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In this episode of the Yoga Teacher Training Podcast, I’m joined by the incredible Ann Swanson—author of Science of Yoga and Meditation for the Real World—to talk about how science and tradition merge in modern yoga. If you’ve ever struggled to integrate anatomy, biomechanics, or trauma-informed approaches into your teaching, this conversation will change the game.
Ann shares her powerful concept of “yoga snacks”—short, accessible practices you can sprinkle throughout your day to reduce anxiety, manage pain, improve focus, and balance blood sugar. We also talk about teaching students with chronic pain, trauma, or hypermobility, and how to adapt poses with intention, compassion, and safety in mind.
She also has a special gift for listeners of this episode at https://www.scienceof.yoga
Click here to purchase Ann's book Science of Yoga
We cover:
How yoga snacks can improve metabolic health and reduce inflammation
Trauma-informed teaching and why internal awareness isn’t always helpful during panic
Chronic pain, hypermobility, and the importance of strengthening
The neuroscience behind meditation and yoga’s effects on mood and mental health
How her art background helped create the most visual, user-friendly yoga anatomy book I’ve ever seen
Whether you’re a new teacher or a seasoned one, there’s something deeply validating, empowering, and actionable in what Ann shares.
5 Key Quotes from the Episode:
“Movement is better than no movement. Always. But intention and context are everything.”
“Yoga puts you in a flow state—and even just two minutes after eating can lower blood sugar and inflammation.”
“I passed out trying to meditate during a panic attack. Turns out, body awareness in acute anxiety can actually make it worse.”
“What would it feel like to be the happiest person on earth? That’s the walking meditation I did every day when I was pregnant.”
“Most yoga injuries happen when people push into poses they ‘think’ are right. Safety is about options and empowerment, not perfection.”
Don’t miss this episode if you teach yoga, practice yoga, or ever felt unsure about how to apply anatomy, trauma sensitivity, or science to your teaching.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I've read so many books on anatomy, trying to make sense of
it, and one book stood out aboveall the others and put together
a lot of the best things that I found in those books and through
my own experience. And that book is called Science
of Yoga by Anne Swanson. So I use this when I lead my
teacher training programs. I share this with others who are
(00:22):
looking for a good anatomy book.I think it breaks it down super
well and shows it super well. Great visuals, great
explanations, and it summarizes all the best info that you want
to know as a teacher and practitioner to understand
anatomy. So I am super honored and super
grateful to be able to share this interview today.
I did with Anne Swanson, the author of the book Science of
(00:45):
Yoga. It's now in its second edition
and she's shared a lot of insights from that book and from
her own experience and somethingshe calls yoga snacks like
exercise and mindfulness practices and ways that you can
apply yoga throughout the day inshort, simple ways.
We talk about teaching yoga. We talk about anatomy.
(01:06):
She's sold over half a million copies of the book Science of
Yoga. It's amazing.
I highly recommend it. If you don't have it, it's one
of the few books I recommend. Like, I only think there's a few
essential books you should have as a yoga teacher, and that is
one of them, along with a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a copy of
the Yoga Sutra and a few others.But this is definitely one that
(01:27):
I recommend is you should have this in your library.
It's very useful, very helpful. So Anne Swanson herself has
overcome chronic pain and anxiety, and it's what led her
to studying yoga and Tai chi andearning a Masters of science in
yoga therapy. And she actually has a special
gift for the listeners of this episode at www.scienceof.yoga.
(01:49):
And that's where you can check out more for this episode.
If you want to go deeper with Anne and learn more about what
she offers and apply the things she's teaching, Science of dot
Yoga is where you can check thatout.
So I'm super grateful to share this interview.
And if you want to go deeper with me, there's a free workshop
I'm hosting next week at Quiet Mind dot Yoga slash workshop.
(02:09):
You can check that out in the show notes as well.
Becoming your own yoga teacher is one of the most empowering
and inspiring things that I've ever done that you could do, so
I'll be sharing how to do that in a simple free workshop on
Monday, May 19th. If you catch this later, you can
check out that same link to catch the replay or future live
workshops. Quiet Mind at Yoga Slash
(02:30):
Workshop for that, and I'm excited to share this interview.
So we're going to talk about a lot of cool stuff.
If you're a teacher or not, or if you're wanting to go deeper
in your practice. I think you'll learn a lot from
Anne and I'm super honored to share this.
So enjoy my interview with Anne Swanson, author of Science of
Yoga and Meditation for the RealWorld.
(02:58):
Welcome back to the Yoga TeacherTraining Podcast.
I'm Jeremy Devons. And I'm very.
Happy today to be with the author of Science of Yoga, a
book I've recommended a lot in my teacher training programs
that I lead because it's an amazing resource.
And Anne Swanson is here today to talk about her experience
with that book, a new book she'swritten, her experience with
(03:19):
yoga snacks, and her own processof applying these things to her
life. You've got so much interesting
things to talk about, so welcomeAnne.
So great to be here with you, Jeremy.
Yes. So I want to jump right into
this idea of yoga snacks becausethis is something I think is
very applicable to everybody. Like you can apply these
scientific principles and ideas that you teach in your books to
(03:43):
just like everyday real challenges like you've
experienced yourself and many people experience.
So let's What are yoga snacks? Yeah.
So this is based off of a current phenomenon that's very
popular in the exercise science world, and that's exercise
snacks. The researchers use that term to
describe anything that's less than 15 minutes, generally that
(04:06):
you do throughout your day. So some of them can be even as
short as 30 seconds or one breath, you know, a very quick
momentary. But the idea is that you put
them in critical moments in yourday and to break up long bouts
of sitting. You know, we're in this
sedentary lifestyle and they saysitting is the new smoking,
(04:28):
right? It's really playing a toll on
our health. So if we can break it up, we can
not only improve our health outcomes, but also improve our
focus so that we are more into what we're doing more in flow.
Yoga puts you in that flow state.
Meditations, many meditations put you in that flow state
better. Yeah, absolutely.
(04:49):
So what brought you to like testsome of these things out or
experience some of these things?What's some of the experiences
you've had with these yoga snacks?
This is how I really practice nowadays.
I do little breaks throughout the day.
It's really integrated into my life.
I think like many yoga teachers,I became a yoga teacher first
(05:09):
and foremost because it transformed my life and I wanted
to be able to apply it to my ownlife.
Like teach myself, adapt the poses and optimize the practices
to improve all of my outcomes, improve my focus, improve my
pain, my anxiety, all of the things I was struggling with and
what I found for myself and my students as a yoga therapist, my
(05:33):
my clients that these little breaks were more likely to do
them number one. And based off of research, they
seem to be more impactful if youcan strategically place them.
Like right before you have a, a class that you're about to do,
do a yoga snack in the room, youknow, close the the doors, have
a moment to yourself to prepare to get into that flow state to
(05:55):
be less nervous. Or perhaps, you know, for me,
it's like when I go to the doctor's office, I get really
nervous. I've had this incidents where I
like pass out at critical moment.
And so to prevent that, I'll do these little mini meditations
right there in the doctor's office.
So sometimes they don't even need to know you're doing them.
(06:16):
Another critical time that you can put it is after you eat.
We have an abundance of researchthat shows that walking after
meals is really beneficial for lowering your blood glucose
spikes. And this is important because
when your blood glucose spikes, then inevitably it will fall.
After we eat, we get naturally that spike and then it will fall
(06:40):
and will crash. You have that sugar crash, we
call it where we feel fatigue, we feel Moody.
If you have chronic pain, it comes up in that moment.
So that afternoon kind of crash.We can prevent those crashes and
improve our metabolic health, which like that is all the rage
right now. And research and, and what all
(07:00):
the scientists are talking aboutis if we improve our metabolic
health, then we're going to improve many chronic diseases as
well as our, our lifespan and life overall.
So we can do that by just movingafter we eat.
Now, walking is what we have themost research on.
So you can do a walking meditation between 10 and 15
(07:21):
minutes tends to be the sweet spot, but some research shows
even 2 minutes makes a profound difference.
But you don't have to walk if you don't have the space.
Maybe you just have space to do some some squats, some chair
poses, or sun salutation right next to your desk.
It's. The idea is to get the largest
muscles of your body moving. So when we're walking, we're
(07:44):
moving our thighs, our gluteals,and these muscles will uptake
the glucose for energy immediately.
They love to do that. And when they do that, it lowers
that blood glucose that's circulating.
And so it also will help lower inflammation as well as all the
things I mentioned. So it's just so good for your
(08:05):
health. And I encourage people to just
do 2 minutes of yoga right afteryou eat.
You'll likely do a little bit more because it'll feel good
though. Right.
And it's amazing that even in this is one of those things that
in the old Ayurvedic texts and yoga texts, specifically
Ayurveda, they talk about the importance of walking after
(08:25):
eating. And they don't not just like
staying sedentary after eating. And now the science, the Western
empirical kind of method is catching up to these ancient
traditions. And there's so much of this
happening now, right? Yeah, it's Shatta Pavali.
It's 100 steps, literally 100 steps.
That's the Ayurvedic practice ofafter you eat, you're supposed
to do 100 steps. That's about two minutes right
(08:47):
there, right? They intuitively knew what now
researchers are uncovering as astruth.
So that's one of my favorite things about studying the
science of yoga and writing my book Science of Yoga is seeing
these things that we know intuitively now have the
research to support them the neuroscience, the even the
(09:11):
science of spirituality. There's research to support many
of these things that encourages our students and honestly
encourages me to practice. I'm like, wow, this is real.
This really works. It gets my butt into practice
after every meal and throughout my day.
Yeah, absolutely. So something else like people
(09:34):
could just like holding down dogor something as a movement or
something like simple just moving their body at all after
eating is is a good example of ayoga snack.
Any other like at the doctor's office, like something that you
like to do there, like specifically that the practice
that you do there? Oh my gosh, so I have this thing
where I like fight, flight and freeze.
(09:56):
I go to freeze pass out when a doctor is kind of not answering
my questions, not paying attention to me or maybe a
little creepy. I just like peace out.
I'm gone and it's really traumatic.
I'm on the floor, I'm shaking. I don't know where I am.
I when I come to, it's really overwhelming.
(10:17):
So I went to a yoga teacher and I was like, OK, what can I do?
How can I use yoga to help this?And they told me, OK, pay
attention to your body sensations.
Let's use this meditation. Feel your body sensations, feel
your breath, notice your breath like classic meditation
techniques. And so I went in there
empowered. I'm going to do this.
(10:38):
I'm going to stay present and notice my body and breath.
And guess what happened? I pass out on the floor quicker
than I ever had before. So I looked into it and
apparently, based off of the research, when you deal with
acute anxiety, like in the situation, in that moment you're
(10:58):
really anxious. Not just like overall anxiety,
but like in that moment panic, body awareness and breath
awareness make it worse for mostpeople.
You start to feel, Oh my God, myheart's pounding out of my chest
and you start to notice your breath is an irregular and not
(11:19):
able to be controlled and you start to feel like your body is
forsaken you and you pass out quicker.
As I did so I I looked into it like what meditation techniques
do this? Does the research say would help
in this situation? What we want to do in acute
anxiety is rather than paying attention to the internal
sensations, we bring our focal point to something external.
(11:45):
So I am noticing what do I see, what do I hear?
How do I feel my feet on the ground or my butt on the on the
chair. I'm feeling the outside of my
body connected, grounded. So there's a technique and my
books called the 333 technique, you know, name three things you
can see, three things you can hear and then move three body
(12:08):
parts. And that might be as simple as
rolling your shoulders, moving your hands and mudras.
So that's what I do for myself now in those panic situations.
And that's what I would do if somebody else were in a panic
situation like in my class and they were overwhelmed, their
technique wasn't working for them, and they were having a
panic attack. Of course, call 911, get help,
(12:31):
emergency action protocol if it seems like something's going
wrong. But just asking somebody what
are three things you see here and move three body parts makes
a huge difference. That's amazing 333 technique.
Very cool. Thank you for that.
I think that'd be very valuable to people.
And yeah, this is something that's come up a lot in sort of
(12:52):
a trauma informed approach to teaching, where some teachers
might be teaching a class like apranayama exercise or internal
meditation, like close your eyesand, you know, describing it as
a relaxing situation. Like now you should be feeling
very relaxed. Or people, sometimes newer
teachers have this. So maybe telling students that
(13:12):
an experience should feel a certain way.
Should. Yeah, you shouldn't.
All over yourself, right? And maybe they wouldn't even use
the word should. But there is an implication that
like as we do this now, the effect would be that you're
relaxed. But a trauma informed approach
is to be aware that some students might find closing
their eyes dysregulating and more activating for their
(13:34):
nervous system and more anxiety invoking.
And it's good, I think to be aware of this as teachers to be
aware of like their students being in different places.
You don't know what they're, what's they're experiencing
internally or what happened to them that day or what they're
going through in their life right now.
But this approach of as another tool for teachers to have just
(13:55):
this 333 method is like another great tool for teachers to have.
So I really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah.
So trauma and anxiety have a lotof overlaps like that.
So looking at when somebody's having that trigger, it could
bring on an anxiety or panic attack or bring up traumas.
(14:17):
And so that those are those moments that we can support them
and hold space for them. But also, you know, there could
be a situation where you're not sure if it's in panic attack or
they're having a heart attack. That's where we have an
emergency action protocol, right?
If it seems out of your hands oryou also want to understand your
(14:37):
scope of practice as a teacher and refer out, you know,
referring to get therapy to talkto your doctor about these sort
of things. You are not their doctor or
their therapist. So that's something to keep in
mind too. Absolutely.
And then you talked about recentpregnancy, and I imagine there's
a lot of opportunities for new ways of exploring, like what
(15:02):
your body needs, what you need to practice, or what's going to
help you regulate your nervous system through that huge
transition in your life. And I think many of our
listeners are mothers or maybe working with pregnant students.
And what did you find in your experience through that journey?
Yeah, I was pregnant with my first and so this was a brand
(15:24):
new experience for me. And being an older mom that was
in that higher risk category. I was diagnosed at one point
with diabetes during my pregnancy.
And so I had to really look intometabolic health and the
research behind it. And these little tricks like
simply taking a walk or doing some sun salutations after you
(15:48):
eat made a profound difference for me.
So integrating those yoga snacks.
But by the end of my pregnancy, I was so big that I couldn't get
down on the floor without help. And that gave me a really
wonderful sense of compassion toa lot of my students who can't
get up and down from the floor. And I myself was doing a ton of
(16:10):
cherry yoga and yoga snacks and things against the wall and the
countertop in the kitchen to adapt because being on the floor
just didn't work. And the long practices winded me
too. So it was this opportunity to to
practice a lot of meditation andbreath work and these yoga
snacks, integrating them into mylife.
(16:31):
I think it really strengthened my practice in that way.
Yeah. Did you find one particularly
like most helpful that you came back to a lot?
You know, I do walking meditations a lot.
When you're pregnant, especiallytoward the end, they say to do a
lot of walking. And so I would go into my
backyard and be barefoot. And so when you're barefoot,
(16:55):
this is not woo woo. This is real.
When you're barefoot, there's something that researchers call
earthing. We call it colloquially
grounding, but the researchers call it earthing, and it's when
your body is in contact with thephysical earth, whether it be
the grass, the sand, walking barefoot, stones, touching a
(17:16):
tree. When you're in contact with the
physical earth, we find profoundchanges physiologically, like
lowering inflammation, reducing anxiety and depression, and even
reducing blood sugar spikes. So I was really trying to work
with my blood sugar. So anytime I needed to take a
break from sitting too long or Ijust ate a snack, I'd go in the
(17:40):
backyard and I'd pace back and forth.
My neighbors probably thought I was crazy and I used this tick
knock on meditation that I integrated into my most recent
book, Meditation for the Real World.
This real world meditation is you walk and you do a thought
experiment, much like Einstein did, thought and experiments.
(18:01):
You imagine what would it feel like to be the happiest person
on Earth. That's it.
That's the cue for the meditation.
You just do the thought experiment.
As you walk, you're going to seethat it changes how you walk.
It changes what you hear. You start to hear the birds.
You're not thinking about that stressful e-mail or worrying
(18:22):
about something with your children.
In that moment, what would it beto be the happiest person on
earth? How would it feel?
Your breath changes, everything changes.
So that's a little cue I enjoy doing when I'm taking those
walking meditation breaks. Beautiful.
I love take not Hon. He's an amazing teacher and
speaker and author, and I like how he talks about like the way
(18:45):
to walk, basically how to walk very gracefully.
Like you're very present with each step and in the present
moment with each step and peace and every step.
It's very beautiful. Yeah, that's my favorite hue of
his. What would it feel like to be
the happiest person on Earth? Yeah, so good.
And you've so you've written this book about meditation for
(19:06):
the real world and that has someof these yoga snacks in it.
I haven't read this one yet. Yeah, yeah, I know you have my
first book, Science of Yoga, andthat one has a recent second
edition out. So if anybody has the 1st
edition, make sure you get the second edition.
You can go to Science of dot Yoga and then I wrote a second
(19:29):
book that's a little lesser known, but I think it's quite a
gem. It's called Meditation for the
Real World. It incorporates a lot of one
minute meditations and breathingpractices that you can integrate
through your day for real world situations like what I described
with the doctor's office. Because a lot of people have
tried meditation, but they're like, I tried it, but it didn't
(19:50):
work for me. It made me more anxious.
Well, guess what? You're not bad at meditating,
you were just doing the wrong meditation for the wrong
situation. So real world situations are
like, you know, I have a meditation for FOMO and a
meditation for waiting when you're just waiting for
something, a meditation for sleep and at the doctor's
(20:10):
office, all these sort of real world situations.
So really good for working with students also as a teacher.
Amazing. Yeah, I've heard that a lot.
I think a lot of teachers hear this with students that they
struggle to meditate or they sayI can't quiet my mind, I can't
focus my mind, I get too distracted.
So having more tools of how to help students.
(20:30):
And I think it's important also to start with the experience
yourself as a teacher, to be a practitioner, to experience and
embody it and then share that. And sounds like this book has
lots of great resources or different approaches to
meditation in a very digestible,like approachable way, right?
Yeah, ways that you can integrate into your day, like
(20:50):
these yoga snacks that I am mentioning.
Yeah, amazing. Another thing you talk about is
using your brain's built in pharmacy.
So bringing your natural morphine and feel good chemicals
so you can be a the happiest person in the world.
So what does that mean to use your brain's built in pharmacy?
(21:12):
Yeah. So you have access to all of
these chemicals, these neurochemicals and biochemistry
through your body that we can shift through lifestyle,
mindset, thoughts, movement. We know that exercise, for
example the asana portion of of yoga increases something called
(21:36):
BDNF, brain derived neurotropic factor.
This is it's something that encourages neuroplasticity, your
ability to have your brain change and morph and improve and
get thicker. And so we want to obviously
exercise and encourage that BDNFand neuroplasticity, but also
(21:57):
you have access to serotonin anddopamine, these chemicals that
help with our mood regulation. So by doing yoga, we see that
you improve all of those chemicals to have more balance
in your serotonin, more ability to uptake the available
serotonin. But also we see less cortisol,
(22:21):
less of the stress hormones, less adrenaline and, and moments
where we don't need to have cortisol on adrenaline right
when we're answering emails or when we're in our head about
something. So yoga helps us to get out of
our head and into our body. So a lot of times we use yoga,
(22:42):
the physical practice, to help with our mental health, and then
we use the meditation to help with our chronic pain.
So I deal with chronic pain. I have since I was a teenager.
So I find that meditation has been been the biggest game
changer for me because chronic pain is a misinterpretation of a
(23:02):
signal when it's become chronic,when it's all the time.
And so through meditation, we rebuild the areas of your brain
that degrade with pain. We rebuild them and so it's,
it's directly countering that through the biochemical changes
that we have. It's one of the best ways to
(23:23):
approach pain is this multifaceted approach, which
yoga is. So that's been really
transformational for me. It's changing my biochemistry so
that I I have more manageable pain.
It doesn't take over my life anymore as well as the anxiety.
Wow, Yeah. What is that journey been like
for you? To have the chronic pain and try
to, I imagine you tried so many things to try to figure it out
(23:45):
and to end up here to have a wayto manage it.
What has that journey been like for you?
Well, I had pain since I was a teenager, and I didn't really
know. It wasn't normal to have a lot
of pain if you, you know, were stressed from studying or you
stayed up a little late to studyor perhaps you ate something.
Now I know that's inflammatory. I would have severe chronic pain
(24:09):
the next day. And so as I got older and other
people weren't having that pain all the time, like, like that,
you know, in college, I, I was like, wait, there's something
here. So I noticed yoga made it better
and I didn't know why. Well, we do know that yoga
improves lifestyle choices. So I started to become more
mindful of what I was eating andhow exercise and movement helped
(24:34):
me feel better and relaxing techniques helped me feel
better. Sleep got better, which we know
yoga improves sleep. So all of those things started
to be better through my yoga practice.
Also, we know that yoga and meditation encourage endorphin
release. Those are those feel good
chemicals. So that runner's high, well we
(24:56):
get a yoga high also. That's another one of those
neurochemicals that is affected through through yoga and
meditation. So I started to get these
endorphin rushes and that ultimately made me commit my
life, Joseph, like, wow, if thiscan help with my pain and
anxiety, which I felt like we'requite debilitating as a like
(25:18):
type A perfectionist, they were really holding me back then it
could help other people too. So like many people coming to
yoga, you know, and becoming a teacher, that's what my
intention was. And I ended up studying yoga and
India, Tai chi and Qigong and China.
And then when I came back, I waslike, you know, I need to
(25:40):
understand the science. I actually have an art degree
undergrad and my teacher in India was very much into anatomy
and Physiology and the science. So when I came back, I did the
pre Med course load to understand like what is the
magic behind this? There's something here, but I
can't put words to it. Now after understanding and
(26:00):
studying the pre Med course load, followed by becoming a
massage therapist and then ultimately getting my masters of
science graduate degree and yogatherapy, I understand the
mechanisms behind it, how it works.
It's not really magic, it's it'sscience or you could see science
as magic. It's quite amazing how it works.
So that's really my journey and now I help people with chronic
(26:23):
pain. Well, the art degree explains
why your books have such beautiful illustrations.
Yeah, it was amazing to work with some of the best
illustrators in the world. My publisher for Science of Yoga
is DK and they have some of the best illustrators.
Aaron Lewis did this book. You know, if you know, a lot of
(26:45):
children's books are published by DK, the I Spy series, the
logo books, lots of like educational children's books.
If you have kids or grandkids, you know, you've probably seen
DK books or when you were younger.
So that was such a pleasure for me to for it to all come full
circle, where now I'm working with artists to integrate the
science and like sketching out things for them to to do.
(27:07):
But it's a gorgeous book. I'm so grateful to have worked
with this team. It's really cool.
You get to bring together all ofthis experience you've had into
what you do in a really beautiful way.
The art and the science, the understanding of anatomy, the
yoga therapy. So it all kind of comes together
really well. Like your book is very
comprehensive. The The Science of Yoga book is
(27:29):
very comprehensive. Yeah, I think that's something I
didn't know when I first startedteaching, you know, 20 years ago
when I started started pursuing yoga teaching, I didn't know
that it would all come together.It did it.
Everything I was doing was so disparate.
Even I was teaching Tai chi and studying massage and taking
(27:50):
biochemistry and all, it seems so all disparate and it all came
together serendipitously. And this book, actually, this
was a turning point for me to bring all of that knowledge, all
the workshops I'd taken, all thenotes I'd tediously taken and
bring it together into this book.
And ultimately, I turned it intoa science of yoga certification
(28:11):
for teachers. It's like what I wish I could
have learned. You know, all in one package.
Yeah, this is one of the most common things I hear too from
people who've taken maybe the ina teacher training or recently
completed teacher training. It's very common that the
anatomy is difficult to learn ornot given a lot of time in a
(28:34):
training or for whatever reason,people just struggle to learn
anatomy. And it can be quite a complex
subject. There's a lot of intricacies to
it. So what do you say to the
teacher who's listening, who maybe struggling to learn anatomy
or maybe wanting to deepen theirstudies?
And it's like, how do you kind of breakthrough?
Because for me, I experienced, there was a few years where I
(28:56):
was really trying to learn. It wasn't quite clicking for me.
So what might you say to somebody like that?
Well, I think many yoga teachersare experiential learners.
That's what really draws us to it.
So we're what they call kinesthetic learners.
We learn in our body. And if you're like me, you're
also a visual learner. You need to see it.
(29:17):
So that's what I would say. I love seeing pictures of people
on Instagram with Science of Yoga opened at their yoga mat,
like they're actually practicingand applying it in their body.
So that's what I would do is constantly use this CHEAT SHEET
that you have with you all the time.
Your body do the post feel what muscles, what areas, what joints
(29:40):
are working, which ones are lengthening, relaxing, what's
going on internally. You can feel it when you pay
attention. And then the other thing I would
say is everybody thinks anatomy.Let's just talk about the
muscles and bones. When I started writing Science
of Yoga, that's exactly what I didn't want to do because that's
only the smallest portion of yoga.
(30:02):
Yoga is a practice that affects all of our systems of the body.
So instead I breakdown how yoga poses, breathing, meditation,
all the practices affect each system of the body.
So I take you through the 11 systems of the body through the
book and through the course and how yoga effects each of them.
(30:24):
When we look at the body of research supporting yoga, very
little of it is actually on which muscle and which, you
know, physical like the the muscles and bones is is engaging
and what's going on. Very little of it is in that
biomechanical perspective. Most yoga research is on
(30:45):
clinical populations where we see that yoga helps people with
arthritis with their chronic pain or Ms. and Parkinson's with
balance. We see how it affects our
immunity and we have a less sickdays at work.
We see how it affects cancer cells.
We see all of these effects of yoga through the research and
(31:11):
it's not just about the muscles and bones.
So I would also that be my otherthing is get interested about
the neuroscience, the psychology, the other aspects of
the Physiology, the immune system.
How does yoga affect what we call psycho neurobiology or
psycho neuroimmunology where it's it's affecting all aspects
(31:32):
like it's psychology and neurology and your immune system
all at once. I would get interested in the
other systems too, and that'll set you apart too because
everybody's just talking about the muscles and bones and
they're missing the point, honestly.
Yes, and I love that you talked to the learning styles there at
the beginning of that, the kinesthetic learning.
And to me that was where it really started to click the most
(31:55):
when I was learning, not just from reading a book.
And before your book I did my teacher training back in like
2011 was my first one. So a lot of the books that were
out then, even Leslie Kamenos books is great as well.
Yoga Anatomy. But the general feeling with the
books at the time was that it's a lot of reading and I just
(32:17):
didn't quite see how to apply it.
Like, and I'd go to like a anatomy workshop in person.
It was all kinesthetic and it was just, I feel OK, I
understand what's happening in Chaturanga now.
I feel this in my spine and these muscles activating, these
muscles relaxing. So that kinesthetic part helped
a lot. But then your book, I think all
(32:38):
the things I'd read is like, I was so happy to find your book
because then it like puts together all these things and
it's like on a single page, there might be things I found in
like 5 different books, but all put together on like one page in
a way that's like, now here's how you apply it and you can
really integrate it. And so that kinesthetic part I
think is really key to this. And then the visuals are amazing
(32:59):
in your book too, like better than any other book I'd seen.
So it's like you really see what's happening and you can
feel it in your body. And then with your course, I
imagine the audio part is there as well.
So you get the the guidance through it as well.
Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad it was helpful for
you. It's been such a joy to make it
into a physical book and and nowan interactive course.
(33:22):
I studied videography in art school, so for me it even came
full circle to make this like gorgeous course with epic
videography ahead and editing. And so it's like it, everything
comes full circle. That's something I want to
emphasize to those teachers thatare like, I don't know how this
is going to come together and who I'm going to teach or what's
(33:43):
going to go on. But like keep following what
brings you light and what inspires you and how yoga has
transformed you. You know, it's like I'm almost
great. I am grateful for my pain and
anxiety now because they give mecompassion and the tools to be
able to help other people with pain and anxiety at a so much
(34:05):
cheaper level and to be able to teach teachers how to adapt and
integrate these tools into theirclasses because guess what?
One in three people have arthritis.
They are in your classes. People with chronic pain and
anxiety are in every single class and trauma, and we need to
be able to integrate them even to a basic yoga class.
(34:26):
There needs to be that application and adaptation to
make it accessible for people. So it's been actually a gift for
me to have these things. And so look at those things as
as your gifts and your ways to integrate.
Yeah, there's a real beautiful alchemy that happens becoming a
teacher. And there's a lot of teachers
(34:46):
who are maybe newer thinking like maybe I'm too much of this,
so I don't have enough of that, or I have this issue.
And that in some way they see that as a reason that they're
not going to be successful as a teacher or they shouldn't teach
her. But often it is the exact thing
that like now they know so much about arthritis or back pain or
scoliosis. And now like people who have
(35:09):
that same thing can trust them as an expert and want to work
with them. And it is really important, I
think, to own that that challenge or that obstacle and
perceived obstacle as an as a gift.
I really agree with that as well.
Yeah, beautifully said. And and then I say there's
another side of it. Like I know a teacher who's like
super flexible and it's been a real learning curve for her to
(35:32):
to understand that a lot of her students can't do the things
that she can do and to be able to adapt to them and to slow
down or make poses simpler. And not just do what she's
expert at, but also understand like people might have different
needs than her and adapt to themas well.
I can speak to that because I amthat student and teacher too.
(35:54):
They used to use me as an example on Ashtanga classes and
put my legs behind my neck and like swing me around and stuff.
And then I'd leave the Ashtanga class.
You know, I guess I'd feel some sort of pride as being the one
that's the example because I'm good at yoga.
I don't know, I was in my early 20s, but I'd leave that class in
worse pain. I'd feel worse after those
(36:17):
classes where I took my body to the extreme.
And now diving into the research, I know that there's a
correlation between hyper mobility.
When you're really, really flexible, you could do things
like, you know, reach down into extreme forward folds, put your
legs behind your neck, go into the splits, easy.
Those that hyper mobility and pain and we see this strong
(36:42):
connection between chronic pain and hypermobility.
And one of the biggest things that I've done for my own
journey with pain is strengthen and not go into those extreme
poses anymore and say no if theywant to come up to me and put me
in a pose as an example. And I think when I first started
teaching, it was difficult to adapt because I could just go
(37:04):
into it so easy. So that's that inflexible
person. I'm actually quite jealous of
them because maybe over time they had to build and practice
and feel and adapt to the pose. And with many poses, you can
become more flexible over time. If you're stiff, if you're not
like me, you're already like waytoo far.
(37:25):
You know, you may want to progress.
And then they could teach other students that were progressing,
that were stiff, that sat all the time and didn't have that
hyper mobility that I had. So in a lot of ways, if you're
stiffer and you're working through it, that you you can
give better cues, you can give better modifications.
(37:45):
I had to learn those without feeling it in my body because I
didn't need to set up on a bolster.
I didn't need to have a folded blanket under my knees or rolled
blanket because I could straighten and lock my knees
completely straight and come into it.
But that wasn't good for my joints and long term, definitely
not good for my joints to have that impact.
So now I focus on strengthening.But I just wanted to share that
(38:08):
that if you are stiff, that's it's actually quite a gift
because most students are stiff.Absolutely, yeah.
It's Stira suka Asana in practice, right?
If you're too flexible, you may benefit from more strengthening.
If you're too stiff, you may benefit from more flexibility,
right? Yeah, people always ask like
what's the perfect yoga pose, the perfect yoga sequence, the
(38:32):
perfect yoga practice? And it depends is always the
answer. It depends on what is your
intention, Who are you initially?
Are you that hypermobile or are you more stiff?
Do you need more calming and grounding because you're anxious
or do you need more energizing because you're depressed and
you're kind of lethargic? And this it depends also.
(38:53):
It depends day-to-day because each of us as individuals, we
have seasons, you know, and thisis something we learn in our
urea that we changed through theyear, but also through the day.
You know what I mean? In the morning is different in
the evening. So follow your intuition and
adapt, adapting for the studentsthat are in the room and that
show up because it's, it's so individualized and everybody is
(39:16):
the world's leading expert in their own body.
So empowering you and your students to understand that they
can adapt, they can go slower, they can change it to make it
suit them better. Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's very essential and very hard for somebody with
an Ashtanga background where it's like there's a sad sequence
(39:37):
and it's the same thing every time.
It's probably hard to. I mean, was that your main
practice for a while? Well, when I was in India, half
of the training was in Ashanga and half of it was in
Shivananda. And my teacher was actually
quite honest that he felt like he couldn't get enough students
if he only did Shivananda, even though he believed Shivananda
(39:58):
was more powerful. He felt like, you know, he was
trained in Ashtanga and that he could get more American students
because they want the intensity of Ashtanga.
But depending on the person, he would give different
recommendations. So for me, he was like, you need
more calming, you need more Shivananda, you need more
grounding. Now mind you, this is a
different perspective. I was in my early 20s and it was
(40:20):
India. So Shivananda is a very
challenging practice too. It's this first poses of it are
head stand, shoulder stand, plow, bridge, fish.
So I came back to the US ready to teach my relaxing practice
that starts with head stand, shoulder stand, plow, bridge,
fish. And everybody was lost.
Everybody's like, there's no wayI could do that.
People literally laughed in my face.
(40:42):
So India versus the US also perhaps is a big thing there.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
And it's, I think it's so important to be adaptable.
I mean, that's like I'm considermyself more in the
Krishnamacharya lineage. She taught Ashanga to Pattabhi.
Joyce taught a younger to because I say younger.
Yep. Add Vinnie yoga to his son
(41:05):
Jessica Charles, a very broad range of what yoga can be
depending on who's in front of you.
And I think that's the really the skill of the good teachers
to be able to teach who's in front of them, right?
Yeah, it truly is. That's such a great example.
You know, I've heard that. Pattabhi Joyce, His mind was
(41:26):
always wandering and kind of allover the place.
So he needed a stronger to meet him where he was, right?
We needed that flowing yoga to meet them where they are.
And then you can ground down andmeditate and sit.
So a lot of times therapeutically, you want to
meet the person where they are initially.
If they are like more they have ADHD or they're like, my mind is
(41:47):
all over the place. I'm super Pitta intense.
Go, go, go. They might actually have to do
the sun salutations to get that out of their system.
And then you can ground down anddo some restorative and some
calming things. And vice versa for somebody
that's really depressed and lethargic, maybe you have to
start slowly, slow movements andthen build up to get more
(42:10):
intensity. So I think that's a really good
example. It's you know each person's
different but also meeting them where they are.
Yeah. And then as a teacher, to have
that skill and the tools and to know when to use what and to
bring balance to that person. And I think again, what you
teach and what you share in yourbooks is so much of that and
(42:32):
like knowing the tools. So like this question comes up a
lot too of like, OK, if I'm looking at somebody in chair
pose, how do I know if they're doing it quote UN quote right or
not? And it's there's different
schools of thought on what chairpose even is.
Like, do you squat down really deep or do you say up higher?
(42:54):
Do you arch your back or not? Do you tuck the tail as they
say? And some teachers say like you
always have. Or never tuck the tailbound.
You know the answer is it depends.
It depends on the person, but also depends on your intention.
So when I was pregnant and I'm trying to work with my pelvic
floor and opening my pelvis, my squats and chair poses look very
(43:18):
different, right? My intention was different.
If you have arthritis in your knees, your your intention, you
know, for those students is probably not to go so deep into
the knees and to bring the weight back, maybe even sit
against a wall to take the pressure off the knees.
It's not to say that it's not OKto be in chair pose with it
(43:41):
forward for everybody. It's just not OK for that person
who's going to have more pain and not come back to your class
next week, right? So it depends on your intention
and the person. And so that's what I would say
about chair pose. You know, we have to learn
though, as teachers a base way. This is the pose, right, based
off of the tradition, you know, in science of yoga, we have
(44:02):
these little, oh, just crazy opened it right to chair pose.
We have these little charts thatare like, here are the alignment
cues that you may use for chair pose pointing to each joint.
But that's like the basic, right?
You may teach it with a different intention.
So once you know the basic general shape of the pose, now
(44:25):
you ask yourself, what's my intention and who am I teaching
it to? So everybody is going to be
different in that circumstance. And that's where the skills come
in. And we start to look at the
science and the science behind what's going on in your body
when you go into that. But ultimately, I want you to
rest assured that movement is better than no movement.
(44:49):
And if you empower people to understand that they're the
world's leading expert in their own body, that they do not need
to push themselves, that they should not feel pain, increased
pain and poses, that they can come out anytime they want, that
they can ease out of it anytime they want, they're going to find
the variation that works for them.
And then you can add your knowledge little by little to,
(45:13):
to get all those cues and those Nuggets of wisdom to enhance for
people that I, I guess I never want anybody to be afraid of
movement because there might be that person with arthritis in
the room. Just constantly empower your
students to listen to their bodies and adapt and give them
options. Absolutely.
So if somebody is looking at a pose, like looking at a room of
(45:36):
people and let's say it's Cobra pros and maybe some people are
hunching their shoulders up. Some people are in the very big
backbend, some people are very small back then, what does a
teacher do or say to that room? Like how did how do they look
like? How do you look at a room of
students to assess? Like do I need to maybe adjust
(45:57):
my queuing here or is there something I missed or somebody
maybe I think that might be harmful.
What? What do you how do you look at a
room of students? So I scan for safety 1st and and
what I mean by safety is, you know, preventing injuries.
Now rest assured also injuries happen in any movement.
Practice walking to your car. We've all had I got injured the
(46:21):
other day reaching for a glass of water wrong.
My shoulder got spasmy. So injuries happen all the time.
And we know based off of the research that yoga has a much
lower incidence of injury than any modality I've ever seen.
So lower than weight lifting, lower than soccer, lower than
(46:43):
running. I could list them out.
I have an Instagram post where Ilisted all the the injury rates
and yoga was the lowest. And of course, you know, power
yoga being the highest in yoga. I'm like, cheer yoga would be
the lowest, right in yoga. So there's variation also
sprains and strains and minor injuries happen when you move.
(47:04):
It's it's part of life. But we as teachers want to
minimize that and we want to make it accessible for people.
So I was like to preface it withthat yoga is safe, but and
movement is better than no movement.
But there are things we could doto try to minimize the impact
for people, especially those people who are beginners who
(47:26):
don't move very much to live a sedentary life, who have
arthritis and pain. They're the ones more likely to
get injured. The older adults also, the older
you are, the more likely you areto get injured, the more chronic
diseases. So we want to make it
accessible, inclusive and bitingto those people.
That's where our knowledge of anatomy and the safety and the
(47:47):
research all comes into play. The more we have of that, the
more we can give them tools and modifications.
So when I look at that room, I'mjust scanning for safety first,
not of like how pretty the pose is or can they touch here, you
know, I'm scanning for safety and I'm giving modifications.
Cobra pose, for example. Shoulders shrugged up.
(48:08):
Yeah, it's probably making that tension and the neck and
shoulders worse. Is it unsafe?
No, I'd probably say that's not an unsafe thing.
So that's kind of how I'm assessing it.
Then I might scan for enhancing it.
And that's where like that, shoulders hunched up, you let's
all try to reach our arms behindus, like just an upper body
(48:31):
locus with our palms facing down, right?
So now I have to reach my hands away, so my shoulders are
reaching down my back. I feel my shoulder blade
squeezing in. So that's going to ensure that
nobody's shoulders are shrugged up and now they're not putting
their hands down. So I'm also going to make sure
nobody's going into like a full up dog pinching into their low
back. For those folks that are hyper
(48:52):
mobile, that might be going a little deeper into it, but it's
harder. And I'm going to emphasize,
guess what? This is a harder version of this
is strengthening. That's going to appeal to your
pittas in the room that want to do the more challenging version.
It's lower than some of those people.
Maybe they're in the high up dogand they felt some pinching in
their back that like, that's good.
(49:13):
That's what I want. They threw their head back.
Now they're in a lower version of it.
It may not look as fancy, but it's actually harder.
It's more strengthening to the erector spinet.
It's more strengthening to the muscles supporting the spine,
the core. And I'm going to emphasize that
because guess what? They're going to feel pretty
great about that and that's going to satisfy the pit does,
(49:34):
but then it's also going to makeit less competitive.
So that's for the example. That's how I might handle that
one. Yeah, that's a good example and
it's speaking to a lot of different things in a simple way
and very practical and achievable.
So really nice and not just likemaybe calling out a student or
yeah, fixing them or saying there's.
(49:54):
Something you're not here to fixthem.
Yes, it and calling somebody outmultiple times in a class,
they're going to be so frustrated.
You know, Susan, bring your shoulders down.
I mean, it can just be really disheartening.
So if I were to call out something, I would first call it
out to the whole group, like, and everybody, let's try this
(50:18):
version. Let's come down out of it for a
moment and let's come back into it.
But instead of having the shoulders squeezing up, let's
engage the muscles around your shoulder blades to bring the
shoulder blades down. These are the lower trapezius
muscles or strengthening them, counteracting that stress that
we we have through the day wherewe shrug our shoulders up.
(50:38):
Can we counteract that? And so I, I might just have us
all apply that intention. That would be a better way.
And then if there really is something you need to call
somebody out on, you know, or I wouldn't even think of it as
calling them out on giving an enhancement, a suggestion.
You know, then you can, you can walk up to them on Zoom.
(50:58):
I say, I'm going to give you allsome suggestions.
It's not that you're doing it wrong, but I'm just going to
give you some things that are going to enhance.
It, you know, Nancy, let's try to bring those shoulders down a
little bit. So I, I may give some
individual, but once I give a one or two individual, I'm not
going to be hounding that person.
So watch it. Yeah, absolutely.
I totally agree with that. And you mentioned in there that
(51:20):
you talk about this on your Instagram.
So what what is your Instagram? People want to connect with you
there. Yeah, my Instagram is at Science
of dot Yoga and that's also where you can find the book is
www.scienceof.yogasoinsteadof.com.yogaand I have a freebie for your
listeners on there. So it's definitely go to
(51:43):
www.scienceof.yoga. And I also have an A YouTube
channel and Swanson is the name of the channel and Swanson
Wellness. Just like it sounds and Swanson
and yeah, it's been, I feel likewe could talk a lot longer, but
I really appreciate your time today.
And that's what people definitely recommend.
(52:03):
Check out Instagram and the bookI highly recommend.
I use it a lot when I'm leaving future trainings.
I recommend it to people and I reference it and I think it's
just a great resource. And so much of what we talked
about today is in that book. And so much of what I've learned
in so many different anatomy resources is in that book in a
very concise and applicable way.So thank you.
(52:24):
You've done a huge service to the yoga community by creating
that book. It's a very great resource.
My pleasure, it was so great to finally meet you, Jeremy.
It was a great conversation. I appreciate it and hope to come
back in the future. Yes, absolutely.
All right. Thank you.
(52:44):
I want to go deeper with your yoga studies.
Go to Quietmind dot yoga slash workshop and check out my free
workshop to become your own yogateacher.
Even you practice with the 10 core competencies of yoga I
teach, including anatomy, philosophy, business of yoga,
sequencing, and everything that goes into practicing and
teaching yoga. That's at Quietmind dot yoga
slash workshop. And if you want to practice with
(53:06):
me, check out the Quietmind Yogamembership with hundreds of
classes in all styles for all requests at Quietmind dot Yoga.
I've read so many books on anatomy, trying to make sense of
it, and one book stood out aboveall the others and put together
a lot of the best things that I found in those books and through
my own experience. And that book is called Science
of Yoga by Anne Swanson. So I use this when I lead my
teacher training programs. I share this with others who are
(00:22):
looking for a good anatomy book.I think it breaks it down super
well and shows it super well. Great visuals, great
explanations, and it summarizes all the best info that you want
to know as a teacher and practitioner to understand
anatomy. So I am super honored and super
grateful to be able to share this interview today.
I did with Anne Swanson, the author of the book Science of
(00:45):
Yoga. It's now in its second edition
and she's shared a lot of insights from that book and from
her own experience and somethingshe calls yoga snacks like
exercise and mindfulness practices and ways that you can
apply yoga throughout the day inshort, simple ways.
We talk about teaching yoga. We talk about anatomy.
(01:06):
She's sold over half a million copies of the book Science of
Yoga. It's amazing.
I highly recommend it. If you don't have it, it's one
of the few books I recommend. Like, I only think there's a few
essential books you should have as a yoga teacher, and that is
one of them, along with a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a copy of
the Yoga Sutra and a few others.But this is definitely one that
(01:27):
I recommend is you should have this in your library.
It's very useful, very helpful. So Anne Swanson herself has
overcome chronic pain and anxiety, and it's what led her
to studying yoga and Tai chi andearning a Masters of science in
yoga therapy. And she actually has a special
gift for the listeners of this episode at www.scienceof.yoga.
(01:49):
And that's where you can check out more for this episode.
If you want to go deeper with Anne and learn more about what
she offers and apply the things she's teaching, Science of dot
Yoga is where you can check thatout.
So I'm super grateful to share this interview.
And if you want to go deeper with me, there's a free workshop
I'm hosting next week at Quiet Mind dot Yoga slash workshop.
(02:09):
You can check that out in the show notes as well.
Becoming your own yoga teacher is one of the most empowering
and inspiring things that I've ever done that you could do, so
I'll be sharing how to do that in a simple free workshop on
Monday, May 19th. If you catch this later, you can
check out that same link to catch the replay or future live
workshops. Quiet Mind at Yoga Slash
(02:30):
Workshop for that, and I'm excited to share this interview.
So we're going to talk about a lot of cool stuff.
If you're a teacher or not, or if you're wanting to go deeper
in your practice. I think you'll learn a lot from
Anne and I'm super honored to share this.
So enjoy my interview with Anne Swanson, author of Science of
Yoga and Meditation for the RealWorld.
(02:58):
Welcome back to the Yoga TeacherTraining Podcast.
I'm Jeremy Devons. And I'm very.
Happy today to be with the author of Science of Yoga, a
book I've recommended a lot in my teacher training programs
that I lead because it's an amazing resource.
And Anne Swanson is here today to talk about her experience
with that book, a new book she'swritten, her experience with
(03:19):
yoga snacks, and her own processof applying these things to her
life. You've got so much interesting
things to talk about, so welcomeAnne.
So great to be here with you, Jeremy.
Yes. So I want to jump right into
this idea of yoga snacks becausethis is something I think is
very applicable to everybody. Like you can apply these
scientific principles and ideas that you teach in your books to
(03:43):
just like everyday real challenges like you've
experienced yourself and many people experience.
So let's What are yoga snacks? Yeah.
So this is based off of a current phenomenon that's very
popular in the exercise science world, and that's exercise
snacks. The researchers use that term to
describe anything that's less than 15 minutes, generally that
(04:06):
you do throughout your day. So some of them can be even as
short as 30 seconds or one breath, you know, a very quick
momentary. But the idea is that you put
them in critical moments in yourday and to break up long bouts
of sitting. You know, we're in this
sedentary lifestyle and they saysitting is the new smoking,
(04:28):
right? It's really playing a toll on
our health. So if we can break it up, we can
not only improve our health outcomes, but also improve our
focus so that we are more into what we're doing more in flow.
Yoga puts you in that flow state.
Meditations, many meditations put you in that flow state
better. Yeah, absolutely.
(04:49):
So what brought you to like testsome of these things out or
experience some of these things?What's some of the experiences
you've had with these yoga snacks?
This is how I really practice nowadays.
I do little breaks throughout the day.
It's really integrated into my life.
I think like many yoga teachers,I became a yoga teacher first
(05:09):
and foremost because it transformed my life and I wanted
to be able to apply it to my ownlife.
Like teach myself, adapt the poses and optimize the practices
to improve all of my outcomes, improve my focus, improve my
pain, my anxiety, all of the things I was struggling with and
what I found for myself and my students as a yoga therapist, my
(05:33):
my clients that these little breaks were more likely to do
them number one. And based off of research, they
seem to be more impactful if youcan strategically place them.
Like right before you have a, a class that you're about to do,
do a yoga snack in the room, youknow, close the the doors, have
a moment to yourself to prepare to get into that flow state to
(05:55):
be less nervous. Or perhaps, you know, for me,
it's like when I go to the doctor's office, I get really
nervous. I've had this incidents where I
like pass out at critical moment.
And so to prevent that, I'll do these little mini meditations
right there in the doctor's office.
So sometimes they don't even need to know you're doing them.
(06:16):
Another critical time that you can put it is after you eat.
We have an abundance of researchthat shows that walking after
meals is really beneficial for lowering your blood glucose
spikes. And this is important because
when your blood glucose spikes, then inevitably it will fall.
After we eat, we get naturally that spike and then it will fall
(06:40):
and will crash. You have that sugar crash, we
call it where we feel fatigue, we feel Moody.
If you have chronic pain, it comes up in that moment.
So that afternoon kind of crash.We can prevent those crashes and
improve our metabolic health, which like that is all the rage
right now. And research and, and what all
(07:00):
the scientists are talking aboutis if we improve our metabolic
health, then we're going to improve many chronic diseases as
well as our, our lifespan and life overall.
So we can do that by just movingafter we eat.
Now, walking is what we have themost research on.
So you can do a walking meditation between 10 and 15
(07:21):
minutes tends to be the sweet spot, but some research shows
even 2 minutes makes a profound difference.
But you don't have to walk if you don't have the space.
Maybe you just have space to do some some squats, some chair
poses, or sun salutation right next to your desk.
It's. The idea is to get the largest
muscles of your body moving. So when we're walking, we're
(07:44):
moving our thighs, our gluteals,and these muscles will uptake
the glucose for energy immediately.
They love to do that. And when they do that, it lowers
that blood glucose that's circulating.
And so it also will help lower inflammation as well as all the
things I mentioned. So it's just so good for your
(08:05):
health. And I encourage people to just
do 2 minutes of yoga right afteryou eat.
You'll likely do a little bit more because it'll feel good
though. Right.
And it's amazing that even in this is one of those things that
in the old Ayurvedic texts and yoga texts, specifically
Ayurveda, they talk about the importance of walking after
(08:25):
eating. And they don't not just like
staying sedentary after eating. And now the science, the Western
empirical kind of method is catching up to these ancient
traditions. And there's so much of this
happening now, right? Yeah, it's Shatta Pavali.
It's 100 steps, literally 100 steps.
That's the Ayurvedic practice ofafter you eat, you're supposed
to do 100 steps. That's about two minutes right
(08:47):
there, right? They intuitively knew what now
researchers are uncovering as astruth.
So that's one of my favorite things about studying the
science of yoga and writing my book Science of Yoga is seeing
these things that we know intuitively now have the
research to support them the neuroscience, the even the
(09:11):
science of spirituality. There's research to support many
of these things that encourages our students and honestly
encourages me to practice. I'm like, wow, this is real.
This really works. It gets my butt into practice
after every meal and throughout my day.
Yeah, absolutely. So something else like people
(09:34):
could just like holding down dogor something as a movement or
something like simple just moving their body at all after
eating is is a good example of ayoga snack.
Any other like at the doctor's office, like something that you
like to do there, like specifically that the practice
that you do there? Oh my gosh, so I have this thing
where I like fight, flight and freeze.
(09:56):
I go to freeze pass out when a doctor is kind of not answering
my questions, not paying attention to me or maybe a
little creepy. I just like peace out.
I'm gone and it's really traumatic.
I'm on the floor, I'm shaking. I don't know where I am.
I when I come to, it's really overwhelming.
(10:17):
So I went to a yoga teacher and I was like, OK, what can I do?
How can I use yoga to help this?And they told me, OK, pay
attention to your body sensations.
Let's use this meditation. Feel your body sensations, feel
your breath, notice your breath like classic meditation
techniques. And so I went in there
empowered. I'm going to do this.
(10:38):
I'm going to stay present and notice my body and breath.
And guess what happened? I pass out on the floor quicker
than I ever had before. So I looked into it and
apparently, based off of the research, when you deal with
acute anxiety, like in the situation, in that moment you're
(10:58):
really anxious. Not just like overall anxiety,
but like in that moment panic, body awareness and breath
awareness make it worse for mostpeople.
You start to feel, Oh my God, myheart's pounding out of my chest
and you start to notice your breath is an irregular and not
(11:19):
able to be controlled and you start to feel like your body is
forsaken you and you pass out quicker.
As I did so I I looked into it like what meditation techniques
do this? Does the research say would help
in this situation? What we want to do in acute
anxiety is rather than paying attention to the internal
sensations, we bring our focal point to something external.
(11:45):
So I am noticing what do I see, what do I hear?
How do I feel my feet on the ground or my butt on the on the
chair. I'm feeling the outside of my
body connected, grounded. So there's a technique and my
books called the 333 technique, you know, name three things you
can see, three things you can hear and then move three body
(12:08):
parts. And that might be as simple as
rolling your shoulders, moving your hands and mudras.
So that's what I do for myself now in those panic situations.
And that's what I would do if somebody else were in a panic
situation like in my class and they were overwhelmed, their
technique wasn't working for them, and they were having a
panic attack. Of course, call 911, get help,
(12:31):
emergency action protocol if it seems like something's going
wrong. But just asking somebody what
are three things you see here and move three body parts makes
a huge difference. That's amazing 333 technique.
Very cool. Thank you for that.
I think that'd be very valuable to people.
And yeah, this is something that's come up a lot in sort of
(12:52):
a trauma informed approach to teaching, where some teachers
might be teaching a class like apranayama exercise or internal
meditation, like close your eyesand, you know, describing it as
a relaxing situation. Like now you should be feeling
very relaxed. Or people, sometimes newer
teachers have this. So maybe telling students that
(13:12):
an experience should feel a certain way.
Should. Yeah, you shouldn't.
All over yourself, right? And maybe they wouldn't even use
the word should. But there is an implication that
like as we do this now, the effect would be that you're
relaxed. But a trauma informed approach
is to be aware that some students might find closing
their eyes dysregulating and more activating for their
(13:34):
nervous system and more anxiety invoking.
And it's good, I think to be aware of this as teachers to be
aware of like their students being in different places.
You don't know what they're, what's they're experiencing
internally or what happened to them that day or what they're
going through in their life right now.
But this approach of as another tool for teachers to have just
(13:55):
this 333 method is like another great tool for teachers to have.
So I really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah.
So trauma and anxiety have a lotof overlaps like that.
So looking at when somebody's having that trigger, it could
bring on an anxiety or panic attack or bring up traumas.
(14:17):
And so that those are those moments that we can support them
and hold space for them. But also, you know, there could
be a situation where you're not sure if it's in panic attack or
they're having a heart attack. That's where we have an
emergency action protocol, right?
If it seems out of your hands oryou also want to understand your
(14:37):
scope of practice as a teacher and refer out, you know,
referring to get therapy to talkto your doctor about these sort
of things. You are not their doctor or
their therapist. So that's something to keep in
mind too. Absolutely.
And then you talked about recentpregnancy, and I imagine there's
a lot of opportunities for new ways of exploring, like what
(15:02):
your body needs, what you need to practice, or what's going to
help you regulate your nervous system through that huge
transition in your life. And I think many of our
listeners are mothers or maybe working with pregnant students.
And what did you find in your experience through that journey?
Yeah, I was pregnant with my first and so this was a brand
(15:24):
new experience for me. And being an older mom that was
in that higher risk category. I was diagnosed at one point
with diabetes during my pregnancy.
And so I had to really look intometabolic health and the
research behind it. And these little tricks like
simply taking a walk or doing some sun salutations after you
(15:48):
eat made a profound difference for me.
So integrating those yoga snacks.
But by the end of my pregnancy, I was so big that I couldn't get
down on the floor without help. And that gave me a really
wonderful sense of compassion toa lot of my students who can't
get up and down from the floor. And I myself was doing a ton of
(16:10):
cherry yoga and yoga snacks and things against the wall and the
countertop in the kitchen to adapt because being on the floor
just didn't work. And the long practices winded me
too. So it was this opportunity to to
practice a lot of meditation andbreath work and these yoga
snacks, integrating them into mylife.
(16:31):
I think it really strengthened my practice in that way.
Yeah. Did you find one particularly
like most helpful that you came back to a lot?
You know, I do walking meditations a lot.
When you're pregnant, especiallytoward the end, they say to do a
lot of walking. And so I would go into my
backyard and be barefoot. And so when you're barefoot,
(16:55):
this is not woo woo. This is real.
When you're barefoot, there's something that researchers call
earthing. We call it colloquially
grounding, but the researchers call it earthing, and it's when
your body is in contact with thephysical earth, whether it be
the grass, the sand, walking barefoot, stones, touching a
(17:16):
tree. When you're in contact with the
physical earth, we find profoundchanges physiologically, like
lowering inflammation, reducing anxiety and depression, and even
reducing blood sugar spikes. So I was really trying to work
with my blood sugar. So anytime I needed to take a
break from sitting too long or Ijust ate a snack, I'd go in the
(17:40):
backyard and I'd pace back and forth.
My neighbors probably thought I was crazy and I used this tick
knock on meditation that I integrated into my most recent
book, Meditation for the Real World.
This real world meditation is you walk and you do a thought
experiment, much like Einstein did, thought and experiments.
(18:01):
You imagine what would it feel like to be the happiest person
on Earth. That's it.
That's the cue for the meditation.
You just do the thought experiment.
As you walk, you're going to seethat it changes how you walk.
It changes what you hear. You start to hear the birds.
You're not thinking about that stressful e-mail or worrying
(18:22):
about something with your children.
In that moment, what would it beto be the happiest person on
earth? How would it feel?
Your breath changes, everything changes.
So that's a little cue I enjoy doing when I'm taking those
walking meditation breaks. Beautiful.
I love take not Hon. He's an amazing teacher and
speaker and author, and I like how he talks about like the way
(18:45):
to walk, basically how to walk very gracefully.
Like you're very present with each step and in the present
moment with each step and peace and every step.
It's very beautiful. Yeah, that's my favorite hue of
his. What would it feel like to be
the happiest person on Earth? Yeah, so good.
And you've so you've written this book about meditation for
(19:06):
the real world and that has someof these yoga snacks in it.
I haven't read this one yet. Yeah, yeah, I know you have my
first book, Science of Yoga, andthat one has a recent second
edition out. So if anybody has the 1st
edition, make sure you get the second edition.
You can go to Science of dot Yoga and then I wrote a second
(19:29):
book that's a little lesser known, but I think it's quite a
gem. It's called Meditation for the
Real World. It incorporates a lot of one
minute meditations and breathingpractices that you can integrate
through your day for real world situations like what I described
with the doctor's office. Because a lot of people have
tried meditation, but they're like, I tried it, but it didn't
(19:50):
work for me. It made me more anxious.
Well, guess what? You're not bad at meditating,
you were just doing the wrong meditation for the wrong
situation. So real world situations are
like, you know, I have a meditation for FOMO and a
meditation for waiting when you're just waiting for
something, a meditation for sleep and at the doctor's
(20:10):
office, all these sort of real world situations.
So really good for working with students also as a teacher.
Amazing. Yeah, I've heard that a lot.
I think a lot of teachers hear this with students that they
struggle to meditate or they sayI can't quiet my mind, I can't
focus my mind, I get too distracted.
So having more tools of how to help students.
(20:30):
And I think it's important also to start with the experience
yourself as a teacher, to be a practitioner, to experience and
embody it and then share that. And sounds like this book has
lots of great resources or different approaches to
meditation in a very digestible,like approachable way, right?
Yeah, ways that you can integrate into your day, like
(20:50):
these yoga snacks that I am mentioning.
Yeah, amazing. Another thing you talk about is
using your brain's built in pharmacy.
So bringing your natural morphine and feel good chemicals
so you can be a the happiest person in the world.
So what does that mean to use your brain's built in pharmacy?
(21:12):
Yeah. So you have access to all of
these chemicals, these neurochemicals and biochemistry
through your body that we can shift through lifestyle,
mindset, thoughts, movement. We know that exercise, for
example the asana portion of of yoga increases something called
(21:36):
BDNF, brain derived neurotropic factor.
This is it's something that encourages neuroplasticity, your
ability to have your brain change and morph and improve and
get thicker. And so we want to obviously
exercise and encourage that BDNFand neuroplasticity, but also
(21:57):
you have access to serotonin anddopamine, these chemicals that
help with our mood regulation. So by doing yoga, we see that
you improve all of those chemicals to have more balance
in your serotonin, more ability to uptake the available
serotonin. But also we see less cortisol,
(22:21):
less of the stress hormones, less adrenaline and, and moments
where we don't need to have cortisol on adrenaline right
when we're answering emails or when we're in our head about
something. So yoga helps us to get out of
our head and into our body. So a lot of times we use yoga,
(22:42):
the physical practice, to help with our mental health, and then
we use the meditation to help with our chronic pain.
So I deal with chronic pain. I have since I was a teenager.
So I find that meditation has been been the biggest game
changer for me because chronic pain is a misinterpretation of a
(23:02):
signal when it's become chronic,when it's all the time.
And so through meditation, we rebuild the areas of your brain
that degrade with pain. We rebuild them and so it's,
it's directly countering that through the biochemical changes
that we have. It's one of the best ways to
(23:23):
approach pain is this multifaceted approach, which
yoga is. So that's been really
transformational for me. It's changing my biochemistry so
that I I have more manageable pain.
It doesn't take over my life anymore as well as the anxiety.
Wow, Yeah. What is that journey been like
for you? To have the chronic pain and try
to, I imagine you tried so many things to try to figure it out
(23:45):
and to end up here to have a wayto manage it.
What has that journey been like for you?
Well, I had pain since I was a teenager, and I didn't really
know. It wasn't normal to have a lot
of pain if you, you know, were stressed from studying or you
stayed up a little late to studyor perhaps you ate something.
Now I know that's inflammatory. I would have severe chronic pain
(24:09):
the next day. And so as I got older and other
people weren't having that pain all the time, like, like that,
you know, in college, I, I was like, wait, there's something
here. So I noticed yoga made it better
and I didn't know why. Well, we do know that yoga
improves lifestyle choices. So I started to become more
mindful of what I was eating andhow exercise and movement helped
(24:34):
me feel better and relaxing techniques helped me feel
better. Sleep got better, which we know
yoga improves sleep. So all of those things started
to be better through my yoga practice.
Also, we know that yoga and meditation encourage endorphin
release. Those are those feel good
chemicals. So that runner's high, well we
(24:56):
get a yoga high also. That's another one of those
neurochemicals that is affected through through yoga and
meditation. So I started to get these
endorphin rushes and that ultimately made me commit my
life, Joseph, like, wow, if thiscan help with my pain and
anxiety, which I felt like we'requite debilitating as a like
(25:18):
type A perfectionist, they were really holding me back then it
could help other people too. So like many people coming to
yoga, you know, and becoming a teacher, that's what my
intention was. And I ended up studying yoga and
India, Tai chi and Qigong and China.
And then when I came back, I waslike, you know, I need to
(25:40):
understand the science. I actually have an art degree
undergrad and my teacher in India was very much into anatomy
and Physiology and the science. So when I came back, I did the
pre Med course load to understand like what is the
magic behind this? There's something here, but I
can't put words to it. Now after understanding and
(26:00):
studying the pre Med course load, followed by becoming a
massage therapist and then ultimately getting my masters of
science graduate degree and yogatherapy, I understand the
mechanisms behind it, how it works.
It's not really magic, it's it'sscience or you could see science
as magic. It's quite amazing how it works.
So that's really my journey and now I help people with chronic
(26:23):
pain. Well, the art degree explains
why your books have such beautiful illustrations.
Yeah, it was amazing to work with some of the best
illustrators in the world. My publisher for Science of Yoga
is DK and they have some of the best illustrators.
Aaron Lewis did this book. You know, if you know, a lot of
(26:45):
children's books are published by DK, the I Spy series, the
logo books, lots of like educational children's books.
If you have kids or grandkids, you know, you've probably seen
DK books or when you were younger.
So that was such a pleasure for me to for it to all come full
circle, where now I'm working with artists to integrate the
science and like sketching out things for them to to do.
(27:07):
But it's a gorgeous book. I'm so grateful to have worked
with this team. It's really cool.
You get to bring together all ofthis experience you've had into
what you do in a really beautiful way.
The art and the science, the understanding of anatomy, the
yoga therapy. So it all kind of comes together
really well. Like your book is very
comprehensive. The The Science of Yoga book is
(27:29):
very comprehensive. Yeah, I think that's something I
didn't know when I first startedteaching, you know, 20 years ago
when I started started pursuing yoga teaching, I didn't know
that it would all come together.It did it.
Everything I was doing was so disparate.
Even I was teaching Tai chi and studying massage and taking
(27:50):
biochemistry and all, it seems so all disparate and it all came
together serendipitously. And this book, actually, this
was a turning point for me to bring all of that knowledge, all
the workshops I'd taken, all thenotes I'd tediously taken and
bring it together into this book.
And ultimately, I turned it intoa science of yoga certification
(28:11):
for teachers. It's like what I wish I could
have learned. You know, all in one package.
Yeah, this is one of the most common things I hear too from
people who've taken maybe the ina teacher training or recently
completed teacher training. It's very common that the
anatomy is difficult to learn ornot given a lot of time in a
(28:34):
training or for whatever reason,people just struggle to learn
anatomy. And it can be quite a complex
subject. There's a lot of intricacies to
it. So what do you say to the
teacher who's listening, who maybe struggling to learn anatomy
or maybe wanting to deepen theirstudies?
And it's like, how do you kind of breakthrough?
Because for me, I experienced, there was a few years where I
(28:56):
was really trying to learn. It wasn't quite clicking for me.
So what might you say to somebody like that?
Well, I think many yoga teachersare experiential learners.
That's what really draws us to it.
So we're what they call kinesthetic learners.
We learn in our body. And if you're like me, you're
also a visual learner. You need to see it.
(29:17):
So that's what I would say. I love seeing pictures of people
on Instagram with Science of Yoga opened at their yoga mat,
like they're actually practicingand applying it in their body.
So that's what I would do is constantly use this CHEAT SHEET
that you have with you all the time.
Your body do the post feel what muscles, what areas, what joints
(29:40):
are working, which ones are lengthening, relaxing, what's
going on internally. You can feel it when you pay
attention. And then the other thing I would
say is everybody thinks anatomy.Let's just talk about the
muscles and bones. When I started writing Science
of Yoga, that's exactly what I didn't want to do because that's
only the smallest portion of yoga.
(30:02):
Yoga is a practice that affects all of our systems of the body.
So instead I breakdown how yoga poses, breathing, meditation,
all the practices affect each system of the body.
So I take you through the 11 systems of the body through the
book and through the course and how yoga effects each of them.
(30:24):
When we look at the body of research supporting yoga, very
little of it is actually on which muscle and which, you
know, physical like the the muscles and bones is is engaging
and what's going on. Very little of it is in that
biomechanical perspective. Most yoga research is on
(30:45):
clinical populations where we see that yoga helps people with
arthritis with their chronic pain or Ms. and Parkinson's with
balance. We see how it affects our
immunity and we have a less sickdays at work.
We see how it affects cancer cells.
We see all of these effects of yoga through the research and
(31:11):
it's not just about the muscles and bones.
So I would also that be my otherthing is get interested about
the neuroscience, the psychology, the other aspects of
the Physiology, the immune system.
How does yoga affect what we call psycho neurobiology or
psycho neuroimmunology where it's it's affecting all aspects
(31:32):
like it's psychology and neurology and your immune system
all at once. I would get interested in the
other systems too, and that'll set you apart too because
everybody's just talking about the muscles and bones and
they're missing the point, honestly.
Yes, and I love that you talked to the learning styles there at
the beginning of that, the kinesthetic learning.
And to me that was where it really started to click the most
(31:55):
when I was learning, not just from reading a book.
And before your book I did my teacher training back in like
2011 was my first one. So a lot of the books that were
out then, even Leslie Kamenos books is great as well.
Yoga Anatomy. But the general feeling with the
books at the time was that it's a lot of reading and I just
(32:17):
didn't quite see how to apply it.
Like, and I'd go to like a anatomy workshop in person.
It was all kinesthetic and it was just, I feel OK, I
understand what's happening in Chaturanga now.
I feel this in my spine and these muscles activating, these
muscles relaxing. So that kinesthetic part helped
a lot. But then your book, I think all
(32:38):
the things I'd read is like, I was so happy to find your book
because then it like puts together all these things and
it's like on a single page, there might be things I found in
like 5 different books, but all put together on like one page in
a way that's like, now here's how you apply it and you can
really integrate it. And so that kinesthetic part I
think is really key to this. And then the visuals are amazing
(32:59):
in your book too, like better than any other book I'd seen.
So it's like you really see what's happening and you can
feel it in your body. And then with your course, I
imagine the audio part is there as well.
So you get the the guidance through it as well.
Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad it was helpful for
you. It's been such a joy to make it
into a physical book and and nowan interactive course.
(33:22):
I studied videography in art school, so for me it even came
full circle to make this like gorgeous course with epic
videography ahead and editing. And so it's like it, everything
comes full circle. That's something I want to
emphasize to those teachers thatare like, I don't know how this
is going to come together and who I'm going to teach or what's
(33:43):
going to go on. But like keep following what
brings you light and what inspires you and how yoga has
transformed you. You know, it's like I'm almost
great. I am grateful for my pain and
anxiety now because they give mecompassion and the tools to be
able to help other people with pain and anxiety at a so much
(34:05):
cheaper level and to be able to teach teachers how to adapt and
integrate these tools into theirclasses because guess what?
One in three people have arthritis.
They are in your classes. People with chronic pain and
anxiety are in every single class and trauma, and we need to
be able to integrate them even to a basic yoga class.
(34:26):
There needs to be that application and adaptation to
make it accessible for people. So it's been actually a gift for
me to have these things. And so look at those things as
as your gifts and your ways to integrate.
Yeah, there's a real beautiful alchemy that happens becoming a
teacher. And there's a lot of teachers
(34:46):
who are maybe newer thinking like maybe I'm too much of this,
so I don't have enough of that, or I have this issue.
And that in some way they see that as a reason that they're
not going to be successful as a teacher or they shouldn't teach
her. But often it is the exact thing
that like now they know so much about arthritis or back pain or
scoliosis. And now like people who have
(35:09):
that same thing can trust them as an expert and want to work
with them. And it is really important, I
think, to own that that challenge or that obstacle and
perceived obstacle as an as a gift.
I really agree with that as well.
Yeah, beautifully said. And and then I say there's
another side of it. Like I know a teacher who's like
super flexible and it's been a real learning curve for her to
(35:32):
to understand that a lot of her students can't do the things
that she can do and to be able to adapt to them and to slow
down or make poses simpler. And not just do what she's
expert at, but also understand like people might have different
needs than her and adapt to themas well.
I can speak to that because I amthat student and teacher too.
(35:54):
They used to use me as an example on Ashtanga classes and
put my legs behind my neck and like swing me around and stuff.
And then I'd leave the Ashtanga class.
You know, I guess I'd feel some sort of pride as being the one
that's the example because I'm good at yoga.
I don't know, I was in my early 20s, but I'd leave that class in
worse pain. I'd feel worse after those
(36:17):
classes where I took my body to the extreme.
And now diving into the research, I know that there's a
correlation between hyper mobility.
When you're really, really flexible, you could do things
like, you know, reach down into extreme forward folds, put your
legs behind your neck, go into the splits, easy.
Those that hyper mobility and pain and we see this strong
(36:42):
connection between chronic pain and hypermobility.
And one of the biggest things that I've done for my own
journey with pain is strengthen and not go into those extreme
poses anymore and say no if theywant to come up to me and put me
in a pose as an example. And I think when I first started
teaching, it was difficult to adapt because I could just go
(37:04):
into it so easy. So that's that inflexible
person. I'm actually quite jealous of
them because maybe over time they had to build and practice
and feel and adapt to the pose. And with many poses, you can
become more flexible over time. If you're stiff, if you're not
like me, you're already like waytoo far.
(37:25):
You know, you may want to progress.
And then they could teach other students that were progressing,
that were stiff, that sat all the time and didn't have that
hyper mobility that I had. So in a lot of ways, if you're
stiffer and you're working through it, that you you can
give better cues, you can give better modifications.
(37:45):
I had to learn those without feeling it in my body because I
didn't need to set up on a bolster.
I didn't need to have a folded blanket under my knees or rolled
blanket because I could straighten and lock my knees
completely straight and come into it.
But that wasn't good for my joints and long term, definitely
not good for my joints to have that impact.
So now I focus on strengthening.But I just wanted to share that
(38:08):
that if you are stiff, that's it's actually quite a gift
because most students are stiff.Absolutely, yeah.
It's Stira suka Asana in practice, right?
If you're too flexible, you may benefit from more strengthening.
If you're too stiff, you may benefit from more flexibility,
right? Yeah, people always ask like
what's the perfect yoga pose, the perfect yoga sequence, the
(38:32):
perfect yoga practice? And it depends is always the
answer. It depends on what is your
intention, Who are you initially?
Are you that hypermobile or are you more stiff?
Do you need more calming and grounding because you're anxious
or do you need more energizing because you're depressed and
you're kind of lethargic? And this it depends also.
(38:53):
It depends day-to-day because each of us as individuals, we
have seasons, you know, and thisis something we learn in our
urea that we changed through theyear, but also through the day.
You know what I mean? In the morning is different in
the evening. So follow your intuition and
adapt, adapting for the studentsthat are in the room and that
show up because it's, it's so individualized and everybody is
(39:16):
the world's leading expert in their own body.
So empowering you and your students to understand that they
can adapt, they can go slower, they can change it to make it
suit them better. Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's very essential and very hard for somebody with
an Ashtanga background where it's like there's a sad sequence
(39:37):
and it's the same thing every time.
It's probably hard to. I mean, was that your main
practice for a while? Well, when I was in India, half
of the training was in Ashanga and half of it was in
Shivananda. And my teacher was actually
quite honest that he felt like he couldn't get enough students
if he only did Shivananda, even though he believed Shivananda
(39:58):
was more powerful. He felt like, you know, he was
trained in Ashtanga and that he could get more American students
because they want the intensity of Ashtanga.
But depending on the person, he would give different
recommendations. So for me, he was like, you need
more calming, you need more Shivananda, you need more
grounding. Now mind you, this is a
different perspective. I was in my early 20s and it was
(40:20):
India. So Shivananda is a very
challenging practice too. It's this first poses of it are
head stand, shoulder stand, plow, bridge, fish.
So I came back to the US ready to teach my relaxing practice
that starts with head stand, shoulder stand, plow, bridge,
fish. And everybody was lost.
Everybody's like, there's no wayI could do that.
People literally laughed in my face.
(40:42):
So India versus the US also perhaps is a big thing there.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
And it's, I think it's so important to be adaptable.
I mean, that's like I'm considermyself more in the
Krishnamacharya lineage. She taught Ashanga to Pattabhi.
Joyce taught a younger to because I say younger.
Yep. Add Vinnie yoga to his son
(41:05):
Jessica Charles, a very broad range of what yoga can be
depending on who's in front of you.
And I think that's the really the skill of the good teachers
to be able to teach who's in front of them, right?
Yeah, it truly is. That's such a great example.
You know, I've heard that. Pattabhi Joyce, His mind was
(41:26):
always wandering and kind of allover the place.
So he needed a stronger to meet him where he was, right?
We needed that flowing yoga to meet them where they are.
And then you can ground down andmeditate and sit.
So a lot of times therapeutically, you want to
meet the person where they are initially.
If they are like more they have ADHD or they're like, my mind is
(41:47):
all over the place. I'm super Pitta intense.
Go, go, go. They might actually have to do
the sun salutations to get that out of their system.
And then you can ground down anddo some restorative and some
calming things. And vice versa for somebody
that's really depressed and lethargic, maybe you have to
start slowly, slow movements andthen build up to get more
(42:10):
intensity. So I think that's a really good
example. It's you know each person's
different but also meeting them where they are.
Yeah. And then as a teacher, to have
that skill and the tools and to know when to use what and to
bring balance to that person. And I think again, what you
teach and what you share in yourbooks is so much of that and
(42:32):
like knowing the tools. So like this question comes up a
lot too of like, OK, if I'm looking at somebody in chair
pose, how do I know if they're doing it quote UN quote right or
not? And it's there's different
schools of thought on what chairpose even is.
Like, do you squat down really deep or do you say up higher?
(42:54):
Do you arch your back or not? Do you tuck the tail as they
say? And some teachers say like you
always have. Or never tuck the tailbound.
You know the answer is it depends.
It depends on the person, but also depends on your intention.
So when I was pregnant and I'm trying to work with my pelvic
floor and opening my pelvis, my squats and chair poses look very
(43:18):
different, right? My intention was different.
If you have arthritis in your knees, your your intention, you
know, for those students is probably not to go so deep into
the knees and to bring the weight back, maybe even sit
against a wall to take the pressure off the knees.
It's not to say that it's not OKto be in chair pose with it
(43:41):
forward for everybody. It's just not OK for that person
who's going to have more pain and not come back to your class
next week, right? So it depends on your intention
and the person. And so that's what I would say
about chair pose. You know, we have to learn
though, as teachers a base way. This is the pose, right, based
off of the tradition, you know, in science of yoga, we have
(44:02):
these little, oh, just crazy opened it right to chair pose.
We have these little charts thatare like, here are the alignment
cues that you may use for chair pose pointing to each joint.
But that's like the basic, right?
You may teach it with a different intention.
So once you know the basic general shape of the pose, now
(44:25):
you ask yourself, what's my intention and who am I teaching
it to? So everybody is going to be
different in that circumstance. And that's where the skills come
in. And we start to look at the
science and the science behind what's going on in your body
when you go into that. But ultimately, I want you to
rest assured that movement is better than no movement.
(44:49):
And if you empower people to understand that they're the
world's leading expert in their own body, that they do not need
to push themselves, that they should not feel pain, increased
pain and poses, that they can come out anytime they want, that
they can ease out of it anytime they want, they're going to find
the variation that works for them.
And then you can add your knowledge little by little to,
(45:13):
to get all those cues and those Nuggets of wisdom to enhance for
people that I, I guess I never want anybody to be afraid of
movement because there might be that person with arthritis in
the room. Just constantly empower your
students to listen to their bodies and adapt and give them
options. Absolutely.
So if somebody is looking at a pose, like looking at a room of
(45:36):
people and let's say it's Cobra pros and maybe some people are
hunching their shoulders up. Some people are in the very big
backbend, some people are very small back then, what does a
teacher do or say to that room? Like how did how do they look
like? How do you look at a room of
students to assess? Like do I need to maybe adjust
(45:57):
my queuing here or is there something I missed or somebody
maybe I think that might be harmful.
What? What do you how do you look at a
room of students? So I scan for safety 1st and and
what I mean by safety is, you know, preventing injuries.
Now rest assured also injuries happen in any movement.
Practice walking to your car. We've all had I got injured the
(46:21):
other day reaching for a glass of water wrong.
My shoulder got spasmy. So injuries happen all the time.
And we know based off of the research that yoga has a much
lower incidence of injury than any modality I've ever seen.
So lower than weight lifting, lower than soccer, lower than
(46:43):
running. I could list them out.
I have an Instagram post where Ilisted all the the injury rates
and yoga was the lowest. And of course, you know, power
yoga being the highest in yoga. I'm like, cheer yoga would be
the lowest, right in yoga. So there's variation also
sprains and strains and minor injuries happen when you move.
(47:04):
It's it's part of life. But we as teachers want to
minimize that and we want to make it accessible for people.
So I was like to preface it withthat yoga is safe, but and
movement is better than no movement.
But there are things we could doto try to minimize the impact
for people, especially those people who are beginners who
(47:26):
don't move very much to live a sedentary life, who have
arthritis and pain. They're the ones more likely to
get injured. The older adults also, the older
you are, the more likely you areto get injured, the more chronic
diseases. So we want to make it
accessible, inclusive and bitingto those people.
That's where our knowledge of anatomy and the safety and the
(47:47):
research all comes into play. The more we have of that, the
more we can give them tools and modifications.
So when I look at that room, I'mjust scanning for safety first,
not of like how pretty the pose is or can they touch here, you
know, I'm scanning for safety and I'm giving modifications.
Cobra pose, for example. Shoulders shrugged up.
(48:08):
Yeah, it's probably making that tension and the neck and
shoulders worse. Is it unsafe?
No, I'd probably say that's not an unsafe thing.
So that's kind of how I'm assessing it.
Then I might scan for enhancing it.
And that's where like that, shoulders hunched up, you let's
all try to reach our arms behindus, like just an upper body
(48:31):
locus with our palms facing down, right?
So now I have to reach my hands away, so my shoulders are
reaching down my back. I feel my shoulder blade
squeezing in. So that's going to ensure that
nobody's shoulders are shrugged up and now they're not putting
their hands down. So I'm also going to make sure
nobody's going into like a full up dog pinching into their low
back. For those folks that are hyper
(48:52):
mobile, that might be going a little deeper into it, but it's
harder. And I'm going to emphasize,
guess what? This is a harder version of this
is strengthening. That's going to appeal to your
pittas in the room that want to do the more challenging version.
It's lower than some of those people.
Maybe they're in the high up dogand they felt some pinching in
their back that like, that's good.
(49:13):
That's what I want. They threw their head back.
Now they're in a lower version of it.
It may not look as fancy, but it's actually harder.
It's more strengthening to the erector spinet.
It's more strengthening to the muscles supporting the spine,
the core. And I'm going to emphasize that
because guess what? They're going to feel pretty
great about that and that's going to satisfy the pit does,
(49:34):
but then it's also going to makeit less competitive.
So that's for the example. That's how I might handle that
one. Yeah, that's a good example and
it's speaking to a lot of different things in a simple way
and very practical and achievable.
So really nice and not just likemaybe calling out a student or
yeah, fixing them or saying there's.
(49:54):
Something you're not here to fixthem.
Yes, it and calling somebody outmultiple times in a class,
they're going to be so frustrated.
You know, Susan, bring your shoulders down.
I mean, it can just be really disheartening.
So if I were to call out something, I would first call it
out to the whole group, like, and everybody, let's try this
(50:18):
version. Let's come down out of it for a
moment and let's come back into it.
But instead of having the shoulders squeezing up, let's
engage the muscles around your shoulder blades to bring the
shoulder blades down. These are the lower trapezius
muscles or strengthening them, counteracting that stress that
we we have through the day wherewe shrug our shoulders up.
(50:38):
Can we counteract that? And so I, I might just have us
all apply that intention. That would be a better way.
And then if there really is something you need to call
somebody out on, you know, or I wouldn't even think of it as
calling them out on giving an enhancement, a suggestion.
You know, then you can, you can walk up to them on Zoom.
(50:58):
I say, I'm going to give you allsome suggestions.
It's not that you're doing it wrong, but I'm just going to
give you some things that are going to enhance.
It, you know, Nancy, let's try to bring those shoulders down a
little bit. So I, I may give some
individual, but once I give a one or two individual, I'm not
going to be hounding that person.
So watch it. Yeah, absolutely.
I totally agree with that. And you mentioned in there that
(51:20):
you talk about this on your Instagram.
So what what is your Instagram? People want to connect with you
there. Yeah, my Instagram is at Science
of dot Yoga and that's also where you can find the book is
www.scienceof.yogasoinsteadof.com.yogaand I have a freebie for your
listeners on there. So it's definitely go to
(51:43):
www.scienceof.yoga. And I also have an A YouTube
channel and Swanson is the name of the channel and Swanson
Wellness. Just like it sounds and Swanson
and yeah, it's been, I feel likewe could talk a lot longer, but
I really appreciate your time today.
And that's what people definitely recommend.
(52:03):
Check out Instagram and the bookI highly recommend.
I use it a lot when I'm leaving future trainings.
I recommend it to people and I reference it and I think it's
just a great resource. And so much of what we talked
about today is in that book. And so much of what I've learned
in so many different anatomy resources is in that book in a
very concise and applicable way.So thank you.
(52:24):
You've done a huge service to the yoga community by creating
that book. It's a very great resource.
My pleasure, it was so great to finally meet you, Jeremy.
It was a great conversation. I appreciate it and hope to come
back in the future. Yes, absolutely.
All right. Thank you.
(52:44):
I want to go deeper with your yoga studies.
Go to Quietmind dot yoga slash workshop and check out my free
workshop to become your own yogateacher.
Even you practice with the 10 core competencies of yoga I
teach, including anatomy, philosophy, business of yoga,
sequencing, and everything that goes into practicing and
teaching yoga. That's at Quietmind dot yoga
slash workshop. And if you want to practice with
(53:06):
me, check out the Quietmind Yogamembership with hundreds of
classes in all styles for all requests at Quietmind dot Yoga.
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