Yoga Beyond the Mat: A Journey Through Traditions and Philosophy with Kloe Zhang Latting

When Kloe first stepped onto a yoga mat 16 years ago, weight loss was her only goal. Today, after thousands of training hours across India and beyond, she understands yoga as something profoundly different – a spiritual practice that leads to liberation from conditioned thinking.

This episode takes you on a remarkable journey through diverse yoga traditions, revealing how commercialized Western yoga often misses the essence of this ancient practice. Kloe expertly unpacks the distinctions between Bikram, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Yin, and Restorative yoga, explaining their unique purposes and philosophical foundations.

Nikki & Kloe explore how traditional yoga balances standing postures with seated, prone and supine sequences, while many modern classes overemphasize standing poses. Kloe reveals fascinating origin stories – how Iyengar transformed eating blocks into yoga props, how Vinyasa was designed for energetic royal teenagers, and how Power Yoga emerged when Western bodies couldn't perform traditional sequences.

The conversation takes a powerful turn when Kloe shares how Zen Buddhism and yoga philosophy harmoniously inform her practice, especially in navigating profound grief after losing both parents. Her insight that "the letting go is undo – you don't do anything but return to the present moment" offers wisdom applicable far beyond the yoga mat.

Whether you're a seasoned practitioner curious about yoga's spiritual dimensions or someone seeking tools for mindful living, this conversation illuminates how these ancient traditions offer exactly what our distracted modern world needs – a path to presence, peace and authentic being.

Join our free monthly meditation sessions with Kloe or experience her Wednesday Yin Yoga classes to deepen your own practice in our supportive ModernZen community.

Connect with Kloe through her profile on the ModernZen Practitioner Collective

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi, I'm Lizzie and I'm Nikki.
Have you ever felt that yourlife was missing purpose, joy or
deep connection?
Welcome to the Modern ZenCollective podcast, where we
embrace holistic living for ajoyful, purpose-driven life.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
In this podcast, we'll explore holistic practices
, consciousness expansion andspiritual alignment.
We will dive into personaldevelopment practices that
connect mind, body, spirit andshare secrets that ancient
cultures have known forcenturies.
Together, we aim to guide,educate and connect individuals
eager to transform their lives.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Join us weekly on the Modern Zen Collective podcast
and elevate your mind, body andspirit.
And now on to today's episode.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Modern
Zen Collective Podcast.
This is Nikki, and I'm havingan interview today with one of
our practitioners and a dearfriend of mine, chloe, who's
also based in the Chicago area,near where I am.
Chloe, who's also based in theChicago area, near where I am.
Chloe has well, I want her totalk about herself, but over

(01:32):
1500 hours, if not more now, oftraining in yoga and just the a
lot of the a lot of what I'velearned from her and the wisdom
from her is just being mindfulin the present moment, as hard
as it can be as humans, andshe's traveled around the world
for her teachings and she'staught around the world.
So I want to have her introduceherself a bit, but we're so
excited to have you here andyour wisdom.

(01:53):
Chloe does our monthly secondSunday meditation, which is
wonderful, and it's a beautifulthing that we get to give for
free to anyone who wants to join.
And then also, chloe has a yinyoga on Wednesdays at one
o'clock central time.
That's a one hour class.
That's a nice reset that wehave a great community with that

(02:14):
as well.
But welcome, chloe.
Thank you for being here on thepodcast.
So happy to have you.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
It's my pleasure to be here.
So happy to have you.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's my pleasure to be here.
I'm so happy to share yourstory and share more about your
journey and how you help so manyand how grounded you are is
just something I find just sowonderful about how, what you
bring to your teachings.
But I, for those of you know,for those that are listening,

(02:47):
that don't know a lot about yourbackground and who you are, can
you give us a little bit aboutyour background and how you
started in this journey?

Speaker 4 (02:55):
In yoga journey started about like 16 years ago
and literally just to loseweight, and which I still
consider myself fat all the time, basically.
Yeah, so, long story short, Istarted when I was a teenager.
I had a pretty severe eatingdisorder and it has lasted for

(03:19):
over a decade.
So when I started to do yoga, Iwas just do Bikram yoga, which
is the hot yoga, and at thattime it's still 90 minutes a
section and very, very hot, andthen sometimes I do three
sections in a row and I getkicked out from the studio.
Yeah, those are the crazy time.

(03:41):
So basically that's how Istarted yoga, but literally just
a physical movement.
Until 2014, I had a very randomopportunity to practice with
some teachers that came fromCalifornia At the time I lived

(04:01):
in Vancouver and just within thepractice you heard different
messages.
Like the teacher mentioned somespiritual things about the
mindfulness, about how togrounding yourself and about
your view right now, how youlook at the things.
That is actually diluted, thatto driven you to the completely
different way of happiness, andjust for some reason maybe at

(04:24):
the time, I was somehow readyfor that point to be awakened
and I absorbed those words andthose messages pretty well, and
I just started my meditationfrom there, and also yoga
practice Wow.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, so wait, can we unpack a little bit more about
the yoga to lose weight?
Because I feel like that's sucha big thing right now, just
with the yoga fitness studiosand with that being a big part
of the culture that's out thereworking on our self-image, for

(05:02):
feeling good in our body.
Like, how do you guide someonewho's in your class, like do you
tell them like that's great,you're here to lose weight,
wonderful, that's your journey.
Or do you talk to them aboutyou know all the other benefits
if someone tells you that whenyou're teaching them?

Speaker 4 (05:20):
So, for the current state of my teaching, even when
I started teaching, which isabout 80 years ago, I don't
mention weight loss from yoga.
I don't mention it at all and Isurely don't promote it because
I just know that is not a realway of practicing yoga.
However, talk about you know,go back to my experience, um.

(05:45):
But however, talk about youknow, go back to my experience
when I started to do yoga asliterally just to lose weight.
Use yoga to lose weight isbecause being reading the
advertisement and the people'stalking, so a little bit
background.
When I was 16, I startedmodeling and I I do have a music
performance background, so Iwas on the stage all the time

(06:06):
performance background.
So I was on the stage all thetime when I said lose weight.
I was literally 88 pounds andthe 5'5 tall, but I still think
I'm fat.
So basically, that's like sometwisted mind.
It's my mind literally twisted.
However, I'm not trying to blameme on this society.
The trigger point for me tofeel that I always constantly
need to lose weight, it is thejudgmental mind from the society

(06:28):
.
So, regardless of how skinny Iwas when I'm having shootings or
when I go to like very bigevents and stuff like that.
You always been told like, oh,you just oh, that's just so good
If you can lose another fivepounds, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(06:55):
And when you're 16, 17 and youlisten, you literally just like
engraved in your minds like, ohmy, okay, I'm still fat, I need
to do more.
You know, like just likeengraved in your mind, like, oh
my, okay, I'm still fat, I needto do more.
You know, it's just like aregular thing.
We always think we need to domore.
So that's how I started thatjourney, which is Journey
Guangguo.
It was a very big struggle tome, a huge struggling.

(07:19):
Anyway, go back to yoga.
So I started Bikram yogabecause I had my first son and I
actually fairly lose weight soquick.
After two months I'm alreadygoing, went back to my regular
weight, but I didn't, I wasn'tsatisfied.
That's that's where I startedthat steamy, hot environment to

(07:41):
basically lose all the water,weight and all that.
So, because I went through thatjourney and when I started to
teach him, I never use yoga tolose weight as a promote or as
the way of teaching, to guidingpeople.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
I don't, I don't do that, yeah, it's people I don't,
I don't do that.
Yeah, it's, it's just blanketedeverywhere.
To that.
That is, um, either a drawingfactor or a benefit, um for for
it.
But for me, I started yoga in2004 or so, so, wow, like 20, 21

(08:20):
years ago, and, um, it was alot about helping my anxiety and
how stressed I felt and how,just out of you know, I was in
my early twenties.
What was I so stressed about?
Looking back at it, there's notmuch that like I had as my
responsibilities back then, butjust a lot of anxiety.
And I realized I needed a placeto move my energy around.

(08:42):
And that's where I found a yogastudio in Denver.
And that yoga studio was notcorporate, it was very
intentionally traditional yogaand it was very much aligned
more from the spiritualperspective of, you know, like
tapping in, feeling your energy,having a, you know, an extra

(09:04):
long Shavasana at the end.
What is like?
What is your preference in termsof when you teach or when you
take class?
For it to be?
I guess, where do you see thebenefits of it?
To be more of a mind-bodyconnection, spiritual, where
you're talking through thespiritual aspect and the chakras
, or whatever, or a true, inhale, exhale, turn your body, move

(09:27):
like this Like what do youprefer?
Teaching or taking?

Speaker 4 (09:33):
For both.
Obviously I would prefer thesecond one just to be more
mindful with your body and yourbreath and you really connect to
your mind, to be at thepresence.
That's a real yoga, right?
So we can talk about a littlebit history of yoga later.
But when you, when you mention,like your first studio, that you
went in some sort of like aspiritual environment, I

(09:55):
literally just like just theword karma come to my head.
It's like you have good karma,like sometimes, when I look back
my history of my practice yoga,I was just thinking, oh my god,
I literally went not wasted,but I literally spent 60 years
like in the, you know, in thevery commercialized, the very
steamy, hot environment to doyoga, literally only focus on

(10:18):
the weight losing and you juststretching, like intensively
doing that.
I did not receive any spiritualguidance for the very beginning
until later, right, I moved toVancouver.
So, yeah, so I again, likeearlier I mentioned already, I

(10:39):
just really appreciate that theyoga teacher actually used that
opportunity to be in theenvironment to bring in whatever
knowledge that they have to todeliver that authenticity of
what yoga really is.
It is a mind body practice,right, we're not talking about
enlightenment, but eventually,ultimate goal of yoga, it is to

(11:02):
practice enlightenment, to free,liberating yourself, right, but
that's too deep, that's too faraway.
But again, that's the firstthing.
Just like you mentioned, it'slike so hard for us to we we
don't even know where we're nothere most of the time, because
that habitual of the habit ofdestructive mind, destructive

(11:26):
mind we always been distractedand we don't even know that
we're not here.
Yeah, so that's another thing.
This morning I was talkingabout one of the yoga teacher
come to my class to take myclass and afterwards she just
tried to speak to me a littlebit how much she appreciates my
class.
I don't play music.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
I'm like, yeah, oh yeah, You're with yourself when
you don't play music and don'tfill the room with words the
whole time.
You have to be listening toyour body and being with your
mind.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was literally telling
her.
I'm like this whole world, thiswhole world is full of
destruction.
Any moment, any moment, we'redistracted, even if, like I'm a
Zen student right now, right, Isit like 10 hours, you know, in
session all the time.
But you know, even if your bodyis there, you're sitting in a

(12:22):
cross leg, it looks like apeaceful position, but, man,
your body is there, you'resitting in a cross leg, that
looks like a peaceful position,but, man, your mind is not.
You're not there most of thetime, right, but in this modern

(12:44):
world we still like to promote,to give more destructions.
And yeah, so I mean, again,it's personal, I disagree with
that.
So that's in my teaching, I tryto not to go through that route
.
You don't need music torelaxing when you're doing yoga,
because the posture is alreadythere for you to be in the
present, to release yourthoughts, to be relaxed.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yes, yeah, absolutely .
And I want to talk about yourjourney.
How you start, how did you pickBikram?
Was it because it was hot andyou just wanted to go sweat it
out?
Or did you know about the rosesand everything?
Okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
Yeah, yeah, literally .
Because at that time I live inSeattle and I was talking to one
of the girls that she wasbabysitting my son sometimes
come over and just to have somedrink Back.
Then I still drink.
And she was just saying yeah,you know, I just went to this
hot yoga place.

(13:45):
It was amazing.
Man, I just swear like a hell,I'm like yoga.
She's like, yeah, that's theonly yoga I would do Other
stretching, I'm not going to dothat, but this one is awesome
and that's how I hooked me upYoga.
I never really imagined that Iwould do yoga.
You know, I always been sort ofsportive.

(14:06):
At the time I was a wakeboarder, for sure.
I've been wakeboarding since Iwas a teenager, you know like a
pretty hardcore sports and stuff, but I never thought about yoga
.
But after she described to mehow much sweat that she's on,
yes, I'm going to go for that.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Bikram is such a different world.
So I want to let's talk, sincewe're here, let's talk about the
history of yoga and yogaphilosophy and the difference
between what you teach andBikram and other types of yoga.
So, for those that don't know,do you want to explain Bikram a
bit to us?

Speaker 4 (14:50):
Oh, it's quite straightforward.
We're definitely not talkingdown Bikram yoga, okay, so
Bikram is yoga.
It is yoga.
It's just Hatha yoga.
26 postures, two pranayamapractice, beginning a pranayama,
closing with a pranayamapractice.
Yeah, it's yoga, but as weprobably most of the people know
all body movement of yoga isall under the umbrella of the

(15:16):
hatha.
So Bukram yoga is just hathayoga.
Yeah, for sure.
Especially, they don't dovinyasa, they don't do jump
around like Ashtanga.
So, yeah, they're yoga, forsure.
Nothing wrong with it.
26 posture he designed prettywell move a lot of spine forward
, back bends, everything.
Pretty good for you to do that26 posture.

(15:38):
If you think you narrowed yoga,then you misunderstood, in my
opinion.
I describe that 26 posture justlike a fingernails of yoga
posture, wise, right, and Ithink, particularly in that
tradition it obviously, from myobservation, is like it's

(15:59):
they're just very lacking ofintroduce any spiritual um
aspect of yoga.
It's like all all the Bikramyoga that I've been, I never
heard teacher to introduceanything that more spiritual um,
connecting your mind and bodyis all about posture, alignment,
posture alignment.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
So that's Bikram, yeah um, yeah, is it true with
Bikram, that you're not supposedto drink water?
Or you're not supposed to drinkwater like until like middle of
the class or something likeyou're you're supposed to.
Just yeah, what is that?

Speaker 4 (16:35):
yeah, so that I have to agree, because that's not
just Bikram, that's in yogatradition.
Uh, in the traditional yoga,because, as you introduced me, I
trained from everything, prettymuch everything in India.
So that is a yoga tradition.
You drink water before theclass and you don't take the
water bottle into the shala andyou finish your practice, you

(16:58):
rest for about 10 minutes, thenyou drink water again.
So the theories of not drinkingwater is because, um, in yoga
we have a lot of folding and abackbend twisting, and when
we're twisting, we're not justtwisting your muscle, we're
definitely targeting your organs.
Get into really deep, thepancreas, your kidneys or

(17:20):
everything.
Yeah, so we do.
We do encourage your body, evenincluding the water in the
stomach, as has been limited.
So that that is the yogatradition.
Got it again.
There's always a but yeah, sowhen I go to big room yoga, I
can't, I can't not to drinkwater with within that 90

(17:45):
minutes.
It's just too hot, it's reallyhot.
That environment, because Iteach, I taught at the big
chrome studios, right, a coupleof them.
The, the temperature they leavethe temperature whole day long
is 108, whole day, day long.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, so it doesn't have much conditions where you
might start a class and it feelscooler because there wasn't a
class before this is always wow.

Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the humidity is about 50 to 60.
So that's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
But I can see that because when you because I want
to talk through other yoga, thatother yoga that you've learned
but I can see that during aclass let's say a vinyasa class
and you go through a, you'regoing back up to down dog and
you just did all of this work.
You know, with whatever twistsor whatever warriors you did it

(18:49):
could be, you know hard I cansee the yoga side of it right
that it could be hard on yourbody that you just drank water
yourself back upside down intodown dog, like that's.
That could be hard for yourbody to even digest.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and especially in the traditional
yoga.
So let's, let's not talk aboutBikram anymore, let's move to
the traditional yoga, becauseI'm an Ashtangi, I practice
Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, so I'm inthat lineage.
So just speaking about a puregood yoga class that according
to Indianian teacher okay,according to the traditional

(19:26):
yoga teacher, so appear a goodclass is not just standing
posture.
That is a little bit thing thatin america, in the western
world, it's a slightlymisleading.
And slightly misleading becausea majority of the class here in
a yoga class, I would say 80 to90 percent are standing
postures, you starting with somebrief warm-up and they will go

(19:50):
through some sort of session andit's all standing postures.
But a real, traditional,beautiful yoga practice.
By design the standing posturesshould be just one third.
Then we will come down to theearth to do the more sitting
posture Okay so sitting posture.
Then you will do the proneposture, which is your stomach

(20:10):
is on the front to your someback bending postures and then
you will end up in the Subhanposture.
So that is the beautiful yoga,classic yoga class design.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
So, with.

Speaker 4 (20:22):
That being said, your stomach is full.
Even if you're in between, youdrink your water, for the seated
posture is deep, forwardfolding and deep binding.
It's just not reasonable forthe body to really take even
just a little water into it,because you do want to have that
space and to um.

(20:42):
And then prana is another umaspect we need to put into the
thoughts, because when you haveany uh, food or water in the
body, again in the traditionalyoga view, to see that is you're
blocking the prana, you'reblocking the energy, the, the
nati, that going throughsmoothly because your body is

(21:05):
actually digesting something inthere, that you're putting alien
things in the body.
So that's another concern.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, yeah, so that can, yeah.
So then you're moving your bodyand yoga, whatever practice it
is, and you drink water and itkind of stops that life force
moving through you.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
Exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
So for someone who doesn't know exactly the
difference between AshtangaVinyasa or how they're related,
can you explain that a bit forus?

Speaker 4 (21:36):
Absolutely yeah.
So Ashtanga is not Ashtanga.
Vinyasa Yoga, ashtanga isliterally all of us like you.
Minimum in the America minimum,you go through 200 hours
training and in the verybeginning of the yoga philosophy
you have to be introduced intoAshtanga.

(21:57):
That eight limbs.
So the eight limbs is ethicpractice, literally you need to
have those disciplines and youdon't lie, you don't steal, you
don't do this and you do this,do that.
So that's basically the umPatanjali the sage, 3,000 years
ago, and he put all the yogaphilosophy in the beautiful,

(22:19):
very short actually it's onlyjust 198 verse, sutra.
Okay, so that's Ashtanga.
So Ashtanga, literally in theyoga tradition we consider as
Raja Yoga.
Raja Yoga means king yoga, theyoga of the king.
If you follow that eight step,eight limbs, to go practice yoga

(22:41):
, then eventually, ultimately,you will become enlightened.
You will be very liberated fromthis conditioned mind and free
yourself from this illusion ofthe world.
So that's the real.
Ashtanga's goal is that's.
It's a, it's a philosophy, it'salso a guidance, it's a state,

(23:02):
state, steps, so they give youan instruction.
It's like you're reading amanual and you do that or you
don't do that yeah, be a goodperson exactly, exactly.
So in the modern world, weliterally skipped the first two
steps.
Yama niyama, most of peopledon't even heard about that.

(23:23):
That's your ethic, umsuggesting you know, you do this
, don'tama.
Most people don't even heardabout that.
That's your ethic suggestingyou know, you do this, don't do
that, eat this, don't eat that.
And then we skip all that andthen directly move to asana.
So in the modern world, rightin the modern world, we just
boom, we get to the third step.
You know we don't need to learnhow to pro we don't need to

(23:44):
learn how to pro we don't needto learn how to walk, we just
directly go around, you know,because that's easy, because
it's easy, because it's asana isliterally very similar to
workout right to when you'refrom the outside.
When, look at that, if youdon't really understand the

(24:05):
philosophy of the history orexactly the true, you know
essence of yoga, you look at itas like, yeah, it's just body
movement, I don't see anyspiritual things in it.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
So it's easy right.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Because we're born to move this body, so it's easy to
follow.
Yeah, we're born to move thisbody, so it's easy to follow.
Yeah, so when you're speakingasana, then that's ashtanga
vinyasa will kick in.
So ashtanga vinyasa isliterally it's a short history,
rather it's less than 100 yearsago.
It started from uhkrishnamacharya, which is a

(24:42):
beautiful um Krishnamacharya,which is a beautiful Ayurveda
doctor, and he also is a verydedicated yoga practitioner.
So the story began with vinyasa, which is I like to talk about
it in America so popular, aboutvinyasa.

(25:06):
Vinyasa, literally, is becauseof this sage Krishnamacharya
being hired being invited toteach at the Mysore Palace,
which where I just come back,mysore, south of India.
Yeah, wow.
And then, yeah, and the kinginvited him to teach a whole
bunch of the royalties, that is,14 to 18 years old, oh my god.
And then he, yeah, he startedto teach yoga to those kids,
right, and?
And he goes, like, thesechildren cannot understand any

(25:27):
philosophy and a spiritual thing, and he designed it to make
them jumping back and forth andthe flopping around, rolling
around.
That's why the primary serieshas a lot of rolling.
Yeah, yeah, primary series hasa lot of rolling.
You know, back and forth, it'sbecause they need it.
You imagine that's like 14years old, 18 years old.

(25:50):
They have that energy, theyneed to burn all that.
So he designed that and one ofhis students, padabi Joyce,
which probably this name a lotof people should be quite
familiar.
Then he brought that to thewest.
So first he went to uk, the uk,france, and then he eventually

(26:11):
come to the states.
So that's how ashtanga vinyasayoga gets so popular in the west
.
Yes, and then it is reallyreally worth to mention a little
bit power yoga.
So one of the pandavi joy'soriginal students, brian case,
and he literally learned a fewyears in my solar practice with

(26:34):
by the pandava joy and then justwith the sequence right,
ashtanga, vinyasa yoga, like asequence primary series, second
series.
He might be touched, some of thethird series, I believe, right,
but maybe not.
I don't know.
I don't know the detail, but Iknow when he come back to the
states and he look at all thepeople's like, yeah, these
people cannot do all that.

(26:55):
So so he, he literally made up,he, he made up power yoga.
That's why I say it's a littlebit off balance, because the
power yoga in the beginning hewanted to call it grandma yoga,
actually grandma's yoga.
Yeah, he, he wants to, justbecause the westerner's body

(27:18):
cannot be open that way.
Yeah, so he, that's why a lotof standing postures a lot of
standing postures.
Yeah, because when you come downto the earth, you need to have
a lot of opening in order to getthe body to that deep, twisting
, binding and all that.
So that's the reason why wow,oh, that's so interesting.
Grandma's yoga in the beginning.

(27:41):
Yeah, he, he wanted, he thoughtabout that name and later I
don't know how come it's becomepower.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
So yeah, power don't sit at all.
It's like you're standing for55 minutes if not.
Yeah, almost the whole thingexactly, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (27:56):
You're just standing right so you teach yoga.
You know, in the, especially inamerica, the yoga class is like
just super off balance, like80%, 90%.
Some teacher do like literallylike five minutes stretching and
I'm like seriously Like youshould just make the people just
do that whole time standing todo all those standing postures.

(28:22):
Yeah, but that's just what itis.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
But, yeah, I find it's hard to, as a teacher, to
have everything in one hour whenyou have a one hour class that
you're teaching, instead of morethan that, like an hour and 15
or more than that, because Ifeel like the last 10 to 15
minutes.
I really want to cool down thebody and get it back to neutral

(28:44):
and do you feel that?
What length are your classesthat you teach?
Are they an hour, an hour and ahalf, 15?

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Yeah, uh, mainly an hour.
That's like more standard here,yeah, and I I'm sorry I have to
mention, I have to mention thatthere are classes are 45
minutes, which is like I got.
I I was like, okay, yoga,express, sure, whatever.
Everything has to bedrive-through express.
Drive-through starbucks,drive-through chinese food,

(29:18):
whatever.
Everything in the state quick,drive-thru Chinese food,
whatever.
Everything in the States isquick, yeah, drive-thru yoga,
basically, yeah, you have to doit real quick, yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Go out to drink.
Give yourself an hour insteadof 45 minutes for yourself in a
day.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean fortunately.
I mean obviously fortunately,because I have a class to teach,
right, Fortunately I'm teachingthose 45 minutes too, I have an
opportunity to teach, yeah, butanyway, so I in my opinion okay
, in my opinion I had onetraining was in Bali for 40 days

(29:57):
.
Every single section wepractice is from 90 minutes to
two hours.
I just finding the ease, Ifinding the ease of the teacher,
because that training is alittle bit different, it's not
just for one teacher, it's likea multiple different teacher
come to the Shala to teach youdifferent format, and I just

(30:18):
finding, wow, I envy thoseteachers.
Like your class can be sobeautifully done, just because
that time, you know, you canvery slowly to have that seated
or beautiful meditation to beginthe class, which is you
essentially need to have toground, to feel that grounding
mind to being here, and then,trust me, a minute or two, you

(30:41):
cannot ground, please, yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Our mind is so crazy.
There's no way you can groundin a minute or two.

Speaker 4 (30:49):
There's no way.
A minute or two, yeah, and thepeople are playing music within
one minute.
I'm like how grand can you bereally?
But anyway, so I just love that90 minutes to two hours length
because you're just beautifullike you.
You sit grounding and in Indiawe always do a chanting, do

(31:10):
quite long chanting and then,and then the teacher will give
you some warm-up sequence.
The warm-up sequence is reallyneeded, I think.
I, I, I, I, I think, evenbefore your sound servitation,
even sound servitation, it is awarm-up sequence, but before
that, if you have a little bitmore, you know, time to warm up,

(31:31):
it's just healthy for the bodyit's fine and prevents injury
with the spine and everything.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, but basically anywhere your muscle needs to
warm up too, like your rotatorcuff, your, you know, bicep,
tricep.
It's easy to get pulled tooright.
So you have that warmth.
It's just a lot more healthierto the body.
And I like the ending too,because you have that 90 minutes
Minimum.
According to my teacher, joeyMiles, if you practice 60

(32:03):
minutes, then your shavasanashould be 10 minutes.
Yeah.
If you practice 90 minutes,then your shavasana should be 15
minutes.
Yeah, wow, according to him.
Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
I get that.
Yeah, if you practice 45minutes, how long is your
shavasana?
He's like why are you doing itfor five minutes?
Get out of here and go Express,express.
Just take a breath and walk outthe studio.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
Really right?
I don't know.
I mean seriously.
I'm trying my best to not talkSounds like a judging or even
think judgmentally mineal inmind.
I am at least trying I'd be 100percent honest.
Obviously I'm judging,sometimes right in my head, but
I try not to.
I try to be open my heart, openmy mind, to be okay with the

(32:52):
innovation.
But yeah but in my opinionthere has to be a limit.
Innovation has to have a limitto respect the tradition and to
respect the body.
I think that's just something.
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
So more about yoga traditions and some differences.
What about Iyengar with thestraps and all of the things
that was introduced?
What's that about?
Or how can we explain that toanyone that's of the things that
was introduced?
What's that about?
Or how can we explain that toanyone that's listening for what
that practice is?

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Yeah, thanks for asking.
I just think for this life Ididn't cultivate that good karma
to enter Iyengar Yoga earlier.
Yeah, I have high, high respectto Mr Iyengar, even though I'm
in the Ashtanga lineage, butwell, basically he's from the

(33:46):
same teacher Padabhijoy andIyengar all from Prasramacharya,
so they're all from the samemaster.
Mr Iyengar is a very wise manand he suffered a lot when he
was younger.
He suffered from poverty, a lotof diseases, and yoga really

(34:07):
cured cured him like itbasically saved him from death.
So that's why he's really.
He has a high love to yoga andhis philosophy understanding is
really good too.
However, again, come to US ismore physical focus, but his
physical focus, I think, is justvery beautiful.

(34:27):
He came here again same thing.
He looked at the people and waslike no, these people cannot do
all that.
No these people cannot do that,so I introduced you.
You know these people cannot dothat, so I, I, I, I, I
introduce you and you know theblock right now will widely,

(34:48):
vastly use yoga block isliterally in india.
I have those ones wooden, oneswooden block.
So the the yoga block isliterally in india.
And back, they used that blockto eat.
So it's like because Indianpeople sit on the ground all the
time, so that yoga block isliterally just for eating.

(35:12):
And Iyengar, when he got theinjury one time and from the
motorcycle or something accidenthappened so he couldn't
practice whatever vinyasa thathe usually practiced and then he
used those to help himself tofigure out oh okay, I can use
this to support the body alittle bit and to still getting
alignment, but, you know, totaking some time for the body to

(35:34):
heal and taking some time forthe body to reopen again.
So that's how he developedthose props.
So the strap the strap is abeautiful history.
It's actually from the banyantrees in India.
Those banyan trees are justhanging there and, yeah, he
literally used those to start it.

(35:56):
So, yeah, that's where the yogastraps come from and the bolster
obviously just pillows, justwhatever pillows that he can
find.
And, yeah, he, he, he, really Ithink he brought yoga to a
brand new level of the practiceto benefit more people that able
to, and, um, in the in theactive term or also in the

(36:20):
restorative term.
So, yeah, I think that Iyounger, if, if you're listening
and if you are new, youconsider to enter this world of
physical yoga, asana practice,yeah, at least give a, at least
give a look at a younger yoga.
It's just so much morereasonable for people to get in

(36:41):
there.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yeah and yeah, being able to have that support and
assistance to get into poses asopposed to, you know, looking at
your neighbor and seeing howflexible they are but you can't.
You can't get to where they are.
But all of our bodies are sodifferent the way that they're
made up Exactly.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
Well, we are, or anything like that exactly, yeah
we're always going to lookdifferent yeah, when we're
speaking of here, I have tomention my teacher, joey miles.
Again, I, I, I just adore that.
I feel this is my good karma,that I, I actually find I
actually have this beautifulteacher.
He's also a Zen practitionertoo.

(37:19):
So what I really love about myteacher is he started Ashtanga
Vinyasa practice when he was 17.
So now literally like 30 yearsand he's already finished the
third sequence, third series,everything.

(37:44):
But the beautiful thing of himis he also is a very long time
Iyengar practitioner.
Oh really, so, yeah, so he dare, he literally I said he dare
and he have that confidence tobring Iyengar technique into
Ashtanga teaching.
So that that is thing.
Just when I started to practicehim, practice with him, when I,

(38:05):
when I see how he teaches me,I'm like, okay, done this, this
is it, this is my guru.
I never call anybody guru.
I, I don't call him guru, butyou know what I mean is like I I
just okay, this is it, that'smy how did you find him?

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Was that just a happenstance?
It was just happened to be theteacher you first.
Yeah, how did it all happen?

Speaker 4 (38:26):
No, he lives in UK.
So I, when I practiced alone,I've been to a lot of trainings,
but all in India.
So majority of the time Ipractice alone, right by myself.
But then there are time youjust stuck, your mind stuck,
your posture stuck, just stuck,and I just searching.
I started to searching for Ianger I mean ashtanga teacher

(38:47):
around, but it just, you know, II test my teachers, I test all
the things.
So I test teachers and I'm justlike no, there's something
lacking, especially Especiallyin Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.
In this tradition some peopleare very compulsive, like they
think things need to be this way, that way, which in my practice

(39:10):
I don't think that's reasonable.
I don't agree with that.
But that's okay.
Everybody have a different wayof looking at things, anything
right?
Okay, everybody have adifferent way of looking at
things, anything right.
So I searching around and onetime I just searching something,
I forgot something, one postureor something, and then on
YouTube just jumped up his videohe was teaching in Purple

(39:31):
Valley in Goa in India, whichI'm going again this October to
train with him, and so and I waslike yeah, man, this, this guy,
the way how he talks about it,the alignment and how he talk
about mine all the time.
I just love it, right, Iattract to that.
And I just google his name andboom, come up his website.
And then yeah, so yeah, he hasa his own studio in england.

(39:57):
And then I just email him.
I I said, hey, okay, this iswhere what?
What my name, this is where Iam.
I stuck here and I don't knowif there's anything that you
could help.
And he re re respond back to meand then, ever since we just
started to training together,that's incredible.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah, that's great.
Uh, what a beautiful thing tohave him.
How long has it been?
When was that first time thatyou worked with him?

Speaker 4 (40:27):
It's about two years.
Yeah, not long ago.
Yeah, yeah, not long ago, twoyears.
But this two years just bring alot of it's different.
You feel different, you feelyour practice is different.
Yeah, everything.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, um, with yoga practices.
I want to ask about a few moreUm, I I want to um ask about uh,
there's a lot of buzz aboutKundalini and what that is and
how that um, the Kundalinienergy and and bringing it up
and um up, and I would love tojust chat a little bit about

(41:03):
that and kind of what makes thatdifferent than you know an
Ashtanga, a Vinyasa or you knowhow are they similar?

Speaker 4 (41:13):
Okay, so first I have to be very honest I'm not very
knowledgeable of all so-calledKundalini yoga or Kundalini
energy.
But what I know is theKundalini energy is in the base
of the spine, that dormant there, and it is some very pure high
energy from the sentient beingsor being as a human being

(41:38):
dormant there, which is likeprobably just be us be deluded,
and that's just myinterpretation.
Yeah, but any yoga form yeah,any yoga form could able to,
could be to awaken the kundaliniyoga, to kundalini energy.
Any form of yoga, yeah, anyform, but kundalini yoga is.

(41:59):
Obviously they have their ownsystem, but they're also under
umbrella of the Hatha.
So, just for the information,fyi, they're still under the
Hatha umbrella but they havereally different movements,
different names of postures andthat's just their lineage there,
their lineage there.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
But for whatever I have trained, whatever I've been
told um any form of yoga youcould achieve kundalini.
Yeah, yeah, just withactivating and releasing any
tension.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
That's in yes, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
What about the differences between restorative,
which is all over the place,and yin, because they sometimes
can be mistaken for each other.
Or you can think you're doingyin but you're actually doing
restore and we do yin together,which is beautiful.
What are the differences withthat, or even similarities

(42:57):
between, if you take a restoredclass somewhere versus a yin?

Speaker 4 (43:03):
thank you for asking this question.
I really love to talk aboutthis.
So, um, they both are researchof yoga and in yoga that they
surely have a crossover for sure.
They look very similar.
They're all grounding practice.
They both use props, but whichrestorative yoga should use more

(43:23):
, vastly more props than in yoga.
But the major, real, likeintrinsic difference in between
these two is the energy, is howthe mindset to practice.
So in yoga we design topractitioner is actually healthy

(43:44):
, healthy practitioner topractice in yoga that your body
has no injury, you're supercomfortable with the body.
You might or might not as open,that's fine, but that's all in
yoga designed for to take yourtime to open.
So the yin yoga is followingthe Taoism philosophy I don't

(44:06):
want to go deep there becauseit's a new tradition anyway.
So the yin yoga's energy ismore you being there.
It's very similar to insidemeditation you being there with
the posture, you.
You see the sensation come outand you're not going to avoiding
it but you're not also topushing it more deeper or

(44:30):
anything like that, just findingthat middle way.
So you're staying.
You're staying with thesensation, just being there to
allowing the body to open,without pushing or without
running away.
So if that explains things thenyou can see that picture.
So that's the in-yoga practice,but restorative yoga they do

(44:50):
look very similar.
Crossover postures look verysimilar.
But restorative yoga originallydesigned.
You don't have to be heard topractice restorative yoga
nowadays.
Originally the restorative yogastarted from Iyengar, so it's
it's the design for thepractitioners has some injury or

(45:12):
illness by the time right.
So we use plenty of the propsto shape you, to feel the
support, to open the body.
So when you enter the posture,when you get into the posture of
the restorative yoga in thebeginning you're supposed to not
feel anything.
You're supposed to feel quitecomfortably so that you relax,

(45:36):
then you know you're teachingyoga.
You relax, then you know you'reteaching yoga.
So when your mind is, when yourbody feel the comfort relax,
then your mind become to relaxnow when your mind become to
relax, then the healing energyjust coming in.
So literally you're in.
The research of yoga is to tryto get a body open in a very
gentle way, to allowing the mindand the body both to finding

(45:59):
that relaxing but opening, sothe healing coming in.
So that's why it's a beautifulpractice in restorative yoga if
we use it wisely, becausenowadays everybody has something
in your head.
Yeah, I'm not saying you haveinjury in the body, but trust me
, everybody needs that time,right?
Yeah, so it's just so nice youcan have all the support and

(46:24):
holding in the posture withouttoo much of a sensation like you
know quote unquote discomfortsensation to allowing the
healing energy to come in.
So in my view to because Itrained yoga, yoga therapist, so
I will go through all this kindof thing so in my opinion,
restorative yoga is literallyjust a a very huge.

(46:46):
It's more like a healing,healing practice yeah, yeah but
unfortunately in our yeah yeah,yeah, but unfortunately nowadays
you go to some restorative yoga, they're using straps and
stretching.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
It's a lot of stretching instead of just like
healing and feeling.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
and yeah is like the mindset how you started this
practice.
If you walk into restorativeyoga, you should be more
prepared as like today, I'm justhere to allowing the body to
being in the gentle open.

(47:27):
So my mind is relaxed and thenmy healing is coming in.
To heal my mind, heal the body.
But don't do that expectationin yoga.
You practice in yoga with me.
In yoga you're supposed to feeledge, you're supposed to
finding edge and then you knowyou know my QE.
Sometimes, after the first edge, when your body gradually open,

(47:48):
you actually moving for thenext edge.
So you're supposed to feel it.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, feeling, feeling the edge
and and like, yeah, and then notstaying in that comfort in yin
yoga because you can start andthen it gets comfortable because
you're there for a long time soyou can just stay, but keep
going to that edge like comecloser to the earth, you know,
open up your hip more, all ofthat, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
That's exactly how I'm teaching active forms of
yoga.
I talk about the same thing.
Actually, joey tells me thesame thing.
It's like we always in life, weconstantly try to find the
in-between, the balance.
Like, for example, a lot ofpeople, they come to some sort
of vinyasa yoga, they get soused to it and they just feel so

(48:36):
good, oh my God, I'm on the topof the mountain.
No, don't feel too comfortableabout it.
There are a lot more thingsthat you can maybe, you know,
explore a little bit more tomake yourself like, yeah, don't
be too satisfied.
This is my cueing in my a lotof classes.
I keep telling my students I'mlike don't be too satisfied this
, don't be too satisfied withthis, don't be satisfied here.

(49:00):
Just test the body, not to push, but testing.
See how maybe there's a littlebit layer that you can go deeper
, deeper into it.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Yeah, only we know our edge and we know how to
honor our body and how we mightbe pushing too hard to hurt it
or we're pushing hard to grow,like we know that, like we know
it better than anybody right,like of what you see, that's the
thing.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
The yoga practice of honesty practice is very
important.
Honesty you really have to behonest to yourself.
A lot of people, like when Iwas younger, I definitely not
honest, because a lot of thingsI cannot do but I just push it
and then I will get injury.
When I was in Vancouver, I dosnowboarding back then jumping

(49:46):
about park, but there are a lotof things I cannot do and then I
jump, I still do it and thenboom, I got my knee injured and
the whole season I cannot getback to the mountain.
So basically, that's your karma.
Right, you make the decision.
Yeah, karma is not somereturning thing, karma is just
right now.
Cause and effect.

(50:06):
Cause and effect you make thisdecision, then it's more of just
consequences we all have totake that.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yeah, exactly the consequences of what we decide.
Yeah, I want to talk more about, like one more of the yoga, my
sore but yeah, the consequences.
I find that a lot and I want totalk about, like your Zen
philosophy and your teachingsand what you're learning now.
But we, particularly I don't, Idon't know growing up or just

(50:37):
in Western society I don't, Idon't know growing up or just in
Western society complain tocomplain and it's you know, we
will complain that our car has aproblem, but we're the one who
bought the car, so, like we, itwouldn't have a problem if we
didn't buy it.
Like it's just, this is lifeand being a human and being on
on planet earth and how it goes,and that's the, the karma, and

(50:57):
and you know the cycle thatcomes back.
It's neutral, it's like notgood or bad, it's just coming
back to what you're doing, Likethis is just how it is.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that goes back to the Buddhism
teaching, the basic Buddhismteaching, like a three poison
right Three anger and delusion,which you can call ignorance.
So it's like I keep tellingpeople like the current, right
now, the current comfort is yourpast discomfort, obviously

(51:32):
because you pass that discomfort, you make things, and then your
current comfort zone is goingto be your future discomfort
because of grief.
We're always not content withthe current state.
That's the greed, that's thefirst thing of human.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
We're always seeking more and more and more, or we
think this isn't it?
There's more Always.

Speaker 4 (51:55):
And the capitalism society, use that, use that
nature of the human, of what wehave to make profit.
That's why we have been welltaught, overly well taught, that
we need more, we need to buymore things.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
The more improved, the more this, the more that we
need all of more things.
We need to be in more the morethat we need all of these things
.
Like I, I saw something a fewmonths ago where it was a woman
that she was talking about howyou're being sold red light
therapy, you're being sold this,you're being sold grounding
sheets, all this stuff there.
She's like you literally couldhave all of this If you just,
you know, go buy a campfire, putyour feet in the soil, like all

(52:41):
of these things we can have forfree.
But in a society we have thatdisconnection from, like the
earth, mother Gaia, and how thatis the healing properties of
how we stay, you know, balanced.
So we think we need all theseexterior things and more and
more and more and the newest andthe newest.
And, yeah, I agree that itreally is part of that culture.

(53:06):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
Yeah, and the greed actually cause adding the
ignorance.
It's like, yeah, we wanted this, we want that, we develop.
I know we're intelligent too,so we're the wise ones and the
fools.
Basically, we're so intelligent, we developed this, we invented
this and we're basicallydestroying our own world.

(53:29):
We're destroying this planet,the only planet that we could
survive, and we think we will behere forever.
We think that's the thing.
You don't see through the truth, like just because we agreed
this earth is changing.
Yeah, and it's changing anyway,but the nature is always

(53:51):
actually very softly, sometimessoftly, sometimes pretty harsh.
To keep that balancing back,keep that, keep pushing back to
the to the middle way to the.
To keep that balancing back,keep pushing back to the middle
way to the nature, to thebalancing point.
But we don't like that.
We don't right.
We want more human, we wantmore of this, we want more of
that.
We keep pushing, we keepchallenging our planet.

(54:14):
Yeah, that's just basically.
You're adding a secondignorance.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Yeah, and then we're just creating fatigue and
exhaustion and disease fromgoing against what's natural.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Exactly yeah, and the environment and the climate.
Everything is from us, yeah,from us, from us humans yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Like every single time when youput up a tissue, you don't have
, you have no awareness, youjust use it right.
But do you know how many treesbeing caught and deforestation

(54:50):
is one of the huge deal for theclimate?
Just every single paper towelthat you keep using in the
kitchen.
I quit using that for years soI can talk about it.
I don't feel guilty about it.
Right now.
I use cloth and I don't usetissue paper too.
I use like just cloth.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
I still use.
Sometimes I still do, but Imean, like most of the time when
I'm wiping my tears with mycrying, I just use cloth.
Yeah, like a cloth.
Yeah, like a cloth, like atraditional one.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
that's so, so funny.
I know, when I get, when I getinto something that I've like
moved past and I then I thinklike how could you still do that
?
Oh, I did that like a month ago, or whatever.
It is like I'll decide to dosomething better for the
environment or better for myhealth.
And then it's that like how welike suss each other out as
humans because from survivalfrom tribal eras we had to see

(55:48):
who was like the weakest and thefittest.
So we suss each other outanyway in modern Western
civilization and we'll think,why are you still doing that?
You shouldn't do that anymore.
But I was just doing it, yeah,but I was just doing it.

Speaker 4 (56:00):
Yeah, but beautiful, there you go.
Okay, let's go back to yoga.
That's exactly the point.
When you practice yoga withthis mindfulness, every single
breath.
Say, for example, you're in thevinyasa yoga inhale, warrior
two, can you complete?
Do you aware you complete thatinhale to get that warrior two

(56:22):
precisely be in there?
Can you aware that your backfoot is grounding and the front
knee is bending towards yourleft pinky toe or front pinky
toe?
Can you aware of that?
And that is your spiritualpractice, you're more aware of
those present moments, aware ofyour body, movement and your

(56:43):
breath.
Then you will be more aware ofthe environment around you.
What is the cause and effect?
Cause and effect is alwaysthere.
Yes, there you go.
If you have to call yoga as aworkout, no, I disagree, because
if you've been guided in thisway, you're really aware about

(57:05):
every single warrior two and thetransition into your chaturanga
.
You're aware of that fully.
Then that's your practice,that's your spiritual practice,
yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
Yeah, it's so simple.
So simple, and especially whenyou take out the stimuli,
whether it be music or extrathoughts or anything that could
layer on to keep you away fromthat spiritual connection.
Piece of it, yeah yeah, yeah.
What about Mysore?
You just did your training.

(57:36):
And what is Mysore type of yoga?
You just did your training andwhat is?

Speaker 4 (57:40):
Mysore type of yoga.
So Mysore is a place right inSouth India, near the Bengaluru.
So Mysore is where originalAshtanga Vinyasa yoga started,
just like earlier I mentionedKrishnamacharya and Iyengar is
from there, patapijoy is fromthere.
So the Mysore style very uniqueis because they actually is not

(58:03):
a leading class.
In general speaking Well,speaking a little bit history of
yoga, yoga has always beenindividually practiced, so it's
never been a super big group ofa class of practice.
Nowadays we do like that.
It's never really been likethat way.
It's always like individualpractice.
So my source style is literallyyou as practitioner, as

(58:27):
students, you take the ownershipof your own practice.
The teacher will give you a setsequence.
You will look through.
The teacher will teach you allindividual postures to get
through, understand, memorizeall the sequence.
It's your job.
Once you memorize the sequence,you come to the class and it's
a group class.

(58:47):
You have a lot of people, agroup of people together, but
every single person on your ownpace to do your own practice.
Then the teacher will simply bein there as a helper, as a
supervising, just looking at youand go there to manipulate.
We surely use hand adjustmentswithout permission.

(59:08):
Without permission, it's not anoption.
Right, yeah, I know I needpermission all the time, like
I'm asking you.
I'm okay, yeah, so, sobasically the the teacher's uh

(59:30):
um, role in this, my shortpractice is more either
supervising you to see if thereis any alignment that needs to
be adjusted, or the teacher isgoing there to help you to
deepen, deepen your practice, gobend forward, go deeper, go
twist a little bit more deeperand your back bend needs a
little bit more help, and thenthe teacher is there to help.

(59:52):
So that's called my sourcestyle.
It's literally you are takingyour own ownership.
So in this way, I love itbecause in this way the students
you have been, you have thatduty, you have that job.
You need to understand your ownbody, you need to understand
your own practice.
You come here to the practicewith the teacher.

(01:00:14):
You already know your body, youalready know what you should,
should, do, and then the teacherhere just to give, give a
little bit help.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Yeah that's all yeah yeah it's so is it?
Does it take the same amount oftime for everyone?
Or is someone done way earlybecause they went faster than
someone else, or how does thatgo?

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
yes, yes, so that's another beautiful thing you're
all on your own, all on your own.
Usually the windows is abouttwo hours and two and a half
hours it depends on thedifferent shala.
Usually it's about that windowand you can come on time.
You can come late and you canstart in your practice
completely different time andfinish at a different time, but

(01:00:55):
you will finish your finishingsequence, you will shavasana,
and you can leave early.
So that's another beautifulyeah, flexible, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Yeah, such great insights for all of these
different practices.
For anyone who's new to yoga orthat wants to try something
different, right, if they feellike they're being led and they
haven't found the right teacherfor them yet and I say that as a
teacher, like I'm not foreveryone and we all know as
teachers we're not for everyoneMaybe my source something that
could help them to.

(01:01:26):
You know, we do their ownpractice and just get those
minor adjustments that theywould need to enhance or to
perfect not perfect, but to makeit better.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
And another thing I want to worth to mention a
little bit.
Back then I thought this is thesame thing.
I thought my sore style is onlyjust practice Ashtanga Vinyasa
yoga.
Back then I thought it was likethat until this time I went to
my sore.
It's actually that's not true.
You don't have to even practiceAshtanga Vinyasa sequence.
You can have any sequence, aslong as like sequence you

(01:01:57):
already know.
Then you come to the setting.
The teacher is there, alreadyknow what you're doing and just
guide you through it.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's not a ashtanga vinyasayoga.
You know sort of ownership mystory?
No, it's not.
It's just my source style.
You're on your own, but withthe there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Yeah, and how did all of this yoga training get you
also interested in Zenphilosophy and where you know
you're growing now and evolving?

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
it's funny, it's just kind of like this two thing
woven, you know, together.
At the same time when I startedto practice actually the first
time when I went to india isbecause I study buddhism in uk,
in in london, I I enrolled acourse about four months to
study philosophy of buddhism andthen, because of that, because

(01:02:53):
of that spiritual awakening andbut, but I was practicing yoga
for years, right, I was decidedI'm like I want to go to India,
to go to the source ofeverything, the source of
everything, yoga and Buddhism.
So I just went there, yeah,yeah.

(01:03:13):
So these two things are kind oflike a keep evolving together,
right.
So, um, when I, when I comeback from india, I did not, I
wasn't in zen.
I come back and I was actuallyin the theravada theravada
tradition, which is like theoldest term of buddhism practice
, which is really good.
I I sit in vipassana, you know,like a silent meditation 10

(01:03:35):
days.
And all that many times I gotinto the Zen is actually because
my dad's death Two and a halfyears ago.
After he died, I just tried tofind him some peaceful space
that I can go.
I just need that space to go,and then, just very randomly, I

(01:03:55):
didn't have any peaceful spacethat I can go.
I just need that space to goand then just very randomly, I
didn't have any peaceful spaceto go.
I actually went to that.
What's that?
Well-maid, that Muslim temple,baha'i?

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Oh, the Baha'i temple , yeah, yeah, baha'i temple.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
Yeah, I literally go there every Friday because I
teach at the Well--made at thetime on Friday, and then I
finished my class, I just gothere to sit there, close my
eyes for two hours.
And then one time, very randomyeah, very random One of my
students was asking me where I'mgoing.
I'm just like I'm just going togo to that temple to sit there.
He's like are you a believer?

(01:04:40):
I'm like, no, I just wantsomewhere very peaceful and
quiet.
And he goes.
Really, there's a Zen temple,zen center in Evanston which is
closed, right, and he mentionedto me.
So that's how I walked into theChicago Zen center.
And then, the very first night,when I met my teacher Yu-san
well, he's not my teacher rightnow, but Yu-san I just feel that

(01:05:02):
warmth of opening.
It's simple, it's quiet and atthe time I just need that, I
really need it.
And once I entered that center,you're just finding how animal
art is.
So the art of the zen thesilence, the bells, the silence,
the bells, the silence, thebells.

(01:05:25):
There's no talk.
I just love it.
I'm like, okay, there's notalking at all, I love it.
Yeah, so that's how I startedand obviously I have my Buddhism
background and it helps a lotbecause it is original.
Zen is Buddhism practice, forsure, everything is Buddhism

(01:05:49):
practice, but I really love Zenright now.
I am a Zen student, but Ireally love Zen right now.
I am a Zen student as I reallysee that simplicity of the Zen
that combine Buddhism and Taoism, which is my origin.
I'm a Chinese, but I feelreally not well-developed to

(01:06:13):
understand what Tao is until Ientered Zen.
Wow, and that's how beautifullyto connected everything
together.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Wow, yeah, and how we've talked about grief before
and you just mentioned losingyour father.
How has that that experiencewith you know your Buddhism
background and then beinginvolved with Zen and a Zen
student given you a perspectiveon on grief, and how can you

(01:06:48):
know what can, what words canyou give to someone who might be
going through grief or, youknow, just wants to know like
how best to be here during thattime?

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
Yeah, first, when my dad passed two and a half years
ago.
You have all the knowledge.
So that's a beautiful thing tomention Knowledge,
intellectually understanding ofthe philosophy of the Buddhism
or Zen.
It's beautiful.
You can read books, you canlisten to the talks, you

(01:07:23):
understand intellectually.
It's good that you understandthe theories.
Nothing lasts forever.
You know things always changeand you have to be comfortably
to be okay with discomfort,things like that right.
So back then at that time,already helped by knowing
intellectually, but still thegrief was really strong.

(01:07:45):
I didn't take day offs but whenI went through that time I know
how difficult it was every day,but I just keep using that.
Okay, nothing lasts forever.
This is just.
Things needs to be.
Death and birth is allcelebration.
There's no difference.
It's just one, two, two sidesof the one coin.

(01:08:08):
We cannot by be biased withthat.
So that is that time.
I use that to win through.
But this time my mom justpassed less than two weeks ago
and I finding tremendously power.
They come from my practice, mydaily practice, the mindfulness

(01:08:29):
and then the seated meditation.
How I deal with this grief is Ireally identify.
Grief is literally just one ofthe emotions.
Okay, one of the emotions, andwhat emotions comes is all from
thoughts and memories.
It's all thoughts and memoriesand we always been possessed by

(01:08:50):
our emotion, by we don'tidentify, we are thinking, we
don't know.
Like we just mentioned, we'renot identify, we are thinking,
we don't know.
Like we just mentioned, we'renot aware, we're thinking, we're
letting ourselves be the slaveof the thoughts, keep following
the train.
That's why we've been possessedby the emotion.
So, because I know that from mymeditation I practice every day,

(01:09:12):
sitting there for hours I knowthere is a tool that can help
you to step away from thethoughts.
It's just simply your breath,your present moment.
But the key is are you willing?
Are you willing?
So, like when you're sitting inthe meditation, I use that

(01:09:34):
first.
When you're sitting in themeditation, majority of us we
just completely lost in thoughts, right, but then that's fine.
But when you catch yourselflost in thoughts and then you
notice your breath is alwaysthere, available, your present
moment is always there.
But are you willing?
That's my practice.

(01:09:54):
I'm willing.
Every time when I catch I'mthinking, I just like okay, I'm
willing to come back with mybreath, I'm willing to come back
with my breath.
So I literally use thattechnique to get through my
grief.
For this time, once I findingthe emotion is very strong.
It's my mom.
Right, it's my mom.
Emotion comes really, reallystrong.

(01:10:16):
But you look at the emotion aslike, okay, I know, the emotion
is there.
The emotion come from mythoughts, from the memories.
I'm thinking about her.
But do I do?
Do I have a life?
Do you need to teach?
Do you need to contribute yourability, your duty into this

(01:10:36):
world?
And then my answer is yes.
When I answer that yes, thenit's easy for me to make a
decision.
Okay, then just focus on rightnow.
You're going to use your righthand, open this door and you're
going to use your right foot,step out of the store, go to

(01:10:57):
your car, every step, highlyfully focused at the present,
what you're doing.
Trust me, the thought has nospace.
Yeah, it's not.
You have to try to drop it tolet go.
The the trying let go is you.
It's not.

(01:11:17):
You have to try to drop it tolet go.
The trying let go is worse.
You're actually trying to pushin and then you're doing it.
The letting go is undo.
You don't do anything butreturning at the present moment,
just right now, what you'redoing.
Like right now I'm talking toNikki, I'm looking at my

(01:11:37):
computer, I'm just fully hereand then nothing else can be
bothered.
So basically that is a thingright now I'm using.
Years later or a couple monthslater maybe something will come
up differently and I don't know,things changes right.
But as long as I have mypractice right now, I just feel

(01:12:00):
really empowering, like veryhave that beautiful skill, like
just have a tool to help me toget through those very difficult
time yeah, and you, you canmeet yourself during those times
of silence and stillness withthe breath and not cloud it or

(01:12:24):
try to fill it with somethingelse to avoid it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):
You're, you know like meeting who you are and that's
such a powerful honoring and youknow, back to the yamas and
niyamas, just like respectingyourself and having that honesty
with honoring.
And you know, back to the yamasand niyamas, just like
respecting yourself and havingthat honesty with yourself of no
like knowing that you're humanand you're going to have these
ebbs and flows of emotion andseeing it for what it is and not
trying to push, push, pushthrough it and mask it and do

(01:12:50):
whatever it whatever you newlike to in a western society
that to go, go, go yeah yeah,always have to do something.

Speaker 4 (01:13:00):
It's actually the undo to release you, the not
doing.
Yeah, the undo is the key torelease yeah anything, basically
the undo, and I think it's alsovery worth to mention a little
bit the view.
So in the we call it right viewand the people here you know,
in the modern world weunderstand right, the word is

(01:13:22):
just too too much right or wrong, no, it's not that way, but
it's more like a wise view.
You should, you could use right, use another word.
We're just very being hot-wiredwith words.
The view of the death is veryimportant too.
I think majority, especiallyour society, trying to promote

(01:13:43):
sadness, try to prevent, try topush, oh no, we don't want to
die, we want to live forever,which the planet is already
cannot handle it.
But we don't see, we miss, wemiss the very important part of
it the minute we born, wedesigned to die.

(01:14:04):
We're all going that directionagain.
It's the greedy, the greed,right, we agree, we don't want,
we greed, we don't want, we wantthis, we don't want that.
Yeah, so we bias, we celebratebirthday and then we don't
celebrate death.
Come on, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
Yeah, yeah.
And what you were saying theother day when we were talking
is that you know we inhale andexhale, inhale and exhale and it
just when someone dies, theyjust don't finish the cycle,
it's just.

Speaker 4 (01:14:36):
Exactly.
Pema Chonchon said that right.
Pema Chonchon says when Istarted the practice, when I
find my first Lama, I told him Ihave fear.
I have fear about death.
And then the Lama says what doyou fear about?

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
Next thing hell don't come up anymore.
That's the thing I love aboutBuddhism teachers.
Like Buddhist teachers just giveyou things that make you like,
oh yeah, greatest tutors everExactly.
We're so attached to thephysical and what we have here

(01:15:17):
because this is what we know andyou know to like the way I see
it is that we're not taught alot about our soul connection
and that there's bigger than usand that you know to explore
that that it's not just abouthere and the physical being of
us.
Like me being Nikki here,living in Chicago, and knowing
that you know we continue oneven though we're out of this

(01:15:37):
meat suit.
Yeah, the skin bag we want.

Speaker 4 (01:15:39):
Oh my God, we own this skin bag.
We really own it.
When the skin bag needs to go,it has to go.
You know it's not.
No, we don't own it.
We don't own anything.
Basically, that's a beautifulthing I love about Buddhism
teaching Literally, they don'tteach you anything.

(01:16:03):
They're not teaching you,they're just pointing you.
They're literally pointing thetruth and we don't see that.
It's like most of the timewe're so deluded we're like what
, oh gosh?
When you're pointing that youthink about it, it's like damn,
what is it?
It's so simple.

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
Like really so simple .
So it's the things that'sglaring in front of us that we
don't look at to actually see.
We just avoid it, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:30):
Yeah, and speaking of that, I have to speak for yoga,
like, especially this time whenI, when, when I was in my store
, I got some deep yogaphilosophy training too and it
was really make me whole bodylike, just so like I was, I was
shivering, I was like, oh my god, this is exactly the same thing
as the buddha's teaching, butyoga never been promoted that

(01:16:54):
way.
You know, like patajani says,exactly same thing what causes
your suffering, what causes yourmind be deluded, and how this
work can help you.
Practice yoga can release this,can free yourself from that.
It's pretty much exactly samething, but obviously using
different languages and terms ofit.

(01:17:15):
Right, yeah, but I was like, ohmy god, finally, finally, that
I know yoga is exactly the samethings.
Liberation is that's theultimate goal of practice yoga
yeah, yeah having, oh my god,it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
it's not a power class you know what I mean, I
know, I know what you mean.
It's deliberation and leadingyourself.
It's not a workout yeah, fullcircle.
It's not a workout.
It's not yeah, to lose weightyeah.

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):
I'm getting so much better.
Trust me, I'm so proud ofmyself.
Like you know, probably four,four years.
You know, probably four, fouryears, five years ago.
Four, five years ago.
Like there are students finishthe class and come to you say,
hey, thanks for the workout andit pissed me off.
It pissed me off.
I'm like it's not a workout,I'm like whatever.

(01:18:10):
And now I'm just oh, I made apiece of it, it's okay, it's
just the delusion ignores.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
That's fine, it's okay, it's okay.

Speaker 4 (01:18:24):
I'm still deluded.
I'm still in this samsara,anyway it's fine yeah well, this
.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
This has been wonderful, chloe, if you could
give any I don't know wisdom toclose out to anyone that's
interested in yoga or Zen.
What do you think is somethingthat you'd like to share?

Speaker 4 (01:18:46):
I wouldn't call myself wisdom.
I'm on the path, just like youand just like the rest of people
that are listening.
We're all on the path.
The way is perfect, the way isour path.
We don't need anything more.
We don't need anything less,and just be free, go on it.

(01:19:09):
Yeah, that's great.
Every single moment is apractice.
You don't have to practice onthe yoga mat.
You don't have to practice onthe yoga mat.
You don't have to practice onthe Zafu.
Really, every single moment isjust simply a practice.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
Yeah, life gives us the practice.

Speaker 4 (01:19:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
Well, thank you so much for your time.
I know you're heading out soon,so we appreciate the time you
took to chat with us, and we'llhave to do a part two to get
more into some of that.

Speaker 4 (01:19:39):
I would love to.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
We'll share with some links in the show notes for
people to connect with you andget your newsletter, join your
yin yoga and some other thingswe talked about.
But thank you everyone forlistening.
We'll catch you on the next oneand thank you, chloe, for being
here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a good evening.

(01:20:03):
Bye everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Don't miss out on our journey to living an authentic,
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For all resources mentioned inthis episode and to connect with
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(01:20:34):
notes for all links and ourcurrent offerings.
See y'all next time.