Karen. Yes, there are so many types of meditation out there. True,
right, there's loving kindness, they're sitting in stillness, there's heart center.
There are binorial beats and mindfulness meditations. There are even sound bath meditations.
But what if I told you that there is actually only one meditation that
you need in order to manifest your life's purpose. Oh, I want to
know that one. Uh huh. And what if that one meditation was about
to be revealed to us on this week's show, Well, that would be
very exciting about I'd say, let's get out with the show. So here
we go. My name is Will and I'm Karen, and unlike moulderin Scully,
both want to believe. So we've embarked in a journey of discovery.
We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world. We've thrown
ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I even joined a coven of witches and
wait, you joined a coven yep, all the interests of finding something,
anything that will prove that there's something beyond this physical, three dimensional world we
all live in. This is the skeptic metaphysicians. So I see humanity as
an analog to the eyes of a fly. Yeah, that's pretty weird just
to throw that out there. I know, bear with me because the knowledge
I have of a fly is minimal at best. Now. I only know
what I know because of like fifth grade science, right, But what I
do know is that the eye of the fly is made up of hundreds or
thousands of little ocular lenses that are only looking in one direction. They can't
move to look in other directions. They just stay steady looking in one direction.
That's all that they can do. So they can only see that one
particular direction that they're facing in. And it's only by the fly taken in
all the information from the different lenses can the fly truly make a perfect picture
of what's actually going on around them. So, you see, humans are
like the universe's eyes. See, we're all just facing one specific direction.
We're only seeing one thing, one perspective, and only by putting all of
our perspectives together can we even come close to understanding what life is about or
like. Now, unlike the fly, who has no way of letting each
lens communicate with each other, we thankfully have the ability to communicate with each
other to actually talk and learn from each other's perspectives, the other's view of
the world, and so we're able to put things together much more consciously than
a fly can, or a fly's I can. A fly needs the fly
to put everything together, whereas we can actually put everything together, at least
piecemeal, little by little, a little of the corner of the world,
by a little corner of the world, by opening ourselves up to each other
and learning from each other's perspectives so that we can try to understand even a
little bit more about what life is really about. So the next time you
see a fly, think of the fact that all these little islenses only have
one perspective, and learn from each other's perspectives, the other's view of the
world. Today, we've got a special treat for you. He's an entrepreneur,
a twice published and best selling author, a podcast host, a yoga
teacher, co owner of blue Osa Yoga Retreat and spot in Costa Rica,
and the creator of the revolutionary approach to yoga, applied yoga anatomy plus muscle
activation, otherwise known as ayama. It's easy for me to say right now.
His journeyed from the wilds of Canada, to New York City, where
he started the global men's Naked Yoga movement, to the Sacred Himalayas, where
his leg was crushed by boulder in a freak accident while trekking. To the
untamed Jungk of Costa Rica, where he built a thriving yoga retweet center,
to today, where he's on a mission to help as many people as possible
live a pain free life by teaching his revolutionary approach to yoga. And he
says he's accomplished all of this not because he's fearless or extraordinary, although I'm
sure he is, but because he had a powerful meditation practice alongside him throughout
it all. And he's about to reveal to us what that one meditation practice
we all need to manifest our life's purpose. Today. Excited to talk to
him and welcome to the show, Yogi, Aaron, How are you?
I am better? Now? Can you introduce me? Every day as I
wake up out of bed? I love it? You know, I've always
told Karen I need to record someone saying something like that and just will carry
around with me. So whenever I walk into a room, I've got this
introduction, you know, Yes, nice, so much nice. When someone
says you know stuff about you, so as long as it's good stuff,
well that's true, just stuff. It's it's because I hear people read you
know things about me all the time. But it's that you do it with
such enthusiasm and gusto. That's what got me go. It's just I need
that enthusiasm daily in my life. I have been accused of having lots of
gusto, that's for sure, but we call it gusto here. Okay,
all right, Well, I'm excited to talk to you because I mean,
you're super intrigued to learn what that one meditation practice is. But we're gonna
make every any way just a minute because one of the things as I was
researching you, one thing I found about you that I was I was astounded
by your type of yoga, Like you have a very unorthodox approach, right
to the point of Karen, get this, he believes he feels that stretching
might actually do more harm than good. Oh, what, we've been doing
it wrong all along, I'll show absolutely. Well. I never like to
say anybody's been doing it wrong, but they've been been doing wrong. Well,
you know, we don't know what we don't know until we know that
we didn't know. I mean, you know, we can go back in
medical history and see so many examples of the craziness that you know, these
people bought. But yeah, I started getting into yoga because I was tight.
I was very athletic, and I thought, like most people, I
need to stretch. And it's it's a natural progression because if you look at
people as they age, they tend to become more closed in. And I
always observe people that looked youthful and were older had more openness, more spring
in their step, more mobility. So I got into yoga, I started
stretching, and the very short story is it took me twenty five years to
realize it was the stretching that was causing me more pain. As soon as
they started stretching, I developed back problems, need problems, neck problems,
lower back problems, all kinds of problems. And I never put two and
two together until I ended up in a surgeon's office in an emergency room wanting
to do a spinal fusion on my lower back after doing this kind of stretching
practice to be younger and be more youthful and virile, at the age of
forty five, they're wanting to do a spinal fusion. And I actually know
many people in their forties early forties even who have had hip replacement surgeries and
who are yoga teachers. So really it's something isn't going right. And then
that led me into studying the neuromuscular connection between what actually happens when we stretch.
And I mean nothing I'm saying is you know, made up, It's
scientifically verified. These are you know, people with PhDs will tell you,
yeah, that's exactly what happens. And so the short the short answer is
that when we stretch, we actually desensitize our nerve endings and those that we
desensitize our nerves, so that the communication system between the nerves or the central
nervous system and the muscles becomes desensitized. So when you need those muscles to
support your body, aka like your bend over you pick something up, you
know, if your muscles aren't contracting properly, all of a sudden the body
is not stable. What does it do. It tightens up. And then
that's when you hear people say, oh my god, my back just went
out, or I've got this huge kink in my neck. Those kinks and
your back going out is a protective mechanism from your body to tighten up.
So when your body it feels like it it's it needs to it's unstable,
it will just tighten up. And so stretching is the absolute wrong thing to
do. I know many people like to go well that your opinion, and
this is my practical. Well, you can keep disabling your body if you
keep stretching, that's up to you end up in an emergency room, see
Karen. I And that that is why I don't do yoga, because I
don't want to desensitize my nerves. I always knew it all alive. Yes,
yoga, Aaron, I'm I'm the worst. Like when you're like you're
talking about tight like I can't. I can't. Don't even think about touching
your toes. I can't touch my knees. I mean, I am so
crazy, it's ridiculous. And I've tried yoga before and inevitably I end up
more in more pain than then when I started. In fact, when when
Karen and I first started dating, she took me to bickroom yoga and that
was like hell, like not only was I in pain, but I was
in pain and sweating my ass off while I was in pain. It was
terrible. Like like, so, then if stretching is not what we're supposed
to be doing when we're doing yoga, aren't you supposed to when you're going
into yoga poses, aren't you stretching? Yeah, I'm I don't teach stretching
anymore. It's just the way that you approach certain postures you're also. I
mean, one of the number one rules of what I teach is just go
to thirty percent of what you think is your range of motion. Like if
you're going to do a stretch, only go to thirty percent. But the
tightness that you're experiencing is just your you know, it's just a symptom of
that connection between your brain and your muscles not working properly. That neuromuscular connection
has become compromised due to stress, due to trauma, due to overuse.
You know. Overuse, by the way, could be as simple as you
sitting for eight, ten, twelve hours a day. So that's like an
overuse of your body and a stagnant posture, and that starts to compromise that
neuromuscular connection. So if we get that communication system working properly, you can
have mobility back happening really quickly. But the tightness you're experiencing is your body
protecting itself. It's like if you walked on ice, you know, like
you step out on ice, what do you do? You freeze up?
Literally, So there's an autonomic nerve response to go into a protective state.
But I just wanted to say, Karen, oh my god, throwing will
into the firelight with Bigram literally one hundred and twenty degrees Literally, it felt
like my entire neurons were on fire. Isn't that still trying to impress mode,
which which translates to have to come, Karen, If you don't you
know, don't know the way that things go twice? Right, well twice
and the second time you almost have to call the paramedics. It wasted.
Yes, yeah, I got mad Bigram's skill, Baby's business. So when
you uncompromise the communication, can how flexible can you be? Like I in
high school and then I was on a dance team and I could do like
all the splits and kicks and everything. Can I get back to that?
I like, I forget those days. I mean, I know, yes
and no. I mean the first question I always ask people is why,
like why do you want that? And then the second question the follow up,
great hair back? Then that's well, then it's more about what we
looked like. But no, But the bigger question is, you know,
how much flexibility do you need to have to be happy? We have a
young daughter. Yeah, she's twelve, and she's starting to do sports and
stuff, and I want to be able to do a lot of that stuff
with her and not cry and that'll be paralyzed. Yeah, So I would
just say, you want to make sure that you are functioning optimally and that
the communications system is working properly throughout your body. You know, how long
will that take for you to get there? That just depends on history,
It depends on what you're bringing to the table. But the answer is I
ended up in the surgeon's office. It was six years ago, and pretty
quickly, due to all of the work that I was doing on myself,
I was able to actually get back into hiking and doing all kinds of stuff
that I thought I would never do again. And now I'm fifty one and
I feel stronger today than I have in a long time, a long long
time. So and I would also point out like one of the things that
always fascinates me is is sometimes I'll bend over and I'll pick something up,
and I'll be like, huh, there's no titaness in my body right now.
My body is working well. Like I don't have my hands strings pulling
on me. I don't have my back like screaming at me, and that's
a sign that I'm actually my body is working really well. So how much?
Again, the question is always like why, and then how much flexibility
do you really need? I never really make that when my teacher Greg always
says is when you have stability, you will have all the mobility in the
world that you could possibly want. So, just to clarify for the slow
person in the room, when you're talking about getting to it, I think
you said seventy percent. So ideally, what you're trying not to do is
over stretch, right, you do need to stretch a little bit, or
it's just like go beyond really, you know, stretching at all? No,
no, because what we've forgotten and it's like, you know, humans
as you know, have incredible ameesia and media amesia, I'm sorry, so
let me get let me tell you, Like there's a pose like I'll pull
out a beechrom post because I've done bichrome a lot. So one of the
big chrome is you come over to the side the side bending post and usually
they'll cue it like go go, go, go and try and feel the
stretch on the sidebody. But in the way that I would set that up,
and I would, I would almost do it the same we have.
Actually people cross their arms and do it. But instead of focusing on this
stretch, what are actually the muscles that is moving the body in that post.
The muscles that are moving the body is the lateral obliques and quadratus lumborum
and a few of the other side bender muscles. So what you want to
do is you want to activate those. So when you're coming over, I
would cue it more like squeeze the shoulder to the hip and now you're engaging
all of those muscles properly. It's not a focus on trying to stretch.
And what we've forgotten again the Ammeesia thing is the role of muscles. So
muscles always work in pairs. There's a muscle that's contracting it's called the agonists,
and there's the other muscle that's relaxing, that's the antagonist. And so
in yoga where we've gone wrong and a lot of this kind of stretching ideas
that we're focusing on getting the agonists to actually go longer than it should be
instead of focusing on the muscle that should be contracting. If we focus on
that more, then we increase our range of motion, and there's one hundred
percent accountability. If I'm just focusing on stretching, the whole nerve connection gets
discombobulated and is that a word? And is today? And then there's no
accountability, and then we lose the muscle connection. And you see that happen
a lot like think about beakerm classes. People get up, they're not like
bouncing up, they're crawling up yea themselves a floor. None of their muscles
are working properly. They've all been like that. Whole neuromuscular connection is just
gone, and so people don't have that like what sometime people call force output.
There's no force output in the muscles. Muscles should always be able to
contract and contract on demand. When they don't, there's a problem and the
result of that is stress us in the joints, and the result of stress
is pain. So that's why I'm on a mission to help people become pain
free. You know, I'd love it. I want to sign up,
because Holy I've been in pain. So I blame COVID because I started working
from home and Will was working from home and our daughter was homeschooling, and
so they got the good spots and I got the couch. So I sat
on the couch with my laptop for a couple of years, and now my
back it's terrible. It's just horrible. Sure, blame it on us the
dining room. I got the couch, but now the oppos sitting empty all
day every day. Now we're both sitting on the couch instead, because I
can't sit anywhere but the couch because I'm so messed up. You've become one
with the couch, con fused with the All right, Well, this is
fascinating because I've studied a little bit of Hinduism, right, and your Hindus
all about yoga, but their yogas they really specifically talk about stretching in order
to reach the mindfulness thing. Right, So this is maybe not exactly what
the Hindus were thinking about when it comes to yoga, we're talking more of
a Western physiology. Let's keep ourselves healthy, young, as much as possible,
as long as possible. There's a lot to unpack in that statement,
but I'm going to keep it. I'll keep it really short and just leave
it at this, and if you want more you can ask me. But
in the yoga scriptures, there's actually no reference to having to become flexible.
There's nothing. And then that's one of the that's a big misconception in the
West, like because we see these lanky, sinewy, you know, eighteen
year old men doing these incredible things. But as I would say to Karen,
she goes to a bakerm class wanting to look like them, you know,
are you really an eighteen year old? Like not this time around,
she's not. You're going to test us me, Karen, thank you all.
Yeah, that's all I have to say about that. Okay, Well,
I won't out then who it is whose book I read, but it's
an Indian who came over to the States, who established an ashram, who
that that is pretty well known reading his book talks about being flexible. So
not to unpack like means flexible of the mind. He misunderstood the whole book.
Damn, I can't speak to that. But all I can tell you
is that in scriptural reference, there is no reference to the importance of flexibility.
And what has happened is and if you look at a lot of the
teachers as they as they age, they actually don't really do much as Ustin
has like something engineered for us to. I mean, I could go on
and on and on about it, but it's really something for us to get
a grip of our mind. And so there's only two things that we have
to master in order to master posture and that stillness and then joy or ease
and effortless, which is the you know, the result is joy. So
if we can embody those two things, then we can master usana. And
it's interesting because the whole idea of that teaching scripturally referenced in Sutra two forty
six two forty eight. He says, if you can master those two qualities,
you can overcome all the pairs of opposites of life, meaning that neither
pain or pleasure will pull you in any direction, that you just become this
steadfast pillar of steadiness in the world, and for me, that's that's a
powerful teaching, no doubt about it. And I know now for sure that
I'm doing it wrong because stillness and joy when I do yoga, I do
shakiness and pain, So it is not at all what I'm trying to do.
Can I just tell you something? You're what I always refer to.
I have two archetypes when I'm doing my trainings, and one of them is
called stiff biff And you are just probably probably I'm going to get you a
T shirt, will you know? You know, I might. I might
actually wear it. I think it's fit fits really well. By the way,
women can also be stiff Biff. It's it's gender neutral, so yeah,
it's pretty agnostic. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Well, this
has been fascinating. We just getting started and we already have to dig a
break, So if you will just bear with us, when we come back,
we're going to talk about that one meditation practice that we tease at the
beginning of the show, because this is what the whole reason we brought Yogi
Aaron into the show, and we've yet to touch on it, but I
promise you when we come back, we're going to dive into it to stay
with us. This is Carrie Hummingbird, host of Soul Nectar Show, and
I invite you to come over and check out our conversations about all things essence.
Gather around the campfire with us and share stories of connection to that which
is bigger than us, the great mystery beyond the veil, to those synchronistic
moments that lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves. We'll see you over
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This one specifically comes from Instagram, and the person that sent us the
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that I think about it, this might actually be Facebook. So well,
this came from Facebook or Instagram, They're kind of all the same now,
so I'm sorry I mess them up. However, this was an incredible message
that I wanted to share with you. Stephanie goes on to say, I'm
ex Mormon turned agnostic atheist that has had far too many unexplained things happened.
The start of this year has been one of them. My journey has definitely
begun as I had a huge breakthrough at the beginning of March that led me
to this podcast, which I can't get enough of. I've learned so much,
and I shared with my one son who is in tune as well.
The amount of layers I've uncovered have changed me well, just like I responded
to her on that social media platform with four brilliantly red hearts, thank you
so much for this. Here's hoping that your journey is a smooth one.
We all know journeys can be rocky, so knowing that we have people like
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would love to hear it once again Skeptic Metaphysician dot com or of course Apple
Podcasts. Welcome back to the Skeptic Metaphysicians. We are speaking to Yogi Aaron,
who is enlightening us with the fact that we are doing it wrong.
And I'm talking about yoga of course. Right before the break, we talked
about the fact that in scripture there was nothing that said that you have to
be flexible in You're right, thinking back on the bag of a Gita and
the Upanishads, everything I've read, I don't recall ever hearing anything about being
stretchy. So all right, so I appreciate you giving us a whole new
perspective on yoga because it is completely different than anything we've I mean, it
is completely anti intuitive, like it is completely opposite of everything we've heard about
in yoga in western world. It's incredible. No, thank you. Yeah.
Now, before we left and at the beginning of the show, and
in the middle of show, and every other time except for when we were
you know, we talked. We talked about this one meditation practice. Now,
you've done a lot in your life and a lot of struggles that ultimately
came out to be really good things, but you have to overcome. You
mentioned meditation practice, and everyone who listens to the show knows how important meditation
is. I mean, it is a no brainer. Is the first step.
It is a do not pass God not collect your hundred box. This
is You've got to meditate if you want to move down this path, whatever
path you decide. Meditation seems to be the gateway drug for all of it.
But yet you say it is where you got my attention. You say
that there is one practice that you must do to manifest your life's purpose yogi
Erin, I must know what this practice is because I'm doing a them and
because I have not found it yet, and this is would leave every elusive
meditation practice. Okay, yogi erin the floor is yours? Oh my god,
I just felt the pressure go up. Like there's a couple of things
that I kind of want to tee up first, but one of them is
So. I was on the train coming from Vancouver to New York and I
decided, for some crazy reason, which I never recommend anybody else to take
the train from you know, West coast to East Coast or vice versa.
It's one of the most horrible experiences you'll ever have as on am track.
Well and well, yeah, I was gonna say, if you have a
sleeper car, might not be so bad, but if you're just sitting there,
like in an airline seat, next to the guy next to you,
sleeping on your shoulder, because I did that, and that's not fun.
It wasn't fun. But I was in my you know, late twenties and
trying to save a buck, and I had my big bags and I was
moving to New York and it was really moving there without any money in my
pocket and but everything inside of me. You know, I'd been doing yoga
for a little while and I felt like my dharma. My purpose was pushing
me to New York, and I couldn't explain why. Just everything inside of
me was just saying, go to New York, study yoga teach. I
know, it's a weird idea, like why would you go to New York
to study yoga? But you know there's so many great yoga teachers in New
York and y I kind of like intuitively just picked it out. And so
anyways, I was on the train and I was just feeling that kind of
terror. It was really the first time in my life at that point that
I was kind of doing it on my own. In many ways, I'd
done stuff clearly on my own before, but just feeling that kind of terror
bubbling up. And one of the things that I really felt as that terror
was bubbling up was how paralyzing fear is in terms of being, you know,
of tapping into that inspirational source of that well of creative ideas like that,
that flow just stops, like all of a sudden, And so I
kind of closed my eyes and this meditation practice kind of dropped in. Now
before I tell you what it is, oh my god, you'll eat.
I'm learning something from watching you Okay, so I have to jump ahead.
And so when I went to New York, part of my mission was to
find a teacher, like I really wanted a teacher. And this idea of
tontra started coming up for me, partly because of the work I was doing
with the men, and then partly because of other things. And I was
like, what is this tantra business? And so I happened to pick up
a magazine from Crapollo and there was right on one of the pages living Tontra.
And I had met my teacher Rod. And so one of the things
that Rod tore the veil back between the scene and the unseen. For me,
I was able to begin to get a glimpse of the sacred itself,
and I had never experienced that before. But one of the most interesting things
was that might de Big take a ways, was this idea of tntra.
So a lot of people think of tntras like sex and you know, the
yoga of sex. And usually if they go to a tontra yoga workshop,
they want to get rid of the yoga and get to the sex. So
I mean, who does it? So what? But the actual definition of
tantra means to become limitless, to move beyond all limitations. That's the literal
translation of tantra. So sitting on the train, I kind of started tapping
into this, this meditation practice, this affirmation, this babana. In Sanscript,
the word we often use is bavana, like something that you can really
feel in your heart, and the word bob actually denotes like love, so
to bring love into an idea. And this affirmation just kind of dropped into
my space and it was I'm opening myself up to the universe of limitless possibilities.
And I just dropped into that practice literally on the train on the way
to New York, and the most amazing things started happening. The fear immediately
started to vanish. The creative source of inspiration just started opening up to me.
And that kind of I would say, like this sense of indomitable willpower
that each human being possesses became like a great force within me. And you
know, after moving to New York, and of course when the train landed
and you know, I got home and stuff like that, that fear obviously
came back time and time and time again. I had so many setbacks those
first few months and that, but the saving thing, that thing that got
me through, the thing that kept my focus, that kept me on my
path of purpose and intention, was that meditation practice. And anytime I would
just start to go into that fearful place, I was able to capture that
babana, that idea, that feeling, that affirmation and remember who I was.
And that's the point of I think meditation. I mean, meditation has
many different levels to it, but at the source, a meditation practice should
bring us immediately, like in a split second, back to who we are
at our source, and so that we can tap into that intuitive wisdom,
that indomitable will power, that creative source of inspiration. And the funny the
reason why I told the story about my teacher is because that idea of TNTRA
is the embodiment of what just kind of dropped into me. You know,
I call it sometimes spiritual downloads. You know, we get those spiritual downloads,
and those those spiritual downloads, you know, that one that I had
on the train is the one that kind of propelled me to starting in New
York with nothing, opening up a yoga studio, which went worldwide, to
opening up a yoga retreat center. So be careful what you open yourself up
to. But it all sounds great. A question about something that we'll mentioned
in the introduction. You were hiking and yes, like your leg got crushed.
That sounds horrible. Now my question is was that before you started doing
this type of yoga or was it after? And did this help you heal?
Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, sure, No,
I hadn't started the Ayama path yet. I was still a regular yoga teacher.
Having said that, my spiritual practice of yoga and even somewhat the physical
and that's a bigger discussion, But the spiritual practice prepared me for that event
because when it happened, I was in the middle of the Himalayas. I
was twenty six kilometers away from the vehicles, and my femur literally broke in
half like you see the X ray. It was like that. And so
I get I I feel like everything in my life prepared me for that moment.
I'm opening myself up to the universe of limitless possibilities. But really no
joke. And so but after that, on a physiological level, everything that
was wrong with me before, physiologically speaking, just became exacerbated and worse.
And so it didn't help things, but I had started glimpsing into the world
of muscle activation and what was going on at that level. But since then,
I would say, like, I'm a lot stronger now than I ever
was, So that feels really good. I would think an injury like that
would have like lasting pain and kind of repercussions. That it sounds like what
you're doing maybe has been really helping it. Yeah, absolutely, something to
just get over. No, I mean, I had to wear a knee
brace for a long time if I did any walking for an extended period of
time. Now I don't have to wear any braces or any supports or anything
like that. That's great. Yeah. So then let's get a little bit
into the yama. A yama, Yes, yama, your technique, for
lack of a better word, your approach, that's a better word. Your
approach is quite revolutionary, right, What makes a yama different than most yoga
practices are well, the biggest one. So there's kind of a twofold question
because I'm always using this coin like we're trying to flip the script in the
yoga world and stop making it about stretching and flexibility, and so part of
it My focus is to bring yoga back to what it's supposed to be about.
You know, how often do we ever go into a yoga class and
hear a teacher talking about how our practice can help us to manifest and live
or life purpose. I never never here a yoga teacher talking about that.
Ostena is. You know, the goal of ostina is to help us become
these steady forces in life where nothing pulls us in either direction, that we
have a clear sense of purpose in who we are. And I think that's
one of the biggest shames of this biggest you know, this marketing thing.
So that's one part of a yama, and the other part that makes it
very different is well, number one, stop stretching right, I start activating.
And so a lot of what I do is I kind of flip the
script in terms of you know what care was talking about before about wanting to
put her foot up behind her head and you know, and do all of
those marvelous things. But it's kind of asking, it's kind of getting people
back into let's use our yoga practice so we can become so that we can
stand well in life and not have pain and checking in with ourselves and using
that as a tool to you know, push us forward in life, rather
than you know, the whole idea of like putting your foot behind your head
or learning to stand on your hands or whatever it is. Those are all
kind of distractions at the end of the day, you know. And this
is where the idea of posture can be the key to your liberation or the
box of your own prison. There's so many people that are so focused on
making something make their body look a certain way that they've completely missed the mark
and what the asina, you know, the Austin is there to get you
free, not to imprison yo into our shape. So basically what I'm hearing
here is that when you do yoga, it's not supposed to hurt. It
should never hurt. It should never hurt, Karen, see never hurt.
It is impossible. Did you not see me shaking and beating up and sweat?
So I'm trying not screening, Pa, I was looking away. I
wanted to be impressed. All right. We've established the fact that stretching is
bad. We had it to stretch bad. Flex I mean we used to.
I mean flexibility is good, but not stretching. Stretching is bad.
So it is there. I mean even you know, back in junior high
when you're doing gym class and the first thing you do is put your right
leg over your left leg and you bend down stretch. Is there a safe
way to stretch or should we just not stretch at all, Like maybe get
up in the morning and just keep ourselves like in a little bundle and walk
to the shower and no stretching it out, or well, there's there's nothing
wrong with like if you bring your okay, bring your arms up to the
sky. Now, don't move your chest. Now, bring your biceps behind
your ears a little bit more. Do you feel your back muscles working?
Yeah, okay, So what are those back muscles doing. They're shortening,
they're contracting, and so that is a great movement. By the way,
that's a fantastic way to start debating your trapezius muscles. If you bring your
arms out at forty five degrees and just bring them back, you're going to
feel your lower traps starting to engage, which is a great thing. Now,
do you feel sort of a sense of opening in your chest? Absolutely?
When When when the trapezius muscle shortens, the result is the pecks start
to relax. You're not trying to stretch the pecs. You're trying to engage
the trapezius muscles. So when you engage, when you come at it from
that perspective, if I'm my focus now is engaging my traps, the pecks
are going to start to naturally release. Now. Some people might want to
call that a stretch. I don't biomechanically, it's just they just relax,
That's what's happening. They just they have to relax so that the trapezias can
contract. Now, the tightness in the chest is not is a symptom of
the traps not being able to contract properly and the results of them not contracting
properly. Guess what is tight neck? All the way up into the top
of your neck. Yeah. The lower traps are actually the opposite of the
upper traps, and so the upper traps tighten up because the lower traps are
not doing their job properly. It's fascinating constantly dealing with this. S differ
nat commonly migraines NonStop. I got though, because as we've already established,
I'm stiff biff, and I can't get into the postures. How could I
possibly get into a posture if I don't stretch my way into it, like
if they well, if you are holding forward and you said earlier that you
couldn't touch your knees, the question is okay, so what are the muscles
that are contracting to bring you forward? Well, now we're looking at a
lot of your uh let's call it the eight pack. You know, your
rector subdominance. We're also looking at our oblique muscles. Yes, you find
the face. So what's happening is those muscles are not shortening properly, and
that's why you're feeling the tightness. They're they're in a kind of static state.
They're not working properly. So what we want to do is get those
muscles working. And if I did, I could probably get you to increase
your range of motion quite dramatically. Wow. True story, true story.
So do you have videos that you that people can can get in one how
she's asking, how can will yes actually to where you're saying, So,
yeah, people can access all my content on yogiarin dot com. It's sort
of the gateway into the Yogi Club, into my YouTube channel, into the
book which is called Stop Stretching. My podcast series called stop Stretching. I
also if you fish around on my site and maybe I'll put it in the
show notes. Is the link to the affirmation series that we've you know,
because I created a twenty eight day affirmation series. That one that I shared
with you is one of them, and it's all about you know, using
these to manifest and live your life purpose. But that's how people can access
what I'm doing. I have a pain free series that's right on my site
as well like that, so it takes people through kind of like trying to
educate people a little bit on how they can live their best pain free life
and why they're experiencing pain and what they can do about it. Yeah,
we're definitely going to add all those links to our show, not to Yogi
Aaron, where have you been all my life? Just the last twenty years.
I think we would be doing our listeners a disservice if I did not
ask about something we'll mentioned. Oh, yes, you know, you mentioned
it. I got to ask naked man yoga, Yes, what is that?
I knew it. I knew it. We get through the show without
you, and that's not something that you just mentioned and don't explain like a
hit and run. You know, people out there going come on, come
on, get to the making minoga part. Yeah, I think one particular
person in the audience is so so I just have to specify. I was
opening myself up to the universe of limitless possibilities, and we were opening up
in all kinds of ways. And you know what, when I was actually
in New York, I remember the day really well. I was with a
friend and I was walking in it. I happened to be walking across sixth
Avenue, which is the avenue of America's and it was in the middle of
the street, and the top of my head opened up and this idea came
into my head. It was like, oh my god, hot new yoga.
And and you know, I did it. I started it for a
few reasons, but one of them was I just feel like men are sort
of an underserved community in the world of yoga, and I wanted to create
a safe space and and a fun space for men to come and just be
men, And and what better way to do that? And yeah, like
and you know, when men get together it's a powerful thing, just like
when women get together, it's a very powerful experience. And I just saw
like, you know, my idea was to do it for six months and
then call it a day and you know, move on. It ended up
being coming this like you know, global phenomena, which is a whole other
story, but it's just the community that came out of that was just incredible
and one of the most enriching times of my life. Well, I mean
I understand, like you know, going skinny dipping and stuff and and just
something about being out and naked. It's very freeing. But yes, I
don't think i'd want to be bending around a bunch of naked women. Would
be so self cautious. Have you never played naked twister? Karen? Oh
me either? That's well, take people to warm up, you know,
like to kind of uncomfortable at first, and then the group kind of starts
more comfortable. Can you start with toga yoga and then work your way to
hours in all or nothing? Babey, No, there was no And you
know you know how many times they got emails from people wanting just to come
and watch the class. Oh my, oh, I mean yeah, really
they had that nerves. Well, I think I saw that some little stuff.
I can do it, but I want to know it. You know,
a big part of it was coming outside your comfort zone. And I
can just say from my own younger, younger, younger years, nudity was
always a big issue for me. I grew up in a very religious household
in my younger years, and so the idea of getting naked, and I
remember when I started to and I just felt liberated. I felt free,
and I felt like there was like something around me that had just come off
and I was like, hey, here I am. And so that's also
was a big part of it, was just people taking a leap of faith
and just getting outside of what you know, becoming limitless. That's the definition
of TNTRUP. Become limitless, go us limitations. It is still going on
now. It's become a worldwide, you know phenomena. There's been chapters of
men's groups that have opened up all over the place. One of the things
that I, oh, I should not be saying this right now, but
anyways, I actually created a ton of videos and that are out there,
and so part of my intention was to put those videos out and at the
very least, like these different men's groups could put them on play and do
them together, or you know, other people would become inspired by them and
start teaching, you know, their own groups, which is what exactly happened.
So again opening up to the universe of limitless possibilities. Very short,
quick fun story. I was in Australia leading a retreat and we went to
Alice Springs. Well, Alice Springs is homes to Airs Rock. So I
had all of these guys with me. We're going to Airs Rock. We
weren't going to do naked yoga there. We're just going, you know,
playing tourists. It was the tourist part of the Australian trip. We pull
up to the gate four o'clock in the morning, guard goes, are you
those naked guys? No? No, that's thundered down under. That's different
in the middle of the outback, in the middle of nowhere, are you
coduties? So my reputation proceeded me. I see that we're quickly running out
of time. But I've got to ask because it's it's the question that's been
hanging out there for me for almost the entire interview. But going back to
the stretching part of things, because obviously I am focused, as you can
tell, because I'm blown away by all this. But Yeah, this is
such a different way of thinking of how to do yoga and things like that.
How what's been the reception in the yoga community, because I can't imagine
a lot of people being real happy with what you're trying to teach out there.
Yeah, and I think that probably a good fit. Thirty to fifty
percent think I'm the devil incarnate or something. You know, it's threatening.
It's threatening to them because the question who am I if I'm not teaching you
know, how am I going to teach yoga if I'm not teaching stretching?
And so that is a big problem for a lot of people to kind of
like wrap their heads around. Also, Like I met this one woman who
works in the gym and part of her job is to stretch people. And
here she is thinking she's doing a service and then she kind of finds out
for me that she's not actually And I just want to kind of just say
one thing really quick, that we can actually test muscle function, so we
can test you are strong, and then when you stretch and you're going to
test week and I've done I've done this countless times and it's and I've actually
got a whole thing where I can get people to do it to themselves.
You can test your own sort of force output and you feel the difference quite
dramatically. Actually, what happens before you stretch in after you stretch. So
but I would also say, like thirty to fifty percent of people doing yoga
recognize at some level or at a deep level, that what they're doing is
not supporting them. What they're doing is actually making them worse. But the
yoga, the stretching part of it feels good, you know. And so
this is like if you ask a lot of yoga teachers, why do we
stretch well because you feel good? Well, my response is doing a line
of cocaine makes you feel good. You don't see us all running around doing
cocaine, like just because something makes you feel good. That should never be
the answer about why we do something right. So's it's I would say it's
like a fifty to fifty thing. A lot of people are very interested,
but it is definitely making some waves. I can only imagine it, but
it kind of makes sense because if you think like a rubber band, you
know, if you stretch it too much then it breaks or it doesn't work.
But it's all you know funky was it was? It was used discombobulated.
Discombobulated, Yeah, the term of the day, and throw a juggernaut
in there somewhere. Do you know what that means? Now? Yogi?
Aaron, do you still teach yoga to people in person or online or anything
other than I know you get your content on your website, but you still
do teach that. Yeah. Absolutely, And a lot of the content I
actually film is when I'm with teaching students, like I just finished doing the
teacher training and I filmed a lot of content while I was doing the teacher
trainings. I do a lot of travel. I teach, you know,
in different studios. I teach at yoga festivals. My main area of teaching
is at blue Osa, the yoga retreat I have in Costa Rica, and
we do trainings there. And sorry, I'm hearing things. Sorry about that.
Okay, come down and we'll film a radio episode. Yeah so I
am teaching, Yes, Okay, well awesome. Well we're gonna lay in
all those links directly on show notes. All you need to do is go
to skepticmaneposition dot com, go to his episode page. You'll see all those
links there. You can connect with the oe Aaron directly. His stuff is
mind blowing. It's been blowing my mind this entire interview. So I'm thrilled
that we got the chance to talk with you because I never knew how badly
I didn't know how to do yoga. Well, maybe I understand a little
bit of why it was causing you so much pain to try and stretch,
you know, And I think this is one of the biggest things as well.
Like in the yoga world, we talk about how yoga is about creating
a safe space, it's about honoring our bodies, and yet when we're stretching,
we're actually violating our bodies own protective self protective mechanisms. And what we
should do instead is honor those protective mechanisms and address the cause of why it's
tightening up. And that's where I come in. The typical story of ease
versus He's medicine versus Western medicine is how this has been fascinating you. Aaron.
Thank you so much for coming and sharing your wisdom with us. I
am really looking forward to reintroducing myself to yoga, because now that sounds like
stuff that I might want to do. I might be able to do to
start with, so thank you. I'm stiff, Bendy Wendy Careen. I
love it. No, no, I can't believe he just went there.
I think we might have found our episode title. All right. Well,
once again, yoga Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. It's
been fat Thanks guys, and a huge thank you to you. We hope
you've enjoyed this conversation as much as we have. If you did and you
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on the next episode of The Skeptic Metaphysician. Until then, take care,