Adeline Tien Yoga

Even experienced teachers feel vulnerable.

I received this message yesterday. I have been coming back to it often, letting the words sink in.

I have been teaching for twenty years. When I first started out, having an email list was not such a big deal as it is now, or maybe it was, but I simply was not aware. Only in the last few years have I begun to understand its importance, and I am still learning.

And now, yes, I have an email list. It is not a huge list, but I am grateful nonetheless. Every single time I send an email, my heart still goes into the pit of my stomach.

Every. Time.

I am not waiting for validation, but I would be lying if I said I did not feel it. The butterflies before hitting send. The quiet sting when someone unsubscribes, even when I know they were (perhaps) never really my people.

So when someone takes the time to write something like this, to say they tried the ankle walk and are doing it every other day, that the videos are landing, that they are genuinely happy to receive what I send, one message like this is enough. It keeps me going.

I am sharing this not to say look what I received, but because I know there are teachers and practitioners reading this who are hesitating. Who are wondering whether to start the newsletter, post the video, share the thing they know. Who feel like they need to be more ready, more polished, more certain before they put themselves out there.

Two decades in and I 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 get butterflies. I am still not always sure I am going in the right direction. And I still have doubts.

That is all to say, you do not have to be good enough yet to do what you are doing. And if it helps, you have got me on your side of the camp.

And if there is a teacher, a practitioner, or someone whose emails or content you have been quietly enjoying, take a moment to tell them. You may not realise how much a single message means.

We are always happy to hear what is landing, what is not, and what you would love to see more of.

Type 🙏 if this is for you.

RESTLESSNESS IN SLOWER-PACED CLASSES

If you have ever laid down in a restorative or yin yoga class, or any slower-paced class, and found your mind still running while everyone else seemed perfectly still, wondering whether you were the only one who could not switch off, this is for you.

And if you are a teacher watching students fidget, reposition, or stare at the ceiling in your slower-paced classes, not quite sure what to offer them, this is for you too..


Swipe through.

Restorative yoga looks like rest. That is why people underestimate it.

There is no balancing, no pushing, no performance. Just the body gradually arriving into support. When the props are right and the setup is considered, something shifts. The eyes soften. The throat releases. The breath slows without being asked to. The mind, which has been scanning for the next thing, begins to quiet.

This does not happen because the person tried harder. It happens because they stopped trying for long enough.

The most intelligent practice is sometimes not the one where you do more. It is the one where the body stops struggling and begins to receive.

Restorative yoga asks a different question. Not: am I doing enough? But: what changes when I stop doing so much?

That shift, from doing to receiving, is what this practice is built around. It is also why teaching restorative yoga well requires far more skill than most people assume. Understanding how to create the right conditions, the prop setup, the sequencing, the quality of presence in the room, is its own discipline. One that takes time and proper grounding to develop.

If this is something you want to explore more deeply, the 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐠𝐚 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝟏 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 runs in July and August this year in Singapore.

Part 1: 24-26 July.
Part 2: 1-2 August.

Feel free to message me directly for more information.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤: 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐

In Part 1 I shared what I observe when students walk into the room. In Part 2 I want to share what I actually do about it.

There is a feeling many yoga teachers carry but rarely say out loud. That their students need something from them that they do not yet know how to give. They can see it. A student who arrives carrying more than a tight hamstring. Someone who is exhausted in a way that another vinyasa flow is not going to touch. And the teacher wants to help but does not have the framework to know how.

Sometimes it shows up differently. As that quiet feeling after a class that went technically well but somehow did not land. The sequence was right. The cues were clear. But something was missing and the teacher cannot quite name what it was.

What I have found after almost a decade of running the Level 1 Restorative Yoga Teacher Training is that both of these feelings point to the same thing. Teaching is not just about what you offer. It is about who is in the room, what they are carrying, and whether they feel safe enough to receive anything at all.

Swipe through for Part 2 of this teaching series on what that actually looks like in practice. Holding space, using props, giving the body time, and responding to what is in the room rather than what you planned.

I am Adeline, a yoga teacher based in Singapore with more than twenty years of experience.



The 𝙇𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙡 1 𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙔𝙤𝙜𝙖 𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 runs across two weekends in July and August here in Singapore.

If this resonates, drop me a message and I will send you the information pack.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤: 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏

There is work that happens underneath the work of teaching yoga. And most teachers are never taught what it is in their teacher trainings.

After twenty years of teaching I have learned to read a room way before a single pose is taught.

The first thing I watch for is body language. How students move around the room, how they respond to the space, and especially their eyes.

Before any pose is offered, the most important thing I can do is help my students feel safe enough to arrive. Not just physically present in the room, but genuinely settled and landed.

I am Adeline, a yoga teacher based in Singapore with more than twenty years of experience.

Swipe through for Part 1 of a two part teaching series on what that actually looks like, and what happens in a class when those signals go unnoticed.

Part 2 comes Friday.

Meet the trapezius.

Or as I like to call it, the busybody muscle.

If you have never heard of the trapezius, it is the large muscle that runs from the base of your skull down to your mid-back and across to your shoulders.

Most people only notice it when it is tight, sore or carrying a tension headache. But this muscle is working far harder than most of us realise.

It has a habit of trying to do the work of every other muscle around it.

When surrounding muscles overwork, the trapezius helps.

When they underwork, the trapezius helps.

When the core loses strength and stops supporting the spine, the trapezius steps in there too.

It is the colleague who never says no, always picks up the slack, and quietly burns out from doing too much for too long.

Have you ever noticed how people's shoulders creep up towards their ears when they are tired? That is the trapezius compensating for a body that has run out of energy. The core switches off, the posture collapses, and the trapezius quietly takes on the load. It is always there, always helping, always carrying more than its share.

Here is something else worth noticing.

The next time you feel startled, overwhelmed or uncertain about something, pay attention to what your shoulders do. They go up. Almost to your ears. That automatic shrug is the trapezius responding to stress. And most of us are doing a low level version of that shrug all day, sitting at our desks, scrolling our phones, carrying the weight of a busy day, without even realising it.

I am Adeline, a yoga teacher based in Singapore with more than twenty years of teaching experience.

This month in my Year of Mobility classes we are moving up from last month's mid-back work into the upper posterior chain. The cervical spine, the neck and yes, the trapezius. The busy body muscle finally gets some attention.

** I will share a short video in my next post- four simple movements to help release tension in the neck and upper traps.

Try them now and notice how your neck and shoulders feel afterwards.**

If you are in Singapore and would like to join a class, drop me a message and I will point you in the right direction.

And if you are not in Singapore, stay around because I share what we are exploring each month right here.

Samantha is a meditation teacher who completed the Level 1 Restorative Yoga Teacher Training. She already had a deep understanding of stillness and the mind. What she came looking for was something she could feel in her own body first, and then bring back to the people she teaches.

That phrase in her reflection, that the training reached her in ways she did not expect, is something I hear often after these five days together. People arrive thinking they are here to learn a skill. And they leave having experienced something they did not know they needed.

Restorative yoga asks the body to do something most of us rarely allow. To be fully supported by the ground beneath us, and to stay there long enough for something to genuinely shift. When the right conditions are present, the body knows what to do. It always has.



I am Adeline, a yoga teacher based in Singapore with more than twenty years of experience.

The next Level 1 Restorative Yoga Teacher Training runs across two weekends in July and August here in Singapore.

If this resonates, drop me a message and I will send you the information pack.

Meet Jasmine. She teaches prenatal yoga and works with students who come to yoga studios looking for something gentler and more supportive.

She came to the Level 1 Restorative Yoga Teacher Training after attending one of my workshops, wanting to understand rest more deeply.

What drew her was something she had not heard explained quite this way before. That restorative yoga is a practice that is supported and effortless. That in this style of yoga, the body can only truly rest when it feels safe. Not when it is pushed or stretched or asked to perform. When it feels genuinely held.

She talks about something that will resonate with a lot of people, not just mothers. That when you say you are tired, the world rarely takes it at face value. Instead it questions you. Are you exercising enough? Are you active enough? Maybe that is why you feel this way.

But sometimes tiredness is not a fitness problem.

It is a deeper kind of worn out that more doing cannot fix. The kind that needs permission to stop, not a push to do more. As a mum, Jasmine felt this acutely. But honestly, most of us do, regardless of what our days look like.

She was not looking for someone to tell her what rest feels like. She wanted to experience rest for herself. And she did.

Press play to hear her story in her own words.



𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝟏 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐠𝐚 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐞.

⭐️ Link to the full information pack is in the comments.