Talking Yoga

Join us as we explore the physiological and neurological impact of the act of chanting Om with master yoga teacher Jeff Masters, recorded at The Rubin Museum’s OM Lab.

In another special episode filmed at The Rubin Museum’s OM Lab, Dana Trixie Flynn explores how Om lets us make the leap from head to heart and touch the infinite.

In this special episode, filmed as part of The Rubin Museum’s OM Lab Exhibition, Pandit Rajmani Tinguait takes us on a journey to consider the sound of Om.

Master yoga teacher Ramanand Patel and host Colleen Saidman Yee investigate the relationship between knowing ourselves, and loving ourselves and others.

Host Beryl Bender Birch delves into the practice of pranayama with master yoga teacher Tim Miller, who learned from Sri K. Pattabhi Jois over thirty years ago.

Master yoga teacher Dana Trixie Flynn communes with host Colleen Saidman Yee about how our personal yoga practices can help us face our insecurities, aging and loss.

How does yoga empower our own personal, conscious evolution? Find out when host Colleen Saidman Yee interviews fellow host and master teacher Beryl Bender Birch.

Kino MacGregor explains why yoga always keeps its promise, what she’s learned from Guruji, and how the real power of yoga is the power of yourself.

What is the true meaning of yoga, and what does love have to do with it? Find out when host Colleen Saidman Yee interviews her friend, master teacher Richard Freeman.

Kathryn Budig and host Colleen Saidman Yee delve into where self-worth comes from, how to deal with bullies and trolls, and why nobody but you can take away your power.

Kelly Morris shares how shamanism helped her reclaim her own relationship with the divine, and why her job as a teacher isn’t to shape students, but to set them free.

In the wake of the Orlando nightclub shooting, Seane Corn and Colleen Saidman Yee explore how yoga gives us the tools to make mindful decisions and change the world.

Rodney Yee explains his teaching philosophy, how yoga empowers him to directly touch life, and what he thinks is the most important thing to ask a new student.

Ramanand Patel discusses the difference between the self and the ego with host Colleen Saidman Yee, and how compassion helps us make sense of violence.

Master teacher Seane Corn tells Colleen Saidman Yee how yoga helped her overcome anxiety, stress, OCD and drug use, and to self-regulate by listening to her body.

Master teacher Amy Ippoliti tells Colleen Saidman Yee how she began her yoga journey, as a lonely 16-year-old who realized “there must be more to life than this.”

Kathryn Budig and host Colleen Saidman Yee explore defying society’s rules in order to become yourself, which she writes about in her new book, Aim True.

Baron Baptiste tells host Colleen Saidman Yee about how his experiences as a teacher compelled him to write his latest book, “Perfectly Imperfect.”

What role does kindness play in daily yoga practice? When it comes to Rodney Yee, quite a lot, as he tells host Colleen Saidman Yee in answer to a question from Jeremiah in Northampton, MA. You’ll hear Rodney draw on wisdom from spiritual teachers like Ram Dass, the poet Rumi and the Dalai Lama, who said “My religion is kindness.” Discover how the growth toward kindness, spurred by what Krishnamurti calls “choiceless awareness,” is a slow process, even for master teachers like Rodney and Colleen, and why Rodney doesn't think of time as a purely linear progression. Moving from kindness to love, Sheila from Hawaii wants to know what role love plays in Rodney’s practice and teachings, which leads Rodney and Colleen into a discussion about love and conflict. You’ll find out why Rodney feels like he’s not qualified to describe love: “Does a fish describe the ocean?” Luckily for us, he doesn’t stop there, helping us understand how conflict is merely a “subset of love.”

When Chris in Oklahoma asks about the importance of deep study with one teacher, Kino MacGregor reaches into her own experiences studying for many years with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois at the Ashtanga Yoga Institute in Mysore, India. Kino shares with host Zubin Shroff how her travels to India were interspersed with periods of solitary practice, where she began to understand how deeply we can let the work of yoga integrate in terms of our own spiritual practice. She describes how she sees the yoga path as an individual journey, which is at once very intense and very solitary, and that while a teacher’s role can be to help build the roots of yoga, the roots are ours alone. Finally, Kino shares some of her earliest experiences with Guruji, and the support and sincerity she found that allowed her to grow stronger.

Join us as Beryl Bender Birch sits down with David Swenson to share the insights he’s gained over 40 years practicing and teaching yoga. David discusses hitting plateaus in our practice, where we think that nothing is changing and we lose sight of how good we feel. He explains how for him, “Carrying on is a tool” for doing yoga, and for the rest of his life. For David, yoga is not meant to be selfish: “Feel good, but then go and make the world a better place any way you can by sharing the positive energy.” You’ll get to hear David describe the joy he’s gotten – and the spiritual lessons he’s learned – from teaching yoga to those who are blind. And you’ll learn how he started his journey by reading yoga books with his brother Doug Swenson in Texas – and how they were nearly arrested in a Houston park for practicing what unenlightened neighbors saw as “Devil Worship.”

Teacher: Kelly Morris Host: Zubin Shroff   If you’re looking for straight talk and life-changing insights from a master teacher, you’re going to love this episode of Talking Yoga featuring Zubin Shroff’s interview with Kelly Morris. You’ll discover the “dirty little secret of yoga teachers” (hip replacement surgery as a result of years of loading the joints) and why so many yogis are abandoning their mats in their forties and fifties. Find out why Kelly thinks yoga has devolved “into people just trying to get into shape” when it was really “meant to heal you and restore you to the greater whole from which man and woman are largely asunder.” And learn how yoga helps you demand less from your personal relationships by offering a way to connect to the cosmos by yourself, in a non-sexual way, without a partner. When Simon from Oakland, CA asks about the recent trend of including more meditation in yoga classes, Kelly explains why she’s all for it. As Kelly puts it, “My meditation practice has been instrumental in allowing me, affording me, this different kind of relationship with my body, and with the Earth, and with what I call the greater cosmos.” You’ll also hear about how Kelly’s approach to yoga has changed as she’s gotten older, and why she thinks it’s so important to bring your meditation skill set into the classroom.

In this episode of Talking Yoga, Beryl Bender Birch has a conversation with master teacher Elena Brower. From the one essential sutra that every new teacher needs to learn, to the ultimate hope for yoga in the world, Elena passes on philosophies that can empower us all as both instructors and yogis. She explains why her “only mission is to say as little as possible to convey as much as possible.” The two New Yorkers discuss the role energy work plays in practice and how asana feeds creativity. Most importantly, Elena shares with us the approach she feels resonates best with her students – “They love it when I tell the truth, when I’m fallible, when I’m scared…” and what she does to avoid squandering the privilege of being a teacher.

In one of our more philosophical episodes, host Beryl Bender Birch and John Campbell answer questions from our audience about choice, change and faith in the practice of yoga. Which is altogether fitting, given that John is not only a master Ashtanga teacher, but also the founder of the University of Virginia’s Contemplative Sciences Center, where he teaches Religious Studies. Join us as we explore how all systems of yoga practice can help us question our sense of self in ways that can lead to a more comprehensive set of choices. Or, as John says in answer to a question from Rob in Colorado, “This is not about becoming an automaton…The very act of doing yoga is a fairly radical choice.” When Trish from Boston asks John about how our practices change as we age, John describes how the practice that you do has to be appropriate to whatever circumstances you are in, but that “freedom and the awakening of enlightenment only happens within structure.” Finally, when Sarah in Maryland asks about the role of faith in yoga, John talks about the tension between “the effort to get somewhere that you ought to get and the recognition that there’s nowhere to go.” And how “Every moment that you wake up and do yoga and you don’t really know if it’s worth it, there’s faith involved there.”

When it comes to balancing the roles of businessperson, teacher, student, practitioner, wife, and mother, we can all learn from Colleen Saidman Yee. As she tells episode host Zubin Shroff, finding time for her own personal practice can be a challenge. So how does she do it? Delegation, a strong work ethic, and starting every day with her own practice first thing in the morning. Being handed a cup of tea by husband Rodney Yee after rolling out of bed is nice, too – “Some mornings, we prop ourselves up and do our Pranayama in bed.” In response to a question from Lydia from San Antonio, TX, Colleen shares how menopause is another area where yoga practice can restore balance. She describes how Sitali pranayam, which is a very cooling practice, can counter the heat associated with both perimenopause and menopause. Colleen shares which asana poses are most important during menopause: Warrior 2, Utkatasana and Plank Pose. You’ll also hear about the differences between men and women in the practice of mula bandha, and why Kegel exercises seem to give women an advantage over men in the practice.