WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
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professional service, or any advice.
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You should seek the services.
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Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
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At the end of the day, it's not about what
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you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
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you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
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who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
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Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
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to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you
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to do the same.
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Rachel Friedman, welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me, Doctor Doug.
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It's good to have a ya on the show. Where
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you located?
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I am right outside of Atlanta, Georgia?
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Okay, all right, not bad. You're you're about what an
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hour away from me or two hours? Are you Eastern
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Coast or central Eastern? Okay? All right? Makes sense? All right, Well,
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what I'd love for you to do is to share
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with the audience a little bit about who you are
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and you know the story behind. Was there an aha
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moment that brought you to this point or how did
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that all come about?
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I think it was a thousand aha moments that probably
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have brought me to the point I am at today.
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But yeah, so I guess, first and foremost, I am
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a mom. I always like to start that off because
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I do think that's the hardest job I probably have
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of all. But I am also a serial entrepreneur. I
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guess is what most people would say. I am a therapist.
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I am a somatic practitioner. I am a yoga teacher
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and a yoga studio owner, And currently I have a
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couple of different offers that I so different ways. I
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support people obviously, I support people in my brick and
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mortar in my yoga studio and helping people, you know,
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with their health and wellness, connect back with their bodies.
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We do you know, breathwork, meditation, all the things to
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improve human human life. And also offer a somatic therapy
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out of my studio. So a lot of people are like,
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what's a somatic therapist?
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Yeah, I was going to ask you the question.
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Yeah, it's really because I get it all the time.
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It's really just a mindfulness based therapeutic practice, meaning learning
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how to learn to listen to the wisdom that your
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body is offering and using that as a way we
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can say to heal to move forward. I like to
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say more than heal to move forward, right, instead of
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being stuck in old patterns and old behaviors. And then,
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because I've been in the yoga studio industry business for
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about fifteen years, in January, I launched what I call
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the Yoga Business Accelerator, and it's just really supporting yoga
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teachers and studio owners to help them grow and get
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their businesses, you know, making money so they can share
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more of what we all are, you know in my
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realm passionate about, which is helping people.
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Okay, why yoga?
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Why yoga? Such a fantastic question. So I got introduced
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to yoga in my twenties, my very early twenties, and
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it was the first time in my life where I
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think I actually felt my body, and it was the
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first place that gave me permission to not be perfect.
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It was I will never forget one of my first
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teachers saying this is a practice, this practice is a journey.
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We're not here to get any of this right. And
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I grew up as a gymnast and you were either
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perfect or you were not right. And if you didn't
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direct everything just right, you were not right. It was
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very black and white, and it was this like ie
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opening almost experience of wait a minute, I don't have
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to do all this just perfect to be accepted and
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to be okay. And I had really run my life
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a lot up to that point that way, if I
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didn't do it just right, if I didn't get the
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a I was very much a perfectionist, then my anxiety
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was like through the roof and all the world was
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crumbling around me. And yoga created a space for me
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where I, for the first time kind of felt free
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and I was like, oh my god, I don't have
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to be perfect.
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Well position to not be perfect. Yeah, as I think
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about yoga, I mean, you know, the few times I
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went to yoga, it was more of a I didn't
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get much of a philosophy behind it. It was just
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more of a movement. Or when we went to the
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hot yoga, you know, where it was really hot and
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we're sweating and doing all of that. But I know
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I have friends that go for yoga, and I think
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a lot of them go for the exercise and the
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strengthening and the agility. And yet you're talking about a
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philosophy here that I'm not sure many people understand is
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correlated with yoga, and I don't know how many yoga
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teachers actually incorporate that into their classes.
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Yeah, unfortunately, not nearly enough in my opinion. So right,
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I agree in our culture in this in our Western world,
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yoga has become kind of this fitness. It's been put
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in the fitness category, which there is an element of
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it that, yes, it will build muscle, increase flexibility, you know,
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more range of moent, it does all those things. But
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it's an eight limb practice, and unfortunately a lot of
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teachers I don't know if it's out of fear, because
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if you go through yoga teacher training, you should be
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taught all eight limbs. If they don't incorporate it out
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of fear that their students won't want to learn these
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pieces or what. But to me, it was very important
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when I became a teacher that every single one of
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my classes I bring other elements to this practice, the
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philosophy piece as much as the awesome. And don't get
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me wrong, I own a hot yogas to do. That's
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power yoa and it will kick anyone's butt. I mean,
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it will humble you, but it will also leave you
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always thinking about something and how am I going to
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apply being out of, for example, my comfort zone in
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this post to when I'm out of my comfort zone
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at the next meeting I'm at or whatever. And yoga
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and it's hard. Is that's what it's all about, right, Like,
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it's connecting mind and body. That's what the word yoga
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meute to yoke, to bring together. And so I think
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because my background as a therapist, I was so drawn
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to that part of the yoga and it was the
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part that has kept me on the map for twenty years.
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It's not the I mean the physical I love, it
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feels good, but it is this whole experience of how
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it does not just fuel you know, my muscles, but
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it fuels a piece of my soul because it's so
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much more than just I don't know, for me, it's
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so much more than just a physical practice.
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Well, and you mentioned you we're a therapist, what type
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of therapists or practitioner.
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Were you, Yeah, I went to school, I got my
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msw at NYU. So I was a clinical social worker
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and I worked in lockdown facility before I actually got
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into the overworld working with adolescents and yeah, psychotherapist.
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Okay, So I'm curious how did yoga? Where did it originate?
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And really what is the philosophy is beyond just the
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physical part of it. What is the philosophy of yoga?
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And again I'd love to know how it originated? Where
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did it come from?
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Yeah, I mean it originates from India thousands and thousands
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of years ago. And again it was it started as
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I mean, there's different schools, right, just like anything that
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we'll talk about different origins. But at the heart of it,
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it is this practice that is here to guide you
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on this path to what they call samadi and sabodi's
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basically turning on the lights enlightenment. And for me, it's
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the practice is it's taught in an eight limb path
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traditionally in now there were other how do I explain it?
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There were other branches or styles, but the most classical
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style is this eight limb path, and it's really learning
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how to be more present in your life, right, and
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more mindful of the interaction between mind and body and
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how we show up in the world.
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As you talk about the eight limb path, what are
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what are the each of those limbs?
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Yeah, so the first two limbs, Yeah, I love this
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is not at all when usually people interviewing, So I
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love this. So the first two paths are kind of
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ways of living. So we call them the Niamas and
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the yamas, and these are made up of how's they rules,
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but kind of like guidelines on kind of like the
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ten commandments on how to live an honorable life right,
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like don't steal right saucha, which is cleanling and is
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keeping your mind and body clean. So these are these
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first two paths, or the first two limbs. The third
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limb is actually awesome of the pastures, and that's keeping
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the body strong and supple the poses. Then we move
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into the upper limbs, which are about learning how to
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control pranayama, your breath. So breath work is a really
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huge piece of this eight limb path. And then it's
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learning how to hone in on your senses, right, so
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being able to kind of almost disconnect from this three
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D world and start to tap more internally right and
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quiet some of the chitter chatter, and then we're working
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towards meditation, which is where that the fluctuations of the
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mind were able to observe right and kind of step
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aside from them and see them, which then reaches us
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to this final space of what we call somebody, which
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is where you know they call enlightenment.
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And again that last one is somebody.
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What's it called sabodi?
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And what does it mean?
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The word somebodi means enlightenment, enlightenment, Okay, and I just
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think of turning on the lights.
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Well, and as you talk, as you talk about this,
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what is reminding me of to some degree is you know, Hinduism, Buddhism,
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some of those types of things.
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Yeah, And a lot of the origin origins of yoga
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they do come from Buddhism, Hinduism. Like you know, we
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study when you go through a two hundred hour training,
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you study the bag of Boga bogda, some of these
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tax right that helped to guide this path is where
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a lot of this originated from.
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Okay. So having gone through a yoga class that had
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none of this element to it, which makes me.
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Kind of sad, but you know it's okay.
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How do you how do you go about incorporating this?
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Because your your classes are what an hour long? Two
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hours long?
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Most of them are an hour Saturdays and Sundays we
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have seventy five minute passes, but yeah, most of our
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sixty minutes.
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Okay, So how do you incorporate these eight limbs? Great
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question in that practice?
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Yeah, and I'll be honest, I can't usually incorporate all
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eight limbs necessarily. Well that's not actually true. I probably could,
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but I don't always go to My goal isn't always
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to incorporate all eight limbs. So I start every single
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class with what we call an intention so asam kopa,
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like what is the focus of today's practice? So, for example,
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this past week, I've been talking about mosha mokshaw. The
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word mosha means liberation, and that's a huge like at
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the core of what this yoga is all about is
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we're trying to liberate ourselves, right, And so I will
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start the class and be like, okay, so this week,
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this month, we're talking about moksha and the word motion
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means liberation, and then I might introduce the theme that, like,
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how do we really free ourselves, and a lot of
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how we conferre ourselves is starting to be more mindful
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of those limiting beliefs we put on ourselves. And so notice,
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while you're in the postures, is your mind telling you
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you can't do it, You can't hold it any longer? Right,
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start to become more present to what is happening inside
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your mind as your body is being physically challenged. So
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that's one way. Literally just start the class with a theme,
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bring in a piece of yoga philosophy. From there, I'm
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encouraging throughout the entire practice different breathing techniques. So in
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our studio in hot Yoga were Vinyasa yoga, we use
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a style of breath called Ujaii breath, and it helps
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to regulate the nervous system. So I'm teaching that throughout
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the entire practice. At times, I might be talking about
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keep your drishti on one point, which is speaking to
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this idea of coming inward a little bit more right
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and spacing out from the outside world and honing in
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more right. So it is a skill set that I
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think I've been teaching for fifteen years that it takes practice,
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but I do get a lot of teachers that go