Looking ahead to our March HYA Academy workshop, meet Grey Scott, our teaching staff’s boundless source of HIIT energy and enthusiasm!
Grey will be bringing his fun, unique style to this workshop. Grey has been a member of our team for several years now, with a short interruption while he lived in Washington, DC. Since he returned, he has been dedicated to helping students add strength and fun to not just our BLAST classes, but also Power Flow. By day, Grey works from home as a Human Resources director and then pours himself into building sequences and high-octane playlists for this students.
His workshop will be much like his classes: high energy and comprehensive, meeting you at your level of strength and fitness so you can build from there.
Intensity Unleashed: Comprehensive HIIT Training for Every Level
When: Saturday, April 13, 2025
2-4 pm
Where: Mountain Room, heated and with limited capacity
Here’s a chance to meet Grey and learn about his workshop:
HYA: What can students expect from your workshop?
Grey: The first 30 minutes will be a group circle, group chat where we can go over the mental, physical benefits of HIIT and everybody will have the chance to chime in. There are so many elements that people take from HIIT and all of them are the right answer. We will talk about the two different strategies that you can use in HIIT. One is the cardio element, as many reps as you can get in, and the second is strength training, which can be exercises slowed down or tons of different variations to focus on really sculpting muscles. And 90 minutes will be a boot camp. It will not be 90 minutes of HIIT. There will be plenty of time to warm up, plenty of time to cool down with a deep stretch at the end. But we are going to focus on each quadrant of the body and get to that metabolic place cardio wise and just have a really fun time. There will be lots of hands-on coaching individually as well. And tips for your practice to you can focus on doing the exercises at your best rather than your most.
HYA: How did you start your yoga teaching journey?
Grey: I got certified with my 200-hour training in 2018 and a little less than a year later, I did an 80-hour yoga sculpt training that focuses on weight lifting in a yoga class. So much of the curriculum was focused on HIIT and interval training, cueing muscle groups in a different way, modifications, amplifications, variations of postures. When I moved back to DC I also did a HIIT teacher training and that also included weights but also a lot of other elements. That’s where I learned the strategy of to build strength, we go a little slower, to build cardio we go a little faster. How you can change your preference depending on the class depending on the exercise and also to meet your body where it is. to be able to customize the way you approach your practice so you can make it your own.
HYA: How does your HIIT training affect your yoga?
Grey: I learned to focus more in each pose on what are the power muscles of the pose and how can I engage them so I can amp up the benefit of the posture. Like in a crescent lunge, I want to be pressing my back leg so my whole back leg is on fire and then I want to lower my hips a little so I’m really stable in the posture. I also think because I’m very much missing yoga with weights, which is my favorite thing in the world, I add a little bit of that energy in a flow. When people are doing chatturanga, I’ll do one or two extra pushups.
I know challenging myself and getting stronger helps me in a mental way that far exceeds the physical benefits I get, which are significant. I feel like getting stronger, moving forward, I’m always becoming a stronger version of myself that’s more resilient and able to be more confident about approaching things that are difficult. Because I put my body through so much difficulty coming here and taking different classes I feel like things I used to approach and be afraid of, I feel like I can handle it. I can do it.
HYA: How did teaching become your creative outlet?
Grey: I’ve always been so hungry and so excited to teach and I think the reason is, originally I was going to go into an artistic field. Now I work in HR, which is absolutely fine, but for the 40-plus hours I work from home I don’t get to be like Grey. I feel like all of that energy is just building and then I walk into the studio and it kind of explodes. I am extra extra.
During the day I’m the guy in HR, ‘Here’s the rules, here’s what we have to do.’ I feel like with not going into art, being more on the HR, business operations side of the house, I put all of my creative ideas and sequences and music, I put all my artistic energy there because I feel like it’s something I can experience with a community and do it in a way that feels really fun and exciting. If all this stuff wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t be here. I found a way to make it fun as a student and that’s what I want to communicate out, whether it’s the hardest class or slower gentler vibe. It fills me up.
