Xuan Lan: “A man who does yoga is a good signing”

Xuan Lan (Paris, 45 years old) was working in New York in a primitive social network when the digital bubble burst and she decided to go with her husband to live in Barcelona without speaking a word of Spanish. She is French of Vietnamese origin, after spending a few years working in banking, she abandoned everything to be a yoga instructor. 20 years later, she has become a true guru of the discipline, with more than half a million followers in social networks, who tell him over and over again that he saved them in confinement and that his voice calms them. With that tone, slightly touched by a hypnotic French accent, she talks about her achievements and her way of seeing life.

Ask. She has said that she started doing yoga when she was working in New York in a position that generated a lot of stress. Did he never think that it was a better solution to leave that job than to start doing yoga?

Response. No. Yoga helps you deal with stress, but I didn’t start for that reason. My partner, who at that time was still just a friend, invited me to a class. It was another experience. It is true, yes, that yoga helped me maintain this balance during the nine years that I was working in a bank in Barcelona, ​​but I have never complained about the work itself.

P. In other words, he does not hold any resentment towards the dynamics of large companies…

R. I can’t blame my company because for many years I had a great time; and then, instead, I started to get bored because I didn’t find something in the work that fulfilled me intellectually, I didn’t find a purpose. Yoga came to me as an opportunity for change and it was just like that, from one day to the next.

P. You and your current partner were friends and became intimate through yoga. So am I correct if I say that a yoga class is a good place to flirt?

R. Oh yes. I know other couples who met this way. A man who does yoga is a good recruit because they are people who are already willing to enter into a certain introspection, to also observe the most feminine side of him. They are more sensitive than many men who are not interested in entering that field.

P. And what kind of man is a bad signing for you?

R. [Risas] I’ve been with my partner for so many years that I don’t think about it anymore, but a very important value in the couple is respect. If a man doesn’t respect you because he considers his work, his activities, or what he thinks more important than yours, that’s a red line.

P. You have said many times that for you yoga is not even a sport. What is a pause? Now that yoga is your job, how do you take breaks?

R. I can’t imagine my life without yoga. For me it is not a job, it is a passion. But I have another physical activity that is a personal trainer that I share with my husband once a week. We also go on hikes on the weekends that allow me to reconnect with nature and chat.

P. Have you ever had a vice that you left behind?

R. No never. I don’t drink more than one drink on weekends. I have never taken drugs either. I taste the sweet in a moderate way.

P. You are a very austere person. Is that self-control a sacrifice?

R. None. It is true that I am austere in the sense that I do not need much. I have no car. I don’t have a country house. I don’t consume too much. The only thing I love is traveling, but not in the sense of tourism, but of cultural immersion. Traveling allows me to have another perspective on life and I am very used to doing it, because as a child I used to travel a lot with my parents to see our family in the United States or Canada. I belong to the first generation of Vietnamese born in France, when the word immigration was not even used.

P. And did her parents understand her when she decided to take the leap to yoga?

R. I come from a culture for which the academic education of their children is very important. They firmly believe that if you make a good career to have a good job, if you pay your taxes and don’t bother, nobody can make you bullying [acosar] or treat “immigrant”. I was always a very good student and I followed my parents’ advice: I had to be an economist, engineer or doctor. Philosophy, psychology or the fine arts were not possible options. But it is true that studying a lot helped me to live in the United States and in the end find a job in Spain.

P. Although in the end he ended up rebelling and doing what he wanted.

R. Totally. It was like blossoming at 35 years old. A little late, but better late than never.

P. You say that if we all did yoga as children we would be better. Do you have any proof of it?

R. No, but seeing how adults who don’t have this emotional intelligence function, because their parents didn’t give them space to express their emotions either, it seems logical to me.

P. And what about going to the psychologist?

R. Very necessary. A person outside the environment of the problem in question allows us to open ourselves to see things differently. For many years it has been taboo to say that people went to a psychologist and now it has finally become normal.

P. You go?

R. I don’t, because it’s true that yoga has helped me for so many years to connect with my emotions, my thoughts, my fears. I went once and the doctor told me: “I don’t think I need to come here”.

P. Would you go back to work in a corporate environment or would it be the last thing you would do?

R. I have a hard time imagining it. What was worse was internal politics, diplomacy, intrigues. I do not understand them. These are things that I have not learned from my parents or from my previous life.

P. And yogis have political ideas?

R. There is no talk of politics in yoga. Yoga really is universal ethical values.