I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

Let's have a real English conversation.

Today I have something super special to share with you.

I'm going to share with you a real conversation that I had with a local yoga instructor here

in my city.

She also teaches yoga on YouTube, so you can check out the link to her channel in the description.

Here you're going to meet Gayle.

Vanessa: Gayle teaches yoga, and she talks about her journey, getting into yoga, and

just what it means to her life.

I'm sure you also have hobbies and passions and interests, so it's a good way to hear

how she talks about it, and to try to imitate that style of speaking, because we all want

to talk about our passions and share them with other people.

Vanessa: Throughout the conversation you're going to see little subtitles pop up.

These are for vocabulary expressions, phrasal verbs, and also some special pronunciation.

After the conversation with Gayle, you're going to also have a vocabulary lesson today.

Wow!

You're going to see my husband, Dan, and I explain these vocabulary expressions in detail.

This is a really great way to engrain them in your memory, and I know a lot of you have

difficulties with remembering words after you've learned them.

So, hearing them in the conversation with Gayle is a good first step, but it's also

great to hear us talk about it later, give examples, make it more vivid in your mind.

Vanessa: So, you're going to watch that vocabulary lesson, and then you're going to watch a phrasal

verb lesson.

This grammar lesson is super helpful for helping you sound like a native speaker, because we

use phrasal verbs all the time.

Vanessa: Finally, we're going to practice some in-depth pronunciation so that you can

speak exactly the way that Gayle and I did in our conversation.

Are you ready to hear a real English conversation?

If you enjoy this lesson today I hope that you can join the Fearless Fluency Club, which

is my monthly course.

You'll get information and lessons like this every month.

This is just a short clip from it.

About half of the material, or actually less than half, maybe a third of the material,

but you'll get an even longer lesson sent every month when you join the course.

Vanessa: Alright!

Let's meet Gayle and learn real English.

Vanessa: Hi, everyone!

I'm here today with Gayle.

Gayle: Hi.

Vanessa: We're going to talk about yoga and all of your experience with that, and really

anything that comes up along the way.

Gayle: Sounds great.

Vanessa: Yeah.

So, can we start at the very beginning?

When did you first start with yoga?

Then we'll go on to what's happening now.

Gayle: Well, that's interesting.

I was living in New York City at the time, pursuing a career as a professional freelance

photographer.

Vanessa: Oh!

Quite different from yoga.

Gayle: Yeah.

Although, you know, everything kind of ... It's a lot about your vision and being mindful

and exploring.

And so, they kind of weave together in some ways.

Vanessa: I could see that.

Gayle: But anyway!

I just dabbled in it.

One thing that I always remember, and, I think, one of the funniest things, is my first class

when the teacher said, "Pay attention to your breath.

Like, focus on your breath."

I thought, "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Like, I'm here to move and do some cool poses.

Like, why would I think about my breath?

I'm breathing."

Right!

So, let's get to the good stuff.

You know?

Gayle: Then as I progressed in my yoga, I just realized like, breath is everything.

Breath is so key.

So, now I focus on that, or I try to focus on that, more than anything.

It's really a powerful healing mechanism.

Yeah.

We do it all the time.

It's part of our sympathetic nervous system, so we'll breathe.

I mean, if we tried to stop breathing we'd pass out and then we'd breathe again.

Vanessa: Your body wants to breathe.

Gayle: Right.

But still, there's ways of like, breathing more fully, breathing more mindfully, that

can, you know, help your overall health.

Vanessa: That's funny that at the beginning you thought, "What is she talking about?"

Gayle: I thought it was ridiculous.

Vanessa: Especially if you've never heard that kind of phrasing before.

Gayle: Yeah!

Vanessa: Everyone breathes.

I feel like, for me, whenever they talk about breathing in yoga class, I realize, "Oh, I

have been breathing all this time, all day, and haven't been thinking about it."

Then when you start to think about it maybe it's just that physical element, but I kind

of ... It clears my mind a little bit.

Once you focus on breathing it's not hypnotic, but I almost feel like I'm in the zone or

like, when you're thinking about your breath you can focus more on what's going on, at

least for me.

Gayle: No.

That's totally it.

Here's the thing.

Yoga is about union, and the union of opposites complementing each other.

So, the breath is composed of two opposites, right?

The exhale and the exhale, and it's kind of got an ebb and flow.

So, like, if you sit by the ocean or by a waterfall when you have that kind of constant

repeating noise, it really relaxes you.

So, when you turn into your breath, it's kind of the same thing.

Gayle: A lot of the times when you pay attention to your breath, you might realize that your

inhale is stronger than your exhale.

What we're really trying to do is balance the breath, because the inhale is more energetic

and the exhale is more relaxing and soothing.

So, if you're like, feeling stressed out or anything like that, if you just take moment,

focus on the breath, and really letting that exhale draw out, it's amazing how much it

can calm you.

Gayle: You're like, totally right on there.

Vanessa: This seems like a simple thing, but it could do a lot.

Gayle: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Vanessa: So, I'm curious what happened after that.

First, you were at class, you thought, "What in the world is she talking about?

Breath?

Okay."

Did you just go in full force after that, or was there just a slow progression?

Because you've been doing yoga for ... Gayle: A long time.

Vanessa: A long time.

Gayle: It was like ... I dabbled.

You know, when I was in New York City I dabbled.

Like, sometimes I would go to class, but I never completely committed like I did later

on.

So, I dabbled in New York, and then I moved from New York to Bryson City, North Carolina

and got into white water paddling.

Gayle: So, occasionally ... I knew how to do sun salutations and occasionally I would

do some yoga.

I was teaching kayaking at that point, also white water kayaking.

So, occasionally I'd lead people through a little bit of yoga but not that often.

But then when I left Bryson City and moved to Asheville, that's when I really committed,

and I found a class I liked.

It was just like, Tuesday night, that's what I was doing.

Yoga.

Gayle: I did that class religiously for two years.

Vanessa: Oh!

That's dedication.

Gayle: Yeah.

Then the yoga teacher started offering yoga teacher trainings.

So, I thought, "Oh, I'll do that.

You know, I don't know if I want to teach but, you know, I'll just ... Why not?"

I wanted to learn more.

Vanessa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Gayle: And so, that helped to grow it more.

So, I got to the point where instead of like, waiting for what the teacher was going to

say, I could do my own poses.

Vanessa: You had that confidence to just branch out yourself.

Gayle: And so, then after that I stopped going to yoga classes because I'm like, "I want

to breathe how I want to breathe.

And I want to take as long in a pose as I want to take, and not just be dictated to

all the time."

I learned a lot of poses, I understood them more.

So, I started more of my own practice.

Gayle: But then, unfortunately, I got this tech job where I was sitting at a desk, and

I was sitting, and sitting, and sitting.

I had never sat so much in my whole life.

Vanessa: It takes a toll on you.

Gayle: Oh!

I knew it was.

But I just thought, "I've got to do this."

Vanessa: Sure.

Gayle: But it did take a toll on me, and actually, I had a habit, which I wasn't even aware of,

but I would lean on my left elbow, put my chin, and stare at the screen, and then, you

know, use the mouse here.

I had meanwhile, had kind of lapsed in my yoga, hadn't really done yoga in a while.

Like, a while.

Gayle: Then I went to a yoga class, and I couldn't reach my arms, lying down to the

floor.

I couldn't do dolphin pose, and I was like, "What's up with my shoulders?"

My left shoulder had lost all this range of motion from doing this thing.

Sitting like that for hours at a time.