Edward Clark & Laurie A. Greene ~ The Future of Yoga: Asana, Vinyasa & Emotional Depth

In this captivating episode, Todd dives deep into a rich conversation with Edward Clark and Laurie Greene, uncovering the nuanced dynamics of modern yoga practice. With yoga evolving vastly in the contemporary era, Edward and Laurie share insights from their book, "Yoga and the Body: The Future of Modern Yoga in the Studio and Beyond," exploring how practitioners can cultivate deeper understanding and authenticity in their practice. They unveil the philosophical dichotomies between asana and vinyasa, focusing on their implications for personal growth and the broader yoga community. Their thought-provoking dialogue serves as a call to re-evaluate how yoga is taught, practiced, and experienced.

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Key Takeaways:

• Philosophical Exploration: The distinctions between asana and vinyasa represent two contrasting philosophies of stillness versus movement, each offering unique paths to self-discovery and understanding of reality.
• Cultural Shift: There's a growing need to move beyond the rigid structures of traditional yoga to embrace new technologies and sensory experiences that enrich practice.
• Challenging Traditional Norms: The conversation challenges the effectiveness of current certification models and the potential drawbacks of over-credentialization.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Asana and Vinyasa in Modern Yoga Practices
• 12:30 Conveying Emotion and Experience Through Yoga and Movement
• 20:43 Harnessing Anger and Energy in Yoga Practice
• 23:54 Balancing Inclusivity and Risk in Educational Environments
• 26:57 The Future of Yoga: Technology, Sensory Experiences, and Embodiment
• 35:00 Exploring Pain, Sensuality, and Delight in Yoga Practice
• 41:42 he Overemphasis on Credentials in Modern Yoga
• 45:29 Challenges and Opportunities in Yoga Teacher Training
• 53:19 Yoga Progression Beyond Competition and Hierarchical Structures
• 58:13 Challenging Ancient Yoga Myths and Modern Practice Interpretations

Transcript

Todd McLaughlin: 0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, bodywork and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome back to Native Yoga Toddcast. I'm your host, Todd McLaughlin, and today we are diving deep into the body, not just as muscle and bone, but as a living doorway into consciousness, imagination and meaning. My guests are Edward Clark. He's the founder and artistic director of the groundbreaking Tripsichore yoga theater and Laurie A. Greene, anthropologist, professor and longtime yoga teacher. Together, they've written a powerful new book called Yoga and the Body, The Future of Modern Yoga in Studio and Beyond in it, they challenge us to see yoga practices as more than shapes or sequences. They explore how emotion, beauty and imagination intersect with the body, and how yoga can evolve as a cultural force in the years ahead. Today, we'll talk about what it really means to quote mind the body, how emotions like anger and grief can become energy and practice, why myths and esthetics still matter, and what the future of yoga might look beyond credentials and trends. So whether you're a seasoned practitioner, a curious beginner, or just someone interested in how the body shapes our sense of self, this is going to be a conversation that stretches your mind as much as your muscles. Let's go ahead and get started. I'm so happy to have this opportunity to interview and speak and meet with Edward Clark and Laurie Greene. How are you both feeling today? And thank you so much for being coming on the show.

Unknown: 2:38

Feeling great. Thank you for having us.

Todd McLaughlin: 2:40

Todd, thank you,

Unknown: 2:41

Edward, thank you, lovely. Welcome Todd. It's wonderful to be here. We're not nervous about doing this at all. We're completely

Todd McLaughlin: 2:50

good. You have nothing to be nervous about, because your book yoga and the body, the future of modern yoga in the studio and beyond is an incredible representation of what happens when two yoga practitioners come together with deep thoughts and and are interested in seeing a positive future for yoga. I enjoyed this book. I'm still working on it, but I've gotten a long way through it is amazing. I'm actually going a little slow because it's causing me to think a lot, which I love. So congratulations on such an accomplishment. Laurie, it worked. It worked. You got not just a pretty cover, you guys got some gears spinning in my in my brain. So that's

Unknown: 3:34

exactly what we want to have happen. You know, we just want, we want to have. One reason we wrote this book, actually, is that we were sort of bemoaning how, like sort of us, Old Guard people, used to sit around and just have these really deep conversations about yoga and that I never get to do that anymore, you know. And, and I'm hoping that, you know, the new generation of yogis are going to start to have these more, you know, interrogating, you know, deeper conversations about the things that they've been told and so that they can really figure out the truth of what's happening today. With the practice, I think we looked at the contemporary situation and felt that it was diminished in a few ways, and we were, wanted to have a look at maybe why that was, but not, not to paint a bleak picture, but to actually go there's a lot of possibility here. What are, how do we construe the potential of yoga still in a way that builds on what's going on now? So checking out or questioning, interrogating some of the major themes of yoga and seeing, well, is this right, and where might it lead? So you know, for instance, every website of every studio has to mention community. Uh, in a way. And yes, community can be a good thing. And there are also group think added attributes to community that can perhaps limit how one practices their yoga and and constrains them to a yoga, a practice that only occurs around these people. For instance,

Todd McLaughlin: 5:25

good point one of, one of the things I found really thoughtful and fascinating to break into the way that you guys did was your differentiation of the word asana and vinyasa in relation to if Asana is an idea of renunciation, in the sense that, like yoga being practiced alone and with the intent of, you know, finding liberation through a renunciatory practice, as opposed to vinyasa, of looking at the world as a constantly changing environment that vinyasa Almost models. Let's go with the flow of the changes. So almost one style renouncing and one style going with the flow. Can you guys talk a little bit about how that idea came about, and your understanding of these various philosophical aspects of yoga?

Unknown: 6:16

Well, it's interesting that there's such diametrically opposed positions. And it's classical, classic, if not classical. It's a classic yoga thing that you know through its vast history, you've got so many contradictions in it, but one is, I mean, the way we can do it, maybe oversimplifying somewhat, is that Asana, in its renunciate sort of aims, goes towards stillness and tries to find within stillness a certain foundational unity. And is, you know, seeking in that, if you're Samkhya, this purusha, pure consciousness, and it's nothing to do with the body material. Prakriti cannot apprehend Purusha because they are different categories of reality. And so the body must be dispensed with. And then you so you look inwardly, so you're not distracted by the outer realm which and then you've got vinyasa, which is saying quite the opposite, that the nature of the universe is that it's this heraclesian kind of river that is ever flowing, and you cannot step into the same river twice. It is just a constant change. And that the idea then is in vinyasa and its most extreme, there would be no posture, there is only transition. And so one takes the both. I don't know, our definition of yoga that we're so terribly pleased with is that yoga is the study of self and the study of reality and how they mingle. And so Asana attempts to understand reality by looking inwardly with the assumption that what you would discover at a foundational level in the self, in this inner realm, will be the same as what reality is. And vinyasa goes the other way. It's that no everything out there is constantly changing. The nature of self is its mutability, and that one attempts to, in mingling with reality, find some kind of congruence between the changeability of self and the nature of what reality is. So curiously, they do both try and understand self and reality, but they do it, one expansively and one trying to, I don't know, reduce itself to the ultimate echo grata, but you know, this single point somewhere within that would be the same as what the nature of the universe is, or the other way around. I mean, it, it, it comes down to really, how we think about the body, you know, and that that's how Ed and I sort of got to this. It's something, of course, that runs through the whole book, and it's something that we talk about a lot in both of our books, but that, you know, how do we, how do we see we're using our body. These are body practices, whether we're doing Asana or vinyasa, but they define the utility of the body very differently, and the importance of the body very differently. So whereas in Asana, the body needs to be, as Ed said, dispensed with that, we have this body, but there's different techniques to do things with the body, so that it becomes we lose it, and it becomes insignificant. It steps aside, so that we can get to the more important aspects which are considered this, again, this Cartesian idea of the mind being, being the most important thing, and that's, that's where our our self is, I guess, located in this mind even something beyond. Mind Exactly. It's certainly not, not in the material body. But vinyasa really says, No, like the body is the vehicle, and the body is, you know what? That's us. That is, that is, that is who we are moving, moving for space. So the body becomes this important thing, having said this, or the most important thing, if you look at tantric writings, I mean, the body is, you know, there's a lot of contradiction in the tantric writings, because, on the one hand, they do ultimately want to get to Raja Yoga, you know, to this losing of the body. But then they also say, like, you need a body in order to do this, right. You can't even do this without a body. And so if you have a body and you aren't doing it, what a waste. Or if you wait till you're so old that you can't do this, what a waste, you know. So we were really, you know, looking to really get into this, people thinking about the utility of the body as an instrument for enlightenment and for the kind of ecstatic experiences that we can have in yoga, again, outside of the sort of utilitarian uses that it's become for now, yeah? Like, just it, and that's great, you know, health and fitness are great, absolutely, but that's what it's become, you know. And the other things are sort of like, Yeah, we talked about as nice, the way how people act nice, or do charity work or are part of a community, you know, good

Todd McLaughlin: 11:26

point. Well, that's why, that's why I'm enjoying your book so much, because it is getting me to think so much about these aspects that maybe we've just like, hurry over and not really appreciate. Are you both leaning toward blending the beauty of both of these sort of philos philosophies, or how are you kind of now that we've laid down a little bit of the idea of the asana vinyasa approach, are, where are you thinking or feeling like your own personal practice now is drawing from the most

Unknown: 11:59

I think Ed and I are different, so I'll let I'll let you talk first. No, no, you go first.

Todd McLaughlin: 12:04

I can contradict anything. Yeah, there you go. It's a smart, brilliant, let me hear what you have to say first. Yeah,

Unknown: 12:12

that's a lie. I think there's a difference between and we both think this actually, but probably differently. I think that there's a difference between practicing technique and doing yoga and and I think that both of them are useful for me. So I find there's a lot to be learned about technique and understanding the meaning making in my body. You know what I'm getting out of moving in in a Stiller practice. That doesn't mean I, honestly, I never practice a completely still practice, and I never really have, but I think that, you know, when you're still sometimes there's things you can figure out in terms of technique in the body. But if I'm actually doing yoga, meaning I'm just going for it, and I want to get that experience. I'm doing vinyasa, I'm moving, but I do think there, there is utility in being still and again. For me, that's about learning technique and how I'll get my body to that place.

Todd McLaughlin: 13:20

Good answer, Edward, what is your take on that?

Unknown: 13:23

She said everything I was oh,

Todd McLaughlin: 13:27

she should have gone first. Man,

Unknown: 13:29

yeah, no, I'm unabashedly vinyasa esque, but I again. I mean, you can see the merits in in being able to hold still, finding stillness, both of which I mean Prosaically, because I use the yoga outside of the studio. It has a purpose in that. I'm, you know, I present these choreographed yoga theater performances. So there are times when you need both of these things and but in my own practice, I'm inclined towards vinyasa, and that's been my specialty. But you know, it's not to say I don't enjoy a bit of stillness. Yeah, I think I don't know. They're both very difficult, and I would say neither of them, in contemporary yoga has managed to produce a saint yet, or an unequivocal city. So probably one is well advised to do both. But I do think that the philosophic aspects of vinyasa have been very under examined. And this idea Laurie alludes to it or alluded to it a minute ago with it. It's the flow that is. So important to actually be in flow, and we're using that term as mckayleigh would use it. Check me up on the pronunciation it is to be in this experiential state that is not reflective or analytic. It's to actually be in having an experience. And this is where this mingling of self and reality becomes particularly poignant, where you really feel, oh yes, this is, this is what's going on in the universe right now, and even as a finite creature, I'm doing it. But as soon as you think that, Oh, I'm really doing it, of course, you've killed the flow. And so, yeah, something you do in theater is you have to be completely engaged in what you're doing. And it's that's what makes it appear authentic. So what one tries to then communicate is what this flow state feels like to an audience. And you know, they sort of through either mirror neurons or just general empathy, go, oh, the sadness of what they're doing. I feel sad too, even though I'm on the best date of my life, and we just were out to dinner and had a lot of fun, something is communicated across time and space. I think it's Laurie's turn again.

Todd McLaughlin: 16:34

Well, on that note, Edward, I'm so curious because you found it or started what you call trippscore.

Unknown: 16:40

Hold on, hold on. We needed to coach you on that one beforehand. I'll just, we'll go through this really, you can cut that part later or not. There's nine Muses in Greek mythology who deal with like tragic drama and things like that, but the muse of dance is called Terp sickery. That's where the word choreography comes from. So Terp sicori, you know, it's sort of like catastrophe and Penelope, they do all the the last parts of it, but we're trip sickery Because we're trippier than terpier. And say, well,

Todd McLaughlin: 17:18

thank you. Yeah, thank

Unknown: 17:19

you. You know, it's amazing the things that people make up about, what, what? Oh, try yes, they work. They do a lot of work on triceps and core. You know, it's what their techniques known for. It's like. But anyway, so just wait. Thank you for one in there, after all these years of keeping it secret, secret knowledge.

Todd McLaughlin: 17:43

Well, can you share, can you tell me what one of these performances looks like, or is attempting to achieve? What? What is some of the brains behind what you're attempting to do? I'm curious.

Unknown: 17:57

Well, very much what I was just saying, we're trying to make people have a profound yogic experience watching it. So if you watch an actor playing a sad scene and you're in the audience, presumably you're going to feel sad because the energy that they're they're conveying through their actions or the words they're saying, it makes a certain sadness happen. Or if you watch a dancer take a big leap across the stage, you know part of you thrills to do that in some minuscule way while you're sitting there, you're experiencing what they're experiencing. And say, We're overtly doing yoga, posture, vinyasa, e stuff, and we're breathing it in a very specific way. I mean, our whole shows are, are the choreograph, choreography of the breath goes a certain way, so people will be breathing with us and it, it's, it's hung on a narrative structure. The show just had a finished a show in Spain with group from Mexico and a couple of groups from Malaysia, meeting us with another group in Spain. And basically it was sort of the conceit was, it's called La Playa, and we're everybody's at on the beach on like, march 20, 2020, and the next day, covid lockdown happened. So everybody's having this really nice time at the beach. And they, you know, meet this girl and and it's they have the so the first third of the show is this really sweet time. People doing yoga at the beach and meeting each other. And it's kind of doing some rather extreme things, but that's you get a bunch of yogis on the beach, they have to show off, and then catastrophe hits, and it's like, what is the the sort of spiritual landscape of these people when they're going through, uh. These extreme experiences. And it goes from being kind of a covid lockdown experience, there's a war then is sort of introduced into it. So there's tanks and airplanes screaming down, and it's like these people are just in a really difficult place. And at the it ends with them this really happy yoga story. They they don't know, like they're the this, this girl and guy who met at the beach, who really just had this fabulous day at the beach seven years later. They don't know if the other one's even alive or dead, and all they've got, sort of is this memory. But it is the the memory is still this thing that spiritually animates them, their love has transcended death. Or maybe they're just in prison in some locked up

Todd McLaughlin: 20:54

amazing. Are any words used to convey this idea, or is it all done through movement and in breath.

Unknown: 21:03

This particular show had a couple of songs with lyrics, and some of the lyrics were in Chinese, in Mandarin, and some of the songs were in Spanish, but the bulk of it is just soundtracks. Very cool. Oh my gosh, very useful. Very useful to have the words sometimes keeping more context to what's going on. Of course, yeah,

Todd McLaughlin: 21:25

but that's fascinating to think about trying to convey all that sort of emotion, feeling and thought through representation of the body and or through a movement practice.

Unknown: 21:37

I mean, this is what I mean. We one of the fascinating things about contemporary yoga is we have more physical skill. I mean, there's more people with more physical skill, of course, than there's ever been before, ever and but like, nobody has any use for this skill set, apart from the practice that they do in the studio, because they'll never have to do a back bend where they grab onto their ankles in real life. They'll never have to do a handstand with their legs in half lotus or full lotus. The situations just don't come up and yet, they're highly expressive potentialities in what the bodies can do, because it is about balance and harmony and ecstasy. And you know, a person genuinely having these intense experiences and balance and harmony can be just as intense as ecstasy. That's a fascinating thing to watch, and it's a fascinating thing to try and convey it to the audience so that they go, Oh my god, I I felt it. And they might not get the minutia of the story or the narrative that we're doing, but you know, you hope they can comprehend, oh my God, that's real people doing that. They're they're having an authentic experience on stage, and I'm having it too, because that's how humans relate to theater,

Todd McLaughlin: 23:06

so creative. Thank you so much for breaking that down. For me, one of the chapters in the book touches on anger and energy and practice. How can you help us work? How can yoga help us work with difficult emotions like anger, grief and anxiety, without bypassing them.

Unknown: 23:26

One of the one of the things that we talk about in the book, and especially in that chapter, but in other places as well, and other essays as well, is that, first of all, in yoga today, there is an idea that there are acceptable or good or desired emotions and ones that should not be there, you know. So anger is a big one of them, which is why we call the chapters angers and energy, but also things like, again, anxiety, fear is a big one. We consider these negative emotions. It's our position that there really is no difference between negative and positive emotions, that they all are potentially fuel, especially when they're intense, they're potentially fuel that powers our practice, that gives our practice deeper meaning. There's nothing that can spur you to have a milk toast experience more than emotional flatness, right? So it's our perspective, and we know also that there's so much emphasis in yoga right now on trauma. You know, every the assumption is that everyone is traumatized. Everyone needs healing, and it's great, because since yoga has been basically described, right now, as a healing practice, then everybody's our client, because everybody needs healing. This is the presumption, right? But our perspective is a little bit different. We're saying, Okay, there's these emotions. We should look at these emotions. If everything is one, if that is the premise in yoga, everything's the same. Right? The dog Eater is the same as the priest. Why should anger be any different than happiness? Right? Why should ugliness be any different than beauty? Why should any of these things be different? We should just our perspective is. We should just accept these and observe them and use them as a fuel to try to get more deeply into an understanding of the meaning of an our own personal practice. And so it's not something to be shied away from, agreed, it's not something to not deal with or try to get rid of. It's just something to work through. And so I think that's pretty much how we're perceiving this idea of how we work with these energies, but the intensity is important, and along with that, things like risk taking is important, and that's something that we've really being still teaching in studios. I've closed my studios, but I'm right now I'm teaching in one of my students from a long time ago studio, and I just started, and I noticed now she gave me literally a a written out list of rules for class, like I read them and most of them, I do already, but I was sort of struck by how much attention is paid to making sure that no one is offended at all in class. You know, everything, nothing you can't say anymore. Is it okay? I gotta give you a physical adjustment. They have to have a little card in front of them.

Todd McLaughlin: 26:25

And you can't, don't, Lori, don't, don't say the word adjustment. No, exactly, yeah, because you're not a chiropractor.

Unknown: 26:32

Yeah, perfect already. And, and I was struck by this, and although I do agree that we should be, obviously be inclusive, and we should be, you know, understanding of people's differences and, etc, etc. I mean, I correct people because I care about them. It when I don't care about you. I'm like, That guy's an idiot. I'm not bothering with them. You know, we, we've gotten to a point almost where we're so afraid to offend someone that we've we've flattened. We've emotionally flattened. The entire experience, there's very little risk, because we don't want people to get hurt or you know, but that's what the risk, the risk is, the thing you know. So I'm surprised Ed didn't say this already, but I am a little bit I was going to, but I couldn't get a word in Edwin.

Todd McLaughlin: 27:21

He's very patiently waiting. I can feel him on the edge of his seat. I'm about

Unknown: 27:27

to reveal something. Dr Laurier

Todd McLaughlin: 27:31

green, I'm ready. I'm ready. They want to learn more. He is

Unknown: 27:38

an adrenaline junkie. You didn't say that, but she is an adrenaline junkie, so she knows a lot about fear and anxiety. And I think, I mean, Laurie can maybe explain it better. I mean, I do a lot of I love doing a lot of very risky things, nothing that I think I will never do, anything that I think I can't do, but I go on trips for months by myself. I ride my bike, I like, climb up waterfalls, I jump off things. I and everyone always says to me, You're so brave, like, I can't believe you do these things. And I feel the opposite. I do them because I am absolutely terrified of them, I mean, and but I couldn't get that effect. I couldn't have that deep experience that's actually like life changing. In many cases, it really changes me. If I wasn't afraid, if it was just like I got this, I'm just gonna go off and and I think that that's become so undervalued. You know this, I'm not saying everyone should be an adrenaline junkie now. I'm saying you need to have that risk. You need to be pushed. You can't even get into flow, according to chess mcaula, you can't even get into it without being a level of challenge. The challenge, guess, can't be so much that you can't do it at all. It has to be on that edge and so. But we've taken that out of class a lot of times, or for the most part, I think because we're afraid someone's going to be hurt or offended, or we're going to get sued or whatever it is that's that's happening, and that's really a shame, because it's taken our ability to have that intensity of meaningful experience out of most practice and Out of most classes.

Todd McLaughlin: 29:20

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I can definitely see it. Edward, what do you think is the outcome if we follow this trajectory in the evolution of yoga as we know it today, it's dark, it's a dark place. It's like, what's gonna happen. I like a good, a good, scary thing

Unknown: 29:49

that's coming out. We have a yoga horror movie. Skinny, skinny guys aren't. Has been up here for six years. There's zombie yogis. I Well, I think, I think hopefully what happens, in a bright and upbeat kind of way is that the challenges get reconstrued, that the people see the challenge less as being How deep can you get into your hip stretches here, or how big is your back bend? Or what is the the craziness of your one armed handstands with the legs still bound, or whatever, and into different levels of challenge, for instance, the challenge of moving incredibly slowly, keeping it vinyasa, but exactly how slowly Can you breathe and move at the same time so that the the anxiety and fear becomes, oh, my God, this is so slow. Interesting in the dance world, you've got buto dance out of Japan, which is, again, I'm oversimplifying here, but was a contemporary dance form sort of evolved out of a response to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it's very slow and very painful, but the patience that you have to do to get to the end of the pieces actually usually pays off. So there is, there's that smoothness, slowness, different kinds of challenges will maybe mark what constitutes an advanced practitioner. I, I we paint this out in our first book Teaching contemporary yoga there because the technology exists now to be able to hook little things up to you so that you can understand, not you understand, You can record your movements on a screen or connected to music through movement sensors. You can actually make music. So you know, if I, if I move my hand through that kind of a movement, it will be connected to the violin sound on on the synthesizer. And so you'd be able to actually tell just from the way you were moving and and in theory, then you could have a class of people behaving like a symphony orchestra, where they are making music while they're doing this. Or the same could be the way in which the lighting is controlled. When I move my right hand, the red lights come on and when so you there's a potential for people's ability to use their physical skills in yoga to begin to make much more multi sensory experiences that might satisfy the adrenaline junkies in the world, but, but may also be very satisfying. And just a, oh, my God. This is, this is beautiful. This is music, this is light, this is people in communion with one another. And, you know, the technology exists, and it is being used. I mean this, there's a thing called sound beam, which it does exactly this, and it's being used in the UK, but it's being used to teach old age pensioners, people who are like stuck in their chair, and all they can do is barely move their hand, but they can make music in a way that maybe they were never capable of doing. So it's being it's being put to therapeutic uses at the moment, and it's just hasn't found its way into a place like the yoga studio. Yeah, I think one of the things, I think, along with what Ed's saying with these new technologies, why? Why do this? Well, one, it is a creative endeavor, certainly, and that's satisfying. But also, if you know the idea that the more sensory experience we can have all at once, right? That's really the definition of embodiment, you know to be so completely at one time, experiencing everything we possibly can through our senses, you know, that that really is the ultimate experience of embodiment and and that's what people experience when they are in something like flow, you know, which is pretty much the same as thing we're trying to achieve in in in a yoga experience. So that's the reason that we were talking about sort of these different sensory levels and the utility of them in a practice, and how do we open those up? There was a really interesting experiment that I read about I was at University of Texas at Austin. This psychology professor wanted to see if it was true that when you were almost in a car accident or some. Like that happened that times you perceive the time stood still, you know, that everything slowed down. So they're trying to test this. And they they tried a bunch of things that didn't work. And finally, because they weren't scary enough, like roller coasters. And of course, he was making his graduate students do all these things, you know, because that's apparently the only people. What he did was he had them do this sort of free base, jumping off of a building backward. That was ultimately because it was the scariest thing that they could think of that was legal. And he put these visors on them that ticked away the seconds, like digital seconds, to see if time stood still. Because that was they weren't scared on the other things, but they got scared on this. And what they found was that it didn't the perception was, when you're in it that everything slows down, but what's actually happening at that moment is that all of your senses open up. Your body goes, Ah, and there's like, you smell everything, you hear everything, and it's such an overload. Your brain can't process all these chemical

Todd McLaughlin: 36:00

signal. So interesting. Ears like, it's

Unknown: 36:03

slow. And so I read that, I thought, wow, that's what we want to do in yoga, but without almost dying. How do we do that? How do we how do we repeat that, that set of circumstances? And so this is why we go for you know, we strongly believe in this idea that we want to be in the sensual and why the body has to be the central point of engagement, because the body is the central that's where we're getting all that information from and and so I hope that becomes the future of yoga.

Todd McLaughlin: 36:36

Do you feel like the great well said. Thank you. So fascinating. Do you think that the reason we were attracted to the intense, difficult practices before it got flattened, is because it did that for

Unknown: 36:52

us? Yeah, I think that endorphin, I mean, the idea, I think at some level, it sure there's endorphins, but endorphins come because of that, you know. They come because we have that intensity. Now they reproduce that intensity by heating a room up really hot, you know, and that, but we want to do that with our instrument, you know. And there's nothing wrong with heating a room either. I, I like a hot room, but it's not the same as producing that through your own actions and your own efforts, and

Todd McLaughlin: 37:23

great point, I hope so. I have one more question on this particular topic. I'm so curious what you guys will think. I think one of the reasons that I've gravitated from hardcore Stanga practice to gentle yoga is because I have an orthopedic challenge with my back, where back bending really, really hurts, and so with pain, and I guess maybe the reason we flatlined a little and smoothed everything out and trying to make things simple is because we're looking back at the way we lived our lives in the past and wonder, had we done things a little differently? Would I be in as much pain as I am now? So I'm just kind of curious where your thoughts are with your own personal practice, and what type of experiences you've had with pain, and how that affects your decision making as you move forward.

Unknown: 38:54

An interesting question. So we've all, you know, you get to be a certain age and, I have rheumatoid arthritis. I just actually discovered it, but I've had little things all along. Look, I'm extremely lucky, nothing major. I don't know that it's changed my practice at all. I mean pain. I feel like I always used to call my body. It's always something. And just not understand why I had pain here or there. But I just try to work through it in a smart way, you know, in a way that explores why I'm in pain exactly what it is, tries to figure it out and then work within the confines of whatever is going on at that moment. I really don't. I personally don't really pull my practice back from things, although I will admit there are some things I won't do anymore, because they'll always hurt me. I'm not good after, but those are the same things that honestly hurt me before. I just didn't want to, I just didn't want to admit it. Yeah, so I think we all have our own ways of trying to understand. I mean, certain amount of pain is inevitable, right in life, I I say to some of my older students, look, you have two choices. You can sit on a couch and watch TV from now on, and you'll probably feel just fine, but you won't be able to do anything, but if you want to still be able to climb a mountain, it's going to hurt. How many channels, how many channels? But it's going you're going to feel your body, you know. And and I also think it's. Defining pain is also another. We could be here all day doing that like, what exactly is that? But Edward, I will leave this to you, because you've actually written some things on pain. So, yeah, I think there is a light motif running through yoga that that, because the nature of pro is that it always ends, that it through change, whatever is won't be again. And so there's this, this idea that that brings about sorrow. And so everybody you know will die, and that's a sorry thing. And, you know, it's it kind of, as I say, it's a leitmotif. It's not completely there, but that things are not good, and so you might as well turn away from life. But it would make just as much sense to construe everything as potentially delightful, and it's you know your practice. What can you do to make your practice the most delightful it can be? And if you know doing aggressive back bends does not bring to light, there's no reason to do it, because you're never going to need those big back bends for anything I mean, but if it is, if you're a person for whom that is delightful, that makes perfect sense to be seeking that out just to explore how delightful things can be. And the question, then, going back to what Laurie was saying about sensual opening, it's, can we use the yoga to get better at our sensuality, that our esthetic appreciation is enhanced, and like some sommelier, we just get better and better at tasting wine. Or, you know that we become more aware of what smells are like, or that we listen better. And it's, again, it's sort of the vinyasa antithesis to the asana pradia Hara, where, you know pradahara. It's withdrawal of the senses, you know, like, cut them off, because they'll only distort what the reality is. They'll only present some simulacrum of what reality really is. In your mind, it's rather to go the other direction and say, How can you refine your senses ability? Can you find things that are make it more delightful? So a scent that you barely could detect? You go, oh my god, I smell Jasmine on the air. Or, you know, it's like, how do you that light breeze that's touching me? I feel that, rather than sort of being numb to what the sensual information is. So I think that's, oh, I'm becoming a base Sensualist, older, I guess my I'm just trying to come up with philosophic reasons for why that would be. That's that's the big changes. It's got to be enjoyable. It's meant to be delightful.

Todd McLaughlin: 43:57

Yeah, well, I appreciate your guys's honesty, and thank you for letting me ask these questions. I have another big one for you. In the book you talk about credentializing, credentialization and quote, what really matters in modern yoga. Do you think the yoga world has become too focused on certifications and external validation and what, where can we go here? How can we make a healthier model?

Unknown: 44:28

The short answer is yes, and very strong Yes, in my opinion, we always wonder whether we should do this, but I'm just going to do it. I mean, I think that maybe yoga alliance is the worst thing that ever happened to us, because they have basically caused this over credentialing problem to a great extent. You know, they, they are the ones that pushing these credit little courses every time you look, look around you, I can't go on Facebook or any other social media without being shown every five seconds another course that I can be certified as a practitioner and in one day, and it's only it's 99% off today, and people have 20 million letters after their names, and we don't even know what they mean, and honestly, they mean nothing. That's the problem. So we have this credential inflation, and so much so that the credentials really cannot guarantee that any that the person we're looking at knows anything. In fact, it doesn't guarantee it, because we have no oversight really, of these things. And so the credentials have become more important than actually knowledge. You know, I mean, it used to be before. You know, when we first started, and maybe you as well, I don't know, we didn't have any of this stuff. You just mentored with somebody, and they told you, when you were ready, you're ready to teach this one part of this class, Lori, and I'd be like, you know, nervous. And my God, my teacher said I was ready. And you know, that was after many years of practice, tons of hours of observing and helping my mentor or mentors, and you know, you really knew it before you taught it. And nowadays, of course, we know that's not true, and I'm not trying to, you know, disparage any teachers in particular, because a lot of these people don't even know what they don't know. They think this is how everybody is, the teachers, and pretty much nowadays, it sort of is true, right? So the credentials are not helping us, and I don't know what Ed thinks about this, but whether we go back to a system of mentoring, I don't know that if that is possible or not or but certainly we, I wish we would get a recognition that credentials are not what we're after. It's knowledge, and it can only come from experience that we're after. Experience is everything, and ex and yoga is a practice of experience, not books, not, you know old philosophy as much as we value that it is, it is only true what you experience through your practice. And I wish we could get back to that instead of having the letters be what's true instead of the person's experience. Well, said, Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, there is, I mean, poor old yoga Alliance, poor old I mean,

Todd McLaughlin: 47:34

even still. I mean, I know they're there, but are there people involved in it? Has AI taken it over? I mean, is it a human thing anymore, is it?

Unknown: 47:43

No? Well, well, I mean, they certainly have tried to address, and I seem continue to try to address, the difficult situation that has come up with. But you know, a person is not ready to teach after a 200 hour training, and they're probably not ready to teach with the additional 300 which used to be called a 500 but which is now called a 300 because it's, you know, to be a good teacher, you've got to be doing this for a very long time to have something to teach. And it's, it is problematic that a thing that really functions merely as a registry is, well, I say it's a pity. It has saved many yoga studios. Let's face it, many yoga studios have only continued to exist because they were able to run teacher training programs. But the and, you know, they were far more profitable than running studio classes, where you had two in the morning, one at lunch and two in the evening, and you could make in a month or a 10 month course, or whatever, you could wait make much more money putting putting a bunch of teachers out there and and so that, you know, made it possible for many studios to survive. So however, it's there's, I think the real problem with it is that when you're teaching 200 hour courses, I've done a few, I've taught on a few, I've been the Hired Gun, and you're teaching people how to do yoga rather than how to teach. And they're fundamentally different skills. You know, to do yoga is this stuff that we're talking about. This is this experiential stuff, what you do when you teach is removed you're you're meant to be observing and analytic and being able to reference past and future, and it's not about being in the present so much as it's being able to channel a lot of information in a way that is profitable to the benefit of the students figuring out what the practice of yoga is and then so what you would be normally, maybe in other places where you learn to be a teacher, you learn how to teach. But you know the way it is now, people learn, oh, here's a I'll learn some sequences. I'll learn how to do yoga, and then I can be a teacher. It's not they're different skills.

Todd McLaughlin: 50:21

Edward have Have you ever fallen into that situation where you are involved in doing a training and realize that the people you're working with probably will never teach and that there isn't really that many opportunities for them to teach like I find that that's one of the conundrums that these training. Programs are in it at the moment is because the people are sign. They're looking to try to we're looking to try or pay our rent. We want to fill these trainings up. We know we can't even afford to pay them to teach for us, but we're but we're still going to train them to do it anyway.

Unknown: 50:59

You have potential. You could be a yoga teacher. We actually talk a lot about this. In our first book, we talk a lot about how, you know, there's really very few places in this world where you can make a living, that you can support yourself being a yoga teacher, and even fewer places where you can support yourself having a studio. Because it costs more to have a studio than to teach in somebody's studio. I mean, a rich spouse that should be in the training and it's a shame that you know, studios have to resort to running these trainings, and they'll let anybody in because they need the money so they can stay open, so they can teach. But then the people coming out are neither prepared to teach, nor are there jobs for them where they can support themselves? And again, when Edward was talking before about how the studio model just isn't working, I think that's what we're referring to now, is that something's got to give with the studio model to make it work for both the owners and the people taking classes. And I think it's going to require that people don't look at yoga as health and fitness, you know, because they're not going to want to pay right now. They're willing to pay the kind of money they pay to go to the gym. They're not willing to pay for something more deeper, more important. I don't even know how to qualify it than that, and I don't really know so much the answer to that, that question so much as to identify what the Our challenge is. Maybe you know that love, you know one direction it might go would be to make things more course oriented. I mean, part of the problem with the studio model is you've got the beginners class Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you've got the same beginners on Monday and Wednesday, but there's some new ones there on Friday, and then the next week, there's different people. And unlike what happens when you actually have course material, you you know, you get through a course, this is what we're going to learn. This is the information everybody's meant to be there. And this is, this is how we do it, that commit. They need to commit to do that. And that's more difficult challenge, though, for that, and because I don't know our yoga people flakes and they they have trouble committing, maybe that's part of the problem, but, but also it's because the the what's being offered is not seen as being sufficiently interesting. It's a thing I do, like flossing my teeth. It's good for me. It's about health and fitness, rather than, my God, I'm so excited to be going to yoga, because it's like the stuff that gets talked about, the things we do, it's, like, the most exciting part of my week. This is the bit I look forward to. And this is why having a teacher who really knows what they're doing actually makes it like, Okay, this is, this is a big entertainment. It's entertainment and it's intelligent. I mean,

Todd McLaughlin: 54:03

yeah, do we have, do we have a good model? Do we have a good model of another training, like, another modality of if we So, if I were to ask you, Edward in the dance world, and then Lori, you're in academia, like in academia, if I want to be an academia teacher, like, I want to work on the professional level at a college or university, teaching after I've learned. Does the university do a good job training people to be good teachers? And then, and then, Edward, in relation to dance, I'm curious, like, Huh? Okay, so I have a dance school. Am I training other people to be dance teachers? Surely, but it seems like you don't have to be kind of a good dancer first. It has to be organic, right? Doesn't it? Seem like you just all these things. Seem like you have to actually spend a lot of time doing it first, and you naturally will then just step into the role when the time presenting

Unknown: 54:57

the nail on the head. I think that you know you don't, you don't go to medical school without taking a biology course. You know what I'm saying? You don't go. I want to be a doctor. I'll just go to medical school. And that's the situation that we're in with yoga. You know, you don't have to, you just have to love yoga. Yeah, you don't have to know anything. We'll teach you that, right? You're right. And so you don't start out maybe with with but, I mean, we're talking differently about students and teachers. Yeah, Ed and I have spoken about, for example, we've actually had actually had this discussion like, where could we what could we do? And we looked at things like other physical disciplines, like, let's say the martial arts, right? The martial arts has a different model. I don't know. I'm not a martial artist, so I can't really speak to all of it, but I what they do do is progress. People, you know. Their system of belts that say, right, in karate, or whatever you're taking, you know this the teacher, you go through the training, and you have to go through each step, and when you get to that, there's a test you prove that you've made it to the next level, and then you're there. We don't really have anything

Todd McLaughlin: 55:59

like that. That's good point. By the time you're black belt, then, yeah, do you think that? And I've thought about this too. And then I think the challenge with that is that then we create this competitive, hierarchical structure of like, well, and this happened in Ashtanga big time. What series are you up to? I'm on first everyone, third series, yeah, and the posture this is right. And whoever's the higher one. You poor, sorry person. Yeah, you're only a cup of toss of the scariest, most painful posture. You're

Unknown: 56:33

not at that posture yet. And

Todd McLaughlin: 56:35

so that's where that but I agree with you. I like the idea of testing out, so to speak, to move to the next and then, but, and then, but, I see the challenge there. I don't. Thank you for having us. It's in

Unknown: 56:46

your mind. I mean, I don't. I don't think that progression needs to entail competition with others, you know? I think that that's something that people might do naturally because they're competitive, yeah. But good point, you know, we find, we've talked, we talked about this lat too, we find is that the people that are actually really good at yoga are rarely competitive. I mean, the really good, best students, they're, they're doing it for themselves, you know, they're, they're looking at their own development. They're not worried about being better than the person next to them. Yeah, there are some people on that, but often, often delight in the fact that other people are getting good. Because if you're in a room with people who are getting good, you get better too. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's only the people who think they're losing in competition, who think things are competitive. I find, as long as you think you're getting better, that this is, wow. This is a great situation. So and so is better at back bends, but like my forward bends have really come on, great and, oh, I'm so happy for them. And that, I mean, does happen fairly often. Really. You see this as I've seen this so much in my own practice. Maybe I should have said this before, but when we get older, there's things that you lose. You know, we've probably all been there, the three of us. There's things that you lose that used to be like, Oh my god, I can't I'm just not being able to hit this every time with ease anymore. But then there's things I am so much better at now that I never used to be able to do well to appreciate those, those, those, I'm sorry. I'm

Todd McLaughlin: 58:25

just curious. I'm so curious. What's something that you feel you're better at now than

Unknown: 58:31

Well, certainly things like a deep back bend. I'm not I'm a big back Bender, but I can't do those gigantic back bends anymore at my age. I There are some. But however, my flexibility is shockingly better than it's ever been, but in a good way, not in an overly flexible way. I'm much better at frankly, hand balancing than I've ever been. For some bizarre reason, I feel much lighter. I think I've just mastered this, because so much advanced work is subtle. It's not, you know, that there's sort of gross skill level. It's a subtle thing. It's like, oh, it's not this. It's like, oh, my arms that way. So this is tiny little movement. And I think when you figure that out, certain things that take finesse you get better at, and I think I'm much better now at the things that took finesse, rather than at the things that took more root, flexibility, yeah, strength, like or like or like, fortitude, I think I'm the finesse is there, and so those things, I think I'm smarter at, and I understand more. I'm smarter, you know, than I used to be, yes. So I think I'm better at those things. And I think if we appreciate that, it's not about that, like progression isn't a straight line up, I think is what I'm saying. And so it ceases to be a competition when you cease to see it as, you know, going straight up a ladder. It goes in different ways, you know, the way that we develop. And we can appreciate development rather than, you know, some sort of straight line of progression like in the Ashtanga series, I think that we lose that. Maybe that's why Ashtanga can be competitive, because it does have that set sequence that can't change. But if we don't practice in that way, or even if we practice Ashtanga in a way where we appreciate these things. It ceases to be competitive like that, even with ourselves. You know,

Todd McLaughlin: 1:00:27

yeah, oh my gosh. We scheduled an hour and we have two more minutes and 29 seconds, just kidding. So then I have and have so many more questions. Maybe we can do a part 234, and five. But. For part, for absolutely,

Unknown: 1:00:46

what we want the book to be doing is like, yeah, you know

Todd McLaughlin: 1:00:51

it does. It does the words you guys chose to I'm finding, oh, man, it's gonna. Had to, I'm not have to look words up. There's a few words that you guys use that I'm kind of, like, I don't even know what that means, but in a good way, like, I'm enjoying it on that level you guys. Like, it's poetic. It's, you put a lot of time into this. It's very well thought out. And I, you know, thank you so much for sending me a copy that was very kind and sweet of you. And I, I've been enjoying I've been enjoying it immensely. So I, I'm so honored to have this opportunity. If I can just throw one more question in, and hopefully it'll be reasonable to answer. Edward, is there, is there a myth you want to bust? Is Is there a myth that you feel we need to talk about before we close, that you think really is holding us back and see yoga, either solo practitioner community,

Unknown: 1:01:46

just a little a little one, and it's, it's just the first thing that springs to mind, please. Because, I mean, we've written a book that people describe as scholarly, but it's not really an academic book. It's a little bit of an academic book, but it's really a trade book, but it's a crossover book, and I think there's the heavy duty academics look a lot at the ancient texts and the sociological aspects of what's going on in modern Yoga. And I'd like to see the academe pay more attention to what's the actual practice is about. So it's, I think, kind of the myth that the ancients really knew it all and the knowledge has been forgotten, and that, you know, if we just translate a few more versions of the whatever, trying to think of some of the ones that James Mallinson quotes, because, you know, I mean he's brilliant academic, and I mean that whole Oxford crew, fabulous work, but not at Oxford anymore. That's anyway, yeah, but yeah, but anyway, I mean new news, yeah, in a way, very interesting. I don't want to disrespect that, because I find it fascinating to read about, but the complete lack of academic writing about the actual practice. There's more being written in in sports medicine, about stuff that is exciting in terms of practice. And it's, again, it's, it's timid about going into some of the yogic stuff, this stuff about intensity and the spiritual significance of that, it's not being properly addressed. And so I'd say that one. I don't know if Lori's got a myth to bust her totally. I totally agree with that one, but I would also say that, without doing any disservice to the ancient texts, that the myth I'd like to bust is that somehow what was said in the ancient text is akin to gospel. Because first of all, we've only, we only focus on a few texts in a huge canon, huge canon of writing, and that's an accident of history. And I would attribute that mostly, or blame mostly that on Vivekananda and his presentation at the Chicago parliament of religion that made what we do here, that you redefined yoga in the way he wanted, right, as Raja Yoga and so but these texts are meant to inform us about what the ancients thought about yoga. They're not necessarily what our experiences would be. And I so that myth, I'm hoping will allow people to learn from those past experiences and then use that to experiment in the presence that they get to decide what yoga is and what the truth of practice is. And again, it always makes me laugh when I have students who, like outside of the studio, are like scientists and doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs and believe in science, and they walk into the studio and all of a sudden, like they're they believe in fairies and crystals and chakras, which they would never believe anything like that in any other venue, and there's no need for that. You know, we should believe what we believe, whatever. If you believe in fairies all the time, great. I'm just saying there's no reason that we can't be the same people in the studio as we are outside. We don't have to bifurcate our lives. And I think we do that in. An attempt to save the sanctity of these, this ancient knowledge, which we consider correct without question, right? It's Shruti and sacred. You know, that's the myth I'd like to bust.

Todd McLaughlin: 1:05:56

Nice. Oh, man, so much, so much, and we got a long way to go and a short time to get there. How can we? How can we? Thank you. Thank you. You guys know what I'm talking about. Finally, I'm in good company. I'm not I'm in my age rage, my age range, and with people who have been at it for a long time, oh my gosh. What an honor and a privilege. You guys. Thank you so much. You know, I feel like what you're doing is asking questions, and by asking questions, this is how we can grow and learn and progress. And I ultimately feel that you both love yoga so much it has played such a huge part in your lives that you're wanting to ask these important questions so that it'll have meaning for the future generations that come in contact with it. So I think that's a you know, what a great task to take

Unknown: 1:07:00

you on that that's going on.

Todd McLaughlin: 1:07:01

Thanks Todd, thanks for having us. Oh, what a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for thank you so much. I really don't want to hang up, but I hope we can do it again. So I found you guys really thoughtful, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Native yoga. Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com, and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time booyah for ya know you.