We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joan Hyman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joan below.

Alright, Joan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share an anecdote or story from your schooling/training that you feel illustrates what the overall experience was like?

My first teacher training was in Santa Monica, California with Maty Ezraty and Lisa Walford. They were both certified and highly acclaimed yoga teachers. Maty taught Ashtanga and Lisa was a Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher.They were the “real deal” and there were about forty of us in the teacher training. When we completed the training, they told us we were only at the beginning of our path and this was the beginning of a new journey .What I got from taking that teacher training, was how important it was to walk the walk and commit to my practice. Years later, I took my first trip to Mysore, India to study with the world – renowed Sri. K, Pattibhi Jois. This was the place where many of my teachers had studied and a very dedicated yoga comunity gathered. I had a 4am time slot, which was the first batch of highly experienced ashtangis. I woke up at 3am each day for three months, this changed my lifestyle and made me extremely dedicated to the practice. Being in India, I learned how to integrate the yoga practice into my life, I began to live yoga. When I came back to the western world, I began to use my practice as a tool. A tool to steady my mind and a way to come back to my center throughout my day. I noticed that when I didn’t practice, my days didn’t have that flow that they did when I did practice. When I practiced, I felt great in my body and energized all day long, Eventually this helped me to enhance the quality of my life and when I look back, it was this teacher training and this journey to India that helped me grow deep roots in my practice and transform my life.

Joan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started teaching fitness and dance at the ripe age of 15 in Philadelphia, PA where I grew up. Teaching came naturally to me and I was also very social by nature, so getting up infront of people and instructing felt organic. I moved to NYC a few years later to pursue a career in dance. I was introduced to yoga in 1996 at JivaMultki in the east village. The room was packed and the sequence of yoga postures along with the chanting spoke to my sou on a deep level. I came out of that class wrung out and knew I had to change my lifestyle. That was the beginning of my journey and a few years later I found my way to the west coast in Santa Monica, California enrolling in The YogaWorks Teacher Training in 2002 with Maty Ezraty and Lisa Walford, two world renowed teacheres. At that time, I just wanted to teach and practice yoga. I was happy living in a small apartment driving around Los Angeles teaching privates and classes. That was my dream at that time of my life. Coming from a dance background, I was very dedicated to my craft and continued to study and take classes from experienced teachers. I mentored with Maty Ezraty, Annie Carpenter, and Lisa Walford during my time at Yogaworks and eventually became a teacher trainer. I stayed at Yogaworks for 15 years, and that was the place where I was groomed as a yoga teacher. In 2016, I was offered a position at Wanderlust in Hollywood, CA as the director of their teacher training program. It was a tough decision to leave Yogaworks because I had been there for so long, but I knew I needed to spread my wings and grow. And that’s what I did, I had a major growth spurt during that time at Wanderlust. I went from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond. I was exposed to very popular yoga teachers who were at the top of their game and many of them being entrepreneurs. I learned a lot about business at Wanderlust and eventually found the strength to leave the company in 2018 and go on my own. I started my own business called The School of Yoga, which is a teacher training and continuing education school. It took a long time for me to find my way in the world of yoga. Through dedication, consistency, and the love of yoga, life directed me towards my most authentic path. I just had to show up every day, do the work and follow my heart.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Commitment and dedication.

All the great teachers teach from a place of Pranama, which is correct knowledge. They teach from a place of experience and inner knowing, and you can feel that when they are in their presence.
There is a saying, that to become an expert at anything you have to have your “10,000 hours”.
If not, you will still be in your head and might compare yourself to others and doubt yourself. However, when you have that “inner knowing” that comes from years of experience, you naturally become more confident in your offerings, people feel that, and they come back.
I have been around many successful people in my life and in all different professions and this is the commonality that I have seen amongst every successful person, they are highly dedicated and committed to what they are offering to the world. It’s not just their job, it’s their service.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like most of us, my pivot was during the pandemic. I was traveling as a yoga teacher quite extensively and in March 2020 the world shut down. Like most of us I went online and began to offer online classes. Lucky for me, I had amazing students that helped me set up an online platform and my partner, worked in production, and understood the technical side of setting up a space to film. The big pivot came when I started The School of Yoga. I had run 200 Hour Teacher Trainings for well over a decade and I wanted to offer a 300 Hour Continuing Education School with stellar world wide teachers who are experts in their field of study. Now that we were all stuck at home, I thought, why not ask these teachers to start teaching on my platform and become apart of The School of Yoga (SOY). For two years, we ran weekly classes and monthly trainings. Everything was recorded and uploaded to an online platform where students could revisit courses and also purchase them for viewing and use these hours towards their completion of their 300 Hour Program or their continuing education. Two years later, when the lock downs were released, I began running in person trainings in Goa, India, Vienna, Austria, and soon Los Angeles! We had our first batch of SOY students graduate and are continuing to grow and evolve. Life has taken me full circle and next year we will run our next 300 Hour training with The Center for Yoga in Los Angeles. I am grateful for the help I’ve had creating this business and I have learned to not be afraid to take chances and put my ideas into actions.

Contact Info:

• Website: Schoolof.Yoga
• Instagram: Joanhymanschoolofyoga
• Facebook: The School of Yoga with Joan Hyman
• Youtube: Joan Hyman

Image Credits
Tina Schmelzer