[Transcript starts at 2:04]
Maestro: Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Today I have with me a very special guest, believe it or not, folks, this guest first appeared on the show for episode 58. Now at the time of recording this, I have no idea what episode or this number this is gonna be probably 500 something, but that original episode dropped on Monday, October 22nd, 2018. Suffice to say, she's an og. I am stoked and honored to have her on the podcast. Again, with me today, I have the one and only Beyonce of fascia, Jill Miller. She is the creator of Yoga Tune Up. She is a word play wizard, literally word play wizard and full transparency, I'm bringing her on today to promote her newest book. She's an author, multi, multi time author, author. I don't know what the phrase is. Uh, I want to promote her new book and also I want to bring her on, the audience has grown and there are just some people in life that you want to make sure that your people know about and Jill Miller is one of those people.
So I'm bringing her back on, introducing her to any of you who maybe don't know her and sharing her just genius with all of you. So without further ado, welcome back to the show, my friend, Jill Miller. Welcome.
Jill: I'm so hyped up. Shante, so I, I guess you were baby maestro.
Maestro: Yeah. It was like the beginning days
Jill: or toddler, maybe toddler maestro.
I mean, episode 58, you may be in the early toddler phase. And now you're Elder Maestro? Master Maestro? Master Maestro.
Maestro: Elder Maestro. I like Master Maestro. Elder Maestro.
Jill: Grandparent maestro.
Maestro: That's what it feels like. 500, we're going to be 500 plus when this comes out and. This is amazing to me that I want to, before the episode, I was like, let me go back, let me see what the original episode was, just anything I want to pull out from there.
And I was like, holy shit, it was episode 58. I didn't think it was that far back. The time, you know, COVID happened. And so the time goes by so quickly, but a lot has happened with you since then. That episode, we spoke about fascia, obviously, and we spoke about the interstitium because it was like just being kind of discovered or talked about during that time.
Since then, you've been up to a lot, most specifically that I want to talk about is the book, but is there anything that you want to, this is 2018 to now, so what's that, five years? Is there anything else that you want to, you want to fill us in before we jump into the book?
Jill: No, I mean, we, you and I, we met when I was pregnant, days away from having my second kid, and then I had my second kid.
And then we did that podcast. Let's just, we're just going to timestamp our relationship. You and I have, have, you know, sprinkled our presence at different events in the continuing education space and the PT movement space. Um, we even got to hang out at the fashion research congress in Germany. We were in Germany hanging out.
You were jet lagged. You were not having fun. I'll just never forget how she's just like, I just don't like these type of things. She was so recalcitrant. Yeah. And like digging her heels in and not, not enjoying the tough academics of that con. Wait, what? You missed the last one, Shantae, notably. In Canada?
In Canada. Yeah.
Maestro: Yeah, Montreal. Yes, I did. Yeah. You know, the whole experience was great. The bread was great. I will say that. Uh, but the bread, the bread, bread in Germany, bread and the beer was great. But the, the, the, and I have to give it to you. The general demographic that a lot of the continuing ed things in general attract is just so off putting to me.
And you've navigated that so well, always. I saw you at a PRI course. Yes. As well. And I was like, also, I hate those courses.
Jill: Uh. I'm a pearl picker. Shante, I'm a pearl picker. I also love, I really appreciate different models and I know you are a business modeler and that's, I mean, you're of many things, but in the past five years, what I've seen from you is your growth really out of.
The, the, you're, you're, you're the slow letting go of physical therapy as your primary right source of income and moving into support, you know, a support facility facilitator in marketing. Yes. You know, I actually married a marketer. My husband's a marketer. And I'm just a mover. I love studying movement. I, I just love taking in different models of movement.
And I'm, I'm sure that as a business modeler, um, you know, that just probably just started growing stale for you was different movement models or. Or whatever.
Maestro: It was also the kind of the infighting around it because, uh, and one of the things that you do so well is that you are, so right now you have a partnership going on with, I don't say partnership, we'll say partnership, but as a program you have going on with @docjenfit, and you've always done such a good job of just marrying things and accepting things and bringing and looking at all different things.
One of the things I saw in the movement space is that people can be so, um, what is the word where it's just like, this is it, this is the only way, I don't want to talk about anything else, this is the right way, it has to be like this, and I'm like, that is so off putting, but you've always done such a great job of being like, here's my view.
It can be this, here's that, if that's the thing you like to do. Amazing. But let me see also, can I bring this in? And I love that about you. Like, I think it's honestly quite rare. What has kept you so interested in movement this long, Jill?
Jill: Oh, I love seeing people light up to their body. I just do. I love seeing people express wonderment, curiosity, and a sense of foundedness.
In themselves, that sense of discovery. Um, I never get exhausted seeing that happen within my students or the fervor of trying to reach them, trying to reach different communities, different cultures, different contexts, different thinkers, um, within their body. And that really lights me up. It just does. I don't know how else, I don't know why it does.
That's, that's just me. It tickles me. I, I, I joined them there. I, I'm an adventurer. Um, I mean, I'm not a risk taker. Like I'm not going to be water skiing. I'm not going to be jumping out of planes. Like that's like not interesting to me at all. Like I love being in the room where it happens, where discovery happens.
So that's, that's my, that's my high
Maestro: talk to me with that,
Jill: By the way. And we call that in where I come from, we call it embodiment. So I love watching the process of embodiment occur.
Maestro: Talk to me, Jill, about this and how that marries into and ties into writing books. Like to me, in my mind, those are so different of things.
And it's amazing to me. I'm like,
Jill: Okay, first of all, let's start with this. So I know you want to talk about body by breath. Which is the new book, The Science and Practice of Physical and Emotional Resilience. The first book that, um, I released was called The Role Model. A step by step guide. Oh my god, I don't even know the subtitle, it's so long.
Oh, there's Body by Breath. Oh, we got those. Yes.
And then, and then I'm in a medical textbook called Fascia Function and Medical Applications, which I wrote in between the two. I didn't write the whole book. I just wrote a chapter on self myofascial release. Um, and we're going into a second print. So I'm, I'm back into literature review again. I don't like writing Shante, like, let's just put that out.
I don't like writing, but I have a perspective and I have this embodied experience. So you're like, Jill, you get along with everybody. Like, I actually, I have a perspective and a lot of people don't like it. So they're like, I have my, I have my haters. Um, that's fine. That's totally fine. But the only way for me to reach people is to use every education modality possible to reach them.
And so of course I teach in person. Of course I do podcasts and meet people through their ears. Um, of course, I, I grew up learning yoga from videos. On a TV screen. So of course I make videos, but another way to reach people and to document the work is through writing and not just through short form writing like you do on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, et cetera, et cetera, to be able to communicate long thoughts.
You have to write books and especially because I actually have a methodology and those methodologies need to be concretized so that they're understood and replicable and that's where the book writing comes in. It's not an enjoyable process I do have like two paragraphs in this book that I think are freaking amazing, so it's 480 pages, but I do have two paragraphs that I'm like those are freaking good writing.
So, you, you have to write a lot to get good writing. Um, you know, I can say I'm a writer, but I never intended to be an author. I mean, I was a performer. When you say Beyonce of Fascia, I don't remember episode 58, but when you said Beyonce of Fascia, I'm like, that's me. It is. I am, I am a show, a showman. Um, and because my major in college was performance studies, I think, I think I, these, the ability to communicate in so many different ways is what is one of the things that was fundamental to my performance training, but it really helps in terms of being, dare I say it, a science communicator, right?
Or my own methodology communication.
Maestro: No, that I'm like sitting here and I'm like, that needs to be the teaser clip. It's, it's so good. Yes. For me, I, I love that you said earlier, like I have leaned heavily into the marketing side of things. I'm a creator through and through and a teacher through and through.
And I love so much of what you said there, just in terms of teaching and reaching people in as many different formats as possible. And also the other side of like. That very blunt statement of like, it's not an enjoyable process. I'm not sure that people would assume that, or think, would expect to hear that from you, because you're incredibly prolific with this, and so you kind of feel like, well, she must, it must be enjoyable, because like, chick is writing in one million, eleventy billion pages.
Jill: Mm hmm. This You should see the eleventy billion that was cut, the 270 pages that was cut last August when we had to make a hard chop on that book.
Maestro: Jill, what does this process look like? So let's just go with this one, this book, the most recent one. What does that process, what did that look like? Can you take me through, you can paraphrase it, you can whatever, you can leave out the parts that are, make, too frustrated, but what did that look like?
Jill: Yeah. So I know that a lot of your audience are in, um, that marketing is very important to them. And so, you know, the, the churn of marketing is a much briefer, uh, turnover than book writing. Book writing is epochs of time. Spelled E P O C H, right? Epochs of time. Like we're talking Jurassic to Cretaceous, and back again. Takes for freaking ever. Um, luckily I had a publisher. So, the, the, really the, I think the story of Body by Breath starts, it starts decades ago. Because it really is my story, um, of how I dealt with my own mental health challenge. Going through my own body to find solutions and to figure out how to listen in to myself rather than just being a talking head with a therapist that was not doing anything.
I was struggling with eating disorders. I was anorexic at age 11 12 and then that morphed into bulimia in my later teen years, 16 17. And so when I was in college, I was really struggling with bulimia and the, you know, I mean, I really, I have to go all the way back here to just tell you a little bit about the origin story.
Um, and I had a really difficult time feeling my abdominal muscles or my abs or my, my core, what people call their core. And I knew that I had a difficult time with it because my roommate was pre med in college and I snuck my roommate into the Pilates classes in the dance department, like you're not supposed to like, you don't get pre med people in the performance space, but I knew a loophole and she came and she would always complain about being sore after these Pilates classes and I was never sore and it wasn't because I was good at Pilates, but it's because I was using my limbs and I was able to bypass my abs and just make it look like I was doing the thing.
But I knew there was a disconnect and there was a disconnect in my own center. I had, you know, I, I was bingeing and purging, right? And I confessed to a yoga teacher. I was doing some work study outside of the school. I confessed to a yoga teacher that I couldn't feel my abs and that I was bulimic and I thought these things were connected.
And so she suggested that I lay belly down on this little sandbag that was shaped like a hamburger bun. So picture a hamburger bun full of sand and it's fabric and you lay, lay belly down on it, she said, and just breathe. And so I did that. And when I did that, I did start to feel, and I started to feel miserable.
I felt insane amounts of visceral pain. Um, it was so uncomfortable, but I also started to feel what my behaviors doing to my body. I started to feel the physical pain, but I finally started to dial into the emotional pain, the suffering, um, on a extremely tactile level, unforgettable feeling. And that was my way of, gosh, opening the door to being able to make friends with myself.
Cause what I would do after that, I mean, it was horrible, but I was like, there, there's something to this. So I would, every morning I'd wake up in the dorm room, my roommates asleep. Cause she's pre med, you know, she's up till three doing organic chem, and I roll up a hand towel and I shape it into a honey bun and I lay belly down on this towel and I migrate it all over my abdomen and I breathe and basically I'm doing visceral massage, I'm doing abdominal massage on myself and that process of being able to breathe into and sense and feel help to slowly leak out, leak out this issue that I was vexed by, right? I couldn't stop binging and purging. It was horrible. Um, but that was, that was the turnkey. And then, you know, if you fast forward decades later, I've developed, you know, tools like this. There it is, right?
Maestro: One of the best things that folks, we will link all of Jill's things in the show. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I want to make sure people know we will link all of the things in the show notes because the ball that she just held up. If you're watching this on YouTube, you see it. If you're not watching it, well, go to the link in the show notes. Uh, it's probably one of the best pieces of equipment, anything that I'm referring for people, they're like, I want to do any kind of self work it's going to be yoga tuneup balls or nothing.
Uh, and she has a coregeous ball in her hand. There's two different ones. There's the black one and the purple one. Um, these are things that every person should, I don't use that word often, but I'll use it, should have, uh, in their, in their, at their disposal, at their, in their, in their arsenal, uh, in their toolbox.
But back to the tool that you developed stemming from this.
Jill: Yeah. So this abdominal massage, I would do it with a towel. I did it for years, even after I stopped throwing up. I was like, you know, this is, you know, this is like, you know, it was like my little sucky blanket. I'm just going to keep it with me forever because it was the key to my healing.
It was my rabbit's foot. Right? So leaping forward. And I, I mean, there's so many steps to the development of my, my work and the pedagogy of it, but I start running this experiment on other bodies in classrooms. And at first I'm bringing towels into the classroom because that's what works for me. Yeah. And then, uh, yeah.
I still, literally, I still have some of these towels. I got them from Target. I have them in green, blue, purple, aqua, and some of them match my, the decor of my kids bathroom. And then we use them for cleaning the house. But I bought like 40 of these hand towels. I'm not throwing away the hand towels. But I love it so much.
Uh, anyway, I discovered, um, I discovered that if I laid on just playing around on different balls, I discovered that if I laid on a grippy pliable air filled ball, it actually distributed pressure much more levelly and the actual skin of the ball, the grip of the ball, was able to engage with the skin of the body and create pressure, sheer, tender touch, um, in, in unique ways that a towel couldn't cause the towel is fuzzy and it kind of pinches.
Um, but I started to develop all sorts of, we would call them protocols or programs, using the coregeous all over the, the trunk, the ribcage, um, all, all dimensions of the ribcage, pelvic floor, and neck, and just kept discovering more and more things. So, rewind, origin story of the book. When I was on a, uh, Kelly Starrett and I became friends through a mutual friend.
This is almost 15 years ago. And he ended up inviting me to present on a show that he was doing on this platform called Creative Live. And he had a two day slot. Now he was on it because his friend Tim Ferris had done this same thing. And when the people who ran this platform saw Kelly, they're like, we want you to be on the creative live and to do a two day thing, invite your friends, do whatever you want.
And so he invited me to present on two topics. One on fascia and one on breath. And I was like, those are my sweet spots. And so I taught two hours of content on this webinar. And then I got an email the next day from a publisher. And the publisher was his publisher, the publisher of Becoming a Supple Leopard.
And they said, Hi, we saw you on Kelly's show, we'd love to publish your book. And I was like, well, I don't have a book.
Maestro: That part, I was like, wait, what book? Okay.
Jill: As if every person on Kelly's show is like at a level that they're like authoring books. I said, well, I don't have a book. Write one. You know, you do now.
Write one and we'll publish it. Yeah, so they literally put a golden Easter egg. And I had this opportunity to share my work with the world. I actually did have a book. I was approached, this was years ago, so here's a writer entrepreneur story, was approached years ago by, um, a, a big company, big company in the, uh, Yoga props space.
I had done a little bit of video work for them. Um, they were packaging a yoga book for teens and they reached out to me thinking that I would be a good voice for teens and yoga. And it's interesting. I started doing yoga when I was 11 or 12. Like that, that, that checks. So I actually did write a book for, or a book proposal and some chapters.
Um, anyway, the agent who was involved with it got me out of the deal because they would have like held me for life in, in, in handcuffs and my cartoon image and, you know, like just crazy stuff. She was like, it's a terrible deal. You got to get out. Amazing. So, but I'm not, that's not, I'm not a yoga, teen yoga person.
Like I don't, that's not my legacy. So I just was like, it's in the computer somewhere, Shante. You know, we have the same desktop. It's in there somewhere. It's in there somewhere.
Maestro: The files are in the computer somewhere.
Jill: Um, but I, you know, but I had this thing that I taught, I taught, I taught the rolling and teach breathing and teach yoga, tune up, teach all these different things.
And so I, I had this opportunity to share what I wanted to share with the world. What I wanted to share with the world was body by breath. This breath based approach, going through your guts, deep listening, interoception, yada, yada, all this stuff. But this was 13 years ago in the fitness space. And the only place breath was trending was in the yoga space, but I did teach this other thing, which is self myofascial release. And I knew that that was a rising trend. And so I said, you know what? Let me write the rolling thing first and get- claim that space. Yeah. Claim my approach before I don't have an opportunity to do that. And then if that goes well, maybe I'll be able to share this gut based work that I do, which is really weird and marginal and is not really well, you know, appreciated probably by most people.
And so that's what happened. I wrote The Role model and then as soon as, as soon as I handed it in, they're like, where's your next book? They were awesome to me. I said, well, I do have this other idea. And this was eight years ago, Shante. So this was like 8 years ago, I do have this other idea around my, my approach to breathing.
And at that time, um, Wim Hof did not yet have his book. Okay. Um, James Nestor did not yet have his book. And this was, it was a nascent trending thing. And, um, anyway, long story short, I signed a contract. It was supposed to turn it in, in a year. Took me eight years to write the book, hip replacement, like all these things stood in the way of me being able to finish the book.
Um, but thank goodness it took that long because we had a global pandemic where respiration and breathing became the most important content of, of the globe. And at the same time, you know, Wim got his book out. James cracked the door open onto mainstream awareness of some, some historical elements and some, um, medical elements around lungs and breath and so on.
And so my book is, is… fits right in. Yeah, and, and, and also introduces an entirely, um, other wedge into the greater breath knowledge that's out there.
Maestro: Jill, I have so many questions. Okay. I, this is the reason I have a podcast. It's honestly so I could just talk to cool people, but I want to go way, way back to when you first started with that, when that yoga teacher first suggested, hey, lay on this thing, try this out.
What kept you going back and doing that, like you said, it felt terrible. I felt terrible. And yet you kept doing it. Most people would be like, nope, I don't want to do it. What was it that you were like, yeah, I need to do this. I should do this. I want to do this.
Jill: It was allowing me to feel not just physical hurt, but it was allowing me to feel and express the, like, for lack of a better word, the stuck emotions that I was running from all the time.
It would make time stand still and it gave me a chance to emotionally process my deep feels and of course I made adjustments so that it was not gnarly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I, um, but because I was, you know, for me, one of the only places where I would have emotion was through art. So I was an artist and a performer, and I was able to have emotions when I was acting or emotions when I was singing or dancing, but in my day to day life, believe it or not, like I couldn't really make connections with my own feelings and the present moment.
And so this was a way that I could tap in to my sense of being and sensing and start to let that little girl's voice, right? That little hurt frightened girl talk and I've got journals. Believe me. None of the journals are in this book. Okay, the journals are they are gonna be burned before I die This was
This was my body journal. It was finally
Maestro: This is, you were, were you, this is like honestly for my own personal and like knowledge, understanding. I just, I'm fascinated by this. Were you at a point where you were ready to feel more, or you're wanting to feel more connected? That word came up twice. And first it was at Pilates, not feeling connected to the core.
And then it's not connected to like that inner voice, the emotion, things like that. Mm-hmm. Were you just at a point in life where you're like, I want that because I know what it feels like when I do have it from art or,
Jill: Uh, I, I, I think there's, you know, there is this feeling of landing in your body. There is this feeling of, and I guess let's go back to embodiment, um, you know, I think I was really going to go back to my childhood trauma.
Is that what you want?
Maestro: No, but if you want,
Jill: Okay. So just not, not feeling like I had any sense of control in my life. And this came from being like, I love my parents. I've done a lot of work to love and accept all the things. Um, but I was moved. I think I moved 13 times before I was 18. Um, and that included um, violent uprootings like, um, I was taken across state lines as did by a relative.
So there was a lot of upheaval in my family and a lot of discord and that I think really left me feeling like I was running scared and hiding. A lot. I think that's why theater arts were so good for me because then I could come out and I could emote, but in my own day to day, my own, uh, tendency would be to avoid conflict, um, to just be a good girl and get all the things right.
Hence my love of, you know, research and everything, but it really impacted, you know, friendships. It certainly prevented me from having any sustainable intimate relationships with, um, you know, love interests. Yeah. A long time to get, to get to, to that in my own life. So I really was looking for a sense of home in my body because home was always getting packing boxes, moving to the next place.
Maestro: This is Jill, this, this part right here, the last, whatever, four or five minutes. This is largely why I love having the podcast and to do the podcast. My goal when I bring people on is just like to hear them. Hear about not, when I say why it's not to justify their actions It's to be able to dive deeper into them.
I fully believe nothing is random. Everything happens. It's all connected. And so like you writing this book is not just cuz like Jill likes this stuff and wanted to write it down. There's just so much inside of it and so much nuance to that. And it's really cool when you can hear that, like one from an objective, um, timeframe, yes, it goes back eight years because of, of being on shows and getting asked to do things, but there's a zillion years before it.
And how these things come about. And that's the stuff that I love hearing about, because this is to me, I'm always like, what actually drives someone to complete a labor of love, like. What is it? And like, this makes sense in hearing it and I'm like, ah, yes.
Jill: Yeah. I mean, I, I tell, uh, you know, I tell a few stories in the book.
It was a few personal stories. I believe there's a lot more stories I'm not telling, cause I don't want to make the whole book about me and my, all my shpilkas, as we say in the, in the, in the Jewish community, you know, all the, all the stuff, the Stuhlmantrag that goes on in the background of my head.
Fundamentally, the book is a novel approach to inducing the relaxation response. And so this is from somebody who has lived with chronic high anxiety and has a number of different, um, you know, symptoms that revolve around that. And so in this, in this book, there is a process, a tried and true process to help people, whether breathing is their thing or not.
Because I realize a lot of people, like, they don't like being told to breathe, and that breathing, being told to breathe, or the act of breathing, in and of itself induces anxiety. So, it's like, yeah, we don't even have to pretend like we're breathing here. Like I got other stuff for you and your body's going to breathe no matter what.
So let's just take that off the table. We're good. Even if it's a little tiny shallow ones, we're breathing. We're alive. We're good. Um, so that I addressed that in the book. And so it has these novel, this novel thing called the five P's of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is, is, you know, there's a a couple of formulas in the book, but it's very, very effective for helping people whether they have breath induced anxiety or relaxation induced anxiety, you know, these different responses that can come up when people try, when they finally settle and then their nervous system just goes spring. Um, which as you know, because you've had people on the table and you're like, why is this person shaking or why are their eyes frozen open and no blinking. Or why, why is their shoulder so rigid? I'm telling them to relax their shoulder and they can't give over control. So the, I have all the wonderful scientific explanations and research support in the book, but ultimately, you know, there are tactics that one can deploy, whether it's for yourself or whether you're engaged with clients or with students that can help usher in a parasympathetic cascade, a safe parasympathetic cascade that can, um, help anchor people, uh, into the relaxation response so that, so that therapy can be done whenever, whatever mode of therapy that you're applying with them.
Um, but I've seen, you know, but I've certainly seen this work for my own wellbeing, but I've, I've been doing this in classrooms for almost 30 years, no more than 30 years now. Oh my goodness.
Maestro: Jill, one of the things we had spoken about and maybe on the last episode, just maybe in texting, I'm not sure, but is your background versus your parents and how degrees tie into that and letters after one's name and the confidence that comes with it or the I don't say lack of confidence, but like how imposter syndrome can can wreak havoc on on things.
Can you speak to that? More specifically you have methodologies and you have very confidently, in my opinion, claimed it. Like, this is how I do it. This is what I believe, you know, this is the approach. What has that been like and has that become easier to do? Oh,
Jill: Um, yeah, what a, what a complex question. I mean, you know, here you are like a DPT and you're like walking into the business science space.
Right. It's like, well, but I've been trying these things and they're really working. And then when I deploy them on other people and they actually do these steps, it actually works. So, you know, you've learned through trial and error and I've learned through trial and error. I've also learned because I, I'm, I think I'm a really good listener.
I'm a really good body listener, um, with my, my teachers or with practitioners. You know, anytime I'm getting therapy on the table, I'm like, my body is like a sponge and inside my brain. I'm like, all right, I could do this myself. I don't need to pay you to do this. And so a lot of the, the rolling application has been, you know, through study, but also how can I replicate this handiwork through my work through the ball work?
And then how can I, um, communicate that to a group or an individual so that they can do it to themselves. And then how do I teach educators to be able to do that on mass to others? So that we're, we are our own role models. Um, so the imposter thing, I mean, you know, it's, it's a really,
I can't unsee what I see in, in the, in the classroom. Um, and through trial and error, I've had a lot of success. And the students that show up again and again, and they're like, Oh, the shoulder pain. I don't have shoulder pain anymore. Like, all it is is I have this knee thing. And then we, we do something.
And then the next week, they're like, no, no, I don't have knee pain. I just want to work on my spine strength or my core strength or whatever. Like the, that's why that thing erase pain is in the subtitle. Like it's not my fault that it's gone away. I've just made some good suggestions. They've done it themselves and now it's gone.
Um, that's money. Literally it's money that keeps clients coming back again and again, and they just want to learn more and more as much as they can learn from me and, and then. Make those experiments themselves.
Going back to what excites you, Jill, why do you have to write about all this? I really love to see people dive in to their own process of, of embodiment.
So the imposter syndrome can come in for me when I'm presenting at like big conferences where I'm the only person that doesn't have letters behind their name. And then I just have to keep reminding myself, I've been invited to sit at this table. There's something valuable in my experience. I mean, I already know it's valuable, but the validation of being invited to, you know, more and more prestigious events or working with companies like, Oh my God, like Amazon flew me up to do this work with, with their leadership.
It's crazy. You know, Google. Working with National Geographic now. I mean, like, this is amazing, big stuff, right? Yes. Yes. And I don't have the letters behind my name, but it's because it works. People can feel change in their body and their minds immediately with these different processes that I teach. And then I, I have some pretty cool friends.
Yeah, I have some really cool friends. And, and, and, and, and, but the work has helped them. A few summers ago, I went out to teach at Tom Myers Anatomy Trains Institute. The, his business director actually had trained with me years ago and she wanted to bring me out. Now, he had never worked with me. I, I met with, I met him in passing at a fascia congress.
And you're just like, you know, if you're in this fascia space, I don't teach Anatomy Trains because I have this other perspective. I'm informed by Anatomy Trains at the time. Right. So, but it's not like, it's not my model to share because I didn't do all their trainings. I didn't do all the studies.
I, while I can refer to anatomy Trains as a great place to get educated, it wasn't my background. Right. So they brought me out and I was like, Oh my God, I haven't studied with Tom and I'm about to stay in his farmhouse. And my God, he's about, he's, Oh my God, he's cooking me eggs. Oh my God. He's serenading me with his guitar.
Like we hung out and he took my Body by Breath Immersion. So this book, um, was actually came about the, the, the book illuminates stuff that actually happens in a training called the Breath and Bliss Immersion formerly called the Breath and Bliss immersion. Sorry to confuse you all. It's now the Body by Breath Immersion and something called The Core Immersion and both of these are put on by my company Tune Up Fitness.
So they had brought me out to teach this three day Breath and Bliss Immersion and Tom did the first morning and then he came back for the afternoon. And then he returned the next morning. The business director pulls me aside, she goes, usually Tom stays for the first hour and a half and he never comes back.
He did the entire course. And then he was like, we should do something together. Yeah, I know that was pretty cool. And so then he and I came up with a whole program. It's super cool. So we came up with a whole program. I know you're like, Oh my God, the Godfather of fascia.
Maestro: Exactly. Godfather and Beyonce.
That's what happens. The room explodes actually during those sessions, folks. If you ever sign up.
Jill: So I'm actually talking to you in the studio. Like Tom came out during the pandemic and we did some stuff in here too. Anyway, we have this program called Rolling Along the Anatomy Trains that is this great marriage of him, him teaching the anatomy trains and then me teaching you how to map yourself using the therapy balls and movement. It's really fun.
Maestro: Jill you are- the question that immediately pops into my head is kind of a maybe a little bit of a non sequitur there, but kind of, is okay because it's about the the tune up balls .Yes, so here's the thing folks and I have another question.
I'm cognizant of the time I have another question that I want to ask Jill it ties everything in together. But Jill is prolific in all the ways, right? You're just listening to this story. You're listening to her past, we're listening to the relationships that she's formed and fostered and facilitated, and the things she's created. Written books.
She's founded um, methodologies and actual, um, businesses, right? You have physical products. We mentioned it before. We're going to bring it back. Jill, what in the hell does that look like? And you were just like, yeah, I'm going to put out some balls. Like that, to me, it seems so daunting. A book seems like a lot, but like physical products to me sounds like immediately no.
And your physical products are different. You didn't just take a lacrosse ball and be like, I'm going to put it in like my name on it. It's completely different. You made this thing. What was that like?
Jill: Well, first of all, I do have to address lacrosse balls. So lacrosse balls, for those of you who don't know are made from the exact same material that bowling balls are made of.
Oh God. And then they put this thin coat of rubber. The rubber on lacrosse balls is fabulous, but the material, the hardness of the material, I would discourage people from using tools that hard on your structure for many reasons. Um, and we can get into that. We can do a Beyonce, a fascia too, if you want.
Uh, but hardness matters to your nervous system. And so I'm just,
Maestro: yes. Amen. Amen.
Jill: We can talk about that on social media. I've done a million posts on it. All right. Um, what's it like to have products? Well, this is where it's great to have a business partner who understands the mechanics of running a complex business because Tune Up Fitness, my company, um, is a partnership with my husband, Robert and myself. Who he took a class with me when we were dating, six months into dating, by the way, because I don't date my students. Six months into dating he came to my core integration workshop, in which, by the way, we laid belly down on a towel.
Maestro: I love it. I love it. It comes full circle. I love it. I love it.
Jill: And you know, at two hours and 40 minutes, I said, Shavasana and his head whipped to look at the clock. And he was like, how did two hours and 40 minutes go by? And I didn't check the clock once. And then he said to me, we need to bottle this. We need to bottle you.
This needs to- plus, it took away his back pain. So he'd never done my work up until that minute. He didn't really, you know, he was like, hot, you know, hot yoga teacher, or whatever. I was more of a hot yoga teacher.
Maestro: Yes. Yes. Jill.
Jill: So, you know, he, he was instrumental in actually helping me first brand, uh, my balls because I was using these smaller rubber balls and we found some website on, you know, thing.
I had a logo, Jill Miller Yoga was my company at the time. And so we, I was able to get my Jill Miller Yoga brand on that. I should post a picture of my original.
Maestro: I would love that. Yeah. Please do. Please do. Yes.
Jill: I have them on a shelf in my office. I would love that. Okay. Yeah. I've, I always think about doing that, but there's so many other posts to do, Shanté.
Maestro: I know. I get it. I get it.
Jill: And, um, but then sometimes the balls would come back and they were not the same quality as the stock before. Sometimes they were harder. Sometimes they were softer. Sometimes they were slicker. Sometimes they came from Taiwan. Sometimes they came from Guatemala. It was chaos. And he was like, I'm going to research how we can manufacture the right ball.
So I had, you know, I had this guy who knew his way around, around SKUs, right, around products. And we started off with just the Yoga Tune Up balls. And then we ended up expanding to Yoga Tune Up balls plus the Coregeous ball. And then we made the therapy ball plus then the alpha ball. There's other products th that I can, I know they're in our house.
But um, with the pandemic we ended up making such a pivot to hustle to get online content that production just overtook any more tool development, tool development stuff out of the game. And we're on this, I would call it a chronic production schedule right now, which I don't necessarily like. Um, but it's really important because we have some subscribers and then I have, there's so many programs that I have in my mind that I want to do, that I want. Collaborations that I want to do. And so that's really the, you know, all the timeline is so focused on that.
Maestro: Yeah, that makes sense. Jill, was that, I know you were dating, but first off you were only six months into dating, but was that hard to? I don't want to say like let go of your, was it hard to partner?
Was it hard to do that ? Was it hard to trust someone to breathe life into this thing?
Jill: He literally, it was like caveman style. He was like, he would not stop with his ideas. And I was just like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I just kept saying no, no, no, no, no.
Because my parents had been in business together. My mom and stepdad, we moved to Santa Fe when I was a kid. They. They worked in the solar industry. They moved. They were dreamers. They moved to a mountain town to help my mom with her asthma and to get involved with the solar industry in the late 70s when President Carter gave tax breaks to people for purchasing solar.
So this was really a booming industry. Santa Fe had a novel, um, really a novel, uh, altitude and a novel relationship to the sun. We actually lived in one of two solar home communities on the planet. There was this solar home community outside of Santa Fe that we lived in. I lived in an all solar home and anyway, long story short there, they were in business together and they were in marriage together and the business went under because when Reagan came into office, he did away with all these tax breaks for solar.
And so people stopped purchasing or investing in solar. Their company died, the marriage died, and that was a huge trauma in my life and my childhood. And so that was like this shadow on my shoulder. When Robert was like, yeah, these ideas. And I was like, no, no doom to fail, you know, like, yeah. Um, and yeah.
But he just basically would not take no for an answer. But he was right. Like I would have never gained that reach cause I didn't know anything about scale. I didn't even know what the word entrepreneur meant. Like in our first phone conversations, like, you know, match. com, I was telling him what I did for a living.
He goes, you're an entrepreneur. I was like, what is an entrepreneur?
Maestro: Wow. Jill.
Jill: Cause I was a creator. Yes. Yes. I was just arts, artsing and sciencing my way through. I didn't know business mechanics.
Maestro: Jill. So this brings me to the next thing I've written down and then we'll wrap this up here, but anyone that's listening to this, if their jaw is, maybe now they've picked it up off the ground and if they're, you know, newly introduced to you, then they're like, holy shit, this woman does a lot.
She does. What does that look like? And we kind of spoke a little bit about this before we hit record for the eleventy billionth time because the fucking camera keeps breaking. Uh, but… What does doing all of this, all of the stuff you do, you got physical product, you're running a business, you're on tour for the book, you're writing books, you're in charge of content, doing content, you're doing all the things, what does that look like with having a family?
Jill: I just realized we're going to be on YouTube and I do keep mugging, like it's, sorry. I also love clowning. And so there's a camera on, so I'm sitting here going.
Because it's fun. So I am very playful. Um, how does it work with a family? Well, let's just say it, it doesn't. Like, there's no, like, here's the plan and it all works. So get that out of your head. Um, I love it when people think they have these, these ideals that they think is my life. It's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no.
This is organized chaos. Every single day. Um, And yes, there is, there's some kind of ebb and flow and structure to it all. Um, but none of this, you know, none of this is easy. I have a nine year old and I have a six year old. I have a, two extremely… Amazing kids. Two amazing kids. Oh yeah, you got to see them at the book launch party.
I mean, Asher's just a blur. Cause he is, he's an athlete and he just runs, climbs the walls. Yes. Walking on the ceiling. I mean, he's such a love, they both are, they're great kids. I was so happy to have you there, by the way, Shanté.
Maestro: That was amazing to be there, Jill. Jill. So Jill did a book launch here in LA.
She did a tour, but one of the stops was in LA and she hosted at a, at a CrossFit box up in a kind of Venice area. And it was amazing. Just wanted to, we all know it's amazing to see someone in their element doing their thing. And so not only is Jill in her element, just because she is, you know, promoting this thing that she's so passionate about, but we were all privy to, we'll say, Jill's first love, and she sang, she performed on stage. Uh, she had a guitarist there with her and it was just. You know how it feels and you get chills just thinking about it when you get to watch someone doing what they love doing and they're in their element. And then she spoke to us about her background, her past, tying it into why she wrote the book.
Well, a lot of what she said earlier in this episode, and it was, it was a very, very special event. It rained unfortunately, but that didn't matter because we were inside, but it was a truly, truly special event and I wouldn't have missed it. I leave, I will leave the bubble for a few people. Jill Miller is one of them.
Absolutely.
Jill: Oh my gosh. That means so much to me. That's great. Yeah. It was really, it was really special. Yes. My first love was singing. Still is my first love. Um, so what it looks like with the family is that it's, you know, oh my goodness, it's just, none of it's easy. Um, but it's, there's, it's, I don't know what else to say.
Like family life is, is crazy. It's fun. It's, there's never, you never feel like you're finished. The demands on your time are kind of, it does feel like burgeoning crisis level almost every day. Like for example, last week Asher had oral surgery. He had two shark teeth removed. They had to take his two front teeth to get them out.
And then three days later, he was in the ER because he woke up in the morning and couldn't move his right hip without a level 10 pain. And so you're like dealing with medical mysteries that, you know, and so like that whole week, um, and he's just back in camp now, but he had something called transient synovitis.
So they had to do a lot of, a lot of ruling out to figure out whether it was septic hip from the surgery.
Maestro: That was my question. I'm like, wait, was this related? To the surgery?
Jill: Yeah. So, so, you know, you think you've got your plans made and your work schedule, your, the, the, the list of to do's you think it's all going to get done and then you lose, you know, nine days of work and then you have to make it up in three days. You know what I'm saying? Like, so that's just, I don't know, Shanté. I don't know.
Maestro: That's what I want. I want to hear this. I want to hear this. And the reason I asked Jill, I asked, you know, people, everyone that comes on, and we just want real, and I want you to hear from real people and what their real life looks like.
And it's not some like scripted curated thing. And Jill said the organized chaos that's, that's there. And I want that. So people that are listening to this who have kids and feel the same know they're not alone. That at every level, it's there. That's, that's, that's what I wanted. Just to hear that. I don't have any kids.
I've got a cat and I've got a dog now. It's a lot.
Jill: You have a transient poodle in your house staring at Rupert and I am obsessed with these videos. The standoff. The silent pant. Like the mouth open. You can see it. You can see it. The silent pant. And the threat. Like, she's just like, I'm just a friend. With the silent pant.
Maestro: That's it. And Rupert's like, you know what?
I don't care. Get away.
This is what, this is what I wanted to hear. This is what I was hoping you, I knew you would share. Um, just cause I know that people, I know that people can think that things should be certain, a certain kind of way. And then they beat themselves up because it's not. And this is not just related to life and, and, uh, business and kids, but even earlier, and I was really grateful that you shared that about imposter syndrome and your choice, your active, conscious, conscious decision to believe the evidence.
And it's what I want people to hear because it's, it occurs at all levels. And you know, my whole stick with starting this podcast is just so people can hear from. amazing people doing the thing, building their best life, living their best life.
Jill: Well, I find you incredibly empowering. Just you believing in your gift with this.
And I've seen you grow and I just, I really identify with you. In that spark, like following that spark and also knowing like, you know, this is my true north or if you want to use that kind of speak. And I don't know if I'll have another interest. I don't know. Like I love, I certainly have lots of interests and, um, deepening my study of, of voices is one of them, but basically it always ends up coming back to, well, you got to kind of squish your.
on one of these, and that really helps with your voice and, you know, and it helps with your back pain and it helps with your long COVID and it helps like with you sleep. So it's like, well, it's like, I just really enjoy sharing that out. So
Maestro: I love it so much.
Jill: It all intersects because, you know, the diaphragm, which we didn't,
Maestro: we didn't, we didn't talk about,
Jill: but being able to, you know, connect with and follow you, honestly, like.
You are always inspiring. Even if I'm like, I don't necessarily agree with that marketing strategy or whatever. Sometimes I'll show your post to Robert. He's like, I don't agree with that. I was like, I know, but it's Shanté let's appreciate her putting it out there.
Maestro: I love that. This, I love that. I love that.
I love it. This is why we do it. This is why we do it. Share the things, have the conversations, speak. Your piece, it is very, um, what's the word I want to use? Um, I guess it was important to me that we kind of zoom out folks and we take that 30, 000 foot view of things. And even, this is why I brought Jill on, just even seeing how she has done things, right?
And the decision to be like, this is the approach I have, that I've taken. I have gotten success with it, not just in my own body, but yes, my own body, but with other people. And then having the courage, the confidence, the dedication. To sharing that the commitment to sharing that the, if you take that same language, that North star, that true North, and being like, this is who I am.
This is what I'm about. And leaning into that and sharing that with the world. I know that many of you listening to that, listening to this, have that inside of you. And part of what I wanted with this episode, number one was to talk about the book. Number two was to reintroduce you to the Jill so you can hear the person behind the book.
But number three, get inspired to let that out of you and follow your own true North. Whatever that looks like, lean into that, share that with people, you know, lean into your happiness, lean into the things that you're like, I just got to do it. It may take eight years. It may take 18 years. It may take 30 years, but I just got to do it.
And you can hear from the Beyonce of fascia, the Beyonce of breath, that's going to be this episode, the Beyonce of Breath, as to how she did it. Jill, I got two questions for you and then I'll leave you alone. Okay. Just two. Number one, where can people find you and all of your stuff? We're going to link everything in the show notes, but it's nice to say it as well.
Jill: On Instagram, I'm the Jill Miller and my company is TuneUp Fitness. You can find the website tuneupfitness. com. That's really the best place to dive in. I have an online classroom every week. There's a new class. I have a mentor group where we dive into very novel topics. Last week, we just worked on, on how to get into your posterior tibialis, which is really fun.
Yes, I have an entire class just on the thumb. You know, so there's, there's lots of really novel and deep topics and also more general topics. The other way to connect is I do have teachers that I've trained worldwide. So there's a teacher finder. So you can find teachers all over the place. And then some of the stuff that Shante and I have talked about.
There are lots of online courses. Uh, myself and Doc Jen did this Roll into Hitt program. There's stuff with me and Tom Myers, Katie Bowman, Kelly Starrett. Um, and then there's live events. The live events you can always find on my, on my schedule. I don't know when this is coming out, but I will be doing a body by breath immersion in the wilds of Canada in late mid, late August. And then I will be in, um, Chicago with a Body by Breath masterclass, but then I'll be teaching a seven day course in LA, the yoga teacher training November 2nd to nine. Um, I am teaching Role Model, but it's already sold out in Salt Lake in September, which is really awesome. It's amazing.
It's amazing space. I know it's sold out over two and a half months before the course. So it's been a long time since I've taught it.
Maestro: It's amazing. Amazing. Everything will be linked in the show notes. The August one, maybe this is out before then, if you're listening, maybe not. Either way, she's got all the other dates, um, and we will put all of that in the show notes.
Jill, what about that book? Where can they go to get the book?
Jill: The book. Well, get the book at Amazon, because it is, it is like four pounds, I think. It is. It's really heavy. It's, uh,
Maestro: It's amazing. It's amazing.
Jill: Thank you.
Maestro: It's amazing. It's amazing. Uh, what do I want to call it? Because it's not as it is a book, but you know, some books you're like, this is going on the coffee table.
Cause I want people to see it. And I also want to be able to see all the time. And it's just like, it is, it's art as well. This is, this is special. For sure.
Jill: Thank you. Yeah. The art is one of the things that added a year to the book. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? It took over a year for us to settle on the cover.
That was back and forth.
Maestro: That's amazing.
Jill: You gotta do it. You gotta get the right cover, man.
Maestro: I just, I love hearing this stuff. Cause we don't know it. We don't know. We just see the book. We don't know all that goes behind it. So Amazon is the way to go. We will link all of that in the show notes. Last question for you, then I'll I leave you alone.
I ask everyone this question. Is there anything that you want to leave the people with? Thoughts, final words, summaries, conclusions, or nothing, that's fine too, that you'd like to leave the people with.
Jill: Well, today would be a good day to snuggle with a pet.
Maestro: There you go.
Jill: I, that's the first thing that came to mind because like, as soon as we get off here, I'm going to go snuggle with my dog. So I guess, I guess what I really mean by that is find some being to connect with today, whether it's, whether it's a, a, a ball being or a pet being or a human being, um, get that connection.
Maestro: Jill, it's so you that I always, I leave that question and as basic as it may sound to people, I don't know what people are going to say. And I would say 99% of the time the statement is so that person, it's so on brand for that person, and that right there is so, so on brand for you. And I hope that you folks listening kind of take that away.
Like, yes, you have this woman who is on paper also just phenomenally accomplished, but she slid in there a little bit earlier that she's incredibly playful. And I love that that last thing she's left us with is go snuggle up with. It's so good. It's so good. It's
Jill: Bringing my a game for you. It's always A+.
Maestro: It's so good. Jill, I am so grateful for you. The time you take this, I know that you are incredibly busy. So thank you for taking the time out of your schedule. You're like in the studio, you got a, not a plant, not a tree root, but we thought there was a tree root growing. You got the floor taken up in your studio.
You still finding time for this. You got kids in the hospital, like.
Jill: Oh my God, it's been a week and a half.
Maestro: It's been a lot. I know it's only one week. Exactly. This is a week in Jill's life. So thank you for taking the time. Thank you for leading from the front, doing what you do, showing us all what is possible.
Truly, truly grateful. For you, my Jill. Truly.
Jill: Love you, Shanté.
Maestro: The best, Jill. Love you. You folks listening, thank you. We know you could be doing anything and you chose to listen to us, and for that we are both endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative. My only like, excuse me, my only like, my only ask for you is if you liked this episode, if you loved this episode, if you're picking up what Jill's putting down, do me a solid and share this with somebody who you think might enjoy it.
That's it. All right, officially wrapping it up. Until next time, friends, Jill Miller, aka the Beyonce of both Breath and Fascia, and Maestro, out.
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MOTM #058: Jill Miller – The Beyoncé of Fascia
Connect with Jill: @thejillmiller @tuneupfitness
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