The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast
211: How to Draw Yoga Stick Figures with Eva-Lotta Lamm
Description:
As a yoga teacher, how do you plan your classes? When it comes to planning the actual sequences, poses, and themes, do you go with the flow with little or no planning, or have a mental plan, or refer to detailed notes? In this episode, Eva-Lotta Lamm shares another technique you can use to plan yoga classes - drawing out yoga sequences. The best part is you don’t have to be good at drawing or have artistic talents; you only need to be able to draw stick figures!
Eva-Lotta Lamm is an independent Designer, Visual Thinking Expert and Trainer and yoga teacher. She helps companies to visualise complex problems to see things from new perspectives, and teaches teams and individuals to be more visual in their thinking, communication and collaboration. Eva-Lotta’s illustrations have been published in several books, and she is also the author of Yoganotes – Sketching Yoga Stick Figures. Eva-Lotta used sketching and visual notes extensively during her own yoga teacher training in India, and eventually, combined her love for yoga and her profession as a designer to create products that help yoga practitioners and yoga teachers to learn, structure and teach yoga with visual tools.
Eva-Lotta shares more about the unique system for drawing yoga stick figures she created, and breaks down how she teaches other people to draw their own yoga stick figures and adapt them to their own needs. Shannon and Eva-Lotta also discuss the benefits of sketching, as well as why drawing and visual tools can be a great addition to your toolkit as a yoga teacher. Eva-Lotta even shares how she self-published a book on yoga.
Listen to the end of the episode to find out how you can participate in a giveaway of Eva-Lotta’s personalized books for two listeners!
Key Takeaways:
[10:00] Shannon introduces her guest for this episode - Eva-Lotta Lamm.
[12:24] What does Eva-Lotta do and who does she do it for?
[14:07] Eva-Lotta shares more about her work in helping people visualize complex problems to see them from a new perspective.
[16:34] How does Eva-Lotta teach yoga teachers to use drawings in planning their yoga sequences?
[18:00] Eva-Lotta shares some of her tips and tricks for drawing out complex yoga sequences with stick figures.
[20:20] What other tools does Eva-Lotta use to guide her plans for yoga sequences?
[22:25] Eva-Lotta's drawings have noses to show direction! She shares how detailed her drawings can get.
[24:34] What are some pointers Eva-Lotta has for yoga teachers who want to get started drawing sequences?
[30:04] How did Eva-Lotta find her niche in teaching yoga teachers to draw stick figures?
[34:13] What is Eva-Lotta's work in the yoga world now?
[38:13] Eva-Lotta is excited about what else can come from the intersection of her work with design and drawing and yoga.
[40:34] How did Eva-Lotta self-publish her book?
[45:13] Check out Eva-Lotta's book on her website.
[47:53] Shannon and Eva-Lotta are doing a giveaway!
[49:29] Shannon shares her biggest takeaways from this interview.
Links:
Gratitude to our Sponsors Schedulicity.
Quotes from this episode:
"I teach yoga teachers to draw so that they can plan their sequences even when they don't have any artistic talent or they think they can't draw at all." - Eva-Lotta
"If you look at sketching as a communication and thinking tool, then I like to compare it to learning how to write." - Eva-Lotta
"My goal is to teach people how to draw like writing so that they can write their own stories and their own flows and whatever their creativity wants to express." - Eva-Lotta
"Images and words are like best friends. ... They both have different strengths and weaknesses, and you want to use them in combination because then they are truly wonderful together." - Eva-Lotta