15. Learning in Spirals and the Power of Practice with Sooz Hammond

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
tea, programme, teach, people, practice, realised, space, pedagogy, years, teacher, work, yoga, teacher training, learning, education, lived, life, training, important, real

SPEAKERS
Harriet McAtee, Sooz Hammond

Harriet McAtee
Welcome to In our experience, a podcast exploring the many ways of living well with Nourish Yoga Training. I’m your host Harriet, yoga teacher and founder of Nourish. Today I’m being joined virtually from Chicago by Sooz Hammond. Sooz is an award-winning tea educator, professional tea skills trainer, and tea, contemplative and spiritual practitioner based in Chicago in the US. She is the founder of being tea, and education-focused business offering interactive online learning and a first of its kind, professional teacher training programme. My chat with Sooz almost pretty much confirmed that we’re going to have to have longer episodes in season three because we could have talked for so much longer. We covered the process of nonlinear learning how we bring together our transferable skills and the power of practice, Sooz; I share an approach to pedagogy that I found so inspiring to talk through; I can’t wait to share this episode with you. So do have a listen, let us know what you think. And here’s my chat with Sooz, hi Sooz. Welcome to In our experience.

Sooz Hammond
Hello, thanks for having me.

Harriet McAtee
Oh, it’s a pleasure. It’s lovely to have you here. So we’re going to get started with the same question that I begin every episode with, which is what’s nourishing you this week. And this can be something small and silly; it can be something serious. And to help you out, I’ll share mine first. So at the moment, we’ve been experiencing some really lovely, cool, crisp mornings here. So with like a frost and a beautiful sunrise that I have really been enjoying. And yesterday, I’m not sure how, how much of a thing it is in the US potentially. But yesterday was Imbolc, which is a Gaelic, sort of a Gaelic turning of the year where it’s like spring begins. And that feeling of like the sap rising and the light returning I just so joyful about so that’s what’s been nourishing me. How about you?

Sooz Hammond
Hmm Yeah, interestingly, so yesterday was also the beginning of Lunar New Year, which, for tea folks, is also a particularly auspicious time to you know, because we’re so aligned with what is happening in the places where tea comes from. So you have, it’s interesting to put these these kind of portals over each other and notice what is happening in our world. I think for me, you know, just, I spent a lot of time at the end of the year, really looking forward to the next year and starting to plan some things out and thinking about what does and does not work about the setup that I have, or the ideas I wanted to do or things like that. And before, like taking that action before getting into when things are so busy, you know so that I can reflect on that in the moment and come back to it. And it’s already been really helpful for me to just look back on, you know, some things I said I needed to create more space. So creating more space around how I work and how much I take on that’s been really helpful to have some of those things already. Verbalised You know, even if it’s just to me, right? Yeah, to protect that time, because this is the time of year where things start to get really quite busy. And we don’t spend very much time looking reflectively at how fast we’re going.

Harriet McAtee
I, I really, really hear that I am a big believer in like, I want to call it like naming practice in in the sense of like, so essentially I’m like a secret Zen Buddhist. And but it’s sort of been my main my main contemplative practice for quite a long time now. And there’s a real tradition of like, you know, you name you name, what’s happening when you sit?

Sooz Hammond
Yes.

Harriet McAtee
And this bit, it sort of filters out into the rest of my life and in ways that you’re describing as well where you can sort of step back, and you can name the things and write them down and verbalise them, and even if it’s just for you, there’s a power in giving something a name, and then you can relate to it and then you can sort of do something about it.

Sooz Hammond
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah.

Harriet McAtee
I would love to hear a little bit about your background and how you would describe what you do because I am absolutely fascinated by what you do. And your and your, your business, your your your sort of community. So yeah, I would love to hear about about that.

Sooz Hammond
Actually, first, I’d like to ask you what is it about it that? That is fascinating to you? Because I get told in that way, I get a lot of people who say that? And I’m always curious because I’m just in it so much. What is it from that perspective? That is just so curious because it helps me to kind of think on a little bit more on what to say about everything. Because there is there is a lot to go into,

Harriet McAtee
there is a lot. Yeah. So I think I think on one level, what I’m always seeing in the work that you put out there, whether it’s on your Instagram or your website, or you know, I’ve done a few of your tea, tea sort of contemplation sessions, I guess, is that there’s just so much heart like those are real warmth and depth to what you do, which I am always curious about when I see it in people and what they’re offering. As well, there’s a quiet consistency about what you do as well like this; it’s very clear to me that there are some there are values that are or values or ways of working that you’re really interested in, that you are applying consistently behind the scenes. And as somebody else who also does that. I’m like, Oh, I like I clock it when I see it and somebody. And then and then also just like the subject matter is fascinating me as well, because I love tea. And I love contemplation, practice and yoga, and you seem to bring all of those things together. So yeah, I think that’s my answer.

Sooz Hammond
Cool. Yeah, no, thanks for sharing. Mmm Yeah, that’s really interesting. So I guess I’ll yeah, I’ll share a little bit about that by kind of looking at, if I may offer up some kind of turning points for me,

Harriet McAtee
please

Sooz Hammond
think as to where some of those things came up from; I think it is a helpful way to frame it. Because, you know, the work that I do, it’s, it’s not like something that there’s a job description for you to apply for that job. You know, it’s something that you you create, and so to understand how someone creates something like that, and why I think is helpful for people who are kind of looking for their own way in the world and wondering what it is that they should be doing and how, how you do that. And I’m still figuring it out. I have been self-employed for seven years now. Under the name beingtea, that’s the name of my business; it’s an education business that basically I teach about tea full time. So I teach classes on brewing and sensory enjoyment and technical skills of tea as well as contemplative practice with tea. So tea meditation. And I started that work because I needed a place that was more aligned with those values, right with what I saw in tea, what I wanted to work with, right, so like fully half of my work now is teaching tea, meditation and tea for contemplative practice. Whereas before, you know that that was not really part of what I was able to express publicly, it wasn’t really in within the boundaries of my work. So previously, to starting beingtea, I, you know, I’ve worked in the tea industry for almost 20 years. And so, I worked as an educator and a trainer for a number of different companies and trade association groups. So I spent about 13 years doing that. And that’s wonderful work. I really, I’m very proud of the work that I did, then I loved the connections I made and getting to see tea on a bigger scale like that. And just being able to get out there just use some of those skills of teaching workshops and creating experiences and troubleshooting for people like, you know, wholesale customers that are serving tea in their place and they want to do a better job, and we’re looking at their setup and things like that. But after a while, I started to know that there was this friction between what tea meant for me personally and how I practised it in my professional side of how I presented it, right. Because for me personally, you know, I was a student of Japanese tea ceremony, and I practice tea on a more like a quieter level, you know, I meditated with tea Thích Nhất Hạnh, who just passed away this last week for us is a teacher of mine, I take a lot of inspiration from his teachings and follow that tradition. Zen Buddhism in the Vietnamese tradition, and there wasn’t really a space for talking about that professionally, even like within the boundaries of when we say that tea as a meditation practice is good for your mental health, right like just bare minimum, let’s just acknowledge that it helps support mental health, right? Let alone getting into the spirituality of it. Most of the time, when we’re talking about health benefits of tea, in the industry, from a trade perspective, we’re talking about things that you can make a claim on a label, you know, the antioxidant content, things like that, like this kind of what’s in it for me approach. And I just didn’t like that friction, it just felt, I felt like there are two different versions of myself. And so that’s when I made this shift from being someone’s employee, you know, and teaching within that boundary to I’m going to do this for myself now. And create that. And previously to tea. So going back 20 years ago, I was a journalist. So that’s where some of them, like the work of research and storytelling and communications and connections, come from. I was a newscast producer. So I produced live television shows newscasts, and so being able to work in an environment where you’re under pressure, but you have to be very present with what you’re doing. Because people are, you know, watching it in real-time unfold. And you have to be aware of the emotions of what you’re offering, right, like, your entire show can’t be just talking about all the horrible things in the world. You know, it’s like emotionally, it’s not balanced for people. And it’s, it’s not very good ratings when you do that, because people could feel that they want to tune out. So some of those things became relevant when I became a teacher. You know, and working with people in real-time and in a very small way. And I made that shift from one field to another because as much as I liked working in journalism, and I think some of the aspirational values of that it was just too stressful for me, ultimately, I couldn’t maintain that I did that for about four or five years, it was incredibly stressful. And, you know, tea, and also at that time, coffee, they were my practices on the side that were just little spaces where I can go and rest and reconnect with myself and just be quiet; I would always have tea out on the patio before my show. So we’ve just like calming it. So when I initially started working with tea, it was meant to be a temporary thing. You know, I worked in the coffee and tea industry. Yeah, it was meant to be like, I’m figuring out my life kind of thing. What am I going to do? And then very quickly, like a couple years in, I was just like, oh, no, this is where this where I’m supposed to be. And, and I didn’t look back.

Harriet McAtee
Ah, thank you for sharing that. That was that was really, really lovely to listen to. It’s interesting how these, like, sometimes these seemingly disparate spheres of our life often end up coalescing in a really profound way. So sort of, similarly to you, I, I, sort of accidentally yoga has become my, my, my, my profession, and I was sort of quite set on a, on a pathway into academia. So I was in, I was, am, I’m not sure, at the present tense quite applies. But I am a trained art historian, and I was sort of very much going down like a, I guess, academic route. And I’d been, you know, practising yoga for a very long time but had never really considered it being my full life’s work. And yeah, it was just sort of meant to be something on the side whilst I did my masters, and it has sort of, you know, taken or taken over, which I’m really happy about and like, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t want to be an academic now, but, you know, this the skills that I developed around, you know, research and critical thinking and communication. And also, you know, the best thing to come out of my time in academia was realising that I loved teaching. Because I taught, I taught first years, while I was while I was in post-grad, and I loved it. I loved it so much, and, and to sort of begin to develop those skills, you know, outside of yoga, I think was actually really important to me.

Sooz Hammond
Yeah.

Harriet McAtee
And, yeah, so yeah, a lot of what you were sharing was really, really resonating.

Sooz Hammond
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s a, a light bulb moment that I really like seeing go off for people when they realise that something from either their current or their previous iteration of what they do is really affecting them in the now. I also offer teacher training for people who want to be able to connect and share tea, and maybe they have tea experience, like professionally or just really strongly in their life, but they don’t have a teaching background, because nobody teaches you how to teach right? You just kind of do it. And to be able to just study pedagogy is such a such a joy in such a love. And I remember sharing with my former executive producer from way back in the day that I had developed, like one of the modules in our programme is around lesson plan development and, you know, time and having a more comfortable relationship with time like you tell somebody, you have an hour for this class, and you’re like, what would we do with these 60 minutes? How long is something supposed to take, right? And that module, the the way that I teach that is using a tool that we use in the newsroom for building a show?

Harriet McAtee
Oh,

Sooz Hammond
like how you stack the stories in order and how you time things, and how you start to think about moving things around in a live broadcast. I told my executive producer I was using that to teach tea classes, and she just, like, got the biggest kick out of that she thought It was so cool.

Harriet McAtee
That’s, that’s really,

Sooz Hammond
like it’s so transferable. It’s so transferable. And sometimes we think that these things are so completely separate, and they’re not, you know,

Harriet McAtee
no, they’re not. I mean, I it’s, it’s really is a pet, a pet project of mine, because I think one of one of the things that I’ve recently had an aha moment about in my work was that. I don’t know. So I teach lots of different things like I teach 200-hour yoga teacher trainings, and I teach restorative, and I teach pregnancy. And I sort of like there; It’s quite broad. I’m quite a broad teacher. And I was having a bit of a moment not so much imposter syndrome, but a consistent worry for mine for a little while has been like, Am I too broad? Do I need to like, like, just taper slightly or edit what I offer? And then I realised I was having a conversation with conversation with a couple of colleagues. And I realised through this conversation that what I am most interested in is pedagogy. Like, how we teach. So the fact that I’m interested in how we teach means that I ended up teaching lots of different things. And that’s okay.

Sooz Hammond
Yes, exactly.

Harriet McAtee
Because the interest in the interest in pedagogy, and I think, for me, the interest in, I guess the potential for a more transformative relationship to pedagogy is something that I’m really interested in, like, how do we, how do we teach in ways that can feel caring. Collaborative and non-hierarchical, but still, the teacher holds the space and as the container for the space? Are all things that I think about a lot?

Sooz Hammond
Absolutely. Me too, I love it. I really love thinking about it, because you know, the way that so most of how I learned about tea because often folks will ask how you learn this kind of thing. A lot of my learning was it was on the job. And it was experiential, right? It was being at the tasting table and cupping tea all the time. It was serving tea to people and brewing it, it was learning how to teach others, like teach my colleagues about it, it was having my own tea practice, it was just living, it you know, but the way typically that you know, in a trade environment, industry environment that tea is taught like on that kind of quick path, right, that condensed learning style is like a certification programme. You know, the equivalent of like, the 200-hour yoga programme. And, you know, that’s magically supposed to prepare you to teach or not necessarily teach but to, to work in it. And it you know, it kind of doesn’t fully do that, you know, the certification programmes are there, like this download of really intense all of the information They’re not super customised. And it takes away a lot of that really experiential component. I mean, like, yes, you taste tea during it. And I, you know, I worked for some of those programmes I wrote and taught material for some of them, so I have an appreciation for what they the place that they serve, but it doesn’t replace the need to be really experiential, with what you do, and you need a daily practice, and you need to just be as aware, it’s just steeped in it, right, like, really thinking about it. And that gets missing so much in education. Right. And so that was one of the reasons why in the in the classes that I teach in the programme, you know, the programme structure that I’ve created in my business, things aren’t in a hierarchal order, you can take them in any order. There’s no testing; there’s no grading. Everything is structured so that you could truly jump in at any point. And, and just learn and just get going because I had been tasked with for 13 years, creating that very linear structure for companies and for organisations over and over again, doing the same structure, because that’s just how people think that this is how we learn there’s an A and B to C and D. And I was like, I’m so tired of this because it’s actually not the best way like it serves a purpose. But that’s not how I learned. I didn’t do it that way. None of my mentors learned that way. And so I was like, I’m not going to teach this way anymore. And so my teacher training programme, also, like, I don’t encourage people to teach that way. I’m like, there’s plenty of people who do and plenty organisations who do, but there’s, there’s so much need out here, for folks who are not looking for that for folks who are looking for something that is more your lived embodied experience of it. And there’s value in that, you know, we’ve been conditioned to kind of think that that’s. Oh, that’s not as important because it doesn’t come with a certificate, or does it come from an organisation or a school or whatever? It’s like, no, that’s, that’s actually the lived life stuff. That stuff is really important.

Harriet McAtee
I just couldn’t tell you how much I agree with everything that you’re saying. Also, you could be describing any yoga teacher training programme as well.

Sooz Hammond
Absolutely.

Harriet McAtee
That’s real emphasis on. I mean, I think, like in a sentence, the biggest issue with teacher training programmes is that they teach yoga, but they don’t teach you how to teach.

Sooz Hammond
Absolutely, yeah.

Harriet McAtee
And, you know, when I wrote my programme similar to you like it was because it was the it was the training that I wish I could have taken. And likewise, it’s non-sequential. You can take the modules in any order. There’s no grades, there’s no test, there’s reflective work, but it’s not, you know, it just needs to be done. And, yeah, and I think as well, this emphasis on practice and lived experience is just so crucial, you know, I get trainees who are so earnest, and they’re so excited. And they asked me like, what, what can I do to get ready for the training? Or what would like? What books do I need to read? My answer to them as always is, I don’t want you to read a book. I want you to practice. Like,

Sooz Hammond
yeah,

Harriet McAtee
the best thing you can do to support your learning journey and your journey towards becoming a teacher is practice, practice in all sorts of different ways. Practice with all sorts of different people; it could be for five minutes a day, it could be for five hours. I don’t care, like, but practice is. It’s it’s so essential, but because as you say, because we’re conditioned like you can’t put it in a book, and you can’t write, you can’t sell it. Right. So, you know, we don’t value it. It seems like it’s not as valued. Yeah. And I just, it’s, I think the missing ingredient for you know, for so many people.

Sooz Hammond
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, so in my space I, I basically teach with, I guess, like two different groups, you could say, like the, I have a kind of like the general education, you know, programme where people can come and take those classes, right, the ones that are in any order, and kind of whatever your interest is, if you want it to be more sensory skills, or if you want more meditation and contemplative work, and then I have the teacher training programme. And, you know, interestingly, I realised earlier like or this last year working with, with a business coach of mine that something like 90% or 95% of the people who will sign up for teacher training with me are people who were members first people who are in the community First, or they’d had some other education experience with me, they weren’t just random people who were like, Oh, I, you know, I want to get a certificate and this and come do this. And I realised that I think that’s because people come to this space, and they get a sense for that style. And that is that it is really different, right? When you are not teaching in a linear order, but you’re emphasising the continuing circular cyclical nature of things, right? That we, we come to knowledge over and over and over again, we don’t just learn something once. And we practice, right, like this space is all about practising our tea, you know, you don’t just take the one class on this, you know, like oolongs, of Taiwan. And that’s the only time we ever talk about that, right. And I think when people experience that, and if they’re at all interested in teaching and pedagogy, and they have a tea background, and they’re like, you know, I would like to do something like this, then that kind of plants that seed, you know, of a teacher training would be the space to learn that. And it is such a different side. It’s not for everyone. I’ve legit had people who signed up for the general ed member programme, who this was really early on before, I think; I started getting really clear about how I describe what the space is, I realised how important that was. Because people will be like, there are no tests. There’s no; there are no like workbooks, there’s no, you know, like, how there’s no recommended reading that I’m supposed to do this first before taking this course. I’m like; I didn’t learn that way. I’m not gonna no, I’m sorry. It’s not if you want that. Yes, there are spaces that do that. I don’t teach that way.

Harriet McAtee
Amazing,

Sooz Hammond
fortunately, now, that’s less common. But initially, it was just it was kind of a bummer. Cuz I was just like, oh, man, no one gets it.

Harriet McAtee
Yeah, People just people just really want, they just, they just want that test. They want that external validation. You’re like, I can’t give you that.

Sooz Hammond
can’t do it. Yeah.

Harriet McAtee
I love what you’re saying about we, you know, we circle back on knowledge all of the time. And one of the things that I often think about is that these journeys are spirals. So you, like you, circle back on the same knowledge again, but with a spiral, you will also go deeper, as well.

Sooz Hammond
Yeah. Yeah.

Harriet McAtee
And there’s something in there about if we think about concepts like karma or dharma like there’s, there’s something in that as well about, like, the revolution of our life, the revolution of our, our spirit and our mind. And then when we engage with that, you know, if we can engage in a learning process that mirrors the sort of spyralic nature of our I don’t know, of our being, then there can be this really wonderful, like sort of alchemy that happens and that and like, that’s the space where transformation happens, right is where, you know, your, your, your spirit gets met with the process as well, I guess.

Sooz Hammond
Yeah, yeah. And you know, again, like that’s something that’s just is not emphasised, and it’s not taught in a lot of spaces, too, you know, like, I love studying, education and pedagogy so much that I I tried to take trainings and programmes and read books and such an in other spaces, you know, to just learn and absorb That. That was one of the reasons why I did a 200 hour yoga teacher training myself in the programme; here in the US was one of the first to focus from a trauma-informed lens in specifically centring psychological, psychologically sensitive teaching techniques for a variety of audiences. And I immediately saw how that would apply to my work even though I don’t I don’t teach yoga, but I’m, you know, having that background as a practitioner, as well, as somebody who, you know, I teach meditation and contemplative work, I am working with folks in their bodies, it was really helpful. And so, you know, I like spending time in education spaces. And just realising how we don’t talk very much about like that continuing journey of revisiting something you know, it is, it is so important. There’s no way you can pick up something the first time around or even the second or third time around. It’s the continuation of it. You know, one of the ways I explained this to folks in teacher training actually so they can really understand like, why this is such an important concept is in the tea world; the springtime season is one of the busiest times of the year; for tea, right? It’s it’s the first harvest of the season, It’s whan a lot of the kind of the good stuff really comes out. So think of like all the baby spring vegetables, right that we love so much, right? We love Spring. And it’s the same thing in tea too. So this begins in like early March and runs till like late April early May, depending on the region of the world. And so if you’re, let’s say, if you have a tea company, and you’re so you buy the teas that you sell. And the way that process goes typically is you receive samples of the teas that are available, they could be directly from the farm, or they could be from an importer that you work with. But she received samples at that time of year when those teas are available. Right. So they’re just like super fresh tea fresh cookies out of the oven, right. And let’s say if you are tasting teas from Darjeeling, which is a very famous area in north India for its tea, very famous spring teas that just get snapped up like fresh cookies every year. And so you get a table full of the fresh Darjeeling that’s available. And you have this brief moment, tasting these teas and really connecting with them and thoughtfully considering what would work best for your customers. And which ones really kind of call to you this year, you have this one shot to pick the teas that you want to buy for this year because they’re going to be gone their spring tees, and they don’t last very long. Now let’s say you have been the owner of your business, the tea buyer for your business, for like ten years. Okay, so on one hand, ten years is a really long time. Right, that’s in that kind of one mode of thinking that I think maybe has been a little bit debunked, but it’s still a popular thing to say like; the ten years equates to like the 10,000 hours of practice, right? That is what is an excerpt, right. But so on one hand, it is a long time. On the other, the way that I asked folks to think about this is, that’s just ten times that you have come to the tasting table and had those fresh spring teas from Darjeeling just ten times, there’s not a whole lot, right, like ten times that you have gotten to revisit this, this region in this moment, and make this decision. Right. And so, you need to have spaces in practices that invite you to repeat in a way that’s not remedial. They invite you to repeat in a way that is necessary and is actually functionally part of what you do because that’s the only way that you’re going to get deeper in; it’s about progression. And like getting to a certain point, right? Because you could again be doing this for ten years, and you’re still you got so much further than you can go right. So it’s not a mile marker, it’s just going deeper, you know,

Harriet McAtee
Yeah, I love this idea of non-remedial spaces as well, because I think where it’s one of the issues that I see in yoga practitioners a lot is that there’s this real remedial approach to practice where, you know, they’re there to fix something or address something or heal something. And it’s not that that’s like, that’s no bad motivation to practice. But in terms of building a rich like, like building a richness or building a relationship to practice, it’s going to serve you throughout the whole course of your life. Like it’s sort of it, it, it lacks depth, and it lacks, you know, juice, I think,

Sooz Hammond
yeah, yeah, like if you’re constantly just looking at what is wrong with people and what you could fix about them, and you’re not looking at what is right about them. Yeah. And teaching them to look for what is right in themselves, you know, and what is comfortable, right, like to go to be in a pose or in a position, because this supports you and, you know, possibly, if appropriate for that day challenges you in a way that you need, then that’s enough, right? Why would we then put on top of that this kind of external pressure of what the teacher wants from you? Because it’s not about them, they have their own practice, like take this into your own personal practice and work on it. Do not take it out on your students.

Harriet McAtee
100% Well, rather shockingly, we are; we are basically at the end of our time. I know it’s gone. It’s literally gone in the blink of an eye. And I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface. But before we before we end, where can where can our listeners find you and see what you’re up to?

Sooz Hammond
So I’m on most social media, Instagram, Facebook, I lurk on Twitter. I don’t. I’m there, and you can follow me. I don’t really tweet that much. I’m a Lurker, but I’m very active on Instagram and Facebook; you can find me at beingtea. So it’s being like human being, beingtea, and my website is beingtea.com. And folks can also email me anytime at hello@beingtea.com if they’d like to chat about tea or just get a sense more for what a tea journey might look like; you know, yeah, my space is open to everybody on that path, right? You could be a complete beginner in tea and, you know, just been like, I’ve heard about this tea thing, and I think I’d be interested in drinking more, but I don’t know where to start. Or you could be somebody who works in it and is looking for that continuing education support that personal development that you know, maybe because I’ve been there and maybe your company doesn’t give it to you. You know, you need spaces that nourish and water your own education needs. So it’s here for that too.

Harriet McAtee
Well, thank you so much, Sooz; I feel like you’re my twin but in tea. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. And thank you again for joining me.

Sooz Hammond
Thank you. Thanks so much for the invite. Really appreciate talking with you. I love talking about education.

Harriet McAtee
Thanks for listening to In Our Experience. Don’t forget to subscribe rate and review the podcast. We love hearing what you think, and it makes a really big difference. In the meantime, until the next episode comes out. Why not check us out on our Instagram account @nourishyogatraining or pop us an email via our website. See you soon.