The Health Curve
The Health Curve simplifies complex health topics, explores impactful ideas shaping the future of human health, and raises awareness of critical issues affecting underserved communities. By making science-backed health information accessible, we empower individuals and communities with credible insights and practical tools.
On the podcast, I speak with a wide range of voices — from public health scientists, clinicians, and entrepreneurs to advocates, artists, and coaches. Together, we unpack the science, challenge assumptions, and tackle the growing gaps left by misinformation and failing healthcare systems.
The Health Curve Podcast is hosted by Dr. Jason Arora — Oxford- and Harvard-trained physician, public health scientist, yoga and mindfulness instructor, and award-winning health innovator - Forbes 30u30, Fulbright Scholar, Harvard Public Health Innovator Award-Winner, and Aspen Health Fellow.
Find us on YouTube (@TheHealthCurve) or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other popular podcast platforms.
Have questions, comments, or feedback? Email us at info@thehealthcurvepodcast.com.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor or a qualified healthcare provider regarding any medical concerns.
The Health Curve
Beyond the Mat: How to Use Yoga as a Lifelong Tool for Health and Wellbeing — with Val Sklar Robinson
Yoga is more than exercise—it’s a practice that can shape health, resilience, and wellbeing across a lifetime. In the West, yoga is often reduced to stretching, strength, and postures—but in its original form, yoga was never just physical. Rooted in ancient Indian philosophy, yoga is a spiritual discipline aimed at stilling the mind, withdrawing the senses from the external world (pratyāhāra), and moving closer to union with the divine.
In this episode of The Health Curve Podcast, host Dr. Jason Arora speaks with one of his own yoga teachers, Val Sklar Robinson, founder of Hot Yoga Pasadena and former student of Bikram Choudhury, the controversial figure behind the hot yoga ('Bikram Yoga') style now known as 26+2. Val has taught thousands of students and brings a deep perspective on how yoga has been interpreted, adapted, and transformed across cultures.
Together, they explore what yoga truly means beyond the mat - how the asanas are just one small entry point into a much larger system of self-discipline, meditation, and transformation - and how this deeper understanding of yoga can serve as a lifelong practice for health, resilience, and wellbeing.
Welcome to the HealthCurve podcast. I'm your host, jason Aurora. Today, we're diving into yoga not just as an exercise but as a powerful tool for healing and transformation. It's been a cornerstone of my own health journey for years, so much so that I went on to become a certified yoga instructor and a lifelong student of grassroots yoga philosophy. My guest today is Val Sklar Robinson, founder of Hot Yoga Pasadena and a lifelong student of grassroots yoga philosophy. My guest today is Val Sklar Robinson, founder of Hot Yoga Pasadena and a longtime student of Bikram Chowdhury, the controversial founder of the hot yoga style, now more commonly known as 26 plus 2 yoga. Val was one of my first teachers when I began practicing Bikram yoga and she's taught thousands of students from all walks of life in her many years of practicing and teaching yoga. Together, we'll explore what yoga really offers beyond the mat and how you can use it as a tool for your own health journey, no matter where you are in life.
Speaker 1:I started doing yoga because I was experiencing low back pain. I was holding a lot of tension, I think, in my body A lot of times sitting at a desk, the pandemic, eating, even though I was lifting heavy weights like I'd always done and doing high intensity interval training, powering through everything through life and through my workouts and everything else, my body started to tell me that I needed something different. I did my first foray into 26 plus 2 in London over the summer, I think, of 2022. This is after I'd done power vinyasa for a couple of years and that was the best thing I did for my body alignment. It helped reset my body, almost like melting it. If it's metal, you sort of melt it and then you reform your body as it naturally is supposed to be. That's what I found about 26 plus two yoga. And then I found your studio, I think, when I came back from that trip, and it was the best thing I did for my health at the time and it has informed my practices probably for the rest of my life now.
Speaker 1:So for many people today, yoga starts as a form of physical exercise, like it did for me. It's a way to build flexibility or relieve stress, but for some it grows into something much deeper. So let's start with your story. How did yoga first come into your life?
Speaker 2:So in my 20s I was single. I didn't get married until I was almost 35. So I was navigating single life in Los Angeles. I'd always been active. I grew up dancing. I love stretching. When I went to the gym it was doing kind of that sort of thing. There was a big thing in the 90s called step aerobics. That was kind of fun. But I had this great career. I traveled a lot when I was in the wholesale shoe business and went to New York four times a year and all these really had a great life and stayed pretty healthy. I'd always been fairly fit, fairly thin.
Speaker 2:I've never been a huge athlete, but I had a terrible situation happen when I was in middle school where I broke my hip. It was this very rare situation that normally happens to no one who looks or is built like me, and I've actually never met anyone who's had it other than my daughter. Even though it's supposedly not genetic, it's called a slip capitol femoral epiphysis, where pre-puberty your epi growth plate basically it starts slipping. Western medicine never caught it. They wanted to send me to therapy. I was limping for three months and ended up at the end not realizing my hip was about to break. I was on crutches, fell at school and broke it, which was a whole just intense thing to have happened to you within eighth grade and set up me with kind of a lifetime of having some kind of cautious attitude about Western medicine. I grew up in a wealthy town. I had great medical care and I wasn't taken seriously. Doctors didn't take me seriously and there was just a lot of things that happened. In that kind of two weeks I was in the hospital. That really kind of had informed my later life. That was my personal experience, not reading about it in a magazine or having parents with one political persuasion or another, but really just having my own experience with what happened.
Speaker 2:And at 13, I was told when I was old which at 13 sounds like 50s, which I am now I would have arthritis. What I didn't expect was that I would start having so many problems in my mid to late 20s. So when I started having these terrible, I started limping again, having a lot of pain, went through a phase of feeling sorry for myself, which is not really my MO. I was kind of doing research once again, going to visit fancy doctors. I was in Los Angeles. I went to very fancy doctors at Cedars-Sinai. Once again, excellent medical care, excellent insurance, and there was just this dismissiveness once again of, well, you'll need a hip line job.
Speaker 2:I was 28 at the time when it really started and for about six months I was trying to figure this out and going to this great office orthopedic office at C&R Sinai and their attitude was ah, there's nothing you could do, you'll just need a hip replacement in three to five years. And here's three drugs. Mind you, this is the 90s and it's amazing. I'm not an opioid addict, because they gave me one of those and two other things and it just didn't sit right with me. It just felt like, once again, what had happened when I was 13, when I was serious problem and no one believed me and I just didn't really like the idea of that 28, I was going to spend the rest of my life on serious drugs and that I would need this sort of surgery. I just nothing sat right with me and I discovered at the time Kundalini yoga, which was a thing in my part of LA.
Speaker 2:When I was working in retail. I'd seen white people with these white turbans. That went against what I thought of Indian culture and Sikhs, but there was this great community of the American Sikhs and I'd started going to one of the women who had never become quite famous her house, just exploring some things. I had the time and that was kind of fun. You saw these different celebrities and the practice was cool and energetic and it was kind of fun. And I'd actually started that right before this had happened. And right after that was when I was like I think I need a yoga that's going to help my body, kind of like you mentioned. And it was just this random flying to Denver, colorado, where I had to go on visit a couple of retail stores for my shoe business at the time I think I was working for Stuart Weitzman, maybe it was Amalfi, I can't remember and I stayed with my friend's parents who took me to my first Bikram yoga class when I was like she's like you know I'm going to go to yoga, do you want to come? I'm like, yeah, you know I've got these hip problems, and she's. I came home to LA, bikram's studio was 10 minutes from my house and that's when I started going to the yoga, and we can go on and on just about this story. You could talk for days, but it was an unbelievably powerful experience because Bikram at that time and yes, you can't talk about my story without talking about Bikram, people can have an opinion about that I'm just telling you my actual experience In 1998, it was a stinky carpet in an upstairs studio in Beverly Hills over a furniture store.
Speaker 2:I mean it was a huge room that fit about 100 people. There was a changing room with two showers. I mean it was scrappy and you had this diverse group of people some who had been there since the late 70s with him little daytime soap celebrities, 90210 celebrities and there was no advertising, there was no social media, he didn't advertise anywhere. So it was a crazy thing to discover with a man just screaming at you. But I found it fascinating because what he was saying resonated with me. I mean he literally told stories about when a doctor doesn't know what's wrong with you, they give you an itis. And that had been my actual experience in eighth grade and what he showed me when I was avoiding certain postures that hurt is when you went into it gently, with breath and with connection, it actually got rid of some of the pain and by going to his classes regularly for about six months, the lymph I had walked into that I'd been experiencing for about a year mostly went away.
Speaker 2:I think the sad thing is you also get so excited about the healing power of these sort of benefits. I actually believed I would never need a hip replacement. That's not the case. People think this is. People can go the other extreme and think all they need is yoga and they never need to go to the doctor again, which isn't true. I did still need a hip replacement, but I put it off for 15 years, not three to five. So this was kind of my experience.
Speaker 2:And from my Bikram yoga experience I also dove in deep to a six-year Ashtanga practice, which really pushes your body beyond natural range of motion, which is what Bikram yoga does.
Speaker 2:But I also found that there were limits with that as well and that yoga can actually become quite injurious if you practice it without calm breathing and without connection and think that you can just reframe beyond your genetic. Capability is also an important lesson to learn, and I think all of these experiences kind of combine to make me what I am today, which is really teaching anyone how to create connection and healing and breath as I did with you. Right, one of my favorite things is taking super smart way smarter than me, clearly super physically capable people like you and still knowing like ah, I'm going to help you, I'm going to show you even more as much as you know and I can't go into all the science the way you can. You have way more education, way more schooling. And I always joke and say keep in mind, I have zero medical training, no advanced degrees. I have a BA in psychology, which is nothing. I still believe I can help you and maybe you can share. I believe that I did.
Speaker 1:You really did help me and the other instructors in the studio really helped me as well.
Speaker 1:But this is the point right.
Speaker 1:I think we've come to over-rely on Western medicine to fix everything and we make this assumption that we know everything about the human body and about human health, and we definitely don't. So there is a gap there and I think something like yoga for me personally and I think, for you helped us in ways that Western medicine could not, and that's okay. I just think, in general, we all need to have better clarity about what healthcare can do for us and what it can't and what it gets wrong, and that's okay, because we're all in this together. We're all trying to figure out how to improve human health for all of us. So this is a good segue into.
Speaker 1:You've been teaching probably thousands of people yoga over the years and you've taught yoga to people from all walks of life, different ages, different abilities, different health journeys, and that perspective offers a rare window into how people heal, evolve and reconnect with their bodies and minds over time. What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from teaching yoga and what continues to surprise you or move you when you engage with people who are new to the practice?
Speaker 2:What I continue to find the most impactful is really making an effort to not make assumptions about where people are coming from. People come to us for a variety of reasons and the way I've said at my studio, particularly especially since COVID, is there's not an intro begging you to come. There's nothing free. I want you to want to be here. I just think there has to be some understanding of you want to be here. You've done the research. You know that it's hot in here. You know this practice is intense. The messaging throughout my website is this is for people who want to empower themselves to feel stronger. So my website is this is for people who want to empower themselves to feel stronger. So my hope is that by the time I meet you or anyone new or for the first time, that you are ready to try. What I don't like to assume is whether you've done yoga, whether you've done sports, whether you have back pain, hip pain, neck pain, whether you're coming to me from a bad divorce, recovering from an addiction or other trauma, right, or whatever it is. Maybe you don't even know yet why you're coming. So, by giving people just the space to come and try this yoga practice is quite intense.
Speaker 2:There's been some criticisms about how it used to be taught. I was always in too much pain to teach from this mean, overly strict, overly punitive style, because I've always had the personal value or philosophy that I'm willing to help anyone who wants to come and try. Now there has to be some exchange of you being open minded to learn. There is a teeny, tiny percent that's not so. I'm not going to talk about them, but by us being open minded, I don't care if you're a hundred pounds, 200 pounds overweight. I once had a student my most extreme examples on YouTube. She had very serious cerebral palsy where she wasn't even verbal and she was really just in a wheelchair, often throughout the postures doing some of the most basic movements, and she was able to write it and have her aide speak at how incredibly beneficial it was to reduce some of her pain. So that's the extreme.
Speaker 2:Most of our people are able-bodied, but I will help anybody who wants to come and try, and by teaching people the most challenging thing, which is really just to breathe in that hot room, because with calm breath you have a calm mind and that creates the possibility of healing, whether it's mentally, emotionally, physically, wherever it is to be with yourself, to get to know yourself, to work with yourself in a very powerful personal experience, while in the public case of a room. So I like to give people a lot of space. In the beginning. You'll notice, jason, I watched you mostly the first few times, but I've been teaching it almost 27 years, probably last month practicing it for almost 30.
Speaker 2:This yoga creates powerful healing for the people who want to use this as a support to the rest of their healing modalities. Like I said, this isn't going to solve everything. You should still get mammograms, you should still get prostate exams. I believe in this balance, this merging, but the more that we do to care for ourselves, not just physically but also mentally, to get the stress out, to find tools to handle our anxieties and insecurities and to learn to be better with who we are, we just tend to be better humans in our lives and our relationships and our work.
Speaker 1:It's interesting.
Speaker 1:The more I study human health and the human condition more broadly, just through this broader lens, it's clear that, at least to me, healthcare has a very specific purpose.
Speaker 1:But there is this entire space that is unfilled at the moment, or it's filled with things that maybe come from ancient practices, ancient wisdom. It comes from things that we maybe anecdotally experience and experiment with, that have been spread by word of mouth. Maybe there are practices within specific cultures that do a lot more for human health in the health state, pre-disease state and even in the disease state. Then we give it credit and that's what this is really about, this conversation and, of course, the others on the podcast. What are some of the interesting case studies or stories you've seen over the years with people when they've come to you at first obviously no naming names, but they've come to you at first for a purpose and maybe you've spoken to them offline just about what they hope to get out of the practice and how have you seen them evolve over time? I can give my example, but I'm sure there are many more interesting ones you've seen over the years.
Speaker 2:So these are really my favorite stories because these are people who are coming to me and they want to share very specific medical changes that have happened to them. I had a retired cop come to me with free kidney disease. His wife didn't love the yoga. This is a thing in life. Not everyone in your life wants to come do this with you and it's hard because some people like to do things with their partners. That doesn't always work out. His wife really didn't like coming here, but he loved it so much for about five years and the yoga completely reversed his kidney disease and I think there's a video of that somewhere on my website too and he had blood work. He had the specifics I mean I used to have a whole report, so that was a very specific one. I had another client who I was always really helping him with his knees. There are genetic factors, right. When I looked at his, he was incredibly bow-legged and he'd played years of sports. It's not surprising that his knees were destabilizing and had a lot of issues. But every now and then especially, once again, pre-covid I would sometimes talk about how the benefits people were getting and how are your knees feeling? Such and such a name and he blurted out to me he's like I've actually come off my anti-anxiety and antidepressant medication because of this yoga. So I also tried to not get into people's personal business, which by nature I am incredibly nosy, just to be clear, but I've learned, probably from my husband, not to be so nosy. But I think because I've tried to respect people's privacy. There's something about yoga teachers that people want to tell us their deepest, darkest, which isn't always even appropriate. But people really want to share these medical changes. And it is a big one when people come and tell me I've come off my antidepressant medication, I've come off my anti-anxiety medication because there's side effects to all medications and you have to decide. Once again, these are personal. I don't get involved. Being on antidepressants is for you and your doctor to decide. It has nothing to do with me. But I love to hear that. We know that things can be over-prescribed. We know that people can use medications for the wrong reasons or to cover up for feelings they do need to be feeling. Once again, none of that is my expertise, but these are some very specific things.
Speaker 2:I've had students come to me and tell me, as long as they practice with us, they never had a migraine again. I've also had people that yoga causes migraines and I have people who, whether they have a migraine or not, I had a student who was severe severe, she would even come and I was like, are we in a fight? She's like. I just learned she was actually coming to class and working through migraines because that's how she'd rather just feel better everywhere else. That's a powerful line. This was a fairly intense person because she'd rather feel better everywhere else.
Speaker 2:So I could go on and on about lots of other things. There's a doctor here, there's an orthopedic in Pasadena and he's my favorite one when I want to go see one because he did the yoga and he truly believes you should be in this room doing this yoga, no matter what. He will send me post and pre-surgery. He has sent me people like they walk in with their neck fused. He told me to come here and I'm like are you sure? Yes, he says I'm ready to move and they always get better.
Speaker 2:I had a woman who came with such bad sciatica she could barely walk. These are things that make me, quite honestly, a bit uncomfortable. But he told her to come here and what's crazy is it didn't fix it all the way, but it reduced the inflammation enough that she then was able to have surgery. She was very grateful Like she had that confidence from him. I was very grateful she had that confidence from him. I wasn't even comfortable. That level of sciatica to me needs rest.
Speaker 2:So I've watched this again and again. I've watched people with very serious neck impingements, all of these things who were willing whether from information from their doctor, ways that I'm teaching them to back off. People have incredible benefit, which is why I have very much left the very rigid and dogmatic teaching of Bikram, which doesn't open up the mind to us. Once again, even someone like me was there. Medical training can say well, jason, if your neck hurts when you run, then don't go that far. Find a place where you can stay, where you're breathing, not aggravating the body will tell you the next day if you did too much.
Speaker 2:I mean a lot of what we do as teachers is as people go through things, I try to intervene. You know how I helped you with your back, like you're dipping into your low back. Well, let's start with you lifting out of it. Oh, now that's feeling better. Now pay attention how it feels wrong, so we can stay out of that, but some people don't want to listen to me until On that. I do still need your help with my standing head to knee, but maybe we'll talk about that afterwards.
Speaker 1:Let's talk more about this duality between holistic practices like yoga and Western medicine, because this is something that I think a lot of people are contending with now, with access to information, with, let's call it, the commercialization of yoga in the Western world, however you want to describe it. I mean it's more available to people, which is great. Yoga is often misunderstood as just a physical movement right, the asanas. A lot of people just think about that. It means union. It's a much broader system. It's designed to unite the body, the mind, the breath, your emotional health, your physical health, your spiritual health, all these things, or at least that's what it does for you, in my view. Now, it does things to the body biologically, of course. It helps regulate the nervous system, it builds awareness, it addresses inflammation, as you said. At the same time, western medicine excels at things like diagnostics and acute intervention, but these approaches don't need to be in conflict. Right right Back when I trained as a physician in the UK, especially in primary care, we were always told when you see a patient, you know, you take a history, you examine them, you make a diagnosis, maybe you send up for some investigations like blood work or whatever.
Speaker 1:Then you have a management plan for them Within that management plan? Maybe this is just how it worked in the UK. At least, plan for them Within that management plan. Maybe this is just how it worked in the UK, at least. There was always a layer of. You should try holistic practices to support your health or disease journey. There may not be as much traditional evidence for whether or not they're effective, but they are low risk and we know anecdotally that they help people. So give it a try. That was the approach we had. How do you think about the role of yoga in the modern health journey with that in mind, with this concept of Western medicine in mind, and what does it look like when you combine the two?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I'm not a doctor and I'm not an expert on the American medical system, but I can pretty confidently tell you in my opinion, they are not taught to offer any holistic approaches at all. I think America has been incredibly behind. In my opinion, I think there was a century in this country of an over-worshiping of doctors. I think doctors had way too much power, way too much control and there was an arrogance there which was the end result of that that failed people like me so dramatically the arrogance of this guy to have never x-rayed me again after three months of such unbelievable pain. How does a seventh grader or eighth grader have the discipline to fake this much? It defies logic to limp that law. I mean, I guess it could happen. So I'm telling you, to this day I don't have a solution for all of the healthcare issues. It's overwhelming. I think what the Affordable Care Act did was some really positive things in terms of prioritizing preventive care. Of course it's smart for women to have mammograms. It is far cheaper to pay for a mammogram than someone to go through breast cancer. It is so much better to stay in front of all of these things, to intervene earlier. So I understand the concept, but I'm always because, as a business person, I'm always looking at what's going on. The problem is, especially if you are someone like me, quite honestly, who presents so healthy, it is hard to even get hair. It is follicle. What I went through I had a stomach problem for two years. I could not get someone to take me seriously.
Speaker 2:I was going to tell you two other stories. I had terrible bronchitis in my 20s. I'm pretty sure I got whooping cough when I was in my early 20s. I could tell you why, but I had horrific bronchitis. And then about twice a year in my 20s I got bronchitis about every April and around every November. Terrible not as bad as that first one. I think I had a weakness right and then you take drugs and you et cetera. The yoga got rid of that. I've never really had that sense or in a very way less way. These are specific things that the yoga was really good to strengthen my lungs and kind of become more hardy in that way.
Speaker 2:But I never really had in my adult life. I own my own business, so I never really had in my adult life. I own my own business, so I never had great insurance, but I just really had a gynecologist, I believe you go once a year. You take care of your female health, you have babies, you get blood work done, but I didn't even have a regular doctor. Because what do I need a regular doctor for?
Speaker 2:When I had a little knee thing that was funny I went to an orthopedic. But when I went and finally got a doctor and said you know, I'm having some stomach problems, like they just wanted to refer me out to a million people. Like all you have to do all day is go to these doctors. We know to get even a doctor's appointment can take six months. To find a doctor, even in your plan who'll even take new I mean, it's a joke. I ended up going to a holistic guy and that's where I was able to like I actually had a real stomach problem and I had to take a poop test and pay $450, it was the best money I ever spent. Like that's what I think is so frustrating. And even when I finally got to a gastro, it's like, well, I've seen you had your colonoscopy. Like they don't want to talk to you. I had a real stomach problem that I was able to solve with my functional doctor but that I couldn't get help was unbelievable.
Speaker 1:What's really interesting is when you talk to a lot of people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, in particular, even up to 50s, if they're in good health, and if it's a female who has not had children, for example, or a male, and you ask them what was the last doctor you saw, or when was the last time you saw a doctor, they'll say, oh, my pediatrician.
Speaker 1:The way we approach human health in adults, as they grow older and even children, is you don't see anyone in a uniform sense until something has gone wrong and everything that exists outside of that, what used to be primary care, which has now changed quite a bit.
Speaker 1:The days where you know your family care doctor really well and they know you by name and they know your family and they're with you as your kids grow up. That time is gone, in many parts of the Western world at least. But people do not see a doctor for their regular health unless they're the ones that actually say, okay, look, I have the finances, I have the time and I have the wherewithal to go and say I'm going to go get a blood test, I'm going to do this every year and in the US in many cases it just isn't covered by insurance, perhaps, or something else. So on that, we're getting this emerging trend. Now let's call it longevity for a sliver of the population who can afford to indulge in it at least in the way it's framed today, and there's a problem with that, but that's for another episode.
Speaker 1:What is your view on this emerging longevity segment, which is about doing more testing, essentially for people who might be well otherwise. They might be in the rising risk population, let's call that? People who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s maybe don't have any overt disease yet that they know of, but they want to really get into the details of their genetics, their biomarkers, and understand what their disease risk is and then, if the evidence exists, do something about it. And I think that's where there's a gap today. But, as someone who's seen so many people on their health journeys, particularly pre-disease as well, what's your take on this emerging segment?
Speaker 2:I think it's fascinating. I will tell you, my husband is very interested in it. So, kind of by default, I am what I will say. Though, to back up one second, is this what I find critical. Before you can even talk about this new emerging field, let's just call it my passion is whether you are once again have something underlying, know about it or not. The best thing you can do for yourself is to be proactive about your health, and the more time and money you have the ability to spend on that, I believe the better off you are going to be. Covid.
Speaker 2:For so many people was this huge wake up where it wasn't for me. I had been begging people to prioritize their health, to reduce their stress, to eat better, to work out more, to be at a healthy weight, because all of these things matter. They matter no matter what you're going through, and if something happens, you are in a better physical and mental place to deal with it. So that continues to be my personal passion. Now, as someone who has gone through menopause is in my late 50s, I am drilling down in ways what it means to care for myself even more, which you're also seeing out there a lot of women, my age. And the fact is, by my age, especially for women, if you are not paying attention, you can see women my age who look 20 years older than me. Attention, you can see women my age who look 20 years older than me and it starts happening at menopause rapidly the amount of weight gain, the amount of skin discoloration, the amount of fat deposits around the body, the amount of pain people are in. Then they start on that medical journey without moving their body. So I do not like lecturing anyone on anything. I don't like to talk about it. I have some weight on me. I'm not overly obsessive, but I want to do all that I can. That's a huge priority for me. I've had to relook at the supplements I'm taking, my sleep, which sometimes is very challenging, but a lot of times is very good what I'm eating, how I'm eating and all these things I keep relooking at, especially after the stomach problems I had. I used to be a big fan of quinoa and now I'm not eating a lot of grains. And my husband, as I said, has been very ahead of all of this. He worked with a guy named Dave Asprey who was the creator of Bulletproof 10 years ago. He was going to conferences and eating all this fat and no grains and no carbs. I can't totally join that journey with him because I personally just don't like red meat and I don't like how it makes me feel, and I think I told you even in a previous conversation.
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest indicators that I learned from being raw food in the nineties is you know, your body often tells you what does and doesn't work for you. Some people could say it's genetic history. In other words, if you're from India, you probably can eat more butter or whatever and ghee, and I'm from Eastern Europe there's a word for that, like different cultures can handle different foods. But kind of even finding that within yourself, my body doesn't like a lot of vinegar, it doesn't like a lot of tart and if I kind of follow the right way, my stomach feels great, my digestion works great, I have more energy and yoga. All of these things have become very important.
Speaker 2:Now, in terms of this longevity stuff, which I'm very aware of, I think it's fascinating. I think, like anything, it can go to the extreme and once again, I'm still very interested. I'm going to continue to sit back and watch it. I have a friend who just got a DEXA machine and I think the more we find accessible ways and yes, all this stuff is going to be expensive, but the more popular it becomes, the more affordable it tends to become but understanding our bone density, understanding some of these other health markers, which is more than just cholesterol or just triglycerides, is giving some pretty interesting information. For example, the Bulletproof people. They don't really care about your cholesterol, they care about your inflammation, and my functional man also kind of spoke about that. So when you go to the doctor they're rarely checking your inflammation levels, which is actually, according to him, what causes so much of disease. So I'm fascinated to see this kind of longevity work push what I consider the rigidness of the Western medical profession not to be more open-minded to this.
Speaker 2:Just like for years, my best friend, when I was in high school, her mother had a bad back and the doctor sent her to lay down. That does not help your back, but that was what people were told for years. That's why Bikram said your back should hurt like hell. Get up and do a backbend in my class and guess what? Your back gets better. Now that doesn't mean you ignore it or it helps everybody or that's everyone's solution, but being open-minded to explore what can work to feel better within yourself tends to be incredibly empowering.
Speaker 2:And I'm at an age I'm going to be honest with you where it's getting awkward with a lot of people my age, not everyone, but I drink a little, I don't drink a lot, I don't go out late, I really try to take care of myself, and it's going the other way for a lot of people my age and I'll tell you this last thing. I going the other way for a lot of people my age and I'll tell you this last thing I was recently home with my parents, who are 91. My dad just turned 91. My mom will be 88 this year and they still walk every day and my dad is mentally going a bit, but they are incredibly healthy. They're cooking their own food, they're living their lives and I took a picture of them and showed my students and one of their friends who really was always lazy, when I would go home in my twenties and all the women were walking, she would come at the end and get coffee and she looked at me in the eye and said I wish I'd cared for myself the way you and your parents do. So that's the thing. She's in terrible pain, so much back pain. It's heartbreaking, it's not this. Oh well, I told you. So she's saying it to me and I'm just like I'm really sorry. You know, she just couldn't be bothered. So there are just natural consequences.
Speaker 2:And also we know very healthy people who are going to be struck by disease because we don't know our genetics, and life isn't fair. So all that we can do and all that we can educate ourselves to and ask questions to whether you are pro or anti the COVID vaccine, which we're not going to discuss we know the better health you're in, the less inflammation you have, the stronger your heart health is, the better your weight is. That tended to be a very good protector against once you got COVID. Most of us got it at some point. I had it twice to negligible effect. You can't ignore that. It doesn't mean I won't get knocked out by it next time. So these are just things we want to keep in mind. Is that balance and hoping that we're all learning from all this crazy work that these longevity people are doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's interesting. I feel like a thick layer of this is going to be just telling us things that we already know but that, let's call it, our modern lifestyles are causing us to decompensate on various versions of our health. You know the amount of time we spend sitting, all the screen time, convenience of fast food, isolation, the fact that we don't live in neighborhoods as much anymore in many parts of the world, the fact that we don't live in extended families, lack of support with childcare from family members, all these things. I think the most impactful layer of this is going to be the human body and the human condition has not evolved fast enough to keep up with the change in technology and lifestyle, and we're feeling the effects of that Now. Will we ever catch up? I don't know.
Speaker 1:We'll get back to this conversation in just a moment, but if you're finding this episode helpful, here's a quick ask Take a second to follow or subscribe to the Health Curve podcast wherever you're listening, and if someone else in your life would benefit from this episode or any of the others you've heard, please send it that way. All right, let's get back to it. Let's move on to something that you and I have talked about a lot when I've come to your classes, which is finding the right balance between effort and ease. Now there is a version of this in life and there's a version of this in yoga. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what you've seen and how? The practice of yoga, despite my very serious degenerative arthritis in my hip and the pain I had in my back?
Speaker 2:One of the things I just find humorous, on a light note, is when I started with Beaker in the mid nineties, all he talked about were lazy Americans and he kind of met the West. I know you're from England but historically that's not where you're from. You would be put in a different category. But what's funny that I always laugh about is that is so untrue. 90% of the people who come to my studio have what I call and I would put you 100% in this category, which is serious type A tendencies. So we have to laugh at ourselves about that. And what's funny is I don't actually put myself in that category. I'm very intense and I'm very driven, but I like to say I'm actually a little lazy, emotional and dramatic. I mean literally when they said lock your name, like, but I'm hyperextended, you have this drama, but I can't. I have arthritis, I broke my hip, you have all this. I had kind of for me all this drama to work, mind of like, no, why don't you see what you can do instead of dramatizing all the things that are your issues you can't do? I found that incredibly powerful and what the yoga is so good at and why it's also important. People find the yoga that works for them. There was just a huge New York Times article about Studio New York, because the teacher told her maybe consider not drinking water before Eagle Pose and and you've done the yoga, you know that's the break and the way Bikram used to teach, with this very intense strip there was. That was the concept of my brain and your body.
Speaker 2:I always had a bit of a more balanced approach to it and my thing is I want everyone to come. I want all the type A's, I want the people who are scared to death and a hundred pounds overweight and have never done anything. I want everybody there. So what you have to find and that's what I'm trying to teach you is where is your balance of effort and ease? Is it just straightening your arms? You're so intense that you're going to hurt yourself in this yoga because you are so driven and determined. I'm going to do whatever she says.
Speaker 2:That's how most people are Actually in your case, need to back you up so you can find a place of healing and breath to calm your mind enough to see where is too far, because when you wake up the next day and can't move, that's not helpful either. So I'm not impressed that you're in great shape and are really fit. That's not interesting to me and I don't think that's what's interesting to you. Those are the benefits of caring for yourself. But in this class, I want your back to feel better, I want your shoulders to feel better, I want you to be able to get through the day, whether you're sitting or standing, and just feel better. That's very empowering. So learning those sort of things of who needs to work a little harder, who needs to back off, which is most people, just so they can breathe, when you find that ease, like you said, that's when all these other light bulbs and we also don't like to feed. Not everyone is going to ever care about the Bhagavad Gita or looking into the chanting Patanjali. Many people will never be interested in that.
Speaker 2:But the fact is, when you slow your breath down, when you find where is that perfect place to work and have breath, that's when the yoga is very different.
Speaker 2:I mean, jason, I forget if you were a runner, but that's the problem is there's people who think they are healthy and physically I guess they are in terms of like their heart rates low or they're got great blood pressure, but their body killing them because they can go run a hundred miles, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Their knees are shot or their backs are killing them, right. So it's people like you it's usually ex-athletes, ex-runners, ex-triathletes that are like my body can't do this anymore. And in some cases I've been laughing at all the guys in their 50s, 40s and 50s who want to still go play basketball. I say, well, that's great. Or want to keep running, go do that. Or play soccer, which sounds hideous to me, but they still enjoy it. And doing the yoga gives them the tools to understand how to slow down, to understand how to move correctly, to see where they have limits, where they have pain, and to heal that. It ends up making them a more holistically healthy person and it gives them the tools how to work, to feel better, both in the room and in life.
Speaker 1:And that's really interesting because it tangibly has done for me over the years. It's what it's supposed to do. Almost it feels like the practice of yoga as most people understand it. Doing the asanas, the physical poses, creates a discipline of the mind through discipline of the body and the breath. The other thing it seems to do is it helps you tune into your body, the physical, the breath, your body, the physical, the breath, the breath is dictated by a nerve that is known as the nerve of emotion, the vagus nerve, the diaphragm. If you're scared or anxious, your breathing gets shallower. It's impacted by this axis, all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:So there's real biology going on here and the practice of yoga seems to tune us into something we can focus on and tangibly change. It's like going to the gym. You go and lift 100 kilos. If that's what you're going to, lift, 100 kilos is always 100 kilos right. So there's a truth to that practice and it helps reset you to that truth and that reality. Why is tuning into your body in this way so powerful? I know we've alluded to it a bit around what it can do for your life outside of the yoga studio or what it can do for your body or your mind. But why does it work for most people?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure it works for most people or even all people. Not everyone loves this yoga. There's often a journey people go through you even mentioned your journey and what yoga is and what it's supposed to be and what it should be. There's still a lot of debate about that today. I mean, yoga has become so commercialized. What is yoga exactly? There is a fitness element. I think it's why so many of these corporate studios have been so successful. They've just kind of made it fun and they've actually taken away what a lot of people think that yoga really is.
Speaker 2:Or in my specific yoga community, there's judgment that it should be even stricter on how dare you do anything other than 90s and this kind of rigidness. But the fact is, at some point, at some place, something resonates with you. There are people, whether they are in so much pain. I could also diagnose although I'm not capable of it a million different personality disorders. Some people don't want to be told what to do. Some people want to have their practice. So they're going to find this is not the studio for that, because I'm going to teach. I will teach you and help you and back you up, but you don't get to come in here and do whatever you want, but there are studios where you can't, where it's really a lot of playtime, and that's a different exploration.
Speaker 1:That's not me. I know with the studios I go to now because I live far away from you now I really struggle to go into the Bikram style studios where people are just messing around, they're talking, they make it dark so you can't actually see what you're doing in the mirror, so you can't self-correct. It's not for me. I prefer your style, just FYI.
Speaker 2:Right? No, I know you did right, and that's what I'm saying. Is this really resonated with you and it's why we have a thriving business? I think, after 27 years, because we are so clear about what we do and also clear it's not for everybody. There's some other wonderful family businesses I will send people to. I'm like I think this is more for you. You want a bit of a more tender, less rigid, less kind of structured style. I think you'd be happier there. So I think I'm really open to that.
Speaker 2:We used to say if everyone just did yoga, it'd be a better world. I to that. We used to say if everyone just did yoga, it'd be a better world. I don't care what yoga, but the fact is, for many people, including you and me and many, many others you came to me, jason, because your back hurt, but the fact is you got so much more.
Speaker 2:But that was your journey, and what I find for so many people is whether you grew up not liking your butt, your legs, your boots, your stomach, whatever it is, whether you thought you were smart or dumb or not popular or too popular, or everyone I mean all of these things you come in with when you are in a hot room, dressed in very low clothes, focusing on yourself which is very hard also for some people and stripping yourself down and I don't mean physically, but emotionally, mentally to your core. Things in yourself come up you have to deal with and you can choose to avoid it by wiggling around, which is why we just simply tell you to be still and to sit with that slight discomfort, to sit with that slight energy that might be coming up, that is reminding you of insecurities, that might be reminding you of people making fun of you, that might be reminding you of no one telling you you were good enough and you're learning the reality in your true self. In some Eastern practices, it's this maya that clouds your true self. So this isn't something I can say. When you come here, you will find your true self. I call it opening yourself up to the possibilities of healing, because this journey is very personal.
Speaker 2:It can be in different times, but when you have to sit with yourself in this discomfort which is why I think our specific style of original hot yoga is so powerful is it's very simple, it's very accessible. But when you go deep, when you are strong and hold meaning, mentally strong to hold that posture with effort and ease, meaning your arms are straight as they can be, your legs are as tight as they can be, your stomach is as strong as it can be and you have normal breath, meaning your body can now go oh, can I lock my elbows tighter? Can I stretch out more? Can I push my hips further?
Speaker 2:Also, things come up like wow, my stomach is this, and you start to learn to like the person you are, because learning to sit with that level of discomfort I'm not talking about pain, but it's very empowering and it helps you feel stronger. And suddenly people I see and even with my, I could go through my weird body issues you just get more comfortable in your body. You just feel more comfortable with who you are. But also you have to realize there's things about yourself you may want to work on as well and you can address those in a more honest way, because it does come up.
Speaker 1:And there's an element of this, at least for me, that is hypnotic almost because you are focusing so heavily on one thing You're tuned into your breathing, and one of the things that helps.
Speaker 1:I know yoga is not about performance, but I find I have a better session in terms of being able to hold my poses or get into poses or push myself through my poses. Again, I'm using all the wrong language with you right now, I know, but is accepting that I'm here for 60 or 90 minutes? A thought will come, I'll let it pass through me and I'll just try to get back to the present moment as tangibly as I can, because that ultimately is in that moment, helps me do what I'm doing in that moment better and there is a hypnotic element to it and by the time I've gotten through the first 15 minutes of the session probably less five to 10 minutes I'm already in that sort of semi-hypnotic state and I can almost fly through the rest of the session without realizing it. Can you talk a bit more about that flight path through a yoga session?
Speaker 2:What's interesting about that is let's use you as an example, and you already know I've called you and you've acknowledged that you are type A to the extreme. And people like you, I will say, consciously or unconsciously, when they start a yoga practice or go to any group fitness class, you're inherently competitive. Remember, when you started, I was just like can I get you to breathe? And I didn't give you any compliments on your postures. I think some people also are a bit addicted to and I'm not saying this is you, but they're also a bit addicted to praise and compliments, and in the old days there was a lot of attention. Ooh, she can almost do a standing split. I don't care. In fact, I tend to ignore those people. What I think is more interesting is the energy field, our studio of yeah, you can be tall and thin, but you've still got problems. Look at your back. Let's try to help you with that. I don't really care what your half moon side bend looks like. Let's help you with your back bend. Do it correctly, and it's not really about how far back you go, but can you stretch up? Keep your weight in your heels so you can really have an even stretch throughout your whole spine. It starts to feel like, well, who cares how far I'm going. And then the woman next to you is a hundred pounds overweight. It's like, well, he's got problems. I love my backbend right. So you have this humbling of it's really just for me, that's it. They are doing them, I'm doing me, and the more I can just focus and, like you said, it does become a bit of a trance, and the calmer your breath is actually, the stronger you can work in that perfect place and that's actually how you're going to improve your cardio health. That's how you're going to improve your muscle tone. It's how you will actually create tension to get stronger and that feeds itself.
Speaker 2:I call that the upward spiral. So when just coming experience, you had done a bunch of yoga, so that came pretty quickly for you. You realized pretty quickly like, oh, they're pretty good at this here. Like she's actually giving me. She's not like, oh, they're pretty good at this here. She's not just like, oh, pretty posture, she's actually telling me what I could do better so I can have a better experience in my own body and my own life. So you have to be open to that, which you were rather quickly because you had done other yoga. For other people it takes longer, but when you can reach that, that's what keeps you coming back. Jason, is that, being in that zone what it feels like after that upward spiral, if you want to keep chasing that because that's productive and helpful in your life in and out of the room?
Speaker 1:One thing I've learned practicing yoga pretty frequently, or at least doing the asanas pretty frequently is every day is different. It doesn't matter where you are from a fitness perspective. I find that there are some days that are just you can't hold the poses, you can't get into it, you're distracted. You come out of it inevitably feeling better than you did when you went in, but you struggled. What does that mean? Every day is different, every practice is different.
Speaker 2:So that's actually a great topic. It's really true. I mean there are days I cannot wait to get in there. I'm so excited to practice and then it starts and by 15 minutes in I have no energy, I'm totally fried. There's days I'm like I don't want to be here, I can't believe I'm going to do this and I have these powerful, incredible classes.
Speaker 2:Years and years of this really teach you that, once again, you have to just be open-minded to the experience. If you are breathing, doing the best you can and really trying the right way, you're going to have benefit and having that kind of balance of mind of days that I mean it's almost you have to laugh at yourself. Like there's these days you're walking in like I'm going to kill it. Or maybe you see your friend, let's go stand next to each other now, and you can't do it. You're taking breaks, you're not holding the posture or you want to do it, but the balance just isn't there. But the fact is, these are the lessons of how do I handle that, and you know sometimes what's going on. What did I eat? What am I pissed off about? What am I not letting go of? Am I in a fight with my partners. My kid driving me insane is my best friend, so there's always that, too is when your breath is calm.
Speaker 2:You can also be honest. Well, I'm so frustrated with this person I can't calm myself down Like you're in yoga, and some days you still fail. Right, we as humans are fallible. You may not fix everything with yoga. We're not saying yoga fixes everything. People like Val, you know, you're so hyper. How do you do yoga? Well, I'm just a better version of myself. It doesn't make me this 60s hippie because I do yoga. There's some of these preconceived notions. I'm still me, but most of the time I'd like to be a better me. The yoga has taught me to be a better me, to be less reactive, to try to be calmer. And guess what? I still fail all the time. I still yell at my husband when I don't need to, or my kids, not all the time. I know how to repair these relationships. I know how to repair eruptions because I can be mindful most of the time, but in class it is different, and those are the challenges that set us up for the rest of life as well.
Speaker 1:What do people get wrong about yoga? And, I guess, in that context, how do we honor yoga's origins and what it is meant to be in today's wellness culture?
Speaker 2:So those are two big questions that people will have a lot of thoughts about my thoughts. There was a conception or preconceived notions of what yoga was in the 60s, right when I was growing up. Hippies did yoga. They put their leg behind their head, they sat in lotus. They said, oh, that's what we thought yoga was for a long time. When I found this style of yoga, wow, it could not have been more different. And what's hard to explain to people, with the absolute fall of my teacher and everything that's happened in the last 10 years, is how radically different the way he taught yoga was to so many of these preconceived notions. But at the same time, what was so brilliant about it was he took off all the other religious, spiritual elements, or at least external elements, and just took them out and taught you asanas in a way that still gave you that experience without putting it kind of down your throat.
Speaker 2:When I started with Jiva Luke in New York, there were these great teachers. They're Americans Sharon Gannon and David Life. They've been around India. They've been with Katabik Joyce. They've been with Yangar. They had lots of spiritual Indian teachers. They've been all over India. I mean, they did all sorts of stuff and they talked about that all throughout the class and there was readings at the end.
Speaker 2:So what's more true to yoga? Well, there isn't one way. Yoga all over India is different things. You know someone who's been to India and watched so many ceremonies and saw so many different teachers. I don't think there's only one way to do it. Some of the biggest teachers of our time, from the time Krishnamurti brought it over to the time Bikram's teacher, who was this great physical culturist, who was the younger brother of Yogananda, who was mostly a spiritual meditation practice. What's the right way? When I started going to yoga journal conferences in the late nineties, which was so fun you had Eric Schiffman and John Friend, the guy who ended up creating Anusara, who had his own issues, and Rodney Ye Yee and kind of these parents of this yoga movement. These were all different styles and at that time a lot of them came from Iyengar, but not all, or Desikacharan, all these. So what's the right way? So we could get into a deeper philosophy.
Speaker 2:I've spent time in India. I've gone twice. I've spent a total of three months there. I'm not here to lecture people as an American white person about what India is and what yoga is, but there's a lot of concepts about it and a lot of it is coming back to the breath and to your true self. The first line of Patanjali's is yoga, chiti nirodha, which is basically talking about can you quiet your mind?
Speaker 2:Beryl Bender, birch and her partner at the time used to say the most advanced posture was just sitting in lotus, quietly. So what is the most advanced? What is the exploration? I would go to different classes. If you don't do vinyasa, you're not doing yoga. If you don't meditate, you're not doing yoga. Beaker would say fuck all that. None of that matters. So it really is personal and that's why people have to go to different places. And the fact is, right now, I think yoga is, for the first time in the last 20 years, on a tiny bit of a decline, because people really just want the physical aspects of it and I think when we offer them a good class, they're going to get some of those other benefits.
Speaker 2:So when you talk about honoring the past, most teacher trainings do a history and we've certainly done a history, and I think understanding the different lineages is really interesting. There's people who think we're cultural, appropriating, and these things that I just don't really have time for because whatever you want to say about Bikram, he was the actual teacher who learned it in India and this is what he asked me to do. So I'm not really interested in those conversations. I went to India and studied with the Tabi Joyce. I did exactly kind of what he told me to do. So I think sometimes this idea of cultural appropriation I don't think being Indian makes you an expert on yoga, all of these kinds of conversations but that doesn't mean we can't be respectful.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I traveled in India I dressed very differently. I tried to be respectful of the culture, I tried to listen and learn. But what I'm going to tell you is when we wore saris correctly, the local women it made them cry, right. They felt their culture was being honored and appreciated. Many Indians do not do yoga and in fact, my teacher in India separated the local community from everyone traveling to see him. So a lot of what I saw in India was cleansing practices. A lot of people woke up in the morning by throwing up. That's just how these kriyas, these kind of cleansing practices. So there's a lot of other ways people practice yoga. There's lots of other lineages. I mean, even in India, how people show you who they've prayed to in the morning. That's really multicultural and I think, staying curious, learning, I forget all of the gods and goddesses.
Speaker 2:To be honest with you as of right now, I don't think that makes me less of a yogi and I'm just not really interested in a lot of judgmental yogis. I think in any religion there's that element and I'm just personally not interested in it. I think when we give people a good experience in it, I think when we give people a good experience, I mean part of the style of yoga we do is discipline, and that's not for everybody. But some people would criticize me that I'm not hot enough or yell enough and that's just not my style. So I think, understanding the history but not everyone is interested in the history, not everyone really cares.
Speaker 2:Who brought it to this country, who were the first big teachers, how much you meditate, how much you this, how much you that To me, I think in Western culture American culture specifically, england, uk, europe can we teach you to quiet your mind, teach you to live a more productive, healthy, honest life, because when you like yourself, you tend to treat others better. When you respect yourself, you tend to respect others more, and I think, in the world we are living in right now.
Speaker 1:I will end with this no-transcript conversation where when I'm sort of rushing to get to your class and then rushing to get home to put the kids to bed or whatever, I don't get a chance to have these conversations with you. I miss your studio. Please open more studios. Again, thank you for everything that you've taught me and taught your students, and look forward to having more conversations like this.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jason Stand touch.