to. You literally have to, because you can't be the best parent, educate a therapist for that child if you're not okay. You can't. And I think that children with special needs also are even more sensitive to feeding and feeling and understanding it. I'm not talking about cognitive understanding, I'm talking about energetic understanding, your state and emotional understanding your state. And they can't cope if you can't cope. That makes complete sense to me. And that idea around, and we meet a lot of resistance, but I haven't got time. Oh, and they're so overwhelmed and they're so beyond the kind of factors of stress, they don't know how to do it. And you don't need to be on a yoga mat for an hour, which you probably wouldn't find that time anyway, in order to start to change your relationship with yourself, it takes minutes a day. What we do is we implement really basic tools initially, let's get you settled with yourself, let's get you connecting back to your heart, let's get you connecting back the nervous system, so that you can start to understand and replenish yourself. Because in an ideal world, we're giving from our overflow. And we're certainly not giving from an empty cart. And I'm not saying everybody's gonna get to being able to have that luxury of giving from your overflow, but you've got to give from something in your tank. - Yeah, I think overwhelmed for parents in this modern day and age, both parents working, making ends meet the pressures of everyday life and pressures for children. And then you've got the child that needs extra help, it's all just too much sometimes, isn't it? And as you say, just taking that time out and that space for yourself. And if it only takes six minutes a day, anyone can get up six minutes earlier in a day and do that if they really want to improve their life, can't they? - And you can just kind of drip feed it into your day anyway. You know, I mean, it's just remembering to fill your feet on the ground, remembering to give yourself a squeeze and a hug and remind yourself that you're okay. It's taking that deep breath. And then you build on that with practice that will help you to regulate yourself on a more constant basis, irrespective of what's going on out there. - Yeah, and I can see that. And when parents come to you desperate for any help they can get, what are the most common problems they have today? A lot of children seem to be diagnosed as autistic, ADHD. Is there a more common requirement today than ever before? - I think there is. Well, first of all, I think we're in a very, very, very, very disregulated world right now. So we're all picking up on that energy. So that's number one. I think also the services that were available for children are no longer available in the same way. I mean, for as long as I've known parents, they've been fighting for their child. And I think they're having to fight harder these days, whether it's for a diagnosis, whether it's for they've got a diagnosis and they need support, they're not getting it. The school system is messy at the moment. I mean, I think it's always been messy, round pegs don't fit in square holes. So I think that there's not enough understanding of the sensory system, there's not enough understanding of how to help a child who can't put school uniform on in the morning or who can't get out the door or who can't go to sleep at night or who can't well only eat white food or one type of food and it's usually chips or something like that or pasta or something that'll convert to sugar anyway, very fast. Behaviors and tantrums and that just put you into total overwhelm. And I don't think there's enough education for parents around how to support themselves to support their children well. Yes, being more and more of that. We're definitely seeing more and more of that. I'm actually writing a book about it at the moment. You know, some of it's also our own expectations, our own judgements, our own fear of how society views us and our children. I think it's such a huge picture. It's not just one piece because we can only parent from what we know and sometimes there's a place where some of the unwound as well, certainly in my story it was. So I think it's a bigger picture and I'm not saying we do all of it all at once nor do I want any parents to feel, oh my God, I can't go near her 'cause it's too much for me. But I just think it's just a very gentle, cultivating more kindness to self, more self love, I suppose, at some level, which is terrifying for most people or a word that doesn't really mean anything. (laughs) I never do. I don't know what that means, but, you know, we find out. And just kind of just starting with just unwinding some of the backstory. Yes, when you're talking about self love, I think it's often confused, as you said earlier, with selfishness and I know I was brought up and it was drilled into me to not be selfish. So I think when you have that drilled in you and now you're being told you should love yourself and you think, well, that's a bit selfish as well. You know, there's all this programming we get from our parents and from society, expectations, not just our own judgment and expectations. There's society as well as, I look at my mum now and her fears and worries about what the neighbors think and I think, my God. You know, it must be awfully important to have all that worry and pressure on you all the time. What was my point? So I was gonna make a point then. Oh, yes, self love versus selfishness. Do you wanna expand a little more about that? Well, you know, I think if you perceive yourself as the rock in the child's life, I mentioned it earlier, and you understand that when you take care of yourself and when you can be more connected with your own heart and you use some kind of practice, you know, usually some level of breath work to kind of calm and regulate yourself, what happens is is that you put out a kind of invisible circle of energy around you in which anybody that comes into your field can feel calm, can feel safe and can regulate. So if you go into a room as somebody who's really dysregulated and, you know, very anxious and hyperventilating, you're gonna feed the energy and you don't really wanna be in that space. Whereas if you go into a space for somebody who's really able to hold that, you know, hold themselves, then you wanna be there because you're safe. There's a sense of it's unspoken. It's not a verbal process, but it's an energetic process of just, ah, I can be here, it's almost like that. And so do you see yourself as that person, that rock, that then as that capacity, if you're in that state, to hold that space for your child and understand that that rock leads help in order to not blow away, not get bowled over by the waves of water, not get knocked around by the storms of life, right? That can stand solid and be there and we know we're gonna wobble. Everybody wobbles, we're human. I'm not saying we're not human and we're not gonna have moments of experience of emotions. I mean, to honor those as well and also teach the child to one of those bears because no one's happy all the time, anyway. Then actually what happens is there's a different dynamic that takes place. So if you then take that back to self-love and selfishness, how can, how can getting your rock solid be selfish? It can't, there's such a beautiful analogy. When you speak so much of what you say, when I'm working with other people subconscious, I mean, so much, I've just seen how similar our work is but on a different level, if that makes sense, it will be. And it's a fact that simple yoga practices can improve every area of your life. It's all your relationships. It's not just your relationship with your child. It's your relationship with your partner, with your parents, with anyone that you may be angry with. Yeah, for years and years, you can see everything differently when you come from a place of calm. It's so important working on yourself. First, it's like in a plane, you'd give your child the oxygen mask. Second, you'd give yourself it first and give it to the child's second because he's hopeless without you. It makes sense really, doesn't it? Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that because I think it's really important. So let's change text now. I'm just wondering, I know about yogi's practice-arivatic ways. How important is the food that you feed your body with? Well, for me, if anything you put inside you is gonna enhance your energy or deplete your energy. So, and I've seen this a lot with the kids as well because a lot of the children who are in the kind of neuro-diverse world will gravitate, and trauma actually as well, will gravitate to sugar. And sugar is poison, as far as I'm concerned. It just completely sets your whole system off. And you know, if you drink too much coffee or something like that, your whole system's going, doing de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de. In Arabida, there are calming foods. There are foods that kind of, if your system's very sluggish, it can bring you more lightness, so that you come into balance. And I think food is a really important place where we can rebalance our systems. And the children, for example, with kind of weak respiratory systems, which can be in Down syndrome or other conditions. You know, if they eat lots of dairy and kind of milk drinks and all of that, they can't breathe properly. They literally can't breathe properly. So when you change your diet, it allows your body to be more fluid or flexible. It gives you more, I don't know, capacity for breath, perhaps, and movement is medicine, actually. So if you can move more freely because you are eating food that nourish every sound of your body, as opposed to food that probably poisoning it, it's got to be the right thing to do. - Yeah. And when you're working with special needs, children, are you ever asked for nutritional guidance, or is that something you sort of... I think food is such an emotionally charged thing, as you know. And I think as a parent, if you've got a child that is really struggling, the one thing perhaps you feel you might be able to control is what they eat or how, or feeding them, or, you know. And so it's a very, I've always found it a very delicate balance between being helpful and not being helpful, actually, in terms of whether I bring it up or how I bring it up, or whether it's invited. So generally, I kind of wait to see whether there's an opening for that conversation. I'm asked, as opposed to just layering it on. I remember in one training, there was a woman in the training course. She was very highly charged. And I think her child was only eating white food at that time. And, you know, if you put a pee on the plate, you wouldn't eat anything. And I think I probably, you know, gave her a little bit of guidance. She completely lost it with me and said to me, "You don't understand, I hate you." And because I touched in a raw nerve, and I said to her, "You know, I hear that this is the place "where you feel you have the most control with your child. "Do whatever you need to do." And I apologize if I've stepped out of Lionel. And that was a really big learning moment for me, of just keeping my mouth shut when it needs to be kept shut, even though you can see it, and you're so frustrated by it, because you know it without them. And yet it's such a, I think it's such an emotional piece between a mother and a child about how you feed them. Yeah. And you have what you have or you don't have. And it's such a dance, and then there's the whole other piece of, "People use sugar as treats. "Why sugar as a treat?" And I've never understood this actually. Never, you know, my children didn't go to them, but I wouldn't take them to McDonald's. You know, we didn't have fizzy drinks at home. I mean, it's just not how my kids have brought up, and they hated it, because all their friends were doing it. And now they get it, they're much older now. But at the time, and they were joking about it a few weeks ago, they were having a joke about how horrible I was as a mother, because I never let them go to those places. And they were sharing, but they used to go when they pretended they weren't to me. You know, yes, they had the chicken shop down the road, I was happy. But, you know, it becomes a choice, doesn't it, when you're old enough to make a choice? Oh, completely. And I just wish there was proper education around food for children at a young age, because there's a whole science brand, Ayurveda, and all these herbs and spices that you could easily add to food, that could help children with certain conditions. Avoid this food, you'll feel better. There's a little bit of it goes on if you get to see the right specialist, if you're really lucky. But generally, with being programmed to want to eat processed foods, it's a real bugbear of mine. You walk past any school bus shelter, and it's got McDonald's poster on one side and KFC on the other. But whatever it is, it's foods that are not going to do these kids any good. They're getting some liminal reminders of it as they stand in the bus stop. Even if they're not looking at the ads, then they associate a bus with this death in the other. And of course, they're going to want to leave school and maybe get the idea. Or should we go from McDonald's? It annoys me so much because whereas when I grew up, well, it wasn't even there until I was 16, I remember when my children grew up, it was a treat that we did with other families once in a holiday time, perhaps. But we never did it any other time, and it was only a treat. And I felt the social pressure to do it because the other mums were doing it. And I didn't want my children to be left out because part of my problems were my mother forbade us to have sugar. We weren't allowed any sweets or chocolates, and I remember really wanting them. And I remember my grandmother coming with Easter eggs. I was probably about seven and saying to my mum, can I give the children Easter eggs? And she said, no, they don't eat chocolate. And I hated her in that moment. And I thought, how can you not let us have one Easter egg? And I just thought it was so cruel. I still think it was cruel because I knew the effect it had on me. So ultimately, in this obsession that my parents had with fitness, being thinness, being healthiness, and the completely unbalanced view of it, but completely restrictive, sugar I do believe is completely evil. And I do hate the programming we get. However, I think my mum went a step too far, actually. You wouldn't have hurt anyway. So going on with food, I always say to my clients, you can eat anything you want. You can choose to eat anything you want. Hopefully, you'll make slightly better choices, and choose to cook food that loves you back. Well, yes, and I think the more that you kind of connect to your body, and the more that you like your body, the more likely you are to put nice foods in it. Because you come back to that salt, love thing, doesn't it? It does, an acceptance of just as you are, because there are certain things you just cannot change. However hard you try. We've all got our shadow place, and we've all got the places where we feel shame, and guilt, and horrible feelings. And it's about how we meet those feelings rather than shove them away. Yeah, and emotion on mastery. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all had that? Can you imagine what the world would be like? I always think that's the goal of yoga, actually, is to be the master of your mind. You now have an online platform, so anyone can reach you from anywhere in the world. Do you offer any free resources or anything on there, Jodi? Have an app. It's on Mighty Networks, and it's called Special Yoga, and you can link to it from our website. And on the app, there are a number of free resources of different practices. We also, that's where you're going to get your bulk of free stuff from. And every so often, we put out a free something. We have a couple of short courses with just some basic practices. So then we have training programs, and now training programs all have payment plans, so we try to make it as accessible as possible. And yeah, that's how we work. Yeah, and also, I think it's important to know that you don't need to have any experience of yoga before these classes. I mean, I think, you know, because we start at basics anyway. And because we've got quite a particular way of approaching it, of approaching yoga, we, doesn't really make any difference whether you have none or you have some, really. We'll start your days. Yeah, and I did read somewhere. You actually work with the people that are in the room, and you measure what their needs are, and you've new feed that needs. Would that be right? Correct. So one of the things that I learned in my very early days of teaching, when the woman with cerebral palsy rocks up, and then the blind man with his dog walked up, is that I could, I had a plan at those days because we were taught, you know, you have to have a plan of what you're going to teach. And it helps you kind of have a framework and feel a bit confident in all those of it. But in those moments, you can't follow your plan. So you have to think on your feet. I couldn't demonstrate in front of a blind man because you couldn't see me. Simple as that, right? Yeah. So I knew that you had English differently. I had to watch him differently. I had to decide how and when to use my hands to support him. And obviously that was an exchange of connection and communication of what was okay and what wasn't okay. And the same similarly with the woman with cerebral palsy, although she could watch me, her body couldn't do what I could do. So it was, how do I adjust the practices in a way that are going to support you with the body that you have? So you can't have a class plan. You literally can't have a class plan. And that was the day that I threw my class plans away forever. Yeah. And I realized that actually you can have a framework. You're starting out in your early days of how to do this. You can create a framework of some kind of a structure that you can hold yourself in. But you have to learn how to think on your feet. And you have to learn how to adjust and really read the energy in the room. So in our training programs, rather than lots of class plans, which we don't offer, is a toolbox that we invite you to practice so that you understand in your body what they will do. When you're witnessing then someone else, you have that intuitive sense. And if it's not right, you change it and you do something else. I mean, I haven't always got it right. I may have a child that comes into tomorrow to see me. And I might think, oh, okay, I might be able to do some hand massage with you to open your lungs up a bit. And he hates how his hands being touched. So I will go somewhere else. Yes. We'll do some singing. We'll do something, you know, something completely different. I believe that there's a key to everybody. And really, if you can't get in one way, you get in another way. I mean, that way you try another way. And eventually, you find it and do it a lot. Yeah. And I think it's so important for people to know that, because people are always nervous for trying something new. Will it work for me? All these things. I think with your approach and your approachability, I mean, the warmth and caring that you obviously have, because I've met you in person. So you've got a lovely energy and you're so easy to be around. I would urge any parent who's struggling with their child just to get in touch, jody, and speak to you, because you can actually change the whole family dynamic and improve every area of the family's life. So thank you for that. Oh, thank you. What is your big plan, special yoga? Well, at the moment, we're continuing our training programs, because they need to be there. We've just translated our content into Spanish and into German. So we'll be looking at the Spanish language territory. So I'm going to go to Mexico and work with my team in Mexico, hopefully and later this year to help them. And then in the early part of next year, I'm going to co-support a course in Austria in the German language. And I get my team trained up there and same in Spain, possibly into French Canada as well later next year, and perhaps in the French-speaking territories. So that piece is kind of burgeoning. And then I'm also really interested in training teams of people. So recently, I opened a conference in Birmingham Children's Hospital. She was an autism and learning disability conference at his children women's hospital. And out of that, I'm in discussion with varying departments to come in and train their whole team up, to give them some skills to regulate themselves, and then some skills that they can then hand on to the patients that they care for in different forums. We're also kind of in discussion with a couple of other organizations at the moment who either are pediatric specialists in their field or condition specific charities that have a membership base of families who want help. So kind of really cultivate and develop relationships and trainings with getting anybody that's working around these children using our techniques and tools to help make what you do better, not to take over from you, but to help improve the quality of what you do, because I know we do that. Yeah. Most of our training courses are online. At the moment, our courses are a combination of live and in person. We are about to start creating some evergreen courses, which hopefully we'll be ready by the beginning of next year, which would be one for the sensory system, to understand the sensory system better. One would be specifically around parenting, and one would be for educators. Lovely. So you're going places, Jodi. Well, you know, this is our 20th anniversary this year. So it's pretty amazing to be still here and evolving and doing what we do. And hasn't been with that. It's challenges over the years, but I feel that when you're doing work that's as important as there's somehow another, you get help. Yes. Jodi, thank you so much for coming and speaking to us. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's always a pleasure to share my story and to hopefully encourage more people to come in and find us. As I said, I will now know exactly who to point people towards if they're having trouble with pleasure and knowing that they will get such value out a bit. Of course. I love Jodi. Have a wonderful day and thank you so much. Thank you. So if you've enjoyed listening to this podcast, please follow the podcast and like this episode. So thank you for listening today and look forward to next time.