Interview with Mimi Kuo-Deemer, Yoga Teacher
Interview with Mimi Kuo-Deemer, Yoga Teacher
Mimi Kuo-Deemer is a yoga teacher, qigong and mindfulness teacher, and a YogaClicks Ambassador. In this interview with author Lucy Edge, she shares her most important teachers, the three essential items in her yoga bag, why she has more in common with Calamity Jane than meets the eye, and what she’s most excited about for 2019.
Q: What’s the best thing a student of yours has ever said to you?
A: In response to my qigong DVD on Amazon – that it’s ‘Easy to follow and Mimi isn't annoying to listen too’. Phew!
Q: Who is your most important yoga teacher, and why?
A: It would be hard to name one as both are equally important to me: Erich Schiffmann and Donna Farhi. They continually humble me with the idea that yoga is the art of living, listening, and learning to embody a deeply spiritual practice.
Q: What has been your most hilarious moment in a yoga class?
A: When a teacher told a group after doing L-shaped handstands and other variations that they could now just ‘go and play with themselves’.
Q: What projects are you currently working on?
A: The final revisions to my second book, Xiu Yang: Self-Cultivation for a Happier, Healthier and Balanced Life; a new Mindfulness for Yoga Teachers immersion course manual; and a new 200-hour teacher training programme co-taught with Jean Hall called Daoist Flow Yoga Teacher Training. I’m especially excited about this training: it combines the things Jean and I love most: yoga, qigong and somatics. We’re thrilled to bring this first-of-its kind training to the yoga world!
Q: What’s a surprising fact that your students don’t know about you?
A: For many years in high school, I wore all black and was a goth.
I have also used and fired semi-automatic weapons. They were my brother Kaiser’s. He loves all weapons and collects them! He taught me how to shoot. Growing up in Tucson, Arizona it was par for course to have guns. We’d go out into the desert and shoot at bowling pins. It was absolutely bonkers looking back on it now, but I confess it was quite an adrenaline rush back then to a) shoot a weapon like that and b) have my brother show me how. I felt very bad ass.
Q: Name 3 things that are always in your yoga bag.
A: The Tao Te Ching, my Zenergy chime, and sandalwood essential oil.
Q: What is your favourite thing about YogaClicks?
A: YogaClicks represents many aspects of a new consumer awareness. I like to grow my own vegetables, or shop at markets where I know who has grown what I’m eating. As often as possible, I also like to shop for clothing, accessories and gifts using vendors I know have an ethical view of production and treat employees well. I see YogaClicks embracing these ideas and taking it one step further. By retailing brands made by yogis, there is a shared vision and intention to their products that makes me feel my purchases are imbued with spirit. Spirit is more intangible but to me, it is equally as important as ethical production and sustainability.
Q: Do you have any pre-class rituals?
A: Yes, I always do a qigong clearing, filling and sealing practice. I clear tension, anxiety and tightness, fill with clarity, kindness and compassion, and seal in these three – clarity, kindness and compassion. Usually I do this in one of triyoga’s bathroom stalls!
Q: You’re a new addition to the crayon box – what colour would you be and why?
A: ‘Buttery Sun’ – it’s the way morning light pours out across my back garden on sunny mornings.
Q: If you could be any animal, which would you be and why?
A: A dolphin – they love to play and be social!
Q: What were you like in school?
A: Angsty, chubby and overly self-conscious. Yoga, qigong and mindfulness have helped a lot with these tendencies!
Lucy Edge
is a yoga advocate and writer with three yoga books to her name, including the beloved travel memoir Yoga School Dropout. She writes regularly for the national press, has authored over 150 guides to types of yoga and yoga poses, discovered nearly 250 proven health benefits of yoga through her painstaking classification of 300 clinical studies, and collected more than 500 personal testimonials to the real life benefits of yoga. She is also the creator of our yoga shop – YogaClicks.Store – handpicking yoga brands that are beautifully made by yogis committed to environmental and social sustainability.
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