Yoga Is About Union: Interview With Fiji McAlpine

This interview is from our new series: “The people that make DYWM.” Learn more about our instructors, their take on yoga, and what makes them tick.

Today we caught up with Fiji McAlpine, one of the first instructors to join the DYWM team. In fact, she was the very second teacher, after David, to create a class for the website! Her “debut” on DYWM was the 50-minute Foundations in Flow, a classic that’s available for free. Fiji’s students love her wisdom, humor, humility, inspiring guidance, precise cues, and reassuring smile through the most difficult of times – like during core work.

Much like DYWM founder David Procyshyn, Fiji also started her journey with yoga in response to an injury and never looked back. These days, Fiji holds yoga classes and guides retreats and workshops around the world. She focuses on cultivating a strong practice that helps students to build confidence and mindfulness in all aspects of their lives.

She joined us for a chat about the roots of yoga in her own life, how her practice and her teaching have changed over the years, season-tuned and chakra-based yoga, and much more.

Can you tell us a little about how and why you first started practicing yoga?

Fiji McAlpine: I started practicing yoga when I was in my early 20s after a back injury that was not getting any better with physiotherapy. Someone recommended I try a yoga class to see if it would help and it did! I continued going to yoga for pain relief, then after a few months I noticed that it was something I simply enjoyed doing for many reasons. My back pain disappeared and my love for yoga grew.

How did you first get involved with DYWM?

FM: I taught at a small yoga studio alongside David in Victoria. He asked many of the teachers to be part of the site he was creating and I was the first one to say yes! I have always loved the idea of spreading yoga around the world to as many people as possible.

What is a common misconception that people have about yoga?

FM: People often think they can’t do yoga because they are not flexible, strong, or fit. It is by doing yoga that your body slowly becomes those things, yoga meets you where you are and then lets you expand from there.

(Read more about yoga and flexibility.)

From an educator’s perspective, how is teaching yoga in-person different from teaching virtually? 

FM: The beauty of teaching in person is that you get to see the impact of the practice in real time, you get to see the shift of energy in a person and a room after the practice is over. When I am teaching a class online I try to give all I have and trust that the practice will create positive ripples in people's lives and the world as a whole.

DYWM’s guiding philosophy seems to entwine yoga with a love for the natural world. Can you expand upon the connection between these two things?

FM: Yoga is about union, that nothing is separate and that all is interconnected and interdependent. I have learned to live with consideration because of my practice, that what I do matters and will impact the world around me in some way.

When we consider this, the love and care of the natural world becomes as important as the love and care we offer to our own body and those around us we love. It is all the same.

As a career, how do you think yoga education has changed over the years? And what changes do you expect to see in the future?

FM: The biggest change is that you can now do a yoga certification online. This makes this type of education available and more realistic for a lot of people. It is also such a fantastic way to actually do your training with the teachers you resonate with the most, regardless of where they are in the world. I do think that in the future people will start to crave real interactions again, and that more hybrid models of training will be desired, some part online and some part in person.

(Read more about how to become a yoga instructor.)

Have your classes/teaching style changed over the years, and if so, how and why?

FM: My classes have definitely changed in the past 15 years! I started teaching very young and my classes were strong and dynamic with a lot of repetition. As my body changes and shifts as I grow into different decades I am leaning more to a practice that creates stability, mobility, strength, and space. I want a sustainable practice that I can do until I am 90!

Can you give a brief explanation of chakra/season-tuned yoga? What is it, and how does it fit into your practice as a whole?  

FM: The chakra system is part of the subtle body or energetic system, think of it like your circulation system except instead of moving blood it moves Prana or energy. Like the circulation system, things can get congested and flow can become disturbed by patterns in our lives, things we do, think, or experience that are not healthy. The asana practice and pranayama help to restore a healthy flow to this system so things are moving as they should be.

Seasonal yoga is based in Ayurveda and is asking us to recognize that we are natural beings governed by the natural rhythms and cycles around us. We should shift our practice to bring optimal alignment in each season.

You fulfill a variety of roles at DYWM, including teaching in-person yoga retreats and classes. What is the most challenging aspect of guiding new yoga practitioners? Conversely, what is the most fun and/or rewarding aspect?

FM: I am definitely not a beginner yoga teacher, I am an intermediate and fairly dynamic level teacher so the people who come to classes and retreats have usually been doing yoga for some time and often with me online for years.

It is always rewarding to get to see these people in person and be able to offer them in the moment tips and feedback that can transform aspects of their practice in the matter of days. It is also just wonderful to get to know great people who all love yoga and to hear about what a positive impact it has had on their lives.