Ep 178 – The Aggression of Western Yoga with Kristina Jackson

Dani:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins, Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is and I’m and this is episode 178. All right, everybody. Well, welcome back. You guys have heard me mention on the podcast like a million times and now you actually get to meet her. So this is Kristina. She is not only vegan Protein’s virtual assistant who runs like everything behind the scenes, she edits all the podcasts, she edits all the

youtube videos. She keeps all of our systems running incredibly smoothly. She’s also an awesome DJ and a yoga teacher with over 200 hours of training. And she, I think you had actually mentioned this a while back about you noticing this trend of people doing yoga in a way that yoga was not intended to be done. And after you said it, I started paying attention to it and being like, oh yeah, that’s actually that is actually kind of weird and everywhere.

So I, I don’t know a ton about, I mean, I’ve taken yoga, I’ve done yoga a lot of times, but I don’t know a lot about the philosophies behind yoga or what it was originally intended to be. So I figured it would be a really interesting, conversation for us to have, but before we get into it, do you have anything cool going on right now?

Kristina:

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, thanks Dani. Thank you for having me on today. This is really cool. lots of cool stuff going on. Actually, I’m, I’m getting ready to play at a music festival in northern California, this September. So that’s kind of the big thing on my calendar of a big trip. And my first festival in many years.

Dani:

What is the festival in case anybody listening is in that area?

Kristina:

Oh, yeah. It’s called Applecross Music and Arts Festival. It’s in Willsey Ville at the Blue Mountain Event Center and it’s, it’s their first year. So I’m super excited. Every, the production looks really good. Everything seems super organized for a first year fest. So I’m really stoked about that.

Dani:

Awesome. And I can’t remember. I think you did actually decide you were gonna like make some

stops on the drive out there because you’re driving from Florida, right?

Kristina:

I’ve been thinking about that a lot and it might end up being fly there. I’m trying to decide if I want to maybe rent a camper van for the weekend or, or if I’m going to be able to fit my tent in a suitcase. I’d really love to have my trailer there with me because I like having my own personal space and just knowing where all my stuff is at, I like arriving all set up, but it’s a really long drive from Florida. I’m in Tampa. So even getting out of Florida is a long drive. Yep.

Dani:

Giacomo. I, when we moved back east, so we lived in Portland, Oregon. When we moved, when we moved out there, we drove from Massachusetts straight across the upper United States to Portland, Oregon. But when we came home, we decided to go basically all the way down the west coast across, across the south to Florida and then back up so we could see the other states and it took us like, I mean, we stopped in lots of places but it took us like two weeks just to get through that just the drive

straight across was five days. So I can’t, yeah, it’s got to be a long drive. But yeah, I’m very excited that you’re getting to do this. Hopefully we’ll get some good footage of you actually doing it.

Kristina:

Yes, that is high up on the priority list.

Dani:

The other day, made us a new intro to our youtube videos, which is awesome. But I was like, oh, we should put some cool clips of me and Jacque about competing in there. And then I realized we like, didn’t have any like almost zero video clips of us competing. And when I told Christie that she was like, oh yeah, that’s like every show I’ve ever done.

Kristina:

Yeah. It’s crazy how, how the media is different and then, you know, the videos you do have you look at them and you’re like, what is this? So, what did I record? It’s, it’s crazy. I actually just made a reel to celebrate my 10 years of having dreadlocks. I’ve had the same hairstyle for 10 years now and I’d say 90% of the videos in that reel are from the last, like, year and end.

Dani:

Right? Because, like, you look back and first of all, we used to like, when we’d get a new phone, it used to be just like, ok, all my pictures and videos are on the old phone. So I have to keep this phone because it has all the stuff on it and then you would lose all of it eventually. So, yeah, everybody only has stuff from like the last couple of years. I think it’s crazy.

Kristina:

But I wonder what it’s gonna be like in the future, like years to come just with our kids growing up photographed and videoed and that exists on the internet for, for many people.

Dani:

Yeah, I, I wonder about that actually all the time there are already kids. This is a totally different topic, but it’s what I’m interested in. There are already kids who were like, raised on family vlogging channels. Kind of like their whole childhood was made public all their milestones, embarrassing stuff. And now they’re, like, becoming adults and they’re realizing, like, how messed up that was and some of them are, like, suing their parents, not just for the fact that they

didn’t consent to that, but also all the money the parents made off of basically exploiting their Children. Wow. Fascinating stuff. Yeah. Anyway, on that note, so first tell me a little bit about because I actually don’t know, like, how did you get into even wanting to become a yoga teacher in the first place?

Kristina:

Yeah. So when I began my yoga teacher training, I was teaching group fitness classes full time. That was my job. So wake up at an ungodly hour, work out for sometimes five times a day and do all the different formats, mix my music for the classes. And I, I was at a, a nice club in Chicago that had a nice yoga studio. So, of course, I was also taking classes, I, I’d taken yoga on and off for many years but I wasn’t really interested in, in, in teaching or truly embodying the practice until my

late twenties. And it was just from taking classes that, you know, it began to feel natural. Like this is the progression. A lot of fitness instructors will eventually start teaching yoga because it’s just really taxing on the body to work out 20 times a week. You can’t, you can’t do that for more than a few years before you start to really feel it.

Dani:

Yeah, that, I mean, that, I cannot imagine. I teach classes only on the cruise, which is just one week and it is exhausting and I, you know, you’re not even doing the whole class because some of it you’re demoing and walking around and checking people and it’s still really exhausting so I could see how people might kind of move over into yoga after a while of doing that. But so you started in like a gym setting, like a classic gym setting.

Kristina:

Yeah, some of the places that I was teaching at were like big box gyms. the, the place where I actually met my yoga teacher and entered into training, this was more like a, it’s kind of a bougie club up in Chicago. The yoga studio is separate, there’s different lighting, the, the speakers to play, the music are different. There’s little cubbies for your shoes and stuff.

So it was very much separate from the boxing room or the cycling studio or the weight floor. But it was a lot of the same people moving between the classes. I would always recognize people from my cycling classes or my bar classes in the yoga studio. And this was something my teacher talked about. A lot was people seem to bring that same energy from the cycling or the boxing into the yoga studio and treat the asana practice like another workout.

And when I, when I was going through my, my first few classes, my, my fitness was very high. You know, my cardiovascular fitness, my, my muscles were always kind of sore, but I was also hyper mobile. So this concept of like, yoga as another form of exercise didn’t really compute to me because it felt so very different.

I, I didn’t wear my heart rate monitor in the yoga classes for obvious reasons. But you’d take one look and see that. Yes, this is a very different practice you’re doing. So, that was really interesting for me to see.

Dani:

Yeah. So, I mean, I know that a lot of our clients who, their primary source of exercise is like strength training or, you know, sometimes intense cardio and some of them when they do yoga, they don’t count it as exercise, they sort of count it as like an active recovery or something like that. But then there’s also different kinds of yoga. Some of it’s more physically intensive than other kinds.

But when you went down, you like teacher training because you, you got like, you did a very interesting path if I recall correctly of like, learning about yoga, that wasn’t just like going to a weekend at a seminar, right? Like I remember you said you had like a yoga teacher specifically. What was that learning path?

Kristina:

Like, it’s a very, in involved path to go down an official, like 200 hour training course. When you do that, you are working with one teacher. I mean, you can take classes with whoever you want but you’re, you know, you get the certificate from one person and I, I was in a pretty small group for my teacher training so we all got to know each other really well and everyone’s personal shit was very much and it was kind of like a group issue because we’re a small group but there was a lot of, of

study, you know, taking class we would meet for three times a week. up in, in the studio in Chicago. It was actually a little art gallery that my teacher had rented out for the training and there was a lot to

unlearn even as the learning was taking place. Because in order to teach yoga, you need your own practice, you need a teacher and you need empathy for other people. So just developing your own practice is such a big part of it and learning to, to separate your, your stuff from the

practice that you aim to share with other people. That’s, that’s a big thing. I think every yoga teacher needs to come to that realization of like, ok, this, this is like just my stuff coming out versus like this is where I need to direct this other person’s attention.

Dani:

Hm. Ok. That’s interesting. That’s kind of like how there are some coaches out there who will just create programs because they worked for them but not actually be able to read a client and see what it actually is that they need and that it’s very different than what they needed.

But obviously in a completely different modality. So when you were going through this training, I mean, how much like of learning the, it sounds like there was quite a bit how much of learning like the philosophies or the history or origins of yoga was there.

Kristina:

There was quite a bit for me, my, my teacher really wanted to stay rooted in yoga as it was taught in the great tradition, which I appreciate so much because that, you know, that’s the opposite of like taking your personal experience and telling people this, this is the truth.

So there’s a text that I revisit to this day called The Heart of Yoga by TKV. Jessica Char. His father Krishna Macharia is really known as the one who brought yoga to the Western world. And he was actually my teacher’s teacher’s teacher.

Dani:

OK, he’s your great grandfather teacher. Yes.

Kristina:

So, so there is some lineage involved which I feel really secure in because even when I read that book, it’s like, yes, this, this is what yoga is all about. OK, what’s it called again?

Dani:, Kristina:

The Heart of Yoga by TKV, Jessica Char Art of Yoga.

Dani:

I just wrote it down so that I can check it out.

Kristina:

Yeah, it’s, it’s a great read. And even if, even if someone’s not trying to be a yoga teacher just developing your own personal practice. This is hands down like the the number one thing to read.

Dani:

So what I mean, obviously, you’re not gonna be able to cover all of the history and philosophy and origins of yoga in a podcast. But if you could give me like a couple of key points from the actual origins of what yoga was intended to be about. What would you say?

Kristina:

Yeah. So yoga, yoga is a many faceted thing. But as far as developing the physical practice, the the physical component, which really aims to build the immortal body. This is Asana, the third limb of yoga. It’s a breath centered practice, which is, this is the foundation like it, it is all about the breath. What that means is more than just matching your breath to your body movements.

It’s really an integration of the two. So when you take class, you’ll probably notice the teacher cues things like inhale, raise your arms, exhale, bend forward. And the different postures are always paired with either the inhalation or the exhalation. It’s so that the postures can give some context to the bread. We aim to breathe in a way that’s slightly different from the way we normally breathe.

First off, we’re, we’re spending the entire time on the mat conscious of our own breathing, which is not how we go through daily life. It’s a, it’s kind of like a lung strengthening exercise. You know, you’re directing the the flow of your prana, your life energy. And as you expand the body, as the limbs move away from the body, that’s to facilitate the highest quality inhale.

As the body contracts, you bring the limbs in, you bend forward, you bend your knees, stuff like that, that is to facilitate an exhalation that will get all the air out, get all the stale air out, you know, purge all the bad energy if you want to talk about it that way. But really the entire practice, all the physical movements are in support of the breath.

Dani:

OK. Very interesting. Also, I, I do think it’s kind of interesting how way, way, way back thousands of years ago, you know, people did understand that. Yeah, if you open yourself up, you can get a better breath. If you close yourself down, you can push all the air out. I just, I always think it’s interesting when I think about how people with like no science, no tools, no, this, no that we’re able to

figure certain things out. I always find that fascinating. So OK, it’s a practice in support of the breath. So what I guess why, like, why did people start doing this initially?

Kristina:

Why, why do people practice yoga?

Dani:

I did take one college class. I took one yoga class in college and I thought it was just gonna be like an exercise class and it wasn’t, it was half an ex like half actually practicing yoga, the other half kind of learning about it. And all I remember was that it was supposed to be like a preparation for meditation. Does that sound right? Am I remembering that correctly?

Kristina:

Yeah. The, the purpose of an, as that practice is to prepare the body for seated meditation and you’ll find that the more you practice you’re able to sit in what might have been an uncomfortable position for you Previously, I could totally see that.

Dani:

I’ve never, I mean, I remember the teacher saying it and I was like, ok, like, but now that I’m thinking about that feeling at the beginning of a yoga class imperfect though, it may be, which we’ll get to versus how I’m feeling at the end of a yoga class. I am not one who tolerates meditation very well. I don’t sit still easily.

I have a really hard time focusing on anything for a long time, let alone my breath. But I, I think I could definitely do it for longer after, you know, an hour, 45 minutes of the movement and the breathing. So I guess now that I’m thinking about it, you know, 15 years later, it makes more sense.

Kristina:

Totally. My teacher would often say you cannot, will yourself to meditate. You can only create the conditions for meditation to occur naturally.

Dani:

That sounds, that sounds right. That sounds like it makes sense to me. I, I get that but you know, talking about some, I mean, I, I don’t think we need to go too, too far into the history of yoga, but I think people listening probably get the gist that it is very different the way culturally we view it now

versus how maybe it was intended. And I wanna hear just before we get into, like, some really strange stuff, like, just regular yoga classes.

Like, if I go to a gym and they have a yoga class on Saturday morning at nine o’clock, like, I think they’re pleasant. I enjoy them quite a bit. But you can kind, I feel like you can kind of tell when someone is treating the yoga class, like, when a teacher is treating the yoga class as just a modality to get people to move versus someone who’s treating it as a practice. Have you ever experienced that?

Kristina:

Absolutely. And I think it varies depending on where you’re taking class. if it’s, if it’s a big box gym that has a lot of those fitness classes, then the teacher might kind of cater to that crowd. Sometimes they’re even encouraged to do. So, I mean, I, I remember at some studios they would tell me like, hey Kristina, like the people who come here, they, yeah, they want their yoga but they also want to sweat and it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s hard when, when yoga is commodified in such a way.

Dani:

Is there anything too? So, I’ve, I’ve heard this, I’ve seen this in classes. Like, my favorite kind of yoga is, like, roll around on the floor, on pillows, kind of yoga very slowly. I mean, I like the other stuff too, but I feel like I get the most out of that, but I’ve heard people leave a yoga class and just be like, that was so easy. That wasn’t even challenging. We didn’t even do this or that. And I, I even then even not knowing very much about it.

I remember thinking like, I don’t think that’s the point. Like I don’t think yoga is supposed to be some big calorie burner. Like that’s not what it was intended for, I guess. And maybe there’s some benefit to it. But in, in your, in your training, in your learning about this historically, was there a benefit to kind of having more quote unquote intense yoga versus more kind of chill relaxed yoga?

Kristina:

I don’t see the benefit in, in practicing that way because for me, yoga is about, it’s about clearing the avid or confusion. The avid is a term that means incorrect comprehension in life. Basically the way that your, your iphone camera will get smudged and dirty. If you were to look through that and take pictures or take video, it, it’s gonna be blurry.

You’re not gonna see the world as it’s meant to be seen. So really the yoga practice is meant to kind of clear that off the lens and I think that’s hard to do if you are treating it like a fitness practice.

Dani:

And I think at least in my world and I’m sure there’s studios out there that are actually treating it as a

true yoga practice. But I think in my world with the, the folks, the circles that I run in, I think a lot of people that do yoga are treating it as a fitness practice and getting competitive with it. We’ll get to that in a second. But, yeah, so I guess I totally get what you’re saying.

Do you think there’s like a, a person who kind of what you say Adia? Is that what it’s called? Adia is the term via, do you think there’s like people that can’t clear the avid without, you know, doing inversions and really crazy types of movements? Would that be a reason why somebody would do that, like in the quote unquote right way to do it at this point in my life?

Kristina:

I think, I, I see, I see those, those people with a little bit more compassion because, you know, everyone needs a vantage point or, or a starting point or just some way to, to get the energy moving and for some people that, that might take a vigorous exercise routine or it, it might take an adult tantrum if you will, I guess some people can, can just get on the mat and start their son salutation A and then, oh, look, the, the lens is cleared for some, they might need to kind of shake it

up a little bit. So, I think, you know, really we just need to differentiate between what is the mechanism by which we start and then what is the path we’re actually taking?

Dani:

Interesting. I’m, I’m actually thinking about like, ok, what is it like when I go to the gym to do, like, strength training exercises? Ok. So I’m moving my body, I have to have the breath aligned properly with whatever it is I’m doing to get the most out of it. And a lot of times we do go to the gym. Yes, to exercise. And it’s good for our muscles and all of that.

But also a lot of people go just because they need to clear their head and that’s what people will say. Like, I just, I gotta go clear my head. I gotta go to the gym. So it’s just interesting just so I can, I guess I can see how people would just fall into this. Like, oh, well, it’s exercise and it helps me clear my head and exercise helps me clear my head.

Like, I can see how people got there. And, like I said, those really kind of tough classes where you’re just like, you do not stop moving the whole time. They’re fun. Like, I enjoy them. but, I don’t know, I don’t know where I’m going with that. so what would you say? When did you start teaching? It was, or taking it even?

Kristina:

Yeah. So, I, I began my teacher training right after I got home from my first burning man in 2019. Great time. Yes. Perfect. And my teacher training concluded one week before the COVID pandemic. Shut everything down in Chicago.

Dani:

Ok. So, I was gonna say, like, what sort of changes have you seen since it started? But I imagine probably a ton because COVID changed everything.

Kristina:

Yeah, it was, it was pretty wild. I, I started teaching in subbing classes, a little bit before, before I got my certificate because, I mean, people needed subs for their classes and, I, I had embodied the practice by then. So I, I was able to kind of work with people in a group setting and then after everything got shut down, there was the big zoom boom where everyone could just teach online, which was great.

It was a way for everybody to stay connected and stay into it. And I, I took a lot of classes during the pandemic myself and I, I noticed it’s a little bit different from, from practicing in a group setting or going to a studio to practice. I really liked it because, you know, you can play your own soft music in the background. You don’t have to worry about getting the best spot in the class and other people’s experiences aren’t happening right next to you.

I think with, with some of the more eccentric yoga classes that we see advertised now it, it offers a bit more distraction, which is really the antithesis of yoga. The whole purpose of doing a yoga practice is to develop your ability to direct your attention to, to the present moment. That’s, that’s why we’re giving 100% of our attention, our absolute focus to our breath. But, but something that normally happens on its own without us thinking about it.

So having my own space to practice and still receive guidance from the teacher, still have another presence with you during the practice. That that was really special for me. And I felt like I was able to develop my practice a lot and learn a lot about myself in that way. So I thought zoom classes and online yoga teaching is, is great.

Dani:

Yeah, I, I just thought of something that I don’t know the answer to and maybe you do. You said like, you know, this guy was your teachers, teachers, teacher way back then when people were teaching yoga, were they teaching it to something like a class or were they teaching it to an individual so that they could improve or fine tune their own individual practice yoga in the great tradition was taught one on one.

Kristina:

OK.

Dani:

That’s what I thought. So what jeez, when did classes start to even become a thing? I don’t know. I yoga classes.

Kristina:

Yeah. It’s, it’s wild and honestly a lot of my deepest development came from working with my teacher. One on one. It’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s a very personal practice. Everyone is so different of, and you require a lot of attention in, in learning how to, you know, how, how to look at yourself and develop that awareness of self. It, it takes a lot, it’s, it’s hard to, it’s hard to write a script for a group of people that will affect them all equally, right?

Dani:

I can, I can see just from writing my own classes for strength training stuff. I can see that like, I’ll want to put something in and I’m like, OK, for half of these people, this is gonna be like way too easy for them. The other half isn’t even gonna be able to do this. I don’t know how to make this work for everybody. So, OK, I want to get into a little bit about like where yoga is, like, culturally, at least in the United States because maybe it’s different in other places.

In fact, I’m sure it is, but culturally where yoga is now, and I’m gonna start with a question based on what we just talked about. I know that a huge portion of most of the classes that I have been to focus on the actual positions of your body, you know, like, for example, getting in the downward dog and trying to get your tailbone like pointed up as much as possible and they’ll come over

and kind of like shift your hips to put you in the right position. For example, that’s a big, big focus is making sure everything’s kind of in the right place that it should be.

Dani:, Kristina:

And I’ve always wondered like how much of that is actually like super, super important in terms of an actual larger yoga practice, I think, and I know I’m not the only one who thinks this there’s a bit of an over emphasis on alignment in western yoga.

Kristina:

Whereas I like to put the focus on the angles because you can, you can make a number of shapes with a certain amount of lines. But really, it’s the angles that define what those shapes are. And if you consider the breath as the most important part of the practice, your, your body creates these angles to facilitate the highest quality of breath.

So I, I like to think of it almost like a pinball machine. Like your breath is the little ball going through the pinball machine. And you use those little levers to kind of create the angles through which the ball travels, right? That’s kind of what’s happening in the yoga practice. So I don’t think as much about like

the shapes and I think to give directional cues, like get your tailbone as high as possible, that’s going to be wildly misinterpreted by half of the group of people

because it all depends on the distance between your hands and your feet. And is there a bend in your knees? Are your, are your arms holding up your body the right way? There’s so many variables that, yeah, having that emphasis on alignment can kind of make things difficult.

Dani:

I, I imagine it also highly depends on people’s mobility. I mean, some people just physically cannot make certain shapes, period. let alone doing it without pain. And you tell me, are you supposed to be feeling pain during yoga?

Kristina:

No, no, no, no. I think if you have, if you have arrived at a point of feeling pain, then that that’s your body telling you something is wrong and to ignore that signal from your body has immediately taken you off the path of yoga.

Dani:

Right. Right. So, I mean, there’s like jokes, right? There’s literally jokes out there about, you know, people going to a yoga class for the first time and trying to twist themselves into a pretzel and hurting themselves. And it’s just, I don’t know, I just think it’s kind of like a sad state of things, but I going back to what I was saying about like people leaving a class and being like, oh, that wasn’t hard enough.

I didn’t sweat enough, which actually I have questions about hot yoga also. I, I have questions. but I have often as somebody who is also like hyper mobile I just always have been, I didn’t do anything special to achieve it. That’s just how my body is made. Sometimes I’ll leave and people be like, oh, you’re really good at this. And I, I’m always like, oh, thank you, I guess.

But like, I don’t feel like I’m very quote unquote, good at this because it’s very hard for me to follow, get the breath matched up properly just because I can make the shapes very well. It’s hard to get the breath lined up. It’s hard to get my brain lined up. I guess my mind lined up with it. But I can feel that competitiveness in the room like and I almost feel like a jerk sometimes being as flexible as I am because I feel like I look like I’m trying to be a show off and I’m not, that’s just how

my body is made. But there could be somebody else in there that has way less flexibility than me that kind of like gets it way more than I do. You know what I mean? But that’s still that competitive vibe, especially in those bougie, all female places, especially I would say is pretty intense. And like, what have you witnessed of that from like a teaching perspective?

Kristina:

And it is really intense and I, I’ve always found that challenging, I mean, even in, in other modalities like teaching bar classes, it’s tough because II I grew up in competitive artistic gymnastics. So my body does things that are not normal and I, I have always kind of felt that how do I say it, that like expectation to perform or that whatever I’m teaching is being taken as a performance when really that is not my intention.

And it’s, it’s kind of hard to step away from that because people are looking to you for guidance. And I, I suppose I never quite mastered how to say like, look, I’m, I’m not here to perform for you. I’m here to get you to look at yourself.

Dani:

Yeah, that’s, it’s very, very interesting and it also makes me think about how people, I mean, this happens across all kinds of sports but like they’re also expecting a certain look from you. And what I mean, like I’ve had teachers come in that are maybe like more heavy set. They’re not super lean, they’re not super felt and cut, but they’re excellent yoga teachers. Like I can get so much out of their class. But I can, I have heard other people say things like, oh, well, they don’t

look that fit or they don’t look like they’d be so good at yoga. And again, if you see this across everything, but I just think it’s kind of like such a messed up thing that, yeah, there’s like a whole vibe look performance piece that people expect from the teachers and also like of themselves.

Like that’s what they’re trying to achieve is to get to a place like that. That is very external versus what I thought the point was supposed to be, was much more internal with some external benefits.

Kristina:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. one of the first things I noticed when I started taking class with my teacher was this guy wearing jeans. It’s not allowed and he did get talked to by management. But sometimes I would teach in, in my jean shorts too. And I was like, wow, this is actually really liberating because, you know, we are, we are kind of expected to, to look a certain way and to act a certain way.

And it’s funny because now yoga is being commodified in, in a way where like that, like defying that is the thing like, oh, we’re, we’re not gonna present it like a, a typical yoga class. But there, there is definitely a bit of societal pressure to look and act a certain way. by no means improved from the world of social media.

Dani:

Ok. So I did actually wanna ask about social media because I know how much it’s influenced absolutely everything about the fitness industry in general bodybuilding influencers, the way people look. But I absolutely 1 million% have seen like, I guess what I would just call like yoga influencers or something that just post like, you

know, they’re very impressive, they’re very visually impressive yoga flows that they post to the internet. And I just want to hear your thoughts on that period. Full stop.

Kristina:

Oh, yeah. Social media is, I mean, you and I have talked about this. It is, it is kind of the devil but it’s also unavoidable and it seems like that is kind of the lens through which people view things on the internet. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of the same with, with D jing. hm. You know, the, the reason I’m there in front of you with control of the music is not so I can flip my hair in front of the camera and look super cool.

It’s, it’s to, to give you an experience to take you on a journey to, to show you the time of your life. But that’s really hard to to illustrate in a 92nd reel or, or, you know, a stunning well lit photograph. So, yeah, I, I mean, I, I wouldn’t demonize people who are showing off their beautiful Asina on social media.

I, I wouldn’t discredit them. I, I can see why people will scoff at that or say like that isn’t yoga. And I mean, it’s not, you know, to, to put a picture of your, your lotus handstand on Instagram that itself is not yoga. But how can you put yoga on Instagram? Right?

Dani:, Kristina:

Oh It’s, it’s really just the projection like where is the line between yoga and just acrobats?

Dani:

You know, acrobatics.

Kristina:

Yeah.

Dani:, Kristina:

Yeah, I guess that, I guess that would be your attention on the breath.

Kristina:

Yeah, that’s always what it comes back to. It’s, it’s, it’s where you put your attention that defines whether you are practicing yoga or just doing acrobatics.

Dani:

Ok. Do you feel like the more prevalence of that type of stuff on social media has discouraged other people from feeling comfortable enough to go to a yoga class? Like it scares them away.

Kristina:

I definitely see potential for that. if somebody doesn’t really know what yoga is all about. If somebody is trying to change their sedentary lifestyle by beginning a movement practice and they start scrolling and start to think. Oh, well, that’s what I’m gonna be asked to do. If I show up in that class, they’re not gonna go to that class.

They’re not gonna get a yoga mat there. They’re not even going to get to the point where you can start to, like, reflect on, on yourself and, and find out, like, why am I actually beginning this practice? So, yeah, I, I would not want to go down that path. That would be very discouraging.

Dani:

Yeah. I mean, I think it would be very, I mean, I’ve done that with other things, not yoga, but I’ve seen other types of sports or just classes even that have nothing to do with fitness whatsoever. And then, like, I kind of want to learn this and then seeing something and be, like, in the privacy of my own home. Far away from everybody else because I’m just like, I don’t wanna, I can’t do that in front of other people. but I guess for all of this, like, kind of shit talking, that we’re doing

about this idea of, like, competitively or aggressively doing yoga. I mean, I, I do actually think there’s benefits to there being as many yoga classes as there are, even if they are being done just as exercise, I think even if you’re kind of doing it imperfectly or maybe with like a different intention than was originally intended for yoga. I still think you’re gonna reap benefits from it.

Kristina:

I agree.

Dani:

Do you think so?

Kristina:

Yeah, I mean, if, if you begin any practice for the sake of bettering yourself or just learning more about yourself, then that, that is the reward.

Dani:

I mean, I’m thinking of why people that I know have started yoga, one they wanted to recover better from their strength training or people wanted to work on their mobility or flexibility. And like those are the number one reasons that the people I know and talk to more often start yoga, not because they want to, like, look at themselves more closely or start a practice.

Sometimes it’s like distress like they know they’re super stressed out and they need to, they need to figure it out because it’s too much stress. And even though I know like that’s not what yoga was like, intended to be I still would never discourage them from going to do it because I do think it still will have those benefits.

Kristina:

Definitely.

Dani:

And if they never like, look into inward to see, you know, where they’re at.

Kristina:

Yeah, I, I would agree. I hear a lot of people say, oh, I need to do yoga because I’m really stiff and it’s a great reason to start. I like to encourage them that mobility is not the only benefit that comes with the practice and that there will probably be some period of time that is frustrating because your body is not doing the things that you want it to do.

But really by just bringing it back to the whole breath center practice thing and directing their focus onto their breath and speaking to their bodies instead of the shapes that, that will, that’ll get them there.

Dani:

Yeah. And do you think that that’s like just a, like the reasons that I just gave, do you think that’s specifically like a western thing?

Kristina:

I, I have not spent time in, in the east so I can’t say for sure, but it really feels like it.

Dani:

Yeah, I was gonna ask like, I’ve never spent time in the east either, but I wonder how much practices over there have modernized as well to kind of change into what we’ve kind of turned them into here.

Kristina:

Well, you know, I say I’ve never spent time in the east but I was, attending classes that were remote. so they were filmed in, in India and they were very, very different from the yoga classes in the gym. You know, they, they didn’t care about the, the lighting in the studio or like, it wasn’t made up, they weren’t, they weren’t wearing lululemon or whatever. You know, there’s, there’s the sound of, of the streets outside, there’s like monkeys walking around in and out of the shot.

it’s very different but what was delivered or what was transmitted through the class felt very wholesome and very pure because it, it’s about your experience. It’s, it’s not the teacher putting on a show. So, yeah, it’s, it’s very different.

Dani:

Do you think you could link to something in the show notes that could point people in that direction if they kind of wanted to see something like that?

Kristina:

Yeah, I was, I was studying with an online school called Yoga mu, stands for Yoga means Union. And they’re a fantastic online yoga school. So, yeah, I’ll see if they have resources I can link to.

Dani:

Yeah, I think that would, I mean, I’ve never seen anything like that and I would be very curious to see the differences because I think maybe, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know if this is a rabbit hole we want to go down. But even the yoga studios here that I’ve been to that are like, nicer, they’re high end they’re really putting effort into, like, creating an atmosphere in the class that you don’t see at Planet Fitness.

Ok. but they can actually kind of feel like to me anyway, a little bit, like, kind of phony and icky with how weirdly spiritual they’re, like, trying to get. Do you know what I mean?

Kristina:

That’s making any sense? Ok.

Dani:

Yeah. It feels like a, I mean, it feels like some weird cultural appropriation shit going on.

Kristina:

Yeah, a little bit.

Dani:

People are super into it.

Kristina:

But yeah, tell me, I definitely get what you’re saying and I feel like it is part of the whole western commodification of yoga thing because at the root of it all is, is your base emotion which is not always gonna be like sunshine and rainbows and Namaste. Sometimes some, sometimes it’s ugly and shadows and things that you don’t want to bring into a group setting and things that won’t sell if you put them in front of people.

But that’s all part of the human experience that that’s what’s real, you know, you can, you can paint it however you want but to, to only give attention to that is ignoring a lot of what’s real.

Dani:

Yeah, I mean, I think, and again, what do I know? Nothing but I, I think that it just doesn’t feel very human sometimes to be in those classes. And even though you mentioned like these you know, the very specific sort of Indian names of certain things like the bad energy. What was that called? Avid. Avid.

Kristina:

Yes, incorrect comprehension. OK.

Dani:

So, you know, even though there are these like technical terms for things like that, I mean, you could still say it’s like, you know, this is bad shitty energy. You have to get out, right? Like there are or you could, you could make it really, like flowery language and I guess maybe it’s that, that I just can’t jive with is like, really flowery language about these things. Like, I feel like one of the ways that of modernizing yoga that would feel pretty authentic to me would be talking

in more terms like that. Like this is the good and you’re breathing in the good stuff, you’re breathing

out the bad stuff, which I have heard some people say. but then I’ve also heard some really, like way out there stuff that I’m like, oh, you are trying way too hard to impress some rich people right now.

Kristina:

Yes. Oh, that, that’s, that’s rough. You can kind of go too far in that one direction. which I think, I think we should talk about going, going pretty far in the other direction. If, if we were to take yoga in, in the context of let’s just get out all the bad shit. Which, which brings me to something I, I found on the internet, called Rage Yoga.

I guess this isn’t, it’s not brand new but it’s happening out there. They are holding classes where you are served alcohol and invited to use profane language on your exhalation.

Dani:

Oh, I’ve heard of like heavy metal yoga. Like where there the music is like metal, not chill vibes or anything. That, that sounds like, maybe it could be. I’ve also heard of goat yoga where there’s, you’re doing yoga and there’s goats and like baby goats in the room who can be upset about that. That sounds like a wonderful time. But I have not heard of this one where you’re drinking and swearing.

Dani:, Kristina:

It’s yeah, apparently it’s not for everybody.

Kristina:

I not say it’d be for me. II I don’t drink a whole lot and yeah, I, I get it and I could see why it’d be appealing to some people, but I would be hesitant to encourage that to anybody just because you, you’re in a group setting. So whatever you bring to the mat, everyone around you is bringing their own unique stuff. And if everybody is cursing out loud and drinking beer, then on some level, your experience is gonna be outside of yourself.

You know, unless, unless you’re, unless you’ve really been practicing Prati Hara the fifth limb of yoga, which is to, you know, block out sensory stimulation, not to ignore it, but to just not, not let it control you. It it’s gonna influence your experience, right? And I feel like that is, that’s not really yoga. That’s, that’s taking the experience within and putting it outside.

Dani:, Kristina:

And plus, you know, if you’re drinking alcohol, like, it’s gonna be harder to direct your attention to anything, it’s gonna be harder to do a lot of stuff in yoga.

Dani:

You’re drinking alcohol, I think. it’s gonna be, I mean, drinking changes your respiration so it would change, it would literally change your ability to breathe properly, which is apparently like the number one thing let alone like going upside down or something when the phone is already spinning a little.

Dani:, Kristina:

So, yeah, so I wasn’t, I wasn’t really a fan of, of that, but I feel like there’s other modalities like if you want to get in a room with people and shit, like swear and break shit, there’s, there’s places for that.

Dani:

It just seems a weird thing to pair with yoga, right?

Kristina:

Yeah. Very, very weird. I saw another, another thing where someone called it tantrum yoga and it seemed like this was really just like a posture, like some, some made up western posture that involves like kicking and screaming and yeah, I, I suppose if that’s what you need to do to create a moment of stillness in your mind and o OK, do it. But what do you do from there? What arises from that stillness?

Dani:, Kristina:

That’s the yoga, right?

Dani:

So a question I have all the questions today. So one time I took a, an intro to a Kundalini yoga thing. And it was like a one, I did not expect it to be a one on one thing and I took my boyfriend at the time and he didn’t even speak English. And we’re like, like in the room, I was just like, I don’t like this at all.

It was very uncomfortable and I think because I didn’t know what I was getting into. But if is Kundalini yoga, like about kind of that like short intense breaths because I remember that’s what we did for like a full hour.

Kristina:

It sounds like breath of fire or Kalati. Maybe one of those techniques. I, I know Kundalini Breath of Fire is different from the Kalba technique. Both of those are kind of what you described.

Dani:

It seems like it would kind of go into that like like kind of it, it felt like really high energy, like the movements weren’t high energy, the breathing was high energy and felt almost like, like a little ragey or something like that. I, I don’t know how to put my finger on what it felt like, but it was not like the classes I had taken before, right?

Kristina:

Breathwork is powerful. Dani. It’s, it’s, yeah, it, it’s kind of crazy. The stuff that can come up with some of these breathwork exercises and I, I have studied and practiced a little bit of Kundalini yoga. I, I’m very interested in it. I, I do feel a bit of like there’s something I haven’t accomplished yet with, with Kundalini, but it is, it is largely like inner work and getting, getting your energy to do something.

But I just, I feel like mine hasn’t quite gone all the way. So maybe I feel a little bit unequipped to, to speak about it. But just from my own experience, I, I, I do think breathwork is like really powerful. You can sometimes unlock stuff you didn’t know was there? It’s, it seems kind of mysterious to me because you’re just, you’re doing this thing, you’re breathing in a certain way.

But I’ve, I’ve had breathwork experiences where suddenly my body starts like seizing up in a weird way or emotions that just didn’t make sense just came right to the surface.

Dani:

So, yeah, so I, I mean, anybody who listens to this knows I’m like the most pragmatic least like woo woo type of person out there. But I myself have been in yoga classes and then all of a sudden just had tears in my eyes when I wasn’t even like sad or anything that day. And I’m just like, what is this? Like, something just happened. So I definitely do think there’s something to that. And I would be curious, like, I’m sure there’s like, you know, the yogic spiritual explanation, but I

would also be curious about the sort of scientific explanation of why things like that do happen. But Yeah, that candoli maybe if I had known what I was walking into, I would have had a different experience, but I did not. And it was, that was that day. That was, that was not for me, but maybe now I’d be more interested in just seeing what it is actually about. so, yeah, that was just a little side question there.

Kristina:

Yeah. Yeah. I, my Kundalini teacher would, would say, you know, some people are not ready for, for this energy to rise and for some people, if it happens in an unusual way, like they fall on their tail bone and who the goes and that changes their life in a way that they weren’t ready for. And yeah, I, I’m, I’m very curious about it. you know, like I, I want to believe, I want to, I want to experience that.

I also have kind of a pragmatic view like you where it’s like, eh, are you sure it does it really work that way? Like can you really store our feelings in our hips? But then, you know, you experience something like that and you know, halfway through pigeon pose, I’m crying for no reason. It’s like, well, ok, something happened. Yeah.

Dani:

And I don’t know anything about storing feelings in specific body parts, which I have heard before, but there is a fantastic book out there. It’s really heavy. It’s really dark, but it’s called The Body Keeps The Score. And it is literally the, just, it is just the science about how certain traumas, especially in childhood will cha change your trajectory for the rest of your life.

It’s actually pretty depressing if you’ve ever experienced anything like that. But, you know, it talks about the, the rates of different illnesses and injuries and stuff that pop up until they are like properly dealt with and the body keeps, the score is a pretty fantastic name, of a book as well.

Kristina:

You know, I, I think I’ve, I had a subscription to the app that gives you, book summaries just like read to you. And that was one I, I used to use this app to help me fall asleep for whatever reason. If I was scrolling or watching something, I’ll, I’ll be up all night. But if I put on a book summary out like a light bulb. So I can’t, I can’t actively recall anything from that book summary, but apparently it’s gonna be stored in my body.

Dani:

So, yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely worth checking out and I think there’s a, there’s links there for sure. There’s links to like the weird feelings or emotions that can come up in, in. I mean, it doesn’t have to be during yoga. It could be in all sorts of different settings. You ever just like a certain smell hits you and you’re just like, whoa, like what? I totally forgot about blah, blah, blah thing. Yeah, there’s eat for as pragmatic as I am. I definitely think there’s stuff we don’t

know. And I was talking to Jacob about this yesterday and I guess he’s more pragmatic than me because he just like rolled his eyes at me and I was like, like you’re a cocky bastard if you think we know everything like we, we can’t possibly know everything.

ok, so I have a couple of other questions for you. First of all, have you felt any of the sort of pressures that we’ve talked about today? Like pressures to be a particular type of yoga teacher that is more palatable to the general public.

Kristina:

I guess I did while I was still teaching at studios. you know, I, I’d been teaching the cycling in the bar

for X amount of years and then I said, hey, I got my, my yoga teacher certificate. I’m good to go now if you need more yoga teachers on the schedule and like, ok, yeah, you know, Kristina, we like you, but we need you to work with one of our other instructors so that you can give the members what they’re asking for. And it wasn’t anything against, you know, my, my training, it wasn’t a

lack of knowledge, it was just, well, we, we do need you to fit this profile. So yeah, I definitely felt that way for a while and then, and then COVID shut everything down. I moved across the country and made an online course instead of continuing to teach in studios. So then all the pressure was gone. which yeah, which can was helpful for me. Does it make my teaching as accessible to everybody? Maybe not.

Dani:

But who knows when you were feeling that like pressure, did you find that, that affected your own personal practice at all?

Kristina:

It did. And I don’t know if it was in a bad way because there, there is something to be said for mass appeal or mass accessibility or, you know, pop culture or pop music. There’s a reason that a lot of people resonate with this. And if we go to a place that removes all of, of, of that like groupthink or like mass appeal, then we can maybe develop some oddities. And yeah, if, if I’m only ever doing my own practice and never opening myself to the guidance of others, then it, it’s gonna develop

in, in kind of a maybe a weird way. So, you know, working with that instructor was great. You know, I heard and I got along and I learned a lot from her. So I saw a little bit of an effect on my own practice, but I don’t think it was bad. You know, I, I still, I like to take classes with other teachers. I like to see what other people are into. I suppose not in a way to influence me, but just help me develop my own awareness.

Dani:

But that kind of leads into my, my next question. Like, you know, we’ve talked about quite a few things like, oh, well, this technically isn’t yoga. This technically is not what yoga was intended to be. But do you feel like there’s any things that sort of as a society, like we’ve changed that were beneficial or like, when is it when, when do you feel like, oh, this is maybe this is a good thing that we changed this.

Like, for example, like, I mean, I would say the accessibility of doing yoga. It’s freaking everywhere you go to youtube and look it up and do it for free. And I don’t, I mean, you couldn’t do something like that when I was a teenager. I know that, but like, are there any other things that we’ve done kind of to yoga that you think were actually a, a good thing?

Kristina:

I think so? I mean, it’s hard for me to believe that, you know, the Western culture could just destroy this practice and just forget about all the benefits. I feel like on some level, we, we might change things around. But yeah, I think making it more accessible and maybe just using some of our, our own language, it can be helpful. You know, if that’s what gets people on the mat and gets them to look at themselves, then then it’s helpful.

I think as long as, as people are, you know, are getting the benefits from the practice, then it’s going to evolve naturally. It’s, it’s gonna change. That’s, that’s kind of just how people are. I, I think maybe we should start looking at it as more of a, one on one thing and making it more of like a personal journey than, than it is like a group experience.

But at the same time there’s a lot of other aspects of life that are becoming a strictly personal journey or you don’t get that group experience. So maybe it’s helpful to get that experience somewhere else.

Dani:

Yeah, from your perspective, do you think it’s better to like, learn all the rules before you start to break them or do you think it’s ok to kind of like almost sort of make it up as you go a little bit?

Kristina:

Well, I think usually it’s beneficial to learn the rules before you start breaking them because that’s going to put you on probably the straightest path to where you wanna go. Yeah, I think to kind of learn as you go, it, it’s not to say you won’t get there, but you might make a lot of weird turns and go through a lot of places that don’t benefit you along with, like you said, you had to unlearn a lot at the beginning, right?

Dani:

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I think, I think this is all really interesting stuff because I think for, for our community, for the vegan proteins community yoga is kind of like an add on to something that most of the people in our community do. Like they, they strength train, they do cardio and also they do yoga, but it’s kind of like a bit of a side thought to their fitness routine. And I think that, yeah, it, it has the potential to be a lot more than that.

And if they’re, if, if anybody is listening to this and you’re just doing yoga for like flexibility specifically, there are better ways to train your flexibility than to do yoga. Not saying you shouldn’t do yoga, but I’m just saying there’s better ways to become more mobile or more flexible Than that. OK. My very last question because I forgot to ask it earlier. Hot yoga. Thoughts on hot yoga in general.

Kristina:

Oh, I know there’s a lot of culture around that and a lot of drama around that.

Dani:

Yeah, that Beram guy, I’ll say it. Yeah, everything I’ve seen about Beram is he’s horrible. Yeah, but there’s a lot of studios that are hot yoga but aren’t Beram yoga, right?

Kristina:

Oh, it’s, it’s been a while since I’ve taken a class that was you know, marketed as hot yoga. And I, I live in south central Florida. So I feel like every yoga practice is hot yoga because I, I practice in the morning out in my screen porch where it is, it is hot, it is humid.

And even by like, 830 in the morning it’s, yeah, it’s like a sauna. I, I don’t like the idea of going to a studio to practice where everyone else has been dripping sweat on, on the shared mats and, and, oh, if there’s carpet in there, gosh, I, I don’t know.

Dani:

So, so Beaker Studios have to, they have to be carpeted roast. Yes. Just disgusting. Yeah. And it’s the same, I think either 17 or 34. I can’t remember. It’s the same 17 or 34 poses every time. And there’s a script and the teacher has to stick to the script and it’s a weird script at that. I vividly remember and I thought it was just one teacher and then I took another class and they said the exact same thing and I was like, what the hell it was something like fold yourself in half like a ham

sandwich. I’ll never forget it. Fold yourself in half like a ham sandwich. And I was like, what does that mean? But yeah, I, I just didn’t know if there was any like history specifically to doing yoga in a really hot room or what the original intentionality of that was, was it to like kind of pushed through the discomfort of being super hot? Was it literally to sweat your brains out? Because you think you would like sweat bad stuff out? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer.

Kristina:

I am not educated enough to give an answer to that. I guess. I, I wouldn’t, yeah, I wouldn’t. Yeah, I’d imagine that part of it is the whole Praa Harra or, you know, exclusion of sensory input and then maybe some of it is, is meant to be purifying, like, sweating out toxins.

Dani:, Kristina:

But that’s, yeah, that’s about as far as I can speculate because that’s, that’s another thing.

Dani:

People tend to do hot yoga because they think it’s like more hard core and, you know, they feel they sweat their brains out so they definitely feel like worked, they feel like they worked out. And that’s just what I’ve noticed in my interactions with people. I’ve only done it a few times because I signed up for like a one week free trial and it

turned out that’s how I learned about Bikram yoga. I had no idea that was a rabbit hole. If anybody’s interested in going down that there’s quite a few documentaries about it.

Kristina:

I was gonna say I don’t like to feel like I’ve just been worked after my yoga practice. I, man, I, I wanna feel like clear headed and energized. So that’s, that’s kind of what shaped my practice over the years is like, I, I don’t want it to feel like a workout. If I want to work out, I’m gonna work out. But after a yoga practice, I want to step off the mat ready for the rest of my life.

Dani:

Well, that, actually, I don’t know if you want to talk about this. So, if you want to cut this out you can, but I know we briefly talked about, like, how the most practices end in Sasana. all classes I’ve ever been to end in Sasana. And I know that every time I get up from that, like, I’m sleepy, like we just lie down for five minutes after, you know, moving for an hour and now I’m sleepy and it’s not a bad feeling, but it’s not always necessarily what I

want to be feeling at the end of yoga. So when I ask, like, should you learn the rules before you break them? for example, ending not in Sasana, tell me your thoughts on that.

Kristina:

Yes. So I’ve been experimenting with this a little bit because this, this is way out of context. But the the artist I commissioned to make one of my visualizer loops for my DJ sets. He he has a little ritual where he would end the live stream with everybody standing in mountain pose, Kasa, you’re, you, you stand with your arms down at your sides facing forward and she’s not a yoga teacher.

The whole thing I guess was kind of a joke because they were looking up yoga poses. And it’s like, well, this one looks like you’re just standing there not doing anything, which is interesting because that’s similar to Sasana. A K a corpse pose where you’re just laying there, supposedly not doing anything but really, you are downloading the benefits of the practice.

You are noticing the changes taking place in your body. You’re receiving new information because the practice has changed you. But if you lay, lay down for five minutes, sometimes 10 minutes is what’s suggested in, in yoga classes by the time you get up. Yeah. It’s like sleepy and tired and kind of, it’s always, they darken the lights too.

Yeah. And that’s not always what you want, especially if you practice first thing in the morning, it

really, you know, it takes a long time to get the day going after that. So I thought I’d do a little experiment and sometimes at the end of my practice, I would end in mountain bows. And I noticed I felt very different. I, I felt kind of charged and ready to get out of my day.

Like, motivated is the word I would use. Ready to go productive. And that got me thinking, it got me sort of questioning everything that I’d learned. And so I did that for a few, maybe a few days. And then if I was practicing later at night, maybe I wouldn’t take it to mountain pose. But I would end in a seated meditation instead of corpse pose just thinking like, man, why, why would we end every single practice in corpse pose for this, this like energizing thing?

We’re doing to like know ourselves. And then I, I went back to ending in Sasana and I was having a different experience with that too. And I noticed that the sleepiness seems to occur if I have a very long shabaa or if I have a disengaged shabaa. So if I’m laying there in, in corpse pose, I I want to bring my attention to the physical sensations in my body.

So I’m not moving, but something is moving within me. You know, after, yeah, after a yoga practice, after an extended period of time with absolute focus on my breath, moving my body to support my breath, you lay down and your body still, but some things happen. Yeah. So to keep my attention on that and then move into my seated meditation or move on with my day, that was more like invigorating, that kind of gave it brought me to a different place by the end of the yoga practice.

But I noticed if, if I’m tired, if I’m in a mood or if I’m just like not into it. And I get to shabaa, I just like flop down and lay there then whether it’s 30 seconds, two minutes, five minutes when I get up, I don’t feel that great. So it’s really taking that absolute focus all the way through to the end of Sasana when you, when you get up and go about to participate in your life, which is still part of

the yoga practice. It’s, it’s really about, about maintaining and developing that, which you’ve been developing through the entire practice, which is, is your breath.

Dani:

Right. So interesting maybe. And I think about it, like the yoga practice should flow into what, you know, it’s flow, right? It should flow into whatever you have next to do. Right? Like if you have to like, go to work or go do something really challenging right after yoga, maybe shaba and that doesn’t make the most sense that doesn’t flow very well, right? That’s like dead stop into very fast motion. I don’t know. But I mean, I think that would be a good example of like how something

something as ancient as yoga could be modernized in a way that makes sense and could be beneficial without losing sight of what it was originally intended to be. Because in, in their ancient times, they did not live the kinds of lives that we live now where it’s like much more fast paced. So it makes sense that something like that would have to change, but still keep that intention, I guess totally.

Kristina:

And there, there is a concept called Vinyasa karma, which really means like logical course of action that suggests that the postures leading up to Sasana would also be less intense and relaxing and with less dynamic movement. So yeah, it’s really all about how you want to direct your practice. So I suppose if, if you’re gonna do your yoga practice and then you have to commute to work, then if you’re not going to end in a lengthy shabaa, your last couple

postures will probably involve a bit less movement. Maybe you spend more time in the pose. But yeah, maybe it’s not just laying there in a way that’s gonna prepare you for sleep.

Dani:

Yeah. All right. Awesome. So interesting. I mean, I could keep talking about this, but I’m not going to because this is already going to be a really long podcast. But I really, really appreciate you coming on and talking to us about this because it is very different than what we normally talk about, but it is relevant to a lot of our audience and y’all are stressed out as hell. So you guys could benefit from this.

Kristina:

Yes, it, it really works. Yoga works.

Dani:

Yeah. And I didn’t want to be the one to like, I, I wouldn’t know enough to explain any of this stuff. Like I, I kind of got the gist like I kind of understood it from a very zoomed out perspective, but I think all of this detail is really, really helpful. And also very excited to have you on this side of the podcast for the first time ever.

Kristina:

My pleasure. It was so fun. Yeah, this, I get it now. Yeah, I could do this all the time.

Dani:

Yeah. It’s a blast. As long as you have somebody interesting to talk to Giacomo. it’s a, it’s a blast. So All right, cool. Well, I’m gonna wrap this up. So.

Kristina:

Yes. Thank you so much for having me.

Dani:

We, we really, really appreciate everything you do for vegan protein. So everybody go follow her stuff. All right. And if you’re in California, go check out the, if you’re in northern California, I should say go check out the music festival. All right, everybody thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio.

If you’re interested in any kind of one on one coaching, go to Vegan proteins.com. Click the coaching button. You can fill out an application or you can also shoot us an email coach at Vegan proteins.com. Find us on Instagram, youtube, etcetera. You can find on Instagram at Hexad and we’ll link to that in the description.

Dani:, Kristina:

And once again, my name is Dani at Kristina and we’ll talk to you soon.

Kristina:

Bye.