Transcription

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00:00 Rane Bowen: Hello. My name is Rane Bowen, and this is the Flow
Artist Podcast. Every episode, my co host, Jo
Stewart, and I speak with inspiring movers, thinkers
and teachers about how they find their flow and much,
much more. I'd like to start by honoring the
traditional owners of the unceded land on which this
episode was recorded, the Wurundjeri people of the
Kulin Nation.

00:06 Rane Bowen: Jo and I pay our respect to elders past, present and
emerging in this episode. We're speaking with Laura
Wilson McGinn and Ian McGinn. They both teach
together through Move Like You Yoga, and they have a
special interest in working with police, army and
first responders, particularly those experiencing
severe PTSD.

00:33 Rane Bowen: They deliver classes specifically for the Code Nine
Foundation, a foundation established to support
emergency service workers with PTSD, as well as
sessions that everyone can attend. Laura is of
Aboriginal, English and Scottish descent. She's an
Aboriginal woman whose bloodline comes from Yas, New
South Wales, and she was born and raised here in
Melbourne.

01:02 Rane Bowen: She's worked extensively across the government,
community, legal and university sectors as a policy
writer, researcher, sessional academic, lecturer, and
advocate, and as a lawyer in the Victorian Supreme
Court. Ian is a detective senior constable with
Victoria Police, and he has a PhD in Australian
Indigenous studies from Monash University. He also
works as a sessional academic at Swinburne
University, teaching and lecturing in criminology and
police studies.

01:39 Rane Bowen: They both have a passion for movement, with Laura
coming from an extensive dance background, including
ballet, calisthenics, pole dance, and aerial arts,
while Ian has a passion and love for jiu, jitsu,
yoga, fishing, and bushwalking. In this conversation,
we discuss how all of these interests and life
experiences weave together to inform the way they
teach and live their yoga. Please be advised we do
cover some sensitive topics, including the death of a
parent and the mental health challenges connected
with working in emergency services and adversarial
justice, including PTSD.

02:16 Rane Bowen: I personally think this is a really interesting and
important conversation. So let's meet Laura and Ian.
All right, guys.

02:24 Rane Bowen: Thank you so much for meeting with us today, coming
over and speaking with us. It's so great to have you
here in person. So perhaps you could start by just
telling us a little bit about your backgrounds and
how you found your way to yoga.

02:39 Ian McGinn: Absolutely.

02:40 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Well, first of all, hello. So nice to meet you all.
And hello to listeners as well. Well, my name is
Laura Wilson-McGinn:, and I'm here with my husband,
Ian McGinn.

02:50 Ian McGinn: That is me.

02:52 Laura Wilson-McGinn: That is ian. And yes, we are one of those weird and
wacky husband and wife combo couples that do all the
weird and wacky stuff together.

02:59 Rane Bowen: Another one?

03:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Exactly.

03:02 Ian McGinn: I like to think power couple, but probably a bit
excessive.

03:05 Laura Wilson-McGinn: No, so not that, but yeah, background aid. You want
to go first?

03:11 Ian McGinn: Yeah, I suppose probably what led us here today is,
yeah, I'm a police officer currently serving done
about five years in uniform policing, which I'm sure
we can talk about a little bit more later, and then
about five years as a detective. When I started,
yeah, yoga was never, ever on the spectrum.

03:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: It was so beyond, not even in the realms of Ian
spectrum. And we will definitely get to that, but
it's an understatement of the century.

03:42 Ian McGinn: There's always footy, weights, cricket, all the kind
of, I suppose, dude things. And then maybe you can
talk a little bit about how you got me to my first
yoga class, which is probably a good way to story.

03:57 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Well, I guess by way of background for listeners who
don't know me. So I'm Laura Wilson-McGinn:. I'm an
Aboriginal woman. My dad is a wawadri man.

04:07 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Dad passed last year, which I'm sure will come up in
conversation, but I'm also of English and Scottish
descent as well, and basically, I guess, my
background and experiences. I grew up doing a lot of
dancing and I was sort of training to be a
professional dancer. Did, like, everything
calisthenics and ballet and jazz and tap, like you
name it, I did it.

04:30 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And then it got to a point in my life where, for
various reasons, it was just not wasn't healthy
anymore is probably a good way to answer that
question about why things changed, but it wasn't
healthy anymore. And I decided I needed to figure out
what I wanted to do. And then I think how that
translated was taking the Type A discipline of being
a dancer, and that translated into, oh, yeah, of
course, I'm going to now go and do something equally
type A and insane.

04:30 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I ended up doing years and years of study and I
became a lawyer. So I am admitted to practice as a
lawyer in the Victorian Supreme Court. So my
professional background is as a lawyer, an advocate
and policy writer as well, but in my kind of more
recent life, also a yoga teacher and having launched
move like You Yoga.
04:30 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I guess by way of background as how Ian and I
met, ian was doing his PhD in Australian Indigenous
Studies at Monash. Ian is not Aboriginal himself, but
he was studying that Indigenous Studies and I was one
of the Aboriginal students and I was at that time
studying my Masters by research in criminology. And
Ian and I met at Uni.
05:43 Ian McGinn: In the library, like a couple of.
05:45 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Nerds, total nerd out. And we shared an office space
together. And basically.
05:53 Ian McGinn: The magic arose, the journey of love.
05:59 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So much of the love, yeah. And Ian basically at that
time was from my memory, halfway through his from I
actually had started doing my PhD in criminology and
I decided, nah, this just not the right time, I don't
want to do this. I dropped it down to a Master's by
research and then we met, we got together, started
our kind of like, life love journey and all the ups
and downs. But then from there, pretty much basically
from there, ian started working at Victoria.
06:33 Ian McGinn: Police as a public servant.
06:35 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Public servant. So not as a police officer, but by
way of kind of context and background, ian's from a
long line of police. His dad was a copper, his
granddad was a copper and his great granddad.
06:47 Ian McGinn: Was a copper, which sounds weird and it sounds like
some episode of Blue Bloods, like that show where
they're all cops and they sit around in their tunics
talking about policing.
06:55 Jo Stewart: And when you were a kid, were you always, I'm never
going to become a cop.
06:59 Ian McGinn: Yeah, a fair bit. It was a bit of a mixture. Like,
I'd go through phases and I'd always be like, Nah,
I'm not doing it. Rebel against dad, do the teenage
thing.
07:08 Ian McGinn: But then it was also that kind of burning thing where
you're like, could be pretty interesting. You hear
all those stories at home and you're like the cool
action stories that kids kind of like, not the
reality of what it's like most of the time, most
shift, which is generally not pleasant sometimes,
but, yeah, it was a real mixture. But I'd always had
that kind of interest, thought I would never do it.
07:31 Ian McGinn: And then when I went and became a public servant with
them, it rekindled the interest and I was like, all
right, I'm going to give this a go. Yeah, I'll give
it a try, see how it goes. Despite what a lot of
people think, my old man was like, do not do this.
07:45 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah.
07:46 Ian McGinn: And now, having done it for ten years, he's probably
right, probably shouldn't have.
07:49 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And to be fair and fair to say, hashtag, hilarious
thing about Ian. He's actually really anti
authoritarian, which is.
07:57 Ian McGinn: A weird thing because I was thinking about this on
the way in. It's a weird one because a lot of police
kind of are, which sounds strange for people who go
to do a job that's authoritarian in some ways, but go
to do the job where.
08:10 Jo Stewart: You are the authoritarian.
08:11 Ian McGinn: Yeah, it's a bit weird, but I think sometimes maybe
it's good if you are a little bit that way so you can
sort of critically think about things and then, I
don't know, you see things and you become a bit
libertarian as well, because you're kind of like,
well, you can tell people what to do, but people
don't want to do it. That's cool. If they're not
hurting anyone, no issue. Yeah.
08:31 Ian McGinn: So it's a weird job, a lot of weird people in. Yeah.
08:35 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I think it's probably fair to say at the point
when we'd gotten together and Ian had expressed to me
that he wanted to join the job, I can kind of clearly
say that I had major reservations in a number of know
for my reflections of it was I didn't grow up in a
family full of police. Definitely not. And obviously
coming from an Aboriginal background as well, and
coming from a I studied criminology, very far left
criminology as well, so it's probably fair to say I
had kind of my own strong views about certain things,
but I was also like, oh, look, I get it. You've got
something that you've got to do in your life and you
want to do the thing.
09:19 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So I was like, yeah, all right, let's go on this
journey, and what a journey it has been. But at the
same time I thought, okay, ian's always been very
supportive of what I wanted to do in my life and my
career. And strangely, it kind of worked really
interestingly well in all the highs and lows and at
times very challenging for us professionally, because
and this is also something that for us, and this will
probably come out throughout the podcast.
09:25 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But for us professionally, him working as a copper
and me working particularly when I went into
lawyering, going on to the other side, that was also
highly challenging, very stressful. Mostly for me, I
would say. And this will probably come back into play
when we start talking later down the track about
hyper vigilance with certain things that have
happened in our life.
10:08 Ian McGinn: And the adversarial system.
10:10 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah, and working in adversarial system. But
basically to bring it back to the yoga part, we
diverted a little bit, we diverted a fair bit, but it
was probably more natural for me because of having a
very strong dance background. What actually led me to
yoga proper was when I was in my early twenty s, I
did a couple of yoga class and was like, yeah. And at
that time, it's fair to say I was living quite an put
it's all yoga people.
10:27 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I was living the party life, I was doing my teen
years, I was getting all the things out of my system
and all the jazz and so I was like, yeah, but sort of
dabbled with it and nothing serious. And I was kind
of off partying and doing whatever else I was doing,
probably losing brain cells and all this stuff. And
it wasn't until I started lawyering and I remember
going to this osteo, bless him, who ended up treating
both of us, and he was like, basically in a nutshell,
man, you got to do something.
11:12 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Your body is really like, you are so stressed. What
the hell is going on? You need to do something. And
at that stage in our life, it was fair to say we were
living a very intense lifestyle.
11:27 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I was working as a lawyer, he was working as a
general duties copper. The shift working was insane.
The stress was through the roof.
11:36 Laura Wilson-McGinn: We've always been very active but not able to really
have any downtime. And this oscillo was like, laura,
I think you need to go and start doing some yoga and
figuring out some ways to deal with your stress and I
was having stomach upsets and all this stuff was
going on and I was like, yeah, like, when do I have
time? And a plethora of other commentary. And yeah, I
started going to yoga classes.
11:44 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I actually started going to good vibes yoga down in
Northcott because we were living in Northcott at the
time. And I was kind of squeezing know, running to
classes before work, running to classes after work,
like all this stuff, like leading this intense
everything was intense. Intense.
12:19 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Vinyasa intense, working everything. But also was
like, oh, yeah, my body is remembering, man. Like you
can move.
12:27 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And all this cool stuff, which was allowing me to
express a lot of things. And also at the time, with
the differing work I was doing, it was really loaded,
emotionally damaging, draining stuff, and I didn't
have anywhere to put that, so I was able to start
moving some of that out. And then Ian was having at
the time, if you don't mind me commenting, was doing
a lot of night shifts where it's fair to say ian's
coping strategy was coming home with a slab of VB at
the end of night shift, and he would sit down with
that slab, and he would just crack it open.
13:01 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Glug glug glug glug glug crack it open. Glug glug
glug glug glug crack it open. Glug glug glug glug
glug.
13:06 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And that wasn't sustainable for a lot of reasons.
13:08 Ian McGinn: Yeah, and just, I suppose, speaking to that too, it
is something that's kind of inherent in that culture,
or not a bit of it, and it is a drinking culture,
like a lot of things probably in Australia and
whatnot. It's certainly part of it, and it's part of
that culture in terms of a coping mechanism, I think,
yes, it brings people together, but if you weigh up
the goods and the negatives, probably it's far more
negative, but at that time, yeah, it was something
that was just part of something that you did. You do
night shift, so you do say, I think it's seven
nights, from eleven till 711 at night until seven the
next morning. It's always the craziest time to work
as well.
13:49 Ian McGinn: Like, things happen overnight when people have been
drinking and taking drugs or having mental health
issues, all these sorts of things. So it's a really
intense way to work. Your circadian rhythm obviously
gets all out of function.
14:01 Ian McGinn: Bad food is part of the culture too, but I suppose
people who are listening that have done it will know
that night shift drinks or EOS, it's called, it's
called early openers, is part of what you do on the
last day of the night shift, so you finish and you're
meant to have a rest day. But what's been part of the
culture, I think, for decades has been that you go
out drinking, which is, yeah, yes, it can be fun, but
I think if you weigh it all up. It's probably a bit
of a negative and that's something that I was doing.
14:04 Ian McGinn: I was doing it pretty regularly because I was doing a
lot of night shifts. So once a month I'd do a full
week of night shift. And it was just something I did.
14:36 Ian McGinn: And I remember this one day, literally, I think the
day before I did my first ever yoga class, laura had
been doing yoga and can I just.
14:45 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Say, I'll just jump in and be know with the shift
working and stuff, it's a choice, right? But man,
does that place strain on your like we were never
seeing each other. I'd be running out to work, he'd
be like, I just seen him for a minute, he'd come in
and Ian was like micro sleeping in the car, coming
home and all this crazy shit. So crazy stuff. Sorry
listeners.
14:49 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But I was also like, I'm trying to get my chakras and
all this stuff and trying to reconcile all this. And
Ian was kind of just like, oh, foo foo, whatever.
15:19 Ian McGinn: Well, I remember you were going to good vibes
northcott, like quite a bit, and you'd be like, come
like, no, no, I'm not doing that, I'm a dude. Dudes
don't do yoga. Which now I'm a yoga teacher. Who
would have thought? And I'd drop you off and then
walk along Mary Creek and all of that sort of stuff.
15:32 Ian McGinn: And yeah, I was like, no, I do weights and all of
that kind of stuff.
15:39 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But then there was this night and I still to this day
don't oh, sorry, Bob. Do you want to tell the story?
15:44 Ian McGinn: I'll tell the story. Okay, I'll tell the story.
15:46 Laura Wilson-McGinn: You tell the story. I will just say that when I saw
Ian, ian was a shade of green that I've never seen
before.
15:53 Ian McGinn: Yes. Anyway, so it was another night shift, the usual
practice, went out drinking with the people that I'd
been doing night shift with, got home, drank some
more, woke up the next day feeling horrendous and I
don't know, some yogic epiphany maybe happened. And I
was like, hey, Laura. She's like, what, dude?
16:12 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Laura was grumpy with, hey dude, like.
16:17 Ian McGinn: What do you want? You drunk and full.
16:18 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I think actually I was heading off to go to yoga
class. I do remember that. And he was this shade of
green and was all like, you know when they're feeling
sorry for themselves and you're just like, you
brought this on yourself, you can deal with it
yourself. It was a bit like that.
16:22 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And then from my memory I was like, actually I
remember it well. No, Ian, I'm going to tell it from
my perspective, okay? I was going down High Street, I
get this phone call and I'm thinking the sympathy
phone call, whatever you can. Like, I'm not bringing
you back a.
16:45 Jo Stewart: Bacon and an egg roll.
16:47 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Exactly.
16:47 Ian McGinn: Actually, that was the order.
16:49 Laura Wilson-McGinn: You can marrow and I actually remember it well. You
came down on the tram with me. Ian came down on the
tram and I'm like, he's going to hurl, he is going to
hurl. And I thought, I'm getting off.
16:51 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I am better than this. I am going to my class. And
maybe was feeling a bit know, whatever.
16:59 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And then later you'd called and you were, hey, Bob,
and I'm like, yeah, what? And he's all like, Bob, I
think I've had a bit of an epiphany. I think I need
to stop drinking. And I'm like, oh, really? Oh, wow.
17:20 Ian McGinn: Yeah. And yeah, very good voices, very on point, but,
yeah. And I was like, all I'm this is not working.
Like, this kind of lifestyle, know what you're doing
as part of it, the drinking and not looking after
yourself necessarily.
17:24 Ian McGinn: I was like, no, I've got to try to add something in
to kind of move away from that. And Laura had been
pestering me about yoga and I'm like, no, I'm not
doing it. And I thought, no, I'm going to give it a
go.
17:25 Ian McGinn: I'm going to come and do one class, see if I like it
or not. Really didn't was kind of resistant in my own
mind. Didn't think I would.
17:39 Ian McGinn: And I remember my first class, it was a what's the
mellow? Is it? Keep it mellow, keep it mellow.
17:58 Laura Wilson-McGinn: That was the class.
18:00 Ian McGinn: And also, like, a slow flow kind.
18:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Of thing and also to kind of add to it, which I'm
sure we'll talk about later when you get to the next
questions about hypervigilance. But when Ian said he
wanted to, ian was also at this stage where it's fair
to say was severely hyper vigilant at that point.
Severely. And I was like, oh, we've got to choose
this class.
18:23 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Well, and I remember saying to the teacher who I'd
developed these great relationships with, and I knew
which teacher I thought would work, it was going to
work. And I, after class one day, explained and
they'd heard a little bit about us anyway, and I was
like, look, he wants to come and do a class, but is
it cool to kind of don't touch him, we've got to go
in the back row. I know this sounds crazy, but we've
got some big problems that we're kind of dealing with
that touching is not going to be a good yeah, yeah.
18:51 Ian McGinn: So I went to that first class you did with Lucienne.
I think I can happily say that Lucienne Shanti, yes,
great teacher. And at the end of it, I was that was
that was amazing. I remember doing things like lizard
lunge and wanting to cry because it freaking hurt so
bad.
18:59 Ian McGinn: And I'm like, My God, my body's a mess as well,
because obviously doing this job, you're sitting in
cars a lot, sitting cars. Then you go back and you
sit at a desk and it's like that seat lifestyle which
just wrecks your body. I was having knee pain, back
pain, all the things.
18:59 Ian McGinn: And I did that class, and then I went back the next
day without you, actually. And I remember Lucy and
being like, oh, my God, you're back. I can't believe
it.
18:59 Ian McGinn: And then pretty much haven't stopped since. So, yeah,
really awesome experience. And I think yeah, was glad
that I landed there first because, yeah, good studio
and some good teachers there that kind of were very
open to me being there and being like, don't touch
me, don't come near me, all of that sort of stuff.
19:47 Ian McGinn: Don't stand over me in dark rooms and all of this
kind of thing. And they were really good about it.
So, yeah, it was amazing.
19:53 Jo Stewart: And really, I feel like modern day yoga best
practice. You shouldn't even have to upfront ask
someone to not touch you in class. That should be
consent, like an informed, enthusiastic consent
thing. And standing over someone in a dark space,
even if someone doesn't have a hyper vigilance
history, that's kind of menacing for lots of people.
20:16 Jo Stewart: So it's kind of interesting that the stuff that
you've flagged right at the beginning, because of
your own personal things that you've been working
with, are now coming more and more into yoga teaching
is just best practice for everyone.
20:28 Ian McGinn: Yeah. And you're seeing, I suppose, that development
of trauma, informed yoga, and those things are
starting to become more normal because I think there
are some yoga teachers that might be resistant to
that. Like, I have to give an adjustment.
20:40 Jo Stewart: Yeah, totally.
20:41 Ian McGinn: They can dictate a little bit, like, you will do
this, you will do that, I will come and move you, and
then you can get a really bad reaction from someone
who's, well, they.
20:48 Jo Stewart: Were just trained that that was good yoga teaching.
And so that's what they've done for 20 years since
they did their training.
20:53 Ian McGinn: And it's a shame because then someone who would
benefit from it might not show up again.
20:58 Jo Stewart: They might be more traumatized.
21:00 Ian McGinn: Absolutely. You're just like, yeah. So, yeah, they
were great. And I'm glad I took that jump and went
and did it.
21:08 Ian McGinn: So it was awesome.
21:09 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I've got a little bit of an.
21:10 Jo Stewart: Offscript question for you, Laura. So coming from
dance, and I sense a bit of a perfectionist streak.
21:19 Laura Wilson-McGinn: That was an eye roll. Yeah.
21:22 Jo Stewart: Did you have to really work with yourself to shift
that in your yoga practice and to not drive yourself
that hard in your yoga? Or is that something that
just happened over time as the practice kind of
worked through you?
21:37 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah, I think this question is a really good one
because it also comes into talking about doing yoga
teacher training. It's fair to say that yoga teacher
training for Ian and I blew our effing minds because
it forced us to have to pretty much rethink and
unlearn everything we'd ever been taught. From my
perspective, at least, growing up, and very
incredibly fortunate. The experiences I had as a
child, dancing and stuff like this, in many ways,
very, very fortunate, definitely made me who I am.
21:43 Laura Wilson-McGinn: It's fair to say that dancing as a child in the 90s
was probably a weird, wild time, that you would not
be allowed to do a lot of that stuff now. So I will
put it that way and definitely made me who I am. It
definitely led to the way I approach law school and
lawyering and everything having to be exact and
precise always.
22:18 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So yoga is this amazing opportunity for mistakes to
happen, and it be okay. Like, you're not in my
experience as a child, you're not on stage having
what felt like the weight of the world on me, having
people watching, I'm not lawyering, having to be on
point all the time and not making mistakes. I'm not
having to be desperately trying to concentrate and be
doing work where you can't make mistakes.
23:05 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So, yeah, it's been like and I think Ian and I talk
about this a lot because Ian is very similar, doesn't
have that same background in terms of dancing and
stuff like that, but the way we've always been
trained about having to be precise and on point and
everything being right all the time. Because
unfortunately, particularly with our professional
careers, the ramifications of getting something wrong
are dire. Even, say in my context, it could be like,
you stuff something up with a client and then the
ramifications are on them and your duty is always to
the client and the court.
23:40 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Or in Ian's case, that could be a very horribly fatal
type of like it is just this liberating feeling when
you go, I am one of those people where it is nice
when someone's teaching me and I'm their student, and
they say something along the lines of those
expressions sometimes that yoga teachers use. And
it's kind of like, just do the thing or just move,
like you or whatever it is, but you're not like, oh,
yes, I need to make this be precise or exact or look
perfect or whatever. Very liberating, but mind
blowingly.
24:20 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Just like whoa. Yeah.
24:24 Jo Stewart: And I guess as well, just hearing you say that in
your other work, it's all about the ramifications it
has on other people's lives and your responsibility
to the other people that you're working with and for.
So maybe your time on your yoga mat is like the time
where you're like, oh, I'm here for like, this is
just my time now.
24:42 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah. And like, this weird, I think it's fair to say,
and I'm pretty sure Ian would agree in his own way
about things, know, this weird kind of disconnect
feeling. Like, I remember going to classes when I was
deep in the work I was doing, like, with advocacy
work or lawyering I was doing. And I remember either
situations where I'd been out in jails during the day
and then I'm going to an evening class or I'd been at
work and the particular work I was doing at the time
you were encountering extremely traumatic material
just over and over and then having to go to court and
do.
25:18 Ian McGinn: All sorts of stuff.
25:19 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I remember going into yoga, like Charlote's
Studios at the end of the day and just having this
kind of like, meltdown inside because it's such a
disconnect from what I'd been dealing with all day.
Like having to be on hyper Vigilant, knowing what's
going on. And I remember this one class in particular
where I got there at the last minute and there was
only one space left and it was the front row. That is
always the last space left.
25:19 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I was just like, I cannot do this. I cannot have
people behind me. My hyper Vigilance is just like,
it's not a good day.
25:36 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I remember just being having to basically slap
myself around and being like, you are going to go and
do the thing and kind of marching my way to the
front. I remember sitting there and finding the
breath work component of the class excruciating
because the teacher wanted us to obviously be still
and focus on our breath and all this stuff. And
remember at that time, I could not sit still.
26:20 Laura Wilson-McGinn: It was like, oh my.
26:22 Ian McGinn: It's fair to say yin classes with you are a
nightmare. Yeah, I'd be like, Sit still. You don't
need to do cossack, squats, shoulder stand.
26:33 Laura Wilson-McGinn: It was like dealing with all of this stress and
having to be on all the time and not knowing where to
put that. And so I remember just being like, I just
can't it was just so intense and it's fair to know.
And Ian has had his own kind of journey with his
stuff too. And it's stuff we've really had to work on
and actually dedicate our thought process to about
being like, this is a safe space.
26:33 Laura Wilson-McGinn: It is okay. No one is going to come up behind.
27:02 Ian McGinn: I think that's part of the cool part of it and maybe
even why it's called like a practice, because you're
practicing something consecutively and if you can
dedicate yourself to it, the benefits can be massive.
Especially and it's not just emergency services
people. I think it's anyone we live in a really I
don't know, I feel like the world yells at us a lot
these days.
27:21 Jo Stewart: And especially like, if you didn't have mental health
challenges before the last three.
27:25 Ian McGinn: Years, the last three years, and then throw in social
media and everyone having an opinion that they want
you to get sucked into like a poke machine. It's good
to have somewhere to go for an hour where that gets
put in a bag, it gets separated. People might eye
roll a little bit and be like, oh, me time. That's a
bit selfish, but if you can't sort of look.
27:46 Ian McGinn: After yourself and control yourself. How are you
going to help anyone around you just taking an hour
or whatever it is, half an hour, whatever it is, just
to put those things aside. Do something for yourself.
27:58 Ian McGinn: Mentally and physically, the benefits are massive. It
doesn't mean you need to do handstands or be able to
chant and levitate off the mat. It doesn't mean that
at all.
28:08 Ian McGinn: It's just like just something that you practice
becomes part of your weekly or daily routine. I think
the benefits are immense.
28:15 Jo Stewart: A nice analogy I've heard is like doing your yoga
practice, it's like having a shower. It's for you,
but if you don't do it, the people around you.
28:25 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So true. I like that too. Yeah.
28:28 Jo Stewart: And I've got another insight because just hearing
your story about showing up and being on that mat at
the front and just so much within you, it's really
hard. That was wild.
28:39 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah. I don't even know even talking about it now.
I'm like, I just remember that. And I remember that
day and I was like I just remember thinking, do not
have a meltdown in front of these people because they
will not even as open and cary sherry as they are,
they will not understand what's going on.
28:56 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So yeah, exactly.
28:58 Jo Stewart: Like, I've read in yoga teacher Facebook groups, like
the teacher saying, I've got this student, they can't
be still.
29:05 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I find it distracting the class.
29:07 Jo Stewart: But also it's like, think about what that person
might have been through before they showed up on the
mat. And this is their time to decompress. And maybe
trying to make that person be still is going to be
like that extra button to push that's really going to
send them into this meltdown. And maybe this is a
time where if they were just able to move and fidget
a little bit and kind of discharge some of that
energy, they would be able to settle into the
practice.
29:36 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So from the outside it might be.
29:39 Jo Stewart: Like, oh, they're just fidgeting. They should just be
quiet and still. But from the inside, it's like we
don't know what people have gone through before
they've shown up on the match.
29:47 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah, absolutely. And I remember actually the
conversation that I had before coming into class. And
it's fair to say anyone that knows me will know that
I generally am running on this, like, octane of up
here. So I still to this day, generally will present
at classes that I'm not teaching.
30:04 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I'm there for my own practice and I'll be like racing
through the door. There's always been something
that's happening and it's just and it's always up
here. And I remember kind of bursting through the
door the last minute, thinking, oh my God, am I going
to make this class? And all this stuff.
30:17 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And also feeling that pressure, like, I have to make
sure I've made this class. Like classic type A, all
the crap, all the jazz. But I remember kind of
bursting in and explaining and being like, look, I'm
really, really sorry.
30:25 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I've been held up and trying to kind of explain
because, you know, like, with the word I'm looking
at, you know, like when people booked in a class and
there's like that four hour book out time and me
trying to explain, I'm really sorry. I can't. I've
been in a jail all day, and you can't take phones in
the jail, and this is what's been happening, and you
can't take the phone in there and the 4 hours, and
I'm sorry.
30:55 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I remember the teacher sort of being like, they
heard me say cells, and he interpreted that as
something about talking about my cells inside of my
body. And I remember just being like, Nah, man, what
are you talking about? I'm talking about jail cells.
Like jail.
30:55 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I'm like it was this moment where I was like I
felt this total disconnect of yeah. And I sort of was
like, Laura, contain your crazy. These people don't
want to hear about that.
31:22 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But I was trying to desperately explain why I hadn't
checked myself out of the class and why I was running
late and why I couldn't call because, you know, and
we talk about this a know, it'd be like, you can't
have phones in jails. You can't have phones when
you're interviewing someone. You can't have phones in
a courtroom.
31:35 Laura Wilson-McGinn: You can't do this, you can't do that. And so the
checkout time to book yourself out of the class, we
would just we can't and I remember scrambling in,
trying to explain that story, and it just landing
completely wrong. He's like, but your cells, man, are
they on a molecular, molecular level, man.
31:39 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I remember telling you this story over dinner,
and Ian and I was like and I was like, what is he
talking about? And I think he was like, what is she
talking about? That got there in the end. And yes, I
did do the class.
32:10 Ian McGinn: But that can be a cool thing about yoga and stuff,
too, I think, is that it's so different to all of
those adversarial systems and those sorts of jobs,
and that's something that, in the end, I thought
wouldn't appeal to me, but it really did. It was like
being in a space where it's completely different and
you're not talking about horrible things or it's not
this toxic environment where everything's negative
and the world sucks and people suck and all of that
kind of stuff. It's like, if you're looking to do
something that's really different to those things,
yoga can be a really good pathway, and you don't have
to be into the esoteric and chanting and all of that
stuff. If it's not for you, that's cool.
32:10 Ian McGinn: But it's good to challenge yourself to be around
something different and just get out of your comfort
zone a little bit. And the benefits as I said before
are really kind of enormous, I think, and a bit of
fun, too. Like, you meet some crazy people and it's a
bit of a laugh and why not do something different?
33:05 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Ian's reflections I've always liked. Because I think
it's fair to say, and I'm sure I'm not speaking out
of turn saying this, but I think it's fair to say ian
has very much lived in a world and been brought up in
a world where you've got to be a strong man. Strong
boy, strong man. And then going into a job where
you're expected to know, undoubtedly, you're expected
to be dominant, you're expected to be strong.
33:20 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And you're expected to show up every time. And I
guess the interesting thing about police work,
especially general duties, is that they are going
from one either really mundane thing to one extreme
trauma thing to another extreme trauma, and you are
expected to just keep going and going and going. And
any sign of emotionality or weakness is not accepted
very well, even though there's work being done at the
moment.
33:54 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Try and change that. But I know when I started and
this is like another probably funny thing about our
relationship, I'm that woman that's like, tell me how
you feel. And he's like, Yep, good.
34:06 Ian McGinn: Yeah, good and bad. Good, mostly good. Yeah, I'm
good. Bad.
34:10 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I'd be asking know, how are you finding being in
yoga? And when Ian would venture beyond good, he
would then start becoming quite expressive and being,
you know, just being able to basically, to paraphrase
Ian, like, to be able to go somewhere and not have to
be having to be seen as dominant.
34:31 Ian McGinn: Yeah, it's a different culture. It's completely
different. And that's what's so good about it, I
think. Yeah, you can be having an off day.
34:39 Ian McGinn: You might want to lay on the floor and not
participate, and people generally aren't going to
hold it against you or those sorts of things. It's
just such a different environment to policing or
lawyering and all of those sorts of things. I really
enjoyed it and I met some people who I would never
have met, would never have become friends with, who
were just so different to what I was used to.
35:05 Ian McGinn: And you would talk about feelings or you would talk
about what's going on in your life and not have to
put up a front where you're like, no, I'm good. I
went to this today and it was horrible, but whatever,
let's go drink some beer and watch the Footy and all
of that kind of stuff, which is cool, there's a place
for everything, but it's also good to meet people.
And I think yoga is different in that sense where it
is okay to kind of lower the guard a little bit and
you meet those people who are willing to discuss be
it spiritual, emotional, whatever it happens to be.
35:05 Ian McGinn: And you can release the valve that way a little bit
too, without it just being the kind of macho
environment and just casting things aside or not. I
can't recommend it enough, I guess.
35:45 Laura Wilson-McGinn: As well, not to like kind of and not to put anyone
off there. If you want to work in the adversarial
legal system or emergency services, go for it.
Definitely. I think there's a really good thing to go
and do those things, but I think it's probably fair
to say that those systems, if there's a sniff of
weakness, it can be used against you.
36:05 Ian McGinn: Absolutely.
36:06 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So you tend to not show that, which can, I think,
take its toll.
36:13 Ian McGinn: Absolutely it does. And that's you're, right. You're
expected to. And you have to, to a degree, like, you
go and see people in their moments of crisis.
36:14 Ian McGinn: And I think something that's said in policing a bit
is you're often dealing with people on the worst day
of their life. So what are you meant to do? Like, you
have to show strength and you have to show that
you're in control, but doing that constantly isn't
good for you and you need to come up with methods to
understand that you don't have to do that 24 hours a
day, which probably goes into the hyper vigilance
thing as well. But just being able to find something
in your life where you can shut off from that and
surround yourself with some different kind of people.
36:50 Ian McGinn: Yeah, it's really good.
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37:38 Jo Stewart: Check out our link in the show notes for all our
Markaloo resources, including some free video
classes. And so is that why you because you both seem
like you've got really full plates already, and then
you went to do more training to become yoga teachers
and started a yoga business. And in some ways, that
takes the thing that was your safe refuge and your
time that was just for you, and you're like, oh, now
it's another thing that I have to do for other
people, and I have to be responsible for other people
when they're in my class.
37:47 Jo Stewart: And I'm wondering if it's because you really saw the
need in the other environments that you were working
with, or because it was something that really made
you personally happy. So you wanted to do more of
what's, lighting you up personally?
38:25 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah, well, I'll take the lead on this one. I'll talk
from my perspective and it kind of bleeds in. So I
think for me personally, yoga teaching was a long
time coming from a dance background and like I
mentioned, the style of dance that I was training to
be, it was just never going to eventuate. And one of
the things I loved about yoga is that you can be any
shape, any size, it doesn't matter.
38:48 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Whereas what I was doing, you had to be a particular
shape, size, all the things. And I also fell very
heavily, madly, deeply in love with all things pole
dancing and aerial. Again, an environment where it's
like it doesn't matter what you look like, what size
you are, no one cares.
39:03 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Which for me was a revelation because after the years
of what I went through as a child, it was not that at
all and I think it was a long time coming. And while
I'm very grateful for the experiences I had and the
opportunities I've had from my professional career
lawyering and advocacy and had insights into things
that once you encounter that there's this expression,
once you've touched the darkness, it touches you
back. And so, yeah, have seen things, smelt things,
heard things, been told things that that will go with
you to the grave forever.
39:40 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So bearing in mind all that but it was a long time
coming, I went really deeply into pole dancing. I
remember talking with my pole coach, Michelle Mishka
from Mooney Ponds Pole Divas and I was do like, I
want to do yoga teaching, I want to do pole dance
teaching, I want to do something that's going to be
amazing for movement and expression and bodies and
all this stuff. And for years we were sort of talking
about this and she's like, oh, you should just do it.
40:06 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And basically in a nutshell, there was never the
opportunity. And then through absolute, well, fact of
life stuff, but also deep sadness and trauma. What
ended up happening was my dad, who ended up passing
last year.
40:24 Laura Wilson-McGinn: My dad got sick back in July 2019. And that
experience really hit us, hit our family. And it was
this thing where, it's fair to say Anne and I were
very careers, career focused and very focused on
helping other people through our work and have always
been very close with our family.
40:46 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But our work and our jobs were very taking us in
other directions. When my dad became unwell, it was
like, whoa, myself and my mum and my dad were very
always very close and so when this happened with my
dad, it was like, I've got to make a big decision.
What am I going to do? Am I going to be out there
being available for someone else's problems or am I
going to be stepping up to the plate in my own home
and my own family.
41:17 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So when this happened with dad, it was like one of
these sliding dwells moments where it was like, I've
got to now essentially still be trying to bring in
the bacon because I'm going to need it. Because we
knew that things with dad wasn't going to be great.
So I need to be making money to be able to deal with
inevitable things, but at the same time, I've got to
do what I need to do.
41:41 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And so it was through that time where I stopped
lawyering and I took on other roles and I was more
available and focused with what was going on with
dad. It also made us realize that the lifestyles that
we've been living with our jobs wasn't conducive for
when you've got to care for someone and when there's
a lot of emergency situations, which is unfortunately
what we had happening with my dad at the time. And
so, really, I think that was like this big learning
experience.
41:51 Laura Wilson-McGinn: It also then when my dad passed away and this was all
happening during the COVID lockdown, so we had a lot
going on and Ian was trying to be support for me,
support for my mum, support for my dad while he was
still alive. I was trying to do the same for all of
them and all the things and so there was a lot going
on. And so when my dad passed away, we had this big
conversation about, basically, in a nutshell, holy
shit.
42:42 Laura Wilson-McGinn: We thought we'd seen some things in our life and we
had seen some things in our life, but that was
something else and it hit home in a different way and
it was sort of like one of these moments of, what do
we want for the rest of our lives? And basically that
started unraveling, I guess, this layer of this onion
for Ian and I, where we started questioning a lot of
things about our lives and what we'd been doing and
that we'd like the directional course to sort of
change. And so, yeah, so it was like two weeks after
my dad died, I started my teach training. It was a
really heavy time, and we were in deep lockdowns and
all this sort of stuff.
43:19 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And, yeah, it was a long time coming, but that was
the straw and it just opened up this whole it was
kind of like the thing that had scared me the most in
my life about what could potentially happen with my
dad. That happened. And then also no, I was like,
what's there to be scared of, man? And so for us,
professionally, I'm sure you can empathize this was a
big thing.
43:46 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Like, when I sort of was like, I'm not lawyering
anymore. I remember people, well meaning and very
lovely friends of ours and colleagues, but people
being like, Are you insane? Why not? And I'm like,
I've got to be with my dad. This is more important, I
guess, without kind of being a little bit funny about
the adversary or legal system or policing.
44:08 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But sometimes it can be a bit of an all or nothing.
And so if you then start expressing different things
that can go against that grain, it can be a bit like,
well, what do you mean you're not luring anymore? Or
like with I mean, gosh, when Ian started yoga, I
think they're like Vipol's.
44:23 Ian McGinn: Like, he has lost he has lost.
44:26 Laura Wilson-McGinn: A.
44:31 Ian McGinn: On, spot on. And then when you're like, oh, and I'm
going to do yoga teacher training and become a yoga
teacher, and they're like, what? This guy needs to be
sent for assessment? Somewhere there's something
wrong, which there probably is, but I digress. But I
suppose, yeah, in terms of the teacher training, not
to be, I don't know, a yoga missionary or anything
like that, but what I wanted to get out of it, too,
was just kind of spreading the benefit of doing a
practice, making it accessible to people who
otherwise might not want to do it. And also, I guess,
speaking to what you were saying with these sorts of
jobs, something I've noticed, and I'm sure we'll
speak about them, but like the Code Nine Foundation
and organizations like that, who are trying to assist
members who are going through some tough times, these
jobs as well.
45:24 Ian McGinn: Something I think you can get lost in a little bit is
I sort of call them identity jobs, where people
really attach their identity to it and you can
understand why, like, you wear a uniform, all of your
friends are there. They're almost cultish, in a
sense, because you work all of these crazy shifts and
you don't see your family people withdraw from all of
their outside networks, you don't have friends who
aren't outside the job, and it becomes everything.
And I don't know, I'm kind of obsessed with stoics
and stuff at the moment as well, and what they talk
about and the concept of anything can be taken from
you at any time and it's just a job that's it at the
end of the day, it's a great job.
46:03 Ian McGinn: It can be a great job. I think most people want to
join, to do something good for their community, but
don't lose sight of the fact that it is a job. You
can have an injury, you can be involved, especially
policing.
46:12 Ian McGinn: You could be involved in an incident, and the next
day you're not a policeman anymore. Policeman,
policewoman. So I think the good thing with yoga for
me is, one, it's very different, and two, it's
something that you can practice yourself.
46:31 Ian McGinn: No matter what you're doing, no matter what career
you're in, it's something that can always be there.
So, yeah, I don't know, I've kind of waffled on a
little bit, but it's certainly something I thought
about when you were speaking it's just these identity
jobs. Don't lose the sight of the fact that you are
you.
46:46 Ian McGinn: You are not just the uniform, you are not just the
job that you're doing. Yeah. You're, you like, don't
lose sight of that because I see it really wreck
people if they haven't got anything else sort of
outside of it.
46:50 Ian McGinn: Yeah. So that's what I'd kind of say to that.
47:00 Jo Stewart: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it actually is
one of the things that I've been wondering about some
of the mental health challenges that people face when
they're doing these high stress, relentless roles.
And you've mentioned hypervigilance a few times, and
obviously this is something that people develop
because it's a necessity in that role to stay safe.
So is the idea that obviously it's not a state of
mind that you can sustainably operate in for the
other 20 the rest of your day?
47:29 Ian McGinn: Absolutely.
47:30 Jo Stewart: So would the goal be that it's a state you can go
into when you need it and then drop out of when you
clock off?
47:37 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Well, I think on that note, and this is something we
were talking about on the car, there's also the idea
of clocking off, which in these jobs, unfortunately,
they don't clock off, they don't stop. And something
we've spoken about over the years is that if you
don't put that punctuation mark in yourself, it's
going to still keep going. It presents well with
policing because they do shifts. And so it's 24
hours.
48:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Like, even now, Ian will be on call overnight after
being at work during the day. Very disruptive. But
say from a lawyering perspective, same same.
48:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Like, you'll have matters that you've got to go and
run and there might be some last minute change that's
happened and you've got to file that.
48:20 Ian McGinn: There was an article in the paper today, a lawyer got
sacked, I think, because she took a sick day. And it
was something along the lines of there was an
upcoming court matter and she had that matter on, but
she was sick and her employer was essentially like,
lawyers are different. You can't take a sick day. And
so it's something that's ever present in these kind
of jobs that they never stop.
48:42 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Never stop, yeah, never stop. Especially, I think
it's probably fair to say, and there's different
types as well of policing is policing, but there's
different types of police work, but lawyering
similar. Like, you might be a corporate lawyer, which
you're not dealing with trauma, but you might be
dealing with 24 hours. You might be doing a merger
and acquisition for people in the States, and they're
on a different time zone.
49:08 Laura Wilson-McGinn: In my experience with, like, human rights lawyering
and child protection lawyering, those are jobs where
these are human jobs where things are happening 24
hours a day, stuff like that. Or say, for example,
now there's night court in Victoria, so some criminal
lawyers will be working night courts and will be
doing like, bail applications at night court because
people are remanded. People are detained by police 24
hours a day.
49:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So it's very hard to create this idea of a
delineation of your workday starting and ending,
especially if you're on.
49:41 Ian McGinn: Call, like and on the note of the hyper vigilance
thing, I think he's still working, but there's a sort
of a famous police psychologist, Dr. Gil Martin, and
he does like, a lot of presentations and he talks a
lot about hypervigilance. I think his book's called
The Survival Manual for Law Enforcement Officers.
Something along those lines. It's a very small book,
but it's renowned for coping mechanisms for that
concept of hyper vigilance.
50:10 Ian McGinn: And it's ever present. I think it's probably worse
for general duties members and uniform members who
you do your shift and you're out on the van or doing
some form of foot patrol or something like that, and
you have to be vigilant. Like, you have to be
watching out for one another, for each other's
safety.
50:10 Ian McGinn: And we were talking about it on the car here. Like
some of the worst things that I went to in terms of
critical incidents or kind of horrible events as
such, is you don't even see it coming. It can be as
simple as you get called to a noise complaint and the
next thing in the next minute you're in a critical
incident, you're fighting someone, you're wrestling
on the ground or horrible to talk about, but a lot of
police shootings start in those kind of
circumstances.
50:55 Ian McGinn: So you train yourself to be ever vigilant, always
looking around. There's some quotes in that Dr. Gil
Martin book about how police essentially never go off
duty and the only people walking down the street that
are in tune with one another are police members and
members of the public, members of.
51:15 Laura Wilson-McGinn: The public encountering police.
51:19 Ian McGinn: And these sorts of things because there's just that
constant hyper vigilance. And so to be able to with
yoga, I think the good thing there is you can
actually get some practical skills with breath work
and these sorts of things where you have to
acknowledge that it's a natural, like the
parasympathetic nervous system and these kinds of
things. You're putting yourself in a state of flight
and fight all of the time, and it's really, really
bad for your health. So yoga in that sense, in a
practical sense, I think is awesome in terms of
breath work, these sorts of things.
51:52 Ian McGinn: For people who have done some of the police training,
you'll hear of combat breathing and it sounds really
cool, like combat breathing, but really it's box
breathing, it's breath work. They're all yoga
concepts as well. So you can take away some of those
practical tools to even if it's a minute, two
minutes, five minutes after a shift, just to be like,
cool, your body is telling you that the line is
chasing you and is going to kill you.
52:18 Ian McGinn: But it's not you've finished your shift, now you can
try to go home, relax with your family, take some
time out to yourself just to down regulate and kind
of stop being in that state. And it's a really hard
thing to do though, if you're doing 40 plus hours a
week, plus shift work and all of these sorts of
things. But I think you have to put some sort of
effort into it because yeah, again, it's just
something you can never relax and then your quality
of time with your family and your friends, it's
diminished because you are still in that state.
52:49 Ian McGinn: Like I'm at work and that little voice in your head
is like what's that person doing over there? Or
what's that sound? Is that an emergency? Or like when
you're on patrol, you're constantly listening to the
radio and you're distracted all the time and yeah, it
puts your body in a state, so you've got to do
something for it. Yoga is a great way to do it, I
think, especially the breath work aspects of it.
53:10 Jo Stewart: So we've got a question on our new client form. Just
what occupation do you do? Like say someone has
written in like they're a first responder or they
work in the adversarial legal system. So even if that
person hasn't mentioned hypervigilance as an issue,
you might have an idea that that could be something
that they're dealing with. What advice do you have
knowing that person is coming to your class and
knowing that everyone is going to have their own
individual and unique experience? What are some
helpful teaching strategies?
53:43 Ian McGinn: Yeah, that's an interesting that's a hard one, I
think kind of what we covered before as well. If
you're teaching in those areas and obviously trauma
informed yoga is becoming more normalized or
something that people want to do. It's probably just
getting an understanding of it. Understanding that,
yeah, the things we discuss, people might not want to
be touched, they might not want you in their space.
54:05 Ian McGinn: They're probably coming there hyperstressed. So doing
those breath work things, which I get aren't for
everyone. A lot of people giving an out, but just
those focuses on just getting people to taking some
time to just even regulate their breath.
54:21 Ian McGinn: That's sort of what I'd say. I think it's complex
because then you look at even things we've discussed
with army veterans and these sorts of things. One of
the things there is the lighting of incense.
54:32 Laura Wilson-McGinn: No go, definite no go.
54:36 Ian McGinn: Being in the Middle East and these sorts of places
where incense and smells like stimulate those sorts
of responses. It's just having an awareness of it, I
suppose. I don't know if it sounds harsh or not, you
can't cater for everyone, but it's not just emergency
services workers that are going to have those sorts
of problems. You only have to read a newspaper to
understand all of the kind of things.
54:59 Ian McGinn: That people go through and traumas and all of this
kind of stuff. So, yeah, I'd say the big ones for me
would be understanding. It definitely the physical.
55:09 Ian McGinn: Like, if you're going to run classes, maybe do
something where someone can tell you like, please do
not touch me, please do not come into my space, those
sorts of things. And if you offer props or eye
coverings or these sorts of things like give people
an out, don't be forceful with that kind of stuff.
That would be my main thing.
55:27 Ian McGinn: I think.
55:28 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Look, from my perspective and my experiences are
different to Ian's in the sense that, look, there
probably is a MyRate of things for me, being also
female. And the work that I have done has involved me
spending time and I have to sort of frame this with
being careful of how I respond to some of the
questions, because I've got continuing employment
obligations. But some of the work that I have done
has been out in jail settings where these are
particular environments and you do have to be aware
of your safety. And I think similarly with police
work, and if you're interacting and doing work with
different people, you're always having to be a little
bit mindful of your surroundings and what's going on.
55:42 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I think, unfortunately, what can happen. And I know
I've had a lot of conversations with friends and
colleagues of mine who have worked in these systems,
and it can be really common that people will share
stories about going home to I remember one in
particular. Someone sharing a story with me about how
they were going home and the way they were talking
with their children was like it was the prisoners.
56:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And this wasn't going well in the home environment,
is one way of putting it. And it was taking a bit of
reflection on how to kind of address that, but trying
to create a delineation between home and work and all
this stuff. But I think that a part of being aware of
if someone's working and not even people just that
are working in these systems, people that have been
incarcerated themselves, or you might have been
someone who grew up in an institutionalized setting,
like you might have been in residential care.
57:07 Ian McGinn: Absolutely.
57:08 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Or you might have been at a closed mental health
facility, you might have been in an immigration
detention center. So many people have got these
experiences, or I dare also put it out there, they
might have intergenerational trauma of this. It might
not have been them directly, but it might have been
their parent. And you see this a lot.
57:27 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Working in, say, Aboriginal community comes up a lot,
and so sometimes these things can play out in
different ways. I think that a big thing for me is
when we do our classes, our general classes as well,
I always try to space mats out and so that people
don't feel too close to each other. And I am a real
walker because I get, as I put it out there before, I
get a bit like nervy, a bit fidgety.
57:45 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And so I like to walk around when I'm teaching and
communicating, but I try to be really mindful about
walking too close to people or walking behind people,
because even to this day, and Ian and I've worked on
this so much, I still have days where I'm like, I
just can't cope with someone being behind me. And I
haven't worked in those settings for quite a while.
But still, it might just be a thing on that day or an
encounter that I've just had on the street because
we've had that happen.
57:45 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I was saying this in the car ride over. Like had
an experience once where I was talking on the street
in just plain clothes, just me being me, just me as
my usual self. And I was going off to go and do pole
dancing and whatever.
58:33 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Live my best life. And was really excited about
going. Living my best life.
58:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And one of Ian's colleagues, a friend of ours, pulled
up in a police car and in that moment, I stupidly
made the decision and was silly of me and I now
chastise myself about it, but it is what it is, where
we saw each other and we're like, hey, how's it
going? Easy. I thought, great. No worries.
58:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And it was something that I knew I shouldn't have
done because this could have been a good thing or a
not good thing and in that moment, it wasn't a good
thing. And there was someone on the street who was a
member of the public that saw me interacting with
this police officer in this friendly manner and then
decided to come up and start verbally abusing me,
then followed me all the way to where I was going.
And I had to make a decision in that moment whether I
was going to go into the studio.
58:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I'm like, I can't take my problems in that
studio. So, luckily for me, there's a police station
nearby and I ended up this person followed me the
whole way there, came up to me and fronted me, like,
right up close, fronted me male. And I had to run
around this person and go into the police station,
burst in and was, like, explained very quickly to the
person in the watch house what was going on and they
let me through.
58:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And basically, long story short, I ended up having
Ian, who was working, had to come and get me and
drive me home, which was a bit embarrassing. But the
point of the story is this even unfortunately, when
you're in these jobs, like, even to this day, when I
say goodbye to Ian out the front of his work, we
always make sure that we don't hug. And kiss out the
front.
58:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And we don't get all smoochy poochie just because
there might be someone that's not so keen on the fact
that your other half is going in to do that job. And
this is something that for me, I'm always conscious
about. And in that moment when that happened, that
was just a reinforcing moment in time where I was
like and I was really annoyed at myself because I had
let my guard down at that moment.
58:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And so sometimes it's hard to explain how hyper
vigilance can present. But that was a good example
where I was just rocking and rolling, living my best
pole dancer life. I'm about to go and train and I'm
living the dream.
58:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I let my guard down and was just like, oh, good
day. How's it going? Through the police car. And in
that moment it did not go down well on that day, but
it stuck with me and unfortunately, sometimes you got
to think about these things.
61:03 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Hyper vigilance can present in lots of different
ways. Like I used to feel this a lot when I was
working and I was very stressed out and working with
clients. I had to be.
61:13 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Very unfortunate thing about life and humanity is
that unfortunately there are people in this world
that have a lot of issues and mental health problems
and sometimes do things that are not great and they
end up in a custodial setting and you're the lawyer
that's going in and working with that or whatever. It
kind of is what it is, but that can create a hyper
vigilance in that way. But then you can also have
hyper vigilance when you're just in your normal life.
61:43 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So, yeah, I guess with all of that weird and wacky
reflection in mind, I guess I think for us, we just
try to always think that, just trying to create a
space. And like Ian said, obviously you can't be
attuned to everybody. And what might set one person
off might not set another person off, but you can
also try to do your best to try to make it as calm as
possible.
62:07 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Maybe like for us, not stacking people really close
to each other because we know that can be really
difficult. We personally don't like incense just
because if we're working with people that have done
stuff, like in a military context overseas, we know
that can not be great. For some people.
62:22 Ian McGinn: I think the touching is a massive one, touching and
there's easy ways to get around it, cue cards or
these sorts of things. I don't think it's that hard
to implement those sorts of things. It's not just
emergency services workers, as we said, it's just
people in general, if they're happy with you, giving
them adjustments, yes, sweet, no stress, but give
someone the ability to say no, not.
62:44 Jo Stewart: For me, thanks, and then they can relax even better.
Make sure someone is actually wanting it, not just
saying no, it's like yes.
62:52 Ian McGinn: I want that in the car? Yeah, 100%.
62:54 Jo Stewart: Being really clear, like, not just, is it okay if I
touch you? But it's like, oh, would it be all right
if I just rearrange your hand there so it might make
your shoulder more comfortable?
63:03 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Absolutely true. And I guess as well, the other thing
for us with the work that we do with the Code Nine
Foundation, which we can talk about if you.
63:15 Jo Stewart: Guys, I think would be a good time yeah.
63:18 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Did you want to start off with.
63:19 Ian McGinn: That about the yeah. So the Code Nine Foundation is a
foundation that works with, I think, serving and ex
police members who may or may not have some mental
health issues. Generally, it's stemming from the job
that they've done and these sorts of things. And it's
just a little community to try to give people access
to services, be it yoga or be it sort of mental
health assistance services and these sorts of things.
63:34 Ian McGinn: And yeah, they do a wonderful job. They've got like,
little Facebook groups and these sorts of things
where you can reach out and talk to one another. And
we've been working with them in a yoga sense, just
trying to get people some access to yoga classes.
64:01 Ian McGinn: So sort of catered for that audience. Audience.
64:04 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And the Code Nine Foundation, for what it's worth, as
well, ian's corrected. He's serving members and ex
serving members, but also people that are first
responders and army veterans as well. So bearing in
mind that, say, army veterans are perhaps a different
cohort first responders in general also, because that
includes things like paramedics and people like that.
And police and police culture is also quite its own
distinct thing as well.
64:32 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But the common denominator with that group is that,
look, anyone connected to the above mentioneds can be
involved. But the common denominator is that for the
most part, most people are either currently
experiencing or recovering from severe post traumatic
stress disorder. And for some of them, they have also
spent time as an inpatient at Ward 17, which is at
the Austin Hospital, which is a facility for the
treatment of people with severe PTSD.
64:50 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And they cater at Ward 17 for army vets and police.
So what we Code Nine Foundation is really interesting
and very an interesting and generous group of people.
They have a distinct kind of part that's for the
members themselves, and then there's a part that's
for the family members thereof.
65:22 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So, like, for example, me as the wife. So it's really
interesting because you don't just see which is
strangely very reassuring from my perspective. It's
not just about the member and what's going on for
them, because the weird thing and Bubba love you, but
often what happens is it's all about them.
65:40 Laura Wilson-McGinn: They've had their bad shift. I can't do the washing
because I've had to, whatever. And then it's the
family members, like I was sort of saying, with the
prison officer coming home, with the kids and
treating the kids like they're prisoners and this
creating this terrible home life environment.
65:56 Laura Wilson-McGinn: The family, the immediate family members are also
experiencing a lot because their dad or husband or
wife or whoever is coming home, they've had a bad day
and you bring a yard down when you're at home and all
sorts of things can come out and have happen. And so
these groups are really interesting because they
allow, I guess, a safe setting for people to be able
to talk about these challenges and what's kind of
going on. So when we started move like you yoga, we
cater for general classes, obviously, but the code
nine specific classes are a specific class closed
community group just for people that can come.
66:15 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And I guess the thing that is sort of the point of
that group is to allow members or their immediate
family members an opportunity to come try yoga in a
space where they know that everybody else in that
group gets what is going on. So it's like we kind of
have this discussion where it's like if someone's
feeling like they're about to have a bit of a
meltdown, there's not this feeling like you are going
to be judged because everyone there knows that
everyone gets it. So it's just designed to be a space
in that way that people can kind of come and just get
a vibe on bit of yoga, do a bit of stretching, do a
bit of breathing technique and it being a space that
they know that everyone else in that room gets it.
67:27 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah, which is what we're trying to create for that
group.
67:32 Ian McGinn: Just a place where people can get access to yoga and
whether they continue with us or it can be that first
step into maybe trying a studio out or whatever it
happens to be and just getting the benefits of it,
which we've covered, I suppose pretty extensive. The
physical and mental benefits of just doing something,
doing a practice, committing yourself to it and just
bit of time each day to get in there and try
something.
68:00 Jo Stewart: Well, we are kind of nearing the end of our time over
the time. But I did have a question for you. So
especially in that code nine class, I imagine a lot
of people there need to relax but may not be ready to
relax. Do you find that people respond better to a
strong physical practice where they can kind of let
some of that or burn through some of that energy held
in their body or like a gentle chill practice?
68:30 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I can only talk from out the group that we work with,
but generally this group of people that come, they
want restorative and it's often been that their
psychiatrist has suggested gentle and restorative. So
for that group they're very much into gentle and
restorative. I think it would be something that with
time, they might want to with time, they may decide
that they want to work up to something a little bit
more intensive. But I think for a lot of people, some
are also balancing medication side effects and things
like this.
68:43 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So they're not necessarily always feeling 100% or
different. Stuff is kind of going on. But for that
group in particular, it tends to be restorative
stuff.
69:12 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And then if they like to, they're always welcome to
come and do other classes that might be a bit more.
69:17 Ian McGinn: Intensive, but sort of breath work. Yin postures,
kind of just getting people onto the mat first, I
think, and doing that kind of introductory, this is
what yoga can be, and this is how it can benefit you.
And as you say, if it develops down the path where
people are like, all right, I want to amp it up.
Absolutely.
69:38 Ian McGinn: It's not an issue. But yeah, I suppose it's an
interesting balance, though, because Yin, for some
people, can be excruciating both mentally and
physically.
69:48 Jo Stewart: Because it sounds like you were one of those people,
Laura.
69:51 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yes, that's the thing. And I was just about to say so
for me and trying to cope with stuff, I was just
like, yang, yang, yang vinyasa. This is me. If I
could, I would do, like, three vinyasas a, like, that
was me hardcore.
70:07 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Everything's hardcore. But then it wasn't really
until, with things happening with my dad, that I
started to realize it's kind of like, oh, my gosh, I
think it's actually heightening me up further. And so
now I recognize that, yes, there will always be a
strong part of me that's very like, I need the Yang
practice.
70:12 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I need to do the thing. But at the same time, now,
recognizing that that softer, more restorative stuff
is so important. So everybody's different.
70:32 Laura Wilson-McGinn: It just happens to be that the people that come to
our class, they vocalize that there's always an
option. Do you want something stronger? And generally
it will be no, because for most of the time, it's
often just making here today, has that's a massive
effort? That's been a massive I'm exhausted effort.
70:52 Ian McGinn: Yeah.
70:53 Laura Wilson-McGinn: But recognizing that obviously everyone's different,
I'm.
70:58 Rane Bowen: Sort of curious, given that you've mentioned that a
lot of people in your experience, in your line of
work, are kind of like, this is crazy. Do you find
any resistance with people sort of coming into code
nine?
71:14 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah.
71:15 Rane Bowen: Or are they already past that stage, perhaps?
71:18 Ian McGinn: I think, actually, I can answer this very clearly,
because we have spoken with people through code nine
who are like, I don't like yoga, and that's cool. If
it's not your jam, it's not your jam. That's not a
worry. But I'd say, do you not like it because you
think you don't like it, or have you tried it and you
don't like it? Kind of two different streams with a
lot of other people that I'm associating with,
whether it be through the police force or even like,
doing jujitsu and these sorts of things where people
are like, oh, no, I don't like yoga.
71:40 Ian McGinn: I'm not flexible, or I don't chant, or these little
hurdles that people put up. I've seen that quite a
fair bit. And for me, I try to sort of convey, well,
it's not about being flexible.
72:05 Ian McGinn: You don't have to put your hands under your feet when
you're doing a forward bend, or your head doesn't
have to touch the floor in hero pose. That's cool.
We're all at different stages, physically and
generally with yoga, you can participate with the
kind of, I suppose, esoteric spiritual side of it if
you wish to.
72:05 Ian McGinn: You don't have to. I haven't been many places where
they're like, you must chant or you must engage with
other philosophical points of it. I haven't
experienced that, and for me, it's just conveying,
like, almost I think we spoke about it a couple of
months ago, but kind of with people, especially
people that I've associated with, it's like, look,
yes, yoga does have those spiritual elements to it,
but there's also massive practical benefits.
72:47 Ian McGinn: So if you're someone who lifts weights or does a
martial art or plays footy or whatever it happens to
be, you can use this to your benefit. And then if
they engage with it and then they decide to go down
the pathway of, oh, I will explore the spiritual side
of it. That's cool, go for it.
73:04 Ian McGinn: But if your thing is purely the physical, it's like,
man, yoga will make you more flexible, more mobile.
You will be able to if you're lifting weights, you'll
have more range, like, you can't build strength in
range you don't have, so you'll get more range. Your
squat will get better, your deadlifts will get
better, or footy, you want to kick the ball 50
meters.
73:24 Ian McGinn: If you tear your hamstring off the bone when you're
trying to do that, that's not cool. So there's many
great elements to yoga that aren't just the spiritual
side of it. And that's where I've found that
resistance.
73:36 Ian McGinn: To go back to your question, it's like, no, I don't
do that. That's not me, and I don't chant. And I'm
like, Come on, just give it a go.
73:42 Jo Stewart: No one's going to make you chant.
73:44 Ian McGinn: No one's going to make you chant. Kind of like even
when kids are like, oh, I don't like broccoli. It's
like, have you tried it? Come on, have a like, give
it a go. You still don't have to like broccoli.
73:54 Ian McGinn: That's cool, but I don't like broccoli. Yeah, me
neither. I don't know why I said broccoli.
74:00 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Have you tried it?
74:04 Ian McGinn: I don't know if you've got no.
74:06 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I think Ian's summation is good, and I think in the
context of the Code Nine Foundation, I think, if
anything, what we've probably found is the comfort
seems to lie with knowing Ian is in the job and that
I am the wife and I know what it is. Which is kind of
ironic because and this is also part of Fun Fact
about us coming onto this podcast. We've spent our
entire career protecting from the general public
social media realm about our jobs. We've always used
pseudonyms on social media, all this stuff, because
we've obviously had to be very to stay safe.
74:43 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Absolutely. And so with the Yoga Code Nine
Foundation, when they have found a yoga teacher that
is, it's not something that it's not very common that
you rock up and you hear that your yoga teacher is a
detective. It's not very common.
74:58 Laura Wilson-McGinn: I think it's very common to rock up and find that
your yoga teacher is a former corporate lawyer. I
think that's very common. Very common, but less so in
that regard.
75:07 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So I think for some people, ironically, it gives this
kind of like, oh, cool, yeah, right, they get it.
75:12 Ian McGinn: Well, they've tried it, I can try it.
75:13 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah, something like yeah.
75:17 Jo Stewart: And I guess this is a question especially for you,
Laura, because I know that you've said you've worked
in human rights law, you've worked in policy, you
come from an aboriginal background, so you see a lot
of disparity in the kind of justice that people
receive. And when you kind of came to yoga and
probably went a little bit deeper into the yoga
philosophies, was there anything that really
resonated with you as like a parallel with the type
of change that you were trying to make in your work
life or just something that you felt inside?
75:52 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Yeah, I mean look definitely similar to and I guess
it touches on the question about giving any tips for
young players or people wanting to enter into these
careers, emergency services or policing or
adversarial legal system. I think to be fair, these
are careers that often people go into with really
great intentions. It might be that you're someone
that has had some kind of exposure to something bad
happening in your life and you want to, I don't know,
be a part of that change. Or you might have had
intergenerational experiences that have formulated
your experiences and you wanting to go and do that
work, which is probably more where I would land.
76:22 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Or you've had like Ian's experience where you've
grown up in a police family. So it's just a know you
go into it. But I think to be fair, these are often
jobs that people go into with very profoundly, deeply
good intentions.
76:46 Laura Wilson-McGinn: They then come up against a lot of policies and
requirements and hurdles. Also bearing in mind that
these are jobs like policing is a great example where
they are a function of the executive. Their role is
to simply enforce the laws that are in place at the
time that's it.
77:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And hence the idea of being apolitical is because
you've got to just perform that role regardless of
who's in power or whether you agree with the law or
not. Which is a whole other whole other minefield.
But you go into these jobs with this real burning
desire to want to often create change or to be a part
of the good or whatever, and then you come up against
the reality and the hurdles and the shift work and
the adversarial nature and the nasty side of things.
77:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: And then if you're in jobs like these, you have seen
some very dark things that once you've seen it, smelt
it, heard it, you will never unsee it, smell it, or
hear it. And, yeah, it can get you down. And a lot of
there's high attrition rates as well.
77:43 Laura Wilson-McGinn: People start out and the jobs burn out very quickly
and leave but there's also people that stay in the
jobs for years. But often what happens is that there
is a very high level of poor coping strategies,
drinking, et cetera, perhaps not living your best
healthy life. And I think that bearing all that in
mind, if people are looking particularly to go into
these jobs, understanding very clearly why you wanted
to go into it, and also knowing who you are, what
you're standing for, and if something's not working
for you when you enter into it, there's no shame in
turning around and being like, you know what? This
job's not for me.
78:18 Laura Wilson-McGinn: That takes a lot of balls, like a lot of guts to do
that. As Ian said, these are often jobs that are
closely identified with your identity. So where the
yoga stuff comes into it, like I said before, when I
started doing the teacher training, it was like
unlearning everything.
78:34 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Like it's okay for it to not be perfect, it's okay to
make a mistake. And also appreciating about the
complexity of life, death and revolving cycle of
life, death and all this sort of stuff. Yeah, for me
that was like huge.
78:49 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So, yeah, I think that the parallels are there often
with people wanting to start on a path of doing
something good for the community and then things can
get a bit muddied in the waters and different things
happen. Or then you realize it's not really the job
for you, or all sorts of reasons. And you might just
be like, this isn't really working.
79:04 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Or you plow through.
79:12 Ian McGinn: Yeah, and I think you're spot on. I think policing is
definitely something where initially, at the very
least, people go in with the best of intentions, and
it doesn't always work out that way. And, I mean,
there's plenty of examples of where it all goes wrong
and it's a bit of a crazy job. But I suppose if
you're thinking for me, if you're thinking like if
that's really what you want to do, you have got to
implement some if you're lucky enough to have not
started yet, or even if you have started or you've
been in it for a long time, it's like implementing
something that is divergent from that job.
79:48 Ian McGinn: Because at the end of the day, they're negative.
Especially policing, I think, maybe more than other
services to some degree. Like you call a firefighter,
they're going to come and help you with your houses
on fire or paramedic you're ill and they come and
help you.
80:04 Ian McGinn: We generally don't call police for anything pleasant.
They're not necessarily there to help you. A lot of
the time, they're there to take someone's liberty
away from them.
80:11 Ian McGinn: So it's a negative job. Like, it just is. It's the
nature of it.
80:15 Ian McGinn: And being around negativity all of the time, which it
will be, the job is negative. When you go into the
lunchroom at work, it's often very negative. You hang
out with your mates after and drink beer and talk
about the job.
80:28 Ian McGinn: What are you talking about? Something that's
negative. So don't do that. Come up with something
outside of that.
80:33 Ian McGinn: And that for me, is where yoga is a really great
avenue to explore because it's a practice, it takes
discipline. You can't go and practice yoga at six in
the morning if you've been drinking all the night
before. I mean, you can you guys have probably seen
it a couple of times and it doesn't work out well
for.
80:49 Jo Stewart: People, especially aerial yoga.
80:52 Ian McGinn: No way. Not cool.
80:54 Rane Bowen: I've experienced the worst possible outcome of seeing
oh, no.
80:59 Ian McGinn: There you go. So not cool.
81:01 Laura Wilson-McGinn: No judgment, though.
81:06 Ian McGinn: As long as it's not a daily thing. But yeah, someone
starting pick a discipline and stick to it and have
something outside of it. And remember, maybe this is
negative. It can be taken away from you at any
moment.
81:17 Ian McGinn: It's just a job, that's cool. You want to do it,
that's fantastic. Go and do it, but don't entwine it
with who you are.
81:25 Ian McGinn: You're more than that. I think everyone's more than
their job. So that's what I'd say.
81:29 Ian McGinn: Yeah. Beautiful.
81:30 Rane Bowen: Well, I guess that brings us around to our last
question that we ask everyone. You guys have probably
touched on this already, but I guess if you could
distill everything that you've learned and everything
that you teach down to one core essence, what do you
think that one thing would be?
81:46 Ian McGinn: I'm going to go to Laura first so I can think about
this question. Like the delay tactic isn't in this.
81:52 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Weird and wacky way. I think my answer would be just
trying to be open minded. I think that especially
when people find out what Ian and know, we get that
there can be this word and this resistance, but one
thing it's also taught us, or like people can be and
understandably because people have had terrible
experiences. It can be like, oh, but I think just
trying to be look, at the end of the day, we all piss
and shit, right? And we've all had our hands deep in
the muck.
82:23 Laura Wilson-McGinn: So it is what it is. And so I think for us, taking
all the life experiences inclusive. Of the both
metaphorical and physical piece and shit that we've
been exposed to in our lives.
82:35 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Heavy lifting, stuff we've encountered. But when you
look at all of that, it's just like everybody in this
world, no matter what your background is, everyone's
got something going on for them, either currently or
they have had or intergenerationally. So trying to
distill all of that and present it, say, in a yoga
class, just trying to just be like at the end of the
day, just accepting what is and who is there with you
and also yourself, which often, I know for us can be
really hard.
83:07 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Like that inner dialogue and logging your heads with
yourself. Yeah, I think that that for me, I can't
talk for Ian, but that would probably be not one
word, but like a mush.
83:19 Ian McGinn: Yeah. God, it's a great question. That's a hard one.
Sound like a politician.
83:23 Ian McGinn: That was a great question. Now I'm not going to
answer it and people will laugh that know me, but
being cynical and jaded sometimes. But with yoga, I
think it's like, yeah, just put something positive
out there, try to put some positive energy out into
the universe and it'll pay you back.
83:41 Ian McGinn: There we go. We're going esoteric now. But, yeah,
just as much as you can put something positive out
into the universe, physical, mental, both of them
combined, and enjoy it, because we ain't here for a
long time, so it might as well be a good time.
83:55 Ian McGinn: So that's what I'd sort of say.
83:57 Jo Stewart: And how nice. Because Laura's so open minded, so
she'll receive.
84:02 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Just we bounce that energy man.
84:04 Ian McGinn: Back, it gets.
84:10 Rane Bowen: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Brilliant.
84:15 Jo Stewart: And, like, thank you for all of the hard and
important and powerful things that you do in the
world.
84:21 Ian McGinn: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
84:23 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Thank you for having us.
84:24 Ian McGinn: Phenomenal.
84:25 Laura Wilson-McGinn: Absolutely.
84:27 Rane Bowen: We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Ian and
Laura. I know I certainly did. If you want to know
more about the work they're doing, look for move like
You Yoga on either Facebook or Instagram. We'll also
include the link in our show notes on our website
podcast, flowartist.com.
84:34 Rane Bowen: You can also leave a comment there if you like. We
would absolutely love to hear from you. You can find
me on Instagram at RanlovesYoga and Jo at Garden of
Yoga.
84:53 Rane Bowen: Our theme song is Baby Robots by Ghostsoul and is used
with permission. Check out ghostsoul.bandcamp.com. Thank you so, so
much for listening.

85:03 Rane Bowen: We really appreciate you spending your precious time
with us here. Arohanui. Maua kia kotou katoa.

85:10 Rane Bowen: Big, big love.