Ever met someone and instantly thought, "Yup, we're destined to be yoga BFFs?" 

 

That's how I felt back in April 2019 when I attended the Baptiste Institute's Assisting Course in San Francisco, led by the amazing Melissa Leach!

 

Melissa is not only a total bad@$$ yoga teacher but also down-to-earth, knowledgeable, and highly experienced in her understanding of yoga, functional anatomy, trauma, and mental health.

 

During that course, she introduced me to the world of assists in teaching yoga – a game-changing approach that focuses on co-creation between student and teacher, rather than just correcting or adjusting.

 

Fast forward to today, and I'm thrilled to share that Melissa is joining me on this week's episode of the Luminous Recovery Yoga Podcast! 🎉

 

Get ready to dive into:

• Melissa's unique approach to teaching yoga

• The power of "it depends" when understanding the human body

• How pain can be trauma surfacing in the body

 

Want more of Melissa? Find her on Instagram and check out her own podcast, Primal Performance Podcast.

 

If you enjoy this episode with Melissa, please like, comment, and share! Your support means the world to me.

 

With love,

~Kari

 

Transcripts:

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Interview with Melissa
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Kari Doherty: [00:00:00 ] Thank you for listening to the Luminous Recovery Yoga Podcast, hosted by Kari Doherty. The views and opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. These views and opinions do not represent any specific 12 step program. Only my experience, strength, and hope in recovering from the dise of addiction and codependency.

If you'd like to learn more, please visit my website at www dot luminous recovery yoga dot. Hello, my friend. Thank you for listening to the Luminous Recovery Yoga Podcast. This is Carrie, and I just wanted to take a minute to tell you how excited I am to present this interview to you with Melissa Leach.

Melissa is someone that I met many years ago at a Baptiste Institute training. She is a phenomenal yoga teacher and functional anatomy enthusiast. In this episode, you'll hear all about what Melissa is up to and why [00:01:00 ] our favorite phrase is "it depends". So I hope that you enjoy this episode. If you like it, please feel free to share it.

Give us a comment and subscribe to my channel and over to Melissa's channel and support the work that we're doing in the world. It really helps to have people like you supporting the work and to keep spreading the word about good information. So with that being said onto the episode, 

Hello, Melissa. This is so exciting. Sometimes I have nightmares that I'm in an interview and I forget to press record. I've actually had this nightmare where I'm like in the interview and I'm like, I gotta press record. So I press record and, 

Melissa Leach: And I see the little, little button. 

Kari Doherty: Just the little button. I'm so happy to be here with Melissa Leach.

This is truly it's an honor to know you and to be friends with you, but also to consider you my precious, precious yoga [00:02:00 ] teacher. So I wanna introduce Melissa Leach. Melissa, say hello to everyone. 

Melissa Leach: Hi everybody. Thank you for having me. I'm, I'm honored and very grateful to be, to be here and to be with you.

Kari Doherty: Absolutely. I wanna just give everyone a little intro of how I met Melissa. So, I met Melissa in 2019. I was taking a. Assisting course through the Baptist Institute in San Francisco. So I flew from Portland to San Francisco to take this course, and Melissa was the lead trainer of this Baptist Institute assisting course.

And it was phenomenal. I just remember being like, this woman is so freaking cool and I really liked Melissa. And so I went home and immediately started following Melissa on Instagram and Facebook and then you know, followed you along just as we do with the people that we admire through social media.

And then recently Melissa released a course [00:03:00 ] called the Queuing Course. And I was like, oh, that's so badass. I'm gonna take that course. So I go to sign up for Melissa's course, and I notice that Melissa still had stock photography on her website of some other woman. And I was like, who? What is going on?

Who is this a woman? And then I was like, oh, Melissa needs a little help with her website, so I. Privately messaged Melissa and I was like, Hey, you probably don't know me, but I took a course from you years ago and I think you're really cool and I would love to trade coaching to help you on your website.

And Melissa wrote back, this is what you exactly said. You said, wow.

And then you said, yeah, that'd be great. So that butted a wonderful friendship. Melissa and I actually meet every week to talk about yoga and to talk about running an online business. And really, I think that we coach each [00:04:00 ] other. Mm-hmm. 

Melissa Leach: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It is such a, i, I vivid, I actually vividly remember you from the assisting course because you left an Absolutely.

Like I remember just in the interaction of that weekend, cuz that was back in the day when it was a two day course. I real, I remember talking to you and the questions that you asked were very, like, they were very insightful, and your presence and interaction both with me and the other people was very real.

And there was something where I'm like, I actually really enjoy this person. Wow. I didn't because there are Oh, abso, absolutely. And so when you reached out, like it had been a while, I mean, 2019, it like, you know, like last year? No. I mean, I know it's been longer than that. Mm-hmm. But I, I was actually, I was like, I totally remember this person.

Wow. So 

Kari Doherty: I didn't know that. See, I have this assumption when I'm in a group of people, although in some ways I stick out like a sore thumb, that, that nobody notices me. Like there's that tendency to believe that. [00:05:00 ] I am unnoticeable when really it is almost the opposite. That becomes true. 

Melissa Leach: No, you left, you left a very positive and very real.

I'm like, I, I very much like authentic and real interactions and it, it, that was the impression that was, was left. No, like just a, that is a 

Kari Doherty: being alarm. I didn't know that. I I really didn't. So thank you for Thank you for saying that. Well that's, 

Melissa Leach: that's also why I was open to, you know, the, the, when you reached out, cuz you know, pe people do and so when you reached out, I was like, I, that left a mark and that allowed for 

Kari Doherty: that.

So it wasn't just like, yeah, my website needs work. I'll just throw this one a 

Melissa Leach: bone. Oh no, totally. It's because, it's because of who you are. I mean like, listen, I'm lot of marketing in my website is not one. 

Kari Doherty: Oh, that's so great. [00:06:00 ] Thank you for saying that. That just means so much. I guess I never stopped to ask like, Melissa, did you remember me?

Because I remembered you. That's just so funny. And that just is so my own psychosis of how I'm like, I am very unmemorable and people are like, actually, you're wearing yellow right now. You stick out. Like, there's just something that I do to myself where I minimize the impact that I have. So thank you for saying that.

You traveled with the Baptist Institute for a while. That was like a, a big part of your life. What, what did you do for the Baptist Institute? 

Melissa Leach: I did a couple things for the institute. It was, I, I trained with Baron and the Institute for a lot of years a lot of years. And I was fortunate to be the programs director of the Baptist Foundation, which was the nonprofit arm.

And through that, Nonprofit arm. We launched two programs that are very near and dear to me. Because it's through yoga, being able to reach [00:07:00 ] groups of people that might not ever set foot in a yoga studio has always been something that's very important. And so we developed the Unstoppable Program in conjunction with some amazing people.

I partnered with Karen Terone, who's an just an amazing force of nature. Mm-hmm. And with her, we co-facilitated and led the unstoppable training, which was bringing the tools of yoga to people who work with children primarily to school teachers, but open to coach, just anyone. Mm-hmm. Who works with, with kids in a very, not in like, Hey, teach an afterschool one hour yoga class, but like, how actually do you take these parts and pieces and bring it into the classroom as a normal part of the day?

And then the other part was being able to work with Sean Silvera and Dan Nevins with the Unbreakable Program, which was geared towards veterans active duty and first responders in a very similar fashion and mm-hmm. So I was able to do that. And then also on the [00:08:00 ] institute side, was very fortunate to be able to go lead programs, including the assisting course, the the teacher's course, and then also the anatomy course.

It w