Latest / Be It Till You See It / 568. Revealing What Yoga Really Means Beyond the Poses

Transcript

568. Revealing What Yoga Really Means Beyond the Poses · Be It Till You See It

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the misconceptions about yoga is that anything goes.
0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is so far from the truth.
0:07
[SPEAKER_01]: If yoga is about anything, it's about setting meaningful boundaries.
0:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the Beat till you see it podcast, where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm also Logan, Ply's instructor, and fit this business coach.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I've trained thousands of people around the world, and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt.
0:31
[SPEAKER_03]: My friends, action brings clarity.
0:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's the antidote to fear.
0:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Each week, my guests will bring bold, executable, intrinsic, and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and be it till you see it.
0:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a practice, not a perfect, let's get started.
0:51
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, be a babe.
0:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I am so stoked for you to hear today's interview.
1:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Our guest today is actually a dear friend of Brad and mine and he's a person we've quoted on the podcast before and he's someone we said we have to get him on the pod and guess what we did it.
1:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And also, I can't believe this is the first time he found the pod.
1:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like there'll be a regular conversation because it's just really fun to
1:18
[SPEAKER_03]: hear him chair his perspective and he is an amazing yoga teacher and this is as much of a yoga podcast as it's not a yoga podcast episode because we talk a lot about what really is yoga and what does it mean to have a yoga practice and what does it turn to teach us?
1:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you think you know what yoga is, I'm going to challenge you to listen because I think it's really easy for us to have been fed something that it's not and then not realize like the amazing benefits that it has.
1:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I'm not going to say anymore because this episode is just one of my favorites.
1:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to go hands down and one I'll quote
1:56
[SPEAKER_03]: in the future.
1:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And I knew that when I brought them on, I just knew that we would have an amazing conversation, and this is hopefully going to entertain, educate, and inspire you.
2:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So here is Anthony Benanati.
2:09
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, be it babe.
2:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really excited.
2:10
[SPEAKER_03]: This person is actually a dear friend.
2:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I know I've said that about some guests, but usually they're a dear friend of like a couple moments.
2:16
[SPEAKER_03]: This person I've known for like ten years.
2:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And Brad's known much longer.
2:21
[SPEAKER_03]: He's been a regular in our lives.
2:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Anthony Benanati.
2:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You are one of the best yoga teachers I know, but also so much more than that.
2:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?
2:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, thank you for having me on one and honor.
2:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Who am I?
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Anthony Bernardino, you said my name.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I am believe it or not, a yoga teacher, a professional yoga teacher.
2:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been doing this for thirty two years now, which when I tell people that a teacher, okay, they have immediate vision of what that might be.
2:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it should be in white.
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I should be in white or with a glow.
3:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not very serious or right?
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody has their assumptions of what yoga is.
3:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Which my job is to help educate and instruct on what the practice truly is versus what it has become to practice that sort of everybody knows now.
3:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus really what it truly is and what its goal is.
3:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I feel like we could also talk about that for hours, because I had someone send me a real of a guy on a reformer with a stationary bike in his hands and feet.
3:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was a joke.
3:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It was an April Fool's joke.
3:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's like, OK, guys, this class, we get cardio and core.
3:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's holding the bike.
3:44
[SPEAKER_03]: He's obviously a joke.
3:45
[SPEAKER_03]: But someone sent me in.
3:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, the fact that this is so hilarious that people who've never done Pilais before are sentenced to me tells me that what people think Pilates is.
3:56
[SPEAKER_03]: has straight far from what Pilates is.
3:59
[SPEAKER_03]: So I feel like I can understand that and I find myself constantly educating people a little bit like well that yes those are Pilates exercises and so but it's not the inherent reality of it is.
4:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I feel like I understand that polite that that journey you're on and a little bit.
4:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You and I've had this conversation many times before because you're so close to the source.
4:22
[SPEAKER_01]: of it and that's what I love about what you do, what you teach.
4:28
[SPEAKER_01]: and where I am and what I teach is that there's a lineage.
4:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're very close to the source.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: In the closer you are to the source, the more authentic the teaching.
4:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
4:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But further down the line, you get disconnected from that course source, then everything starts to get watered down and this communicated lots of stuff gets forgotten.
4:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
4:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's like the game of telephone.
4:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I mean, like, when you play that game in school, like, the further it goes down the line, the more warped it gets.
5:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes.
5:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's funny, but also like, that is the reality.
5:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Can we take a step back?
5:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Because like, a yoga instructor for thirty two years.
5:10
[SPEAKER_03]: That is a long time.
5:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think like, there's not many of you.
5:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's many of you probably in India.
5:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But like, there's not many of people who've had that many decades.
5:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And have studied the way you have, like, did you grow up?
5:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, doing yoga?
5:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you do a lot of yoga teachers?
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: No, the story is pretty remarkable.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I did not grow up with yoga.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I didn't really understand what yoga was until I was literally introduced to it after I moved here to LA.
5:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been in LA since nineteen ninety one before that.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in the military.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It was in the air force.
5:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I was in the air force, I was a competitive power lifter.
5:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I played sports all my life.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So my body was pretty wrapped in my twenties.
6:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a shoulder surgery and a knee surgery already.
6:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember I was waiting tables and I had met this girl.
6:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was taken by the way she sort of carried herself.
6:14
[SPEAKER_01]: She walked in very upright.
6:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost royal.
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, you know, it's LA.
6:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's moving to LA to become an actress and I thought, okay, this girl, right?
6:24
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like telling her family, I don't want your money.
6:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm moving to LA and I'm going to be an actress.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I asked her and she laughed in my face and she lifts it up the back of her shirt and she showed me a thirteen inch scar on her spine.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And she told me that
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: When she was young, she had this incredible es curve in her back.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was in a full body cast from her neck all the way down through her torso.
6:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, oh my god, that sounds painful.
6:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, how do you move?
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't seen you bad.
7:04
[SPEAKER_01]: She goes, I can't.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The only thing I can bend is my hips.
7:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I can turn my hips, but I cannot bend my back.
7:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, what do you do for relief?
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, I do yoga.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, explain what's that and how does that help you?
7:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, I'd love to explain it, but I don't think I can.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you just come through a class?
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did.
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, me then, I was really big.
7:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I had all this muscle mass, right?
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went to my first class and I could not finish.
7:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Could not finish the class.
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It kicked my butt.
7:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was so, my ego got triggered.
7:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that's important for me as a teacher now when I teach my students is that there is yoga doesn't see things in good and bad.
7:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga sees things, sees things in doesn't work or not.
7:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, ego served me because it made me go back and it made me go back
8:10
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, the reasons, because I think I was going to get it.
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's fine.
8:16
[SPEAKER_01]: For whatever reason someone enters into the practice is fine.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You're there.
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That'd be the important part.
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We can work on the why and the why always evolves as you get along through the practice.
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But for me, I tell people, ego brought me to yoga.
8:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And it kept me there.
8:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
8:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's an interesting, like,
8:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I wear my teachers and they're like, oh, I don't want to work with people who want to lose weight.
8:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, you don't have to promise them anything you can't do.
8:47
[SPEAKER_03]: But if that brought them into the space, I would much rather you a non, like someone who's not going to manipulate or use them or a lie to them to be the safe landing for them to find a movement practice that can help them love the body that they have.
9:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm not here to be like, I won't take you if you want to lose weight.
9:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll just say,
9:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's the science of weight loss.
9:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's how I can fit in.
9:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And, and here's how I don't, you know, but this is what we can do together and like building that trust.
9:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And if that's what brought them in and that's what got them just keep coming the beginning.
9:20
[SPEAKER_03]: But then they stay coming because of how it makes them feel.
9:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they become a person who doesn't worry about that because they actually care more about how they feel than how that what the scale says.
9:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Like to me, that's kind of like that same thing like I think too often people are wanting to turn away that negative energy and air quotes.
9:38
[SPEAKER_03]: because that's not what something is but really it's like you can't just you don't we don't get to decide how people come to us.
9:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
9:46
[SPEAKER_03]: All we can do is like kind of be a space for them to to evolve and learn the what what what what they want it but they're here what we can teach them.
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm glad that you said that I'm glad that you said to create the space because that's exactly what it is.
10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it it's like we want to create a safe space for them to explore them.
10:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
10:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And not come in with this bunch of judgment that I'm putting on to them so that they feel uncomfortable.
10:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I want them to feel as comfortable as they can starting anything new is difficult.
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We all know that.
10:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's not make it harder.
10:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
10:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
10:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I also like that you said there's like, there's not bad or good.
10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, that's a radical, that's a radical idea for people.
10:29
[SPEAKER_01]: In the West, we are programmed.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: This is good, and this is bad.
10:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I can even hear, you probably hear this in your students' languages, too.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's my bad side, or I have a bad leg, or I have the bad shoulder.
10:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
10:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm careful with that.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Careful with the languageing.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not bad.
10:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It may be injured.
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It may be weaker.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It may be tighter, but that doesn't mean it's bad.
10:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I, well, I, there was a year's ago, like years ago.
10:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I can remember where I was driving, but I can't remember the name of the podcast.
11:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I was in traffic on Sam's City trying to get to well, they're all invited.
11:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was listed as podcasts and they talked about how like we have to be mindful of how we talk about our body because our body is listening.
11:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And they have done studies that if you, like, say, I, I gain weight.
11:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm someone who can't lose weight.
11:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I, I'm fat or all this up.
11:20
[SPEAKER_03]: You're bought those people who say that they actually have seen that they produce fat cells.
11:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that's what they do, right?
11:26
[SPEAKER_03]: versus like they also like told people like, oh, you had this knee surgery and the person goes, oh, I had knee surgery.
11:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So my knee is better.
11:33
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't have knee surgery.
11:34
[SPEAKER_03]: They literally didn't give it to them.
11:35
[SPEAKER_03]: They just pretended.
11:36
[SPEAKER_03]: They put them under.
11:38
[SPEAKER_03]: They had controls.
11:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't worry.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing but the placebo effect.
11:41
[SPEAKER_03]: But you tell your body, like, really does matter.
11:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And I city with BJ fog, who's the fat, who wrote tiny habits.
11:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's really the leading scientist on habits that everybody has been stealing from.
11:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And let's still answer wrong.
11:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Where did they put a study with them?
11:54
[SPEAKER_03]: But at any rate, he said there's no such thing as a bad or good habit.
11:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything serves you.
12:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Every like the habits you don't like about yourself if you don't like that you scroll on the internet if you don't like that you binge watch Netflix that you they'll all the habits we have service they provide something because your brain actually doesn't want to be around anything that causes judgment or shame so it's seeking like oh like
12:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's comfortable for you to, it's soothing to just binge out and watch something.
12:24
[SPEAKER_03]: You get, you get to avoid the other thoughts you have or with certainty, which we all are looking for.
12:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And so he said, if you, so you can't ever say, I have a bad habit or I don't want to have good habits.
12:34
[SPEAKER_03]: They're just all habits.
12:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And then there might be habits you prefer and have a dude like they get rid of.
12:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
12:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think in the context of the yoga conversation, yoga would simply ask, do your habits serve you?
12:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's another way to say it, right?
12:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's good or bad, is it serving you?
12:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe at the end of the night, you had a really shitty night.
12:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And you need a drink.
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And most people would go, oh my god, you teach yoga, you don't drink.
13:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
13:02
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another stereotype.
13:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But does that drink serve you in that moment?
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it going to control you?
13:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it going to take over?
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: May it take the edge off and allow you to process the things that you're going through.
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Other ways to process it.
13:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but not everybody can just be like, you know what?
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm super stressed and I'm just going to sit and meditate.
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not that's not realistic.
13:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
13:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
13:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not realistic for somebody.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to meet people where they are.
13:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
13:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And make the changes gradually.
13:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I mean, Jeff to meet yourself where you are.
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yes.
13:44
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so huge.
13:45
[SPEAKER_03]: You just mentioned something.
13:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought it would be really good timing.
13:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Since there is the stereotype of what yoga is, especially in the West.
13:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Especially in in big cities.
13:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, actually even now because the way things work in rural areas is just franchises.
14:00
[SPEAKER_03]: So like so what is yoga really?
14:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, how long is this pot?
14:09
[SPEAKER_03]: We can have you back for another.
14:10
[SPEAKER_03]: We can split it up.
14:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Part two, on its most basic level, yoga is a practice.
14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been, well, the, the iteration that we know as yoga today.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: has only been around a couple hundred years prior to that prior to the last five thousand years with yoga yoga has been a ritual, a path, a practice to transcend the known or the physical to transcend it.
14:38
[SPEAKER_01]: To instead of saying, I am my body, yoga's back then would say, I am not my body.
14:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they would use the practice to try and extracate themselves from their body.
14:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So a free soul, you can take it that way.
14:55
[SPEAKER_01]: The soul that inhabits me is limited by this physical boundary.
15:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to use the yoga practice to liberate myself from this physical, literally prison is how they thought of it.
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But things evolved and as things do over hundreds and thousands of years, consciousness changes and societies evolved and mindsets change and even language changes.
15:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So yoga now has become a physical practice to help the body and the mind connect.
15:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a saying that if you keep the body to cool the mind, most people they start thinking a lot when they stop doing.
15:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why a lot of people are just doing all the time.
15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Do, do, do, do, do.
15:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's no room for thinking.
15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when they stop doing all of these thoughts start coming up.
15:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And they don't know how to deal with them.
15:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So they just start doing it again, right?
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is I guess a way of pushing things down so that you don't have to deal with it.
16:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga's give yoga gives us a invitation to try something else.
16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an invitation to be like, how does my body work?
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And how does it work better?
16:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
16:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And not for the sake of the practice itself, but how is it going to help my life?
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you do yoga every day, let's just say you do thirty minutes of yoga every day.
16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: There's twenty-three and a half other hours.
16:30
[SPEAKER_01]: What else are you going to do?
16:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully your yoga practice is serving that.
16:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
16:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, thirty minutes everyone is two percent of your day if you want to do the math it's two percent.
16:40
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you can't give two percent of yourself to something that helps you become better the other ninety eight percent like
16:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
16:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I love the way that you described it.
16:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that it's really true.
16:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it kind of takes it away.
16:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I think people get caught up in the process of yoga, the poses, or the styles.
17:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's just all process, which no one really, like, in the world of marketing guys sells nothing.
17:06
[SPEAKER_03]: No one cares about the process.
17:08
[SPEAKER_03]: They care about the transformation.
17:10
[SPEAKER_03]: The idea of like, you know, you said, like, breaking free of this limiting thing.
17:16
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be like the thing, the promise.
17:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go back.
17:20
[SPEAKER_03]: We kind of got you got the ego kept you going to yoga.
17:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Why did you, like, did you know you wanted to be a teacher?
17:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, did you?
17:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I, because I had the same thing.
17:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I went to pause kicking and screaming to be completely honest.
17:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought it was a bullshit and film or she'll work out.
17:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I loved it.
17:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I kept going back because I felt really good.
17:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And it wasn't till someone said I should be a teacher that I even thought about being a teacher.
17:40
[SPEAKER_03]: So how did you become a teacher?
17:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like, thirty two years.
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly, that's exactly right.
17:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It was my teacher at the time that had told me after class.
17:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this was maybe a year, year and a half into starting with him.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But he said, you know, because we had multiple conversations, not just in the classroom, but outside we go and have to hear whatever.
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was having you ever thought about teaching yoga.
18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, absolutely not.
18:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, why would I, what would I do that?
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I barely know the practice.
18:12
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I understand that and I can get you more information.
18:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But I see something in you that I think will help other people.
18:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what he saw and after teaching a whole bunch of teacher trainees myself, the most effectual teacher is someone who understands how people get to the practice.
18:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I mean by that is if, for instance, if I grew up in the over tradition and my parents were teachers and I had been doing yoga all my life and I never really understood the struggle of a type body of not being able to do the poses of not understanding the language of having no connection to yoga whatsoever.
18:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I couldn't offer that to anybody else coming into the practice because I would, some of the teachers that I trained who are super flexible for instance, they never understand what it's like not to be.
19:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's hard to have empathy for the student that is having a very difficult time doing the most basic movement.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think empathy is such an important factor to be a great teacher.
19:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be able to put yourself in their shoes.
19:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
19:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Or barefoot, that's it.
19:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree.
19:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I think, I think, you know, I used to be embarrassed by like how I thought some negatively about Pilates.
19:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I realized it was actually probably the way that made people trust to even try it out.
19:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I also thought it was bullshit.
19:44
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, I got it.
19:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the other thing like I do have one of those hypermobile bodies, but I fractured my Tibial Plateau.
19:51
[SPEAKER_03]: before I met and I remember like all the sphere about like what that meant for my applies practice when I met for my weight training my running everything right was like fear going on and then I also realized in my own healing how easy I was giving it to people with knee surgeries because I was just like okay like don't move this in time.
20:13
[SPEAKER_03]: thing and so I have an ender as like oh there's actually a lot of things they can do.
20:17
[SPEAKER_03]: There's like so much like and there's also so much they can't do but like you know like we don't have to like push them but at the same token like we can challenge this body because they got injured for a reason there was an imbalance and that's why that happened.
20:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
20:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're here to address that imbalance.
20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, a lot of times yoga is translated as union, which is a very simple and it's not a direct translation.
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So the root word of yoga is actually thousands of years old.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's huge why you j. And it means to yoke.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an old fashion term.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the yolk when they used to yolk the horse to the cart or the ox to the cart.
21:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not in because I did do the organ trail and that is where I learned yolk.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the image that I want people to have here.
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very important because what you have.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So yoga at that point becomes an action.
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a verb.
21:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just a mound.
21:20
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it?
21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is it doing?
21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's joining.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is it joining?
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's joining two different things, right?
21:28
[SPEAKER_01]: The cart and the horse.
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Now alone, these two things serve purposes, don't they?
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you connect them, then you can do incredible things that neither one of these things could do by themselves.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the yoga practice, we say one in one never equals two.
21:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It always equals three.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's you, there's the thing, and then there's the thing you guys are creating.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's you and Brad as individuals and it's your marriage, which is a living entity.
22:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has a life of its own.
22:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't feed and nourish that third thing, not only will it die, but then you're broken apart again.
22:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
22:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you should become a counselor as well.
22:19
[SPEAKER_01]: after class is about when people feel comfortable with you they come after class and then they start telling you about deeper issues, right?
22:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Things that not the body, but the why, the why that they're here, why are they struggling, why are they having a hard time?
22:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I was actually listening to one of your previous podcasts this morning as we were taking me and my wife were taking the walk actually around the lake here and we were listening and it was the client
22:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Or the person you had on that had stage four cancer?
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember you said something and it was very astute.
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You said that well, you didn't know how many and I looked it up.
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We have about sixty thousand thoughts a day.
23:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And you said about ninety five percent of them are negative.
23:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's true.
23:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like we have these same repetitive thoughts all throughout the day and the majority of them, the vast majority of them are negative or repeats from the day before and the day before and the day before and at what point do you start addressing this and start changing the narrative?
23:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga is the invitation to start learning that you can, that there is an issue first.
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the tools to change them.
23:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love yoga as a referral as an action, not just a thing like we can name it.
23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can't just name it and make it.
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't just put goats in the room and call it yoga.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not.
23:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm with you on that.
23:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like,
24:02
[SPEAKER_03]: It's cute, everyone.
24:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And so don't at me.
24:04
[SPEAKER_03]: It is adorable.
24:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And if it gets people in sure, but also like, you're now paying attention to the goat.
24:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not you.
24:13
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just like another distraction that you know, I think like I think
24:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's really easy people want to distract themselves from all that's going on.
24:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, first of all, you've been a teacher since the nineties.
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So in LA, which means your studio was around during lots of things.
24:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know, I don't, I don't remember when like the riots were if your stew was open, but then there was like nine or eleven.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's were ninety two.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was just after I got here.
24:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So I opened the studio in ninety nine.
24:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So nine eleven happened for us and that was a remarkable time.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously the next Gulf War happened and lots of other things and you know the studio became a community became a place for people to go.
25:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if they just wanted to sit and be in the room.
25:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Let alone practice.
25:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember the practice after nine eleven people just wanted to sit and gather and cry and talk and rage.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And not move.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't want to move their bodies.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They just needed community.
25:18
[SPEAKER_01]: They felt so detached.
25:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
25:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I wasn't in a practice at the time, but I remember because we were in California.
25:26
[SPEAKER_03]: So you're so removed, but you're not.
25:29
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and so like I can see how like your space can be that and I think like.
25:34
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so cool and also so big to have us to to do a practice that can be so many things for people.
25:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It can be the community that they need.
25:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It can be the safe space that they share and it can be a constant like it's there no matter when things are good or when things are bad and we don't have a lot of those things right like there's not.
25:54
[SPEAKER_03]: there's not a lot of places or things you can do even when times are good and when times are bad and I know you're gonna tell me the good and bad but like you know in the in the happier joyful times versus like the Saturday times right now we're in a really difficult time yeah
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've been here before.
26:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
26:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Two thousand and eight, we were here.
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: The last time this particular present was in office, we were here.
26:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And we go through these cycles.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're not unlike other cycles throughout the history of life.
26:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And we will have more.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not always positive.
26:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not always happy.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not always on the in-cline.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it takes a dip.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And you and I both know that that's really where you're tested.
26:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You're tested in the dips.
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You're never tested when things are great.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're never going to change when things are comfortable either.
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Change only happens when you're uncomfortable.
26:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
26:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really true.
26:46
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the my favorite things that you would bring up when we're in class is talking about like, you know, you can't have love without hate that equal opposite.
26:55
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was hoping you can like dive into that a little bit for us because I think one, I actually think since
27:02
[SPEAKER_03]: these several moments of two thousand eight and twenty sixteen and and now it's really easy for people to not see good and so it makes me go like you guys like you're seeing all the hate like are you recognizing it's equal opposite but I also like I think it's hard I think people
27:22
[SPEAKER_03]: are always waiting for another shooter drop.
27:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It's supposed to like noticing when things are are also going well.
27:29
[SPEAKER_03]: But anyways, I wanted to know if you could like just share a little bit about that because my listeners haven't heard that and it was my favorite things like Brad brought up your like Saturday morning classes at today and a call of people and he said like there'd be like fifty people on this room and you know like you would often bring that up and it was always around the same time that like something not great was going on.
27:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We all just felt that whether it was in the city or the world and like you have to remind yourself of those things.
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It ties into the whole good and bad thing because it's a reframing of thought.
27:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to really reframe this idea that even if it's something that you don't like, it's serving something.
28:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a basic function of physics.
28:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Things wouldn't exist if it didn't have an opposite.
28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But you wouldn't know joy if you didn't know pain.
28:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You wouldn't know laughter if you didn't know sadness.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You wouldn't have anything to reference it to.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So your capacity to love is directly related to your capacity to hate, to feeling these negative, quote, negative feelings versus these positive.
28:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They're there and a balance each other out.
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the idea is that it's your choice which one you want to feed.
28:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You remember Star Wars, right?
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about the force.
28:49
[SPEAKER_01]: The force is this is this neutral thing.
28:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's how you choose to use it.
28:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all using the same force.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But the lesson was, am I going to use this to help empower and further and engage?
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Or am I going to use this for selfish and personal and destructive reasons?
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Same energy.
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you use it?
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So rather than wasting your time on whether something is good or bad or right and wrong, it really serves you to think, is this serving me?
29:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Because at like you said earlier, at some point in your life, it served you.
29:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
29:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it was to keep you safe when you were a child, for instance, maybe you were in a really bad home life and you learned coping mechanisms, you learned, for instance, maybe how to shut it out, right, and how to go into your own cave, which is which is very easy for me to do.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: If things get too much, I tend to remove myself and go back into this little cave.
29:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you can't do that when you're in relationship.
29:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you certainly can't do that for very long.
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You need tools.
30:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yes, I need to go take ten or thirty minutes to myself, but I'll be back.
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that communication to let that other person know.
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not leaving you.
30:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not not communicating with you, but I do need to take care of myself.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's changing the language around us.
30:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So it helps me to think, for instance, this bad time that we're having right now, it's temporary.
30:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, temporary may mean years.
30:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know.
30:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I had a like a thing like, like a little mantra car.
30:33
[SPEAKER_03]: There's like everything, everything, everything is temporary.
30:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, and temporary does not mean two seconds, two minutes, two weeks.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
30:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no time limit on temporary.
30:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But it will end.
30:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Things always do.
30:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Things always change.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was helpful to me to look at kind of liking that in a different way.
30:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a raise like that.
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I was raised as a Catholic.
30:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was always guilt and shame and right and wrong and very linear thinking, very black and white thinking, very dualistic.
31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of this idea that maybe it's not so black and white, maybe there is the gray.
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we're all learning that extremism on either end is not the path.
31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So far right or far left, we're not going to get anywhere because we're isolating.
31:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to find a way to start communicating again and finding common ground.
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: and stop making other the problem.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my, I think that goes on and off the mat.
31:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't look at your body as a bad thing.
31:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't look at it as something that you need to conquer or change or that somehow there's something wrong with you.
31:52
[SPEAKER_01]: How can I enhance myself?
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: How can I make me who I am and everything that I am that may not do somebody else
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But very unique to me, how can I make myself even better, a better version of me?
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
32:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Not somebody else.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to be somebody else.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I just have to be the best me I can be.
32:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:15
[SPEAKER_03]: It makes me think of like, I interview the happiness strategist.
32:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, you know, I was like, this is interesting because like, like, can you be happy all the time?
32:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And she's like, well, of course not.
32:25
[SPEAKER_03]: She's like, like, she's like, she's like, but
32:27
[SPEAKER_03]: She said, your ability to be happy is you use as directly related to how uncomfortable you can get like how comfortable you can get like that's can you like what's your resilience and she you know and I think like
32:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I think a lot of people have been outsourcing so long.
32:48
[SPEAKER_03]: How they feel based on like what's going on out in the world and not going back to like, how can I make myself the best version?
32:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Because we can affect the people around us more easily.
32:59
[SPEAKER_03]: When you were talking about other, it made me think you guys Google the Heinrich and Commercial.
33:03
[SPEAKER_03]: It's quite long, but they literally took like
33:07
[SPEAKER_03]: people of opposite extremes and like they took a guy who like voted against gay marriage and then they took a lesbian and they put them in a room together and they have to like build a desk right and like and they are table or they build something and the guy like this one guy is like completely I got this I like I can do these things right and she's like and like so they have to work together to build this thing and like each person's strengths have to do it and then they have to sit down and have a beer
33:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And at the end, the people who, like, would they interview them before they met the person they're building with?
33:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It would be like, I don't understand transgender.
33:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they have Chanel rights, blah, blah, blah, blah.
33:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they meet someone who's transgender, but they just built the stats together.
33:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And you watch this person go, well, let's have another dream.
33:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And like, so it's really fascinating that, like, if we can actually stop, you know, being on the opposite sides and we can actually be together,
34:02
[SPEAKER_03]: In you get to know people, you're more likely to hear them and listen them and realize you're kind of like what you think has been influenced by so much by other people who are louder and you you actually love people who are around you more than you know you know and so I think that's what's so beautiful about a yoga class or even applies classes they can attract people from all sides of a spectrum and have a shared experience and you know and the more they get to know themselves the more
34:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Ideally, and this may be the idealists in me, like, they think about caring for others because they can.
34:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Because once you've taken care of you, you actually have the capacity to actually care about other people.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Oxygen mass, baby.
34:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all about putting on your oxygen mask, right?
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to put yours on first.
34:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't help anybody else if you're passed out.
34:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
34:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But I like what you said there, too, because yoga does want to meet people where they're at.
34:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember I had this woman in class.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: She always set up front.
34:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the beginning class at that time, we would chant the sound of home in the beginning of a class just to settle the class and get things going.
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And she would never chant.
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's fine.
35:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to, right?
35:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, again, everything's an invitation.
35:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But she did come up to me after class one day.
35:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had a conversation and I asked her why.
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, well, you know, I'm a devout Jew.
35:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like I'm sort of disrespecting my tradition.
35:26
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm doing something, I don't understand.
35:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say, well, I'm so glad that you brought that up.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, you're good doesn't care what you believe.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You can believe, you know, orange is God.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can still practice.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You're good doesn't require the leaf.
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It just requires a willingness.
35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, you're about you.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are you comfortable saying?
35:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, well, Shalom.
35:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, what's in the middle of Shalom?
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, oh,
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, exactly.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So from that point on, we would chant, oh, and she would chant, shalom.
36:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And she would just hold the home.
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It for some reason, it gave her permission.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It was totally fine with everybody else.
36:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she felt included.
36:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
36:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a wonderful story.
36:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
36:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I think also giving people permission, right?
36:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I think that's what, you know, people can have permission to move their body, but also be in practice.
36:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that's why it's called a yoga practice.
36:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's what it does so well.
36:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Something that like I call it applies practice.
36:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are a lot of people like me who call it practice.
36:33
[SPEAKER_03]: but there's also a lot of people who don't understand that and they don't call out that and they're like, I gotta get this and it's like, no, what's you're talking about?
36:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you're never gonna, like, you don't get that.
36:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, it's your body, your body is different every single day.
36:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, there are days, like at six a.m., I do pull out, he's in the A&A and my workout with you.
36:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And my body between those two hours is very different and I'm like, whoa, I, what happened on my dog log that this is no longer an option?
36:57
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do, I do like that.
36:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I wanna go into, cause I think like,
37:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You have had some many chapters in your yoga career.
37:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And how you are teaching yoga now is very different than what you did for the majority on your studio and things like that.
37:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we talk about some be it till you see it moments and like kind of like what you're what are you being till you see right now.
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right.
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I did go through a lot when you when you have a studio for that long, you know, you go through a lot of changes, including me and my original partner, we split.
37:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was that moment where you had to decide who's going to fight for this, who's going to get the studio because we both wanted it.
37:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was that was all about desire.
37:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you really want this and how bad do you want it?
37:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And then.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, there were other things that came up.
37:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time you're being tested and you will be tested, no matter how committed you think you are to whatever it is that you think you want, you're going to continue to be tested.
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just is a way to reaffirm.
37:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I really want to be it?
38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I really want to do this?
38:03
[SPEAKER_01]: For me now, you're right.
38:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It is different.
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: My body is different.
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: My practice is different.
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And not in a bad or a good way.
38:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Just different.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the different body than it was when it was in my late twenties.
38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Being it now is for me is really being about being authentic.
38:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Being authentic to the moment being authentic to my students, but really being authentic to my own inner voice.
38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And every time I get on the mat, the first thing I tell my students is listen.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen to your body.
38:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to tell you something different today that it did yesterday.
38:40
[SPEAKER_01]: If you come on to the mat with an agenda, most of the time, you're going to be disappointed.
38:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you don't know that your body's ready to do those things that day, that particular day, maybe you need something completely different than you thought.
38:55
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to be open to that.
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the day I decided that my time of studio ownership is over.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a tough one.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a really hard day.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: The moment I decided to make that shift, I felt so much more freedom.
39:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga had changed.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it really had to come corporate at this point.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It was being completely watered down.
39:22
[SPEAKER_01]: People were barely doing teacher trainings and leading yoga classes.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just became too much of a struggle to do the business of yoga versus being the teacher.
39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, when you own your own business, you never are not working.
39:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing.
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's twenty four seven, right?
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't get to clock out and go home and forget about it.
39:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's a reason why I like watch white lotus.
39:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, because I'm not where I can't work and watch white lotus.
39:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Like this is me being awesome.
39:53
[SPEAKER_03]: That's how it serves me even if it's like gives me a little stress and anxiety.
39:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, I'm not working.
40:00
[SPEAKER_03]: So I get it.
40:01
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, like, yeah, and then I
40:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm, where I married to someone I work with.
40:06
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's never, it's never off.
40:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Never off.
40:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I thank you for sharing that because I mean, like, I think a lot of people, there's an aspiration to start something or do something or own something.
40:19
[SPEAKER_03]: But as you said, you've evolved.
40:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Not only has yoga evolved, but you've evolved.
40:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Your body has changed.
40:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think sometimes we forget that as we evolve,
40:30
[SPEAKER_03]: we outgrow some roles, you know, and like just like you outgrow clothes, like you outgrow, like you outgrow a role and it's like owning a studio, sort of such a good purpose at the time, like you at a partner and a family and like all these things and then it also got to a place where it's like all this is changing and I have to, you know, but that's so hard to like, is it like a light switch?
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, you know, I had felt it, but not really paid attention to it.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know how your body does.
40:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Your body was jumped in there and it'll call your attention.
41:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I literally had my one and only panic attack at that moment.
41:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, oh, yeah, this is a sign.
41:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You are not in a good place.
41:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's time to get out.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's time.
41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: This had run its course.
41:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
41:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was a hard decision to really give up the thing that you worked so hard to create.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was also learning that that was separate from who I was, that we were not inextricably connected, that we were these individual things.
41:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did create a third thing.
41:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But that third thing was dying.
41:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was time to change into something else.
41:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
41:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
41:43
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you most excited about right now?
41:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, we are empty nesters.
41:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the most.
41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We have three or five years of being a parent.
41:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I had a, I had someone I just interviewed just like I'm a bird launcher.
41:59
[SPEAKER_03]: She's like, I've launched all my birds.
42:01
[SPEAKER_03]: They're all bird.
42:02
[SPEAKER_03]: They're all launched.
42:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So like the positive of that.
42:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so true.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We are so excited about this next chapter for us, which is freedom in a lot of different ways.
42:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
42:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're never not the parent, but they don't need you every day anymore.
42:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You need you when they need you.
42:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And happy to be there when they do like this morning, my youngest called from college.
42:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And she stayed on the phone for over an hour.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And she just needed feedback.
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: She needed to connect.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: She didn't necessarily need a ton of advice.
42:37
[SPEAKER_01]: She just, you could feel that she needed connection.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: For now, for me, it really is about this next chapter.
42:45
[SPEAKER_01]: your lives are a bunch of chapters.
42:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the, you know, fifty's I'll be fifty eight this year.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very, I know, right?
42:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can't believe it myself.
43:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But this idea now that I can make choices solely for me or solely for us as a couple.
43:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And not, oh my God, what are we going to do with the kids?
43:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And is this child going to come or are we going to do this all together that we can make these choices for ourselves?
43:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really excited about that.
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the personal aspect of the professionally.
43:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Professionally things have changed, you know, ever since COVID, everybody went online and which is great.
43:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great way to connect to everybody.
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But I still feel the need to be in the classroom.
43:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do those in persons and we do those yoga retreats and we do those monthly workshops just so that people can have that feeling of connection and community again.
43:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's why we do our tours too.
43:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I love being online because I can't impact people without having to travel as much.
43:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And also like I need to see bodies in three dimensions.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you think of a dressman?
44:00
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't see it.
44:01
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm literally like so if I was there, I would hold your arms still.
44:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Imagine I'm like, is your child around?
44:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Can they grab your arms and hold them?
44:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Hold that hold their arms?
44:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, now go.
44:13
[SPEAKER_02]: That's so good.
44:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, but like, I think it, I think that's why like I like the idea of like really, really framing what's good or bad because like I think it could be so easy like back before the pandemic, like, oh, online is terrible.
44:26
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't have those things.
44:28
[SPEAKER_03]: What we bread, I used to like call you.
44:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Just be on my phone because I was like, I can't handle the traffic.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't, but I want you.
44:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So just just be on, just be on speaker phone.
44:38
[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't want me to do it ourselves and we'll be in love it.
44:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, but like when the pandemic happened, I was like, oh, I love this because now I can have access to the people.
44:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't live in the same town as you.
44:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And I Brad, I still get to have that practice with you.
44:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, but also, yeah, we miss like actual hugs and actually seeing people and you have to be more intentional, but I think that that, I think then we are more intentional, you know, so that's also cool.
45:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we really mourn the day you guys left.
45:07
[SPEAKER_03]: When we moved from LA to Las Vegas was during the pandemic, and we didn't actually have a morning because nothing was actually happening in person.
45:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I was a year and a half later, when things opened back up, and we were not part of the opening back up.
45:22
[SPEAKER_03]: That was like, so it was a delayed morning and delayed grief for us.
45:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, obviously we're gonna all catch up, guys.
45:28
[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna take a break.
45:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Find out how people can find you, follow you, do yoga with you.
45:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Great.
45:35
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, Anthony, where do you hang out?
45:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, are you on the Instagram?
45:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is there just a simpler way?
45:42
[SPEAKER_03]: How can people do yoga with you or learn more about what you're doing?
45:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Where can I go?
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then go to my website, which is that's not yoga.com.
45:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, there's a story behind that because that's a pretty bold statement, which was intentional.
45:58
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the misconceptions about yoga is that anything goes, right?
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is so far from the truth.
46:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If yoga is about anything, it's about setting meaningful boundaries.
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you take a bunch of energy and you narrow it, you're going to increase the flow of that energy.
46:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Just think of water.
46:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a lake.
46:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the boundaries that becomes a river.
46:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the boundaries even more becomes a raging river.
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So most people think that if you limit their choices, then you're limiting their freedom.
46:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But I call it
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: the cheesecake factory theory walk into a cheesecake factory and you sit down and they literally throw you down a book and they're like okay what do you want and you can have anything the book is like an inch thick and I just get overloaded because there's too many choices I much prefer to go to a restaurant where they just print the menu that day and there's six things on it and you can have this this or this and I'm like great I'll have that
47:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The narrowing of your choice is actually gives you more freedom.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're constantly saying, no, to a bunch of things, while you're saying, yes, to a limited amount of things, right?
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: With that being in marriage, you're saying, yes, to Brad and note it, everybody else.
47:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's this process that continues throughout your entire day.
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: What am I letting in?
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: What am I consciously keeping away?
47:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that understanding.
47:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
47:35
[SPEAKER_03]: So you guys, just so you know, because he didn't say it, but I'm just gonna say it for him.
47:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Brad and I can do yoga online with this man.
47:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You need to do it three times a week.
47:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I try to show twice a week when I'm there and Brad, we're getting him on the ATM, wake up call.
47:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We're working on it.
47:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have her?
47:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have her?
47:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have her?
47:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have her?
47:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have her?
47:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
47:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
48:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
48:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have her?
48:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Do
48:07
[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of just gave us a beat action I am, but I just want to see if there is any other bold executable intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be a telesee it.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
48:18
[SPEAKER_01]: The triad, the triumvir that we like to follow in the practice is desire, knowledge, action.
48:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are my be it moments.
48:31
[SPEAKER_01]: To break it down, you got to want to do something.
48:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you have to learn how to do it.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you do it.
48:38
[SPEAKER_01]: This whole idea of just do it.
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not going to work.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Just doing something without knowing how to do it can cause you harm doing something and you don't have the real desire to do it.
48:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to put your best effort in.
48:52
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do those three things in that order, you can pretty much do whatever you want to do.
48:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to want to do it, you've got to learn how to do it, and then you simply have to do it, and you have to commit to doing it over and over and over again.
49:08
[SPEAKER_01]: to create that meaningful change.
49:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are my action items.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And the thing is, if you don't want to do it, don't do it.
49:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
49:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing.
49:18
[SPEAKER_03]: That's so great.
49:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You're exactly more freedom.
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's whole, that's yoga's goal.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga just wants you to be more free.
49:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But that doesn't mean no boundaries.
49:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It means establishing meaningful boundaries.
49:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Boundaries that are going to channel you in the direction you want to go.
49:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And guess what people, you can always change your mind.
49:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think you can always change your mind.
49:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that is like, that needs to be on people's walls because I find like, you know, like, imagine if you never gave yourself permission to change your mind, you might, you might, the world might have lost a yoga teacher that day because you would have had a panic attack and then a burnout, you know, like you can change your mind on your schedule, you can change your mind on your goals, you can change your mind on a lot of things, like, you know, and that is, for the perfectionist listening, that might be the hardest thing you learn.
50:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm speaking to you perfectionist.
50:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
50:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh Anthony obviously I could talk to you for hours and clearly Brad is like itching to walk in this room you guys.
50:20
[SPEAKER_03]: So we got a lot of men so you can say hi to his friend.
50:22
[SPEAKER_03]: But thank you for being here and thank you for just sharing so much of your wisdom.
50:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I continue to learn from you always.
50:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't wait to learn more.
50:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Someday we're gonna do a joint Pilates yoga.
50:33
[SPEAKER_03]: That is my dream.
50:34
[SPEAKER_03]: That is my vision.
50:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it.
50:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe on the summer tour.
50:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe you'll be our ally event.
50:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So see you guys.
50:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Let us know what your favorite takeaways were, let Anthony know, and that's not yoga, let the be it pod know, and show that the friend who needs to hear it, because that's how everyone wins.
50:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we all can take away something from this, and I'd love to hear what yours are.
50:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know what to do.
50:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Until next time, be it till you see it.
50:56
[SPEAKER_03]: That's all I got for this episode of The Beat Tell You See A Podcast.
50:59
[SPEAKER_03]: One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review.
51:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcasts.
51:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at The Beat Pot on Instagram.
51:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I would love to know more about you.
51:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it.
51:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Help us and others be a tell you see it.
51:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Have an awesome day.
51:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Be it till you see it is a production of the Bloom Podcast Network.
51:26
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at plus one three one oh nine oh five five three four or send a DM on Instagram at be it pod.
51:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Leslie Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.
51:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It is transcribed, produced, and edited by the epic team at disenio.co.
51:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Our theme music is by Ellie at Apex production music, and our branding by designer and artist John Franco Chilfe.
51:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.
51:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website.
52:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, to Meredith Rude for keeping us all on point and on time.
52:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm interviewing Anthony.
52:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, Brad.
52:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's an interview right now.
52:16
[SPEAKER_03]: No, we're not done.
52:17
[SPEAKER_03]: You're just interrupting.
52:17
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll put this in the bloopers.
52:19
[SPEAKER_03]: He's coming twice and I'm like, um, what's up, buddy?
52:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to say hi.
52:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, okay.
52:25
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
52:25
[SPEAKER_00]: One second.
52:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me get his beat action.
52:26
[SPEAKER_03]: It's okay.
52:27
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk.