Yin Yoga Yinsights with Bernie Clark

 

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hi Bernie, and welcome to a yin Yoga Podcast.

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bernieclark: Thanks, Nick. It’s a pleasure to be here.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I feel all like this is a long overdue, even though the podcast is not even 2 years old yet. But I feel like, you know, this was a long overdue interview.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but as I mentioned to you, and I’ll mention to the the listeners and viewers. I wanted to reread your books before I interviewed you and because I had read.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: When did the second one come out after yin sites? Do you remember.

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bernieclark: Well, the Insights was 2,007. The complete Guide in Yoga was 2011, 2012, and the second edition of that came out in 2018 2019.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay. So I didn’t even know there was a second edition, and I read it right when it came out in 2011. So I knew I was like, Well, I’m gonna need a refresher before I, you know, interview Bernie, and then got almost all the way through and found out that there was a yet a newer one, so I paused and reread that one so that I could be prepared.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So it’s been a long time coming, and here you are!

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bernieclark: Great to be here.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: We live so far apart. It’s wonder if we ever

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bernieclark: I know, for those of you listening who don’t know. We’re literally just like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Neighbors a little ferry right away.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, exactly. And yet it still feels far, somehow.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah. But the time zones were easy. Sometimes when I have people on, it’s like,

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Trying to get the time zones to work out is tricky.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would love to start as I start most guest interviews with just kind of hearing a little bit about how you found Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then maybe we’ll move into how you found yin.

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bernieclark: And we’ll go from there.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So. Yeah. How did you discover? Yoga?

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bernieclark: Well, I guess it depends a little bit on how you define the term yoga. When I was in my early twenties I worked for a little company called Xerox.

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bernieclark: I don’t know if anyone’s ever heard of Xerox anymore, but I was in the sales department there spent 7 years with them. And it was a very competitive Gung ho type, a culture. And I found after a couple of years I was really getting stressed out. So I went to my manager’s manager and just asked his advice. How do you deal with stress? It’s just wearing me down.

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bernieclark: And he told me that he meditated.

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bernieclark: So I thought, Okay, I’ll take up meditation. So this is 1978 or so. So I just sort of got a couple of books on Zen meditation and started meditating.

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bernieclark: So that really was the 1st step along a yogic path, if you will. But it wasn’t until my mid forties, when I decided to

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bernieclark: formally study meditation in a group setting to find a Sangha. And so I looked in. They don’t have them anymore. But a thing called classical class classified ads, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, I remember.

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bernieclark: And I noticed, there’s this place called the Prana Yoga in Zen Center.

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bernieclark: This is 1997. So I thought, Okay, Zen, that’s what I want. So I phoned them up, and I started to attend their their meditation sessions 3 days a week, and the owner of the session, the studio. She’s now called Shakti Mai. She changed her name from Ifat Oraz to Shakti Mai! She kept telling me I should try the yoga.

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bernieclark: and I kept saying, No, I’m just here for the meditation. 20 years of Zen. I just want the Zen. But then one day she said the magic words to me, she said, Yoga will really help your golf game.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I was in.

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bernieclark: Avid golfer. Golf to me is a very Zen-like sport.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: She was meeting you where you were.

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bernieclark: Right? Exactly. So I said, Okay, I’ll try. And she was right. It really made a big difference in my golf. And I got so much into this Yoga stuff. I took a teacher training with her the next year, not ever expecting to teach Yoga, but just to learn more about it because my personality is. Once I’m interested in something I dive right in, and it got to the point where I spent so much time doing. Yoga, I quit golfing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So actually, you’ll get killed in a golf game in the long run.

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bernieclark: Fortunately, in the last few years I’ve kind of gotten back to golf again. But so that’s what got me into Yoga first.st The meditation for 20 years, and then the Asana to help the meditation.

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bernieclark: But then, in 2,003, I was studying with a guy named Saul David Ray. I was taking his advanced Thai Yoga massage. Course.

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bernieclark: I was at that time very much into Ashtanga and Ashtanga. When you lead an Ashtanga class, you basically were putting people into shapes. You were kind of tucking this and bending that and folding here, and I realized I didn’t have a lot of facility at doing that. So I thought by taking a Thai Yoga massage course, I’d really get to feel the body, to learn where the edges are. What’s resistance feel like.

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bernieclark: But on one of the last few days of the course, every morning Saul was giving us a Yoga class.

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bernieclark: and he said, I’ve run out of ideas. How about today? We just do a yin class.

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bernieclark: This was in Santa Barbara in December of 2,003. I’d never heard of yin. Nobody in the class had heard of it. So we all said, sure. So he gave us what today I would have called a Yin Yang Fusion class.

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bernieclark: and I thought it was quite interesting. He had us in a lunge for 5 min. I’ve never done anything like that before, he called it dragon pose, so that was quite unique.

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bernieclark: 2 days later I’m flying back to Vancouver. I had an afternoon to kill in Santa Barbara, so I went into a yoga studio, did. A Kundalini class

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bernieclark: didn’t like it never done another one since. But the studio had a little bookshelf, and they sold videos and books. And I noticed one of the videos was

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bernieclark: it’s called a Vhs. At the time. You ask your parents if you don’t know what that was by a woman named Sarah Powers, and it was about Yin yoga, and I recalled, oh, Saul just gave us a yin class. So I bought the video, took it home, and every morning I would do my Stanga Mysore practice

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bernieclark: but 3 or 4 times a week in the evenings after work I would do Sarah’s gym class.

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bernieclark: and there was a pose that I just couldn’t do in Ashtanga. It was called.

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bernieclark: It’s a wide leg forward fold. So you’re standing. The idea is to bring your head to the floor between your feet, and after 4 years of a daily Mysore practice. My head and the floor were like 6 feet apart. I just couldn’t get that pose very well.

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bernieclark: but after 3 months of doing yin yoga 3 or 4 times a week my head was on the floor.

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bernieclark: thought, this is amazing. I’ve got to meet this woman. So it turned out that Sarah was coming to a conference in Seattle that spring in 2,004, called the Yoga Festival, Northwest.

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bernieclark: and also some guy named Paul Grilley was at that conference, too. So I went down there, and I spent like 12 h with Sarah, really learning about Ian, and I wandered into Paul’s class, and he was talking about

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bernieclark: Golido variations and tension and compressions, and my whole world got kind of blown apart by that that weekend there. So that’s how I got into this whole gin. And Paul teaching stuff. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. I had a very similar experience in what in Hatha would be called Janushasan.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: No progress whatsoever with the hamstrings through all of my years of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hatha and I, I come from my younger roots. All of those years I made very little progress. Ever with my hamstrings. They just were chronically, genetically also, but just tight

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and right from childhood on. And yeah, and doing yin. I was like for the 1st time when I folded forward it could actually touch my foot. I was like, what is this.

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bernieclark: Yeah, yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So when did you transition from?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you studied with Paul and Sarah at that conference.

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bernieclark: That was my 1st taste, and after that I had to get more. So I bought Paul’s, DVD.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: At that time they actually had Dvds out in his DVD. Was 4 h on human variations. So I studied that I took lots of notes, and I started to share that knowledge with the other teachers in Vancouver. I put on little bone workshops and things like that, but in 2,005. In January, 2,005, Paul and Sarah were jointly giving a 10 day in Yoga teacher training

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bernieclark: in White Sulphur Springs, down in the Napa valley in California. So I took that course as well, and that really got me to know Paul and Sarah much more intimately.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know, it’s it’s interesting when you said DVD, because I that is actually pre watching requirements for my my teacher training.

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bernieclark: They have to.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Purchase that and watch it, and then we do some study and reflection questions on it, and every time. I still say, DVD, I’m like the Paul DVD, I’m like, right? It’s streaming now, I know. But I’m old school and I still have my DVD. It still functions. Yeah.

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bernieclark: And yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, that was a total game changer for me. I just went.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, I’d graduated my Ayungar training, which, as you know, is very much one. Size fits everybody style of Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and just always felt like, I think, a lot of 200 h teachers. Mine was a 300. But still I felt like when I graduated, that there was holes in my anatomy knowledge and my sequencing, and I was just like, so I was in a bookstore back when we actually bought things at actual bookstores

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and just saw Paul’s.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: DVD. Didn’t know anything about him. I had no idea I just saw the word anatomy and yoga and went. Let’s check this out. And yeah, mind blown forever.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. Changed everything. Yeah, for sure.

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bernieclark: Ironically, in that 2,003 conference, the Yoga Festival, Northwest. Just before I went into Paul’s class, I’d taken an hour and a half class with another teacher who was a physical therapist, and she was giving us all these wonderful alignment cues of how to line up the knee and the foot and the hips. Warrior pose.

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bernieclark: How important was to make sure you never hyperextend the knee, and I was an alignment nerd at that point, collecting all these beautiful alignment cues. So I had a whole notebook full of alignment cues to go share with my students. Then I walked into Paul’s class, and everything just felt like I was making buggy whips in the time of the horseless carriage.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right? Yeah, yeah, I know. I remember.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I remember just being excited by the information because it explained things in my own body that when I would ask my younger teachers I never got answers about so I was just like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Eureka. This is why

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Nyk Danu Yoga: But I do remember the very I took Paul’s 1st workshop he was. He was traveling around back in those days, just doing like weekend workshops, and I took it, and I think it was oh, 7

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I remember there were several younger teachers in there who did not do well with

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Nyk Danu Yoga: this new shift like you could just see that they’re they’re

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like their whole, you know, and they’d been probably, you know, teaching anger. They were anger certified teachers, for who knows how many decades, and then they’re in there, just going.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What do I do with this information? Now? You know everything that I once thought was fact.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m now learning is well sometimes for some people.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. And now how do I? How do I go back and teach a class? And I remember Susie saying.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, if if you feel like the yoga mat has been kind of pulled out from underneath you

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like. Just know?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You don’t have to go back tomorrow and change everything you’re teaching.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, just with this new information when you say these things. And now you see that somebody in the group or some buddies is not doing it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It could be that they’re listening quite clearly to what you’re saying. They just can’t do that with their body, you know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah. So it was. I think it was pretty heart wrenching for for a few people to be like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: How how can I stay part of this, this lineage. That’s so sort of alignment, really, with this new information, because that really does kind of put you at a crossroads. You either toss out everything you just saw

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with Paul, and go back to the way it was, or you have to start changing the way you teach. And then does that now affect. You know the lineage that you’ve been in. It’s it’s a tough place to be in, I think, for some people.

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bernieclark: Yeah, Paul warned us that you might go through the 5 stages of grieving.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: That the 1st you come up with.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Denial.

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bernieclark: Kind of denial. Yeah, this can’t be right. I.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: He doesn’t know what he’s.

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bernieclark: And then comes bargaining. Yeah, well, maybe. What about this? And what about that? And then comes anger. You know, I did spend $3,000. Learning all this in 3 years.

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bernieclark: And then comes depression. Now I don’t know what to say. I’m going to quit teaching and join a comment, and then hopefully, it comes. You know, it’s kind of an integration acceptance, and people don’t necessarily follow that linearly. They kind of hop back and forth. So eventually they reach acceptance.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I know that every time that I went to study with Paul

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I had that effect afterwards of like just sitting there in.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, in our time together, going the 1st time I remember going. I don’t know how how to teach Tadasan like I’m like I I no longer.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: When I go home like, what am I? Just gonna say everybody stand at the front of your mat in some way that’s comfortable and feel strong for you

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like a mountain. That’s what I ended up coming up with. It was like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: stand at a feet a comfortable distance apart, so that you feel steady and solid, that’s all I got. It’s like. And I remember a student saying to me, you know you used to tell us that our feet had to be together and be touching. And you don’t say that anymore, or why. And I just said, Well, because I learned I learned better.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: he said. If that works for you continue. But there’s a big chunk of people in this room that it won’t work for. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so we do that now. But yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a tough one. And then when did you start guiding your Yin trainings and like, start the website and the the 1st book.

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bernieclark: Well, when I

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bernieclark: came back from that well, even while I was at that 10 day course with Paul one morning I was sitting in butterfly listening to Sarah’s dharma talks, and this straight thought came into my mind, because that’s what the mind does. It kind of wanders. And again, this is 2,005. So like 1920 years ago, I wondered who has the URL yinyoga.com.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm.

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bernieclark: So I made a little mental note to check that. So when I got home I checked and nobody had it yet, so I bought it.

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bernieclark: and I thought, I’m going to give this to Paul, because this would be a perfect URL for him. But Paul didn’t want it. He’s already got Paul greeley.com. So I checked with Sarah. She didn’t want it. So I thought, Okay, I’ll keep it and see what happens with it, because I bought 10 years of this. This domain name.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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bernieclark: And then I started giving little weekend workshops in Vancouver, and I thought, well.

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bernieclark: well, actually, I got convinced by a woman who did her teacher training in Vancouver under Shakti Mai. But she was from Shanghai, and she wanted. She was building a yoga studio there, and she wanted me to come and teach in Yoga. There do a training, and

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bernieclark: I had traveled a lot in my day job. I was already going all over the world, and the last thing I want to do is travel again. But she convinced me to go there, so I put on a 7 day kind of training. So I had all these slides, I thought, well, I’ll put them on the website because I’ve got the name. So I put them up there. But once I put the slides up there, I realized these slides don’t talk to themselves.

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bernieclark: So I actually had to put a narrative to it. So we started writing down that stuff.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Words are required. Yeah, yeah.

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bernieclark: Words and pictures, and that eventually became an online book which I called Ginsights. But then I got feedback from students that it’s

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bernieclark: too much to read hundreds of pages on a computer screen. Could I make a Pdf out of it?

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bernieclark: So I made the Pdf. Out of it. But the Pdf. Was like 400 pages, and they said, That’s too much for my own computer printer. Can you make a book out of it? So over the next year and a half, I self published a book called Insights, which is over 450 pages long.

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bernieclark: then in 2011, 2012, the the company that produced Paul’s little book, Yoga, the Outline of a Quiet practice there.

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bernieclark: Lee came to me and said they’d love to do a second edition of my book

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bernieclark: Insights, and they got the perfect title for it. They’re called the Complete Gaiji. And Yoga.

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bernieclark: I said, Yeah, it’s about 5 years old, so I don’t mind refreshing it. There’s a lot of things I’d like to add to it today.

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bernieclark: And they said, Okay, but it’s too big. It’s 450 pages. It needs to be no more than 275 pages.

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bernieclark: So basically, I took the 1st half of insights and threw that away.

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bernieclark: That was all the history and the philosophy, and just redid the second half, and that became the Complete Guide in Yoga.

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bernieclark: I eventually resurrected the 1st half and called that book from the Gita to the Grail, and it’s like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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bernieclark: Renamed Shiva dancing at King Arthur’s court. So that’s all the mythology, the history, the philosophy of Yoga Yin Yoga Yang Yoga Buddhism Tanjali, so all that’s a separate book. So the insights got split into 2.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, those publishers, hey? They always want you to be concise. And you know, actually, I will say I’m I’m very slowly wrapping my head around how I’m going to write my book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s.

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bernieclark: Well, they were right. It makes it much more digestible.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You can get.

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bernieclark: That’s only got like 250 pages versus 500 pages.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I’m.

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bernieclark: That’s intimidating.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: For sure, for sure. But that whole process of of

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think one of my biggest fears with with writing

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the book that I have in mind is that, and I’m sure you can relate to this is that as soon as I finish it I fear I’m going to be like. Oh, I should have put this in there, and I should have added this, and.

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bernieclark: It’s inevitable.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I would have said this differently, or you know, yeah, yeah, it is inevitable.

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bernieclark: I asked Shiva Ray about that. Once. She she did write a book eventually, but she published a lot of Dvds.

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bernieclark: Video, yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I had several.

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bernieclark: And I asked, What do you do when you’ve seen a mistake, or you wish it said something different. She says you just gotta let it fly. You can perfect it forever. You just gotta cut the cord, let it fly, and it’s off on its own.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, exactly.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then for quite a while you were teaching your 50 h at semper viva until the you know happened. Known as a global pandemic

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, only, of course, whatever you’re comfortable sharing. But I know that like that program was going really well, like it was really strong, and you were running it, you know, several times a year, and my partner, Amos

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bernieclark: I.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Took your training.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah, that was such a wonderful time for him. I it’s funny because my partner actually came to Yoga through yin first.st

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bernieclark: Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So when we were when I was a a newish Yoga teacher and I wasn’t teaching in yet, because I hadn’t studied with Paul, but I had

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know I had his Dvds. And cause after my 1st workshop I was like, I want all the things. So I bought all the books, all the Dvds. And I was practicing still doing my my at the time. I probably had already switched into what I called like half the flow, because I didn’t like being associated with anger anymore because of my light bulb moment.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so, you know, I was still teaching and practicing that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but started adding in in more and more and more, and you know, he, at the time I was like any brand new Yoga teacher I was, you know, working a part time job and building up my Yoga classes as a new teacher. And so I was working like 6, sometimes 7 days a week, and I would come home, and he’d say, Hey, will you teach me some? Yoga? And I was like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I remember saying, he’s a musician, and I said, Okay, imagine that you get paid to play music all day and like, isn’t that amazing? And what a gift? But then you came home and I said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Write me a song, sing me a song. Wouldn’t you just be like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: can I, you know, get a break? So instead, what we did is, I said, look, I’m not going to teach you Yoga at home when I’ve done this all day, but what I will do is

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’ll put Paul’s, DVD. On, and we can do some yoga together, and unless you’re doing something that’s gonna make your body explode, you’re on your own. But we can like have these yoga jams together, and that really only happened for a couple of months, and then he just started practicing on his own without the DVD. And just got right into it

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but had no formal Yoga training, and then he I think it was the second or 3rd time that I was getting ready to go study with Paul, and I had my suitcase, and I was at the door waiting for my ride to the airport, and he just had this look on his face, and I was like, What’s up. And he said.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I said, You look kinda like you’re jealous, and he’s like, I think I am like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I want to go. I want to go study yin yoga. So

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so then a couple, I think maybe the next year he did study with you. He went to Vancouver and to Semper viva and did your program, and then, I think literally the next morning flew out to California to then study with Paul, and I believe that you and you were there with him because.

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bernieclark: Yeah, 2013.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And I said to him, You know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: whoever who get, you know, he kept saying, who gets to do this? And I was like, yeah, I mean, you just literally went from one year in training onto an airplane to another like, what a what a gift!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and because his foundation was Grilla Yoga.

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bernieclark: Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Then, when he did take other teacher trainings later, so that he could start to add, you know, Young, to his repertoire, I remember him saying to me, they go over all of these alignment things so much, and I just don’t understand like, why are we focusing on this? Because.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: of course

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Nyk Danu Yoga: he had the opposite experience he didn’t have to relearn. He was, you know, he was. His. His teaching was essentially created in this. Everybody’s different. So then, when they were spending all this time talking about where your knee should be, he’s like

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that depends on the person you know.

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bernieclark: Quite interesting.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Interesting. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So I know he took it at Semper viva. And I know it was going really. Well. There was a lot of people

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Nyk Danu Yoga: that you’ve trained in those walls over the years, I would imagine. And then, when Covid 1st happened, I think Semper Viva was one of the 1st studios to close their doors.

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bernieclark: Yeah, they went through. They hit a wall financially. Their landlord on one of their studios, increased the rent $10,000 a month.

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bernieclark: and then.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Whoa!

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bernieclark: The pandemic hit. Of course they still had to pay all their overhead their teachers, but there was no more revenue coming in after a couple of months of that of just burning through money. She just had to declare bankruptcy, and we had a.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s so.

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bernieclark: Teacher training scheduled for May of that year. We canceled it in March, but she’d already collected a lot of down payments and deposits and full payments.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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bernieclark: She went bankrupt, so she had no money to return to the people.

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bernieclark: so I felt really bad about that. I didn’t get any of the money to. They weren’t. My students weren’t paying me. They were paying.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, they were paying her.

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bernieclark: Disappeared. So I decided what I’d do is I’d switch. I didn’t want to, but I had to do something for these students who paid for it. So I recast my whole course and made it an online training, which meant I had to go make sure I had copyright approvals for the images and stuff like that. So it was quite a traumatic thing to switch all that.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s a lot. Yeah.

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bernieclark: And I would say about 80% of the students did agree to take the online course in lieu of the payments they made for the in-person course.

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bernieclark: we at Semperviva we could hold about 50 students in the room at one time, so we had. We got up to 8 classes or 8 trainings a year. So that’s like 400 students.

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bernieclark: But I decided to present the online course through Yoga International because they already had the infrastructure and the foundation to do it, and that may, in 2020, they managed to get 350 students to take the online course.

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bernieclark: which is like a whole year’s worth of people coming through Semperviva. So it was quite an eye opener to me, I thought, well, maybe there is a demand for this, but a lot of people saying I’d love to take your course, but I couldn’t afford to travel to Vancouver. I was in Singapore, Indonesia, or France.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And it’s just people have family

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and jobs. And it’s hard to just fly across the world, you know. Yeah, yeah.

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bernieclark: That was a big shift, radical shift. So I moved to online teaching. I’m now back to 2 in person classes a year, but also 2 online classes a year

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bernieclark: or trainees.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Well, I would like to say that I think that was very

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Nyk Danu Yoga: big-hearted and generous of you to offer the training to those people.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because, you know, you could have just been like, well, whatever you didn’t give your money to me, you know. But I understand how you would feel.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And I can’t imagine us also being one of those teachers that was like, you know, they booked the time off. They’re excited. They probably.

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bernieclark: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: To take care of things at home, and they’re gonna fly in, and they’ve paid their money. And now that’s just all gone like that would be.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, heart wrenching, you know. I think a lot of people that aren’t

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yoga studio owners or that haven’t known Yoga studio owners well

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Nyk Danu Yoga: are under this misconception, that that’s an abundant industry to be in.

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bernieclark: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And you know it’s it’s just not. It’s

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bernieclark: No, it’s very hand to mouth.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, most yoga studio. Most yoga studios are running as unofficial non-for-profits, meaning they ain’t making no money

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Nyk Danu Yoga: other than you know, paying their teachers and themselves, and the the bills. And so you know it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: these these shutdowns, and in our province repeated shutdowns

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Nyk Danu Yoga: over and over again. I mean, we lost in Victoria, and this is not a very big city. We lost 9 studios.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: either immediately or afterwards, because they, you know. Then, when people were coming back. There wasn’t enough people coming back because people were so terrified. Or you know, they got the government loan that was supposed to help them, you know coast through. But then, when the loan came up, the numbers still weren’t there, and they ended up closing. So it’s

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, it’s been really sad actually to see how many studios have have just gone by the wayside. I used to study at Semper Viva even when I lived in Calgary. It’s funny.

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bernieclark: When I lived in Calgary I spent more time at Semper Viva than when I flew over here. But that’s because.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I came here to go back to school, and I was studying Chinese medicine. I didn’t have the time or budget.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, that’s true.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Like gallivanting off to, you know, to Vancouver to study and a yoga retreat. But I I’d spent many countless workshops at Semper Viva, so

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I kinda I think I think anyone who’s a Canadian kind of you know, prairies to West Coast Yoga teacher has probably studied there at some point, and it’s you know it’s a big loss.

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bernieclark: Yeah, yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So you did it on. I remember that that you did it with Yoga International. That did well, and then you migrated it to yourself for a while, and I know now you’re doing it with Kevin right at Asana, at home.

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bernieclark: Yeah. Yoga International.

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bernieclark: Got bought out by Gaia.

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bernieclark: Gaia Yoga and Gaia just canceled all the courses that Yoga International is doing so. Basically, they just cut me loose.

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bernieclark: And I didn’t want to stop. So yeah, I just started doing my own. But then Kevin Paronto approached me and he had started a new online thing called Asin at home. So I thought, Okay, I’ll be hosted by somebody local. And hopefully, they won’t cut me loose.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, exactly. And then that’s nice, too, because you don’t have to worry about all the Admin stuff and.

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bernieclark: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You can just show up and teach, yeah, yeah.

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bernieclark: And he offers that service to a lot of teachers, a lot of people. He’s got people from all over the world, but mostly he draws from a Vancouver centric

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bernieclark: kind of pool of teachers.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I taught some at the beginning of the

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Nyk Danu Yoga: pandemic times I taught some drop in classes through Kevin’s platform for a while.

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bernieclark: Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, yeah, and how I met Kevin was. Actually, I was interviewed on Jay Brown’s podcast.

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bernieclark: Alright!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then Kevin reached out to me. I don’t know if it was on Instagram, or whatever, and was like, hey, how’s it going? And we just became friends after that. Yeah, it’s funny how that happens. He’s like we have a lot in common.

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bernieclark: Alright!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so now, the course is still 50 h.

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bernieclark: Yes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And do you do them kind of like straight through.

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bernieclark: I offer them straight through. It’s 7 days in a row, but

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bernieclark: people sometimes do it real time, and other times they’ll do it over a couple of weeks. We’ve even had some students do it over a year. It’s just whatever schedule works for them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: And the nice thing about the online is all recorded. So you can go back and rewatch it, which is really good for people whose English isn’t their 1st language, and I tend to speak rather quickly. And what are they saying? So they can pause and go back. That certainly helps them.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and do you so do you teach it live? And then they just have access to the recordings for an endless amount of time, so they can go over it again.

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bernieclark: Yep, yeah, it’s live, and it’s a permanent access. As long as asset at home exists.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, when I started I was teaching my training through a local Yoga therapy college only in person, not online.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then, of course, like everybody did. When we all got shut down, we moved that online real quick, because I had one set up, for I think it was April, actually.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and unfortunately, they just kind of and we all did this. We just had to just make do and figure it out. And and people were grateful that you were just running your program. Still, so like nobody was being hyper picky about this. They were just so grateful that, like they could still take the course, you know. But I found that doing the 20 h the they had, they had me doing it in 2 levels, so kind of like a level one, and then a level 2 and in the 1st one the 20 h

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Nyk Danu Yoga: it. Doing it straight through like that in a weekend

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Nyk Danu Yoga: over zoom like I found when I did it in person, for people’s brains would get tired eventually. But there there were. It was much easier for them to stay present, but doing it over zoom for 8 h straight, like I could just see the point right around our 4 5, where, like they had left the building. You know, it’s like they were there in body. But like there was the, you know, they weren’t absorbing the material anymore. So I think

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Nyk Danu Yoga: having things be recorded is so essential.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know. I mean, we learn from repetition, right? We don’t just like hear something once. And Whoa, I got that in my head forever. I wish

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So yeah, mine is also recorded. But I give them a year access.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And yeah, yeah, it’s wonderful, and I’ve split my.

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bernieclark: Way.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I’ve spread mine out over a season, and I do like 4 h you know, like one weekend a month kind of 4 h trips.

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bernieclark: Alright. Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Time. Yeah, yeah, wonderful

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and I just doubled the time. Mine was like a 50 h. And then it became a 60, because I felt like I was always running at a time. And now this just for this spring, I’m like, we’re doing a hundred. We’re just gonna.

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bernieclark: Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Go for it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Boy, and how have you found teaching online?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Did did you? Did you adjust to it? Well, or did you? Kinda

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bernieclark: Yeah, I don’t think it was ever a problem to me. Way back in the early 2 thousands, mid 2 thousands, there was a company that started up here in Vancouver called my Yoga online.

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bernieclark: There was a couple of Yoko local people. Michelle was a Yoga teacher, and

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bernieclark: Jacob, I think, had some facility with recordings and video cameras and stuff. So they just started to make recordings of Yoga classes.

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bernieclark: and being in Vancouver, they hired a lot of Yoga teachers from Semper, viva and other places to do it. So they’ve hired me many times to come and give a class. And I was basically just teaching to the camera. So I had a lot of experience of just teaching to a camera from from those days, and eventually my Yoga line got bought out by Gaia. They merged with Gaia as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay.

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bernieclark: Gaia seems to draw all these things into themselves eventually.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: So it wasn’t a big shift for me.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I did find I used to teach for a again a local Canadian company. Do yoga with me?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I did find the 1st couple recording times. It was.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It was a big adjustment.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: To be teaching just a cameraman

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and not, you know. Luckily I had already been teaching long enough that you know I kind of had my my script down that I could just

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Nyk Danu Yoga: roll with it. But it’s definitely an acquired skill to be able to teach like an inanimate object, and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: not, you know, cause you don’t know how it’s landing. You don’t know, you know, like I tell cheesy jokes that are really generational, and I don’t know if anyone’s getting them, you know. So I had to kind of remove some of those things. But

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Nyk Danu Yoga: but yeah.

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bernieclark: I think it might be that, you know I spent my whole career in the high tech space industry, in sales and marketing, making presentations to one or 2 people, or to dozens of people, or an auditorium full of people. So I was always in that mode of presenting for decades in my career. So teaching Yoga was just another topic that I was sharing.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: Wasn’t wasn’t a change for me to teach.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I also was well, I was a teacher before I became a Yoga teacher. I used to teach advanced hair color, technique, and so I used to travel around and

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and do that too, but I found it very easy to teach to to do that when there’s people there, but I’m not as not as comfortable. I can do it. But I’m not as comfortable with just straight video camera. No audience.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: well, that’s awesome. And I I was really happy to hear that you and Kevin joined up, and that seems like it’s being going well. And you’ve been doing some in person ones now, too, haven’t you?

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bernieclark: Yeah. So I’ve been doing the Yin Yoga teacher training twice a year in person here in Vancouver. And then 2 of them are live online. And then we have one that’s on demand. It’s just a course. We’ve done that. We just make it available to anybody at any time if they want.

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bernieclark: and then I’m also offering. I’ve done it twice, and I’m going to do it. The last time this year an in-person kind of an advanced anatomy

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bernieclark: back in the day when Paul had come up with his DVD. And was doing these wonderful courses, I kept saying, you got to write a book on this, Paul, you got to document all these variations that you’re talking about, and he was never really into documenting and footnoting and all that stuff he he liked to do the videos. So he said, You do it, you do it. And I kept saying, I don’t want to do that. You’re the knowledgeable one you do it.

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bernieclark: But by 2012, after I’d finished the Complete Guide in Yoga, I thought, Okay, I’ll give it a try. Well, that’s why I went down with Amos to spend that 10 days in 2013, September 2013. It was the start of my attempt to create the your body. Your Yoga series.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: That was my trilogy that took about 8 years to actually complete.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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bernieclark: Now I decided to put on a course. It’s it’s 40 h

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bernieclark: over 5 days which will guide people through this to give them more depth of what you normally get in a teacher training. So let’s really look at all the things about the elbow like, had you heard of the puda angle, the proximal ulnar deviation angle, which is one reason why a lot of people can’t straighten their arm. It’s nothing to do with the elbow joint. It’s just the ulna is curved

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bernieclark: and the ulna that can’t get straight. So I want to spend time going more deeply into the variations of the bone, and what they imply to movement and yoga practice. So that’s called functional anatomy for Yoga teachers.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And I feel like.

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bernieclark: Same person, as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I feel like for me personally, from my learning style. I would do so much better learning that lot like from either either a video or live than reading it in a book

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like, I just find that, you know, at a certain point, I’ll read for the a while with technical information, and then my brain starts to daydream. But if I’m present to it, especially if we can actually like move our bodies, and you know and feel things and see other people. That’s when that information really lands for me. So I’m that’s great that you’re doing that. And you said you’re just doing your last one.

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bernieclark: Yeah. My intention was to always make it an online recorded thing, but it was the 1st time I was doing it. So I didn’t want to record the 1st session, or even the second session. So this year will be our 3rd and final live session in July, and then it’ll just be offered as a recording.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Wise, wise to not record the 1st one. Yes.

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bernieclark: Yeah, well, you’re right. The the trilogy of those books are a thousand pages in total. And there’s over a thousand footnotes. So it’s like a textbook, and nobody can really read a textbook, a reference book.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: It’s good to have the actual video to go with it. But Paul’s videos are like 4 h or 10 h. So I wanted something more in depth for somebody who already understands the concepts of skeletal variation, tension, and compression. How do we take this to the next level?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Really wants to go deeper into it. Yeah, yeah, that’s good to know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I’m sure that there will be lots of people that’ll be looking that course up.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So maybe it’s a good time to start to dive into some questions. If you.

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bernieclark: Sure.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You don’t mind, and for those of you watching on Youtube. I have them in a document on my phone. So if you see me looking at my phone. It’s not because I’ve decided not to talk to Bernie anymore and check my text messages.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s because I have to put things down in writing, otherwise I will not remember them.

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bernieclark: Okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So a few of these are kind of I feel like I should say they’re like.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: let’s get it on the record straight from the horse’s mouth. Kind of questions, because

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I know it’s called in in our culture often the telephone game, but I think it’s got other names around the world. So I’ll just describe it so that the global audience will know.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Most of us at some point have been in classroom or at summer camp or something, and sat, been sat in a circle with other little kids and had a camp counselor. The teacher whisper something in one kid’s ear, and then that kid has to tell the next kid around the circle, on and on and on. So until it comes back to the 1st child. And typically when the 1st child hears it. They’re like what

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I didn’t say that and having been a teacher also, I have heard people say things back that I supposedly said in a training where I’m like what.

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bernieclark: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: No, you! You heard half my sentence.

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bernieclark: Alright!

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I think sometimes, especially in you know, in a Yoga Facebook groups, things can be overstated

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Nyk Danu Yoga: with no nuance, and you and I both know the answer in Yin is almost always well, it depends

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and so I just thought, you know some of these ones that I hear over and over again that people are.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: They’re sticking them on you.

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bernieclark: That’s okay.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Bernie said. I thought maybe we could talk about some of them so that we can kind of set the record straight as to the nuance of these things.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So the 1st one that I have is on page 6 and 7. We often hear this sort of narrative that Yin Yoga is dealing with deep fascia.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then again, on page 8, stress versus stretch.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so my question, I guess with the 1st one is.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, people are like, well, you’re not access. You’re not dealing with the muscles you’re just dealing with deep fascia, and my mind goes, that’s not possible, because we are an interconnected, interwoven being. And so how and if there is fascia in

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Nyk Danu Yoga: every muscle fiber, every segment, every compartment of muscle, and then around the the deep fascia around the muscle. It’s like, how could we be accessing our deep fascia without accessing the muscle?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I’d love to just have you clear that one up first? st

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bernieclark: It is a comment and a critique that I’ve heard very often, and people tend to, I think, mistake

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bernieclark: targeting a tissue with isolating a tissue.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

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bernieclark: Let’s suppose I’m going to the gym, and my intention is to work on my biceps. I want to get really good guns here. So the fitness instructors. Well, let’s do a lot of curls and pull ups and chin ups, and let’s really target the biceps.

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bernieclark: Of course, when I’m doing those things. I’m using the triceps. I’m using the deltoids, the pecs. I’m using the abdominal muscles. I’m using the leg muscles. The whole body is connected.

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bernieclark: So my intention is to develop here. That’s the targeted area. But I’m not isolating to the biceps. I’m not only working the biceps, I’m working the whole body. I’m working my heart. I’m working the blood system. Everything is affected, even though I’m targeting here.

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bernieclark: So in Yin Yoga we can say we’re targeting the yin-like tissues of the body. One of the reasons we use the term yin Yoga is because we’re targeting the yin tissues. Now, there’s lots of different ways to apply that adjective. It could be the deeper tissues, the stiffer tissues, the less compliant tissues.

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bernieclark: but these would generally be the fascia, the ligaments, the tendons, the joint capsules. So we’re targeting in those. But of course we’re not isolating to that. We’re affecting the whole body when we do. Yin Yoga.

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bernieclark: Remember, I said, that in 3 months I could do Prasarita Patotanasana. Well, that was because my adductor muscles were so tight I couldn’t do it.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And 3.

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bernieclark: Months of Yin Yoga, my adductor muscles loosened up. Enough that I could do it.

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bernieclark: Now we can look into the adductor muscles and 30% of the muscle is yin tissue. It’s fascia. So I really think it was the fascial tissues within the muscles that were restricting me.

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bernieclark: and the fascial tissues being more yin like they responded to the Yin stress.

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bernieclark: So even though we are targeting these deeper connective tissues doesn’t mean we’re only affecting them. I’ve never said we’re only affecting fascia. We affect muscles, too.

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bernieclark: That’s not a problem, just because the Gn. Doesn’t mean muscles don’t benefit. They do.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I had the very same experience in the the hamstring analogy that I mentioned earlier that I’m positive that it was the fascia. That was the connection that was keeping me stuck

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because after years and years and years of forward folding, nothing had improved, you know.

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bernieclark: Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So to summarize and to be very clear.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: so that I can always post this episode when people say that. Yes, our intention is these deeper tissues of the body. However, because we’re all interconnected, you’re also going to be accessing muscles and other things as well.

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bernieclark: I would just paraphrase that a little differently, I would say an intention is, I wouldn’t say it’s

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bernieclark: intention. There’s a lot of intentions of doing in Yoga. Oh, yeah, and many intentions have nothing to do with the physical body.

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bernieclark: A lot of mine.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: That way.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Energetic? Yeah.

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bernieclark: Yeah.

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bernieclark: if your intention is to work the fascia yin Yoga is probably going to do it better than a young form of Yoga.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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bernieclark: But doesn’t mean you’re not going to affect the other tissues.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And that’s, I think that’s a really good I’m really glad that you brought that up, because I think sometimes especially those that are quite flexible, and have already kind of come to their full range of.

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bernieclark: Yeah.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Joint motion, you know, they’re like, well, I’m not feeling sensations like, well, there’s so much else you could be practicing in this practice.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It’s not just about the tissues of your body, you know. How’s your nervous system? How’s your mind? You know these are things that we get to address as well.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So that was that was great. Thank you.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then there’s this one stress virtues versus stretch.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: There are a lot of people that get very upset if you use the word stretch when you’re referring to Yin, because we are not stretching, apparently.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: We are stressing. And to to me this honestly, just feels like splitting hairs.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: especially because, like the previous question.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, you could, you could be doing both

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Nyk Danu Yoga: like, how could you say you’re only doing one versus the other.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And so people are really seem to be upset about using the word stretch. I personally think if I, for those of you who can’t see me because you’re not watching Youtube. If I extend my arm now straight away from my body, straight up from my shoulder, am I not stretching my arm away from my body?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Do you know what I mean? So it’s like, I think people get really hung up on the words

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and so I’m wondering if you could address that stressful.

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bernieclark: Yeah, I come from a kind of a technical scientific engineering background because I hung out with rocket scientist all day. And my degree is in physics, so I am a little bit more precise in my terminology.

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bernieclark: A stress may result in a stretch, but it may not.

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bernieclark: If you have the second edition of the Config Id in Yoga, I invite you to look at page

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bernieclark: 2, 10. In there you’ll see a diagram of 4 different bones.

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bernieclark: So I happen to have a femur handy handy here.

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bernieclark: I could stress this in a number of different ways. I could try to compress it. I could put a stress going in opposite directions here and the cells inside the bones, the osteoblasts. They will sense that stress that compressive stress, and they’ll start to proliferate. On the other hand, I could bend it. I could bend in this direction, and when I bend that in this direction, the underside. So imagine just bending a stick or a ruler. The underside goes into compression.

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bernieclark: That’s a form of stress. It’s called compression. The top side elongates. That’s a form of stress called tension. So in bending bone you apply both a tension and a compression.

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bernieclark: These are both stresses. They’re both loads on the bone, and the body reacts in different ways to either eliminate, reduce the amount of materials in the compressed area, and elongate up here or thicken this area to support the stress.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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bernieclark: Technically, engineers say, there’s also shearing where you have 2 stresses just slightly offset from each other, and that can cause a shear stress that happens in our spine quite a lot, and for horizontal one vertebrae is trying to come down, the others trying to support it upwards. There’s a shear stress there that can lead to fractures, and something called spondylophratesis.

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bernieclark: Then there’s also twisting a torsion stress.

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bernieclark: So we’ve got 5 different forms of stresses that can be applied to tissues in the body. But generally, when you look at them, they all resolve into tension or compression, as Paul usually simplifies it, because even

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bernieclark: shearing one part’s under tension, the other parts under compression.

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bernieclark: So we can simplify and just say, there’s 2 ways that stress manifests in our Yoga practice. We either elongate a tissue that’s called tension, or we shorten the tissue that’s called compression.

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bernieclark: So stress is not equivalent to stretch.

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bernieclark: When I’m doing sphinx pose a backbend. I’m not stretching my lower back. I’m putting into compression. But there’s still a stress there, and it doesn’t really matter if

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bernieclark: the tissues under tension elongate or not, you can put something under tension, and it doesn’t stretch, but the load is still there and the body will cellular react to that at a deep cellular level you will get the benefit of that.

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bernieclark: So I find stress is a more accurate term which covers a lot of different things that the tissues can do. It’s not just stretching.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

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bernieclark: Even tension is not equivalent to stretching, because you can put tension and not have a stretch.

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bernieclark: so to say, to use that word only stretch well, literally, what we’re trying to do is create a stress.

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bernieclark: and that may result in a stretch, or it may not. But you’ll still get the physiological benefits of that.

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bernieclark: So I am a little bit more rigorous in my terminology. And again it comes from the engineering background to be more precise in describing what’s happening.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Because sometimes in a pose you could be stressing the tissue and stretching, you could not be.

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bernieclark: You can be stressing and stretching at the same time every stretch.

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bernieclark: It’s caused by a stress. Yeah, but not every stress causes a stretch.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Brilliant. Thank you. That’s a wonderful way to to summarize that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And of course it would depend on the person in the body. And all these other things like the answer often is, it depends.

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bernieclark: Right.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: It depends.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: I think we’ve actually already addressed

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the the next one, which is where I asked you to. Kind of.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: You know if deep fascia surrounds our musculoskeletal system and covers our muscles, bones, and tendons.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: and then there’s fascia within and around all of that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: the fibers of muscles. Then how can we say yin? Yoga doesn’t affect the muscles? Think we’ve beaten that one to death?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

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bernieclark: Done well on that. Yes.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: And then I think we’ve also addressed the other question just now.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: This is another one that

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Nyk Danu Yoga: might get a little controversial, but we can. We can do it together. I think.

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bernieclark: Sure.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Page 20, when you practice yin Yoga, the muscles are cool.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: So this one again, is one that I know

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Nyk Danu Yoga: because I of what I know of you that that your answer would be well again. This depends. But

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Nyk Danu Yoga: people are out there beating the cold muscle horse to death

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Nyk Danu Yoga: to the point where I’m almost it. It almost becomes so oversimplified.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: Because my thought pattern on this is.

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Nyk Danu Yoga: how can you even define cool?

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Nyk Danu Yoga: What country do you live in? What activity did you do on your way to there? You know, if somebody walks or rides their bike in Florida in the summer to their yin class.

437
00:50:53.510 –> 00:51:05.489
Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s not the same as someone who wakes up on a cold Canadian morning. You know, it’s like neither did technically did a warm up, but those are muscles and tissues are not the same degree of cool

438
00:51:07.130 –> 00:51:12.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: and my thought is that one of the benefits of saying that we don’t.

439
00:51:13.800 –> 00:51:22.520
Nyk Danu Yoga: I always say to my students, it’s not that you can’t do a warm up and then do yin. It’s just that a warm up is not required

440
00:51:22.670 –> 00:51:34.879
Nyk Danu Yoga: to do yin, that yin can be a practice on its own, and sometimes, I think, especially for teachers that have been trained more sort of in the Ashtanga Vinyasa system. There’s this real focus on

441
00:51:35.278 –> 00:51:43.339
Nyk Danu Yoga: you have to do your warmups. And so I think that it it’s difficult for them to like. Let that go over to the side when they start teaching yin

442
00:51:44.750 –> 00:51:50.760
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so my thought is just, you know. I always just say you can, but you don’t need to.

443
00:51:50.910 –> 00:51:57.620
Nyk Danu Yoga: And yeah, and and you know, how can we even define what is cool tissues?

444
00:51:58.010 –> 00:51:59.420
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then, of course.

445
00:51:59.550 –> 00:52:07.309
Nyk Danu Yoga: the body will respond differently if you did your sort of yang activity first, st and then your yin, then if you did your yin, and then your yang

446
00:52:08.910 –> 00:52:16.609
Nyk Danu Yoga: so I’d like to talk about that part first, st and then maybe we can talk about this phenomenon out there, called Hot Yin yoga.

447
00:52:16.610 –> 00:52:24.870
bernieclark: Yeah, sure. Well, as you. As you say, Nick, there’s no absolutes, and I often caution students to beware the binary

448
00:52:25.340 –> 00:52:37.089
bernieclark: to try and make things all black or all white, all liberal, all conservative. All right, Wing, all left wing. Beware the binary, because that takes you into places that just don’t work. When we polarize things.

449
00:52:37.360 –> 00:52:38.509
bernieclark: Let’s look at.

450
00:52:38.680 –> 00:52:45.800
bernieclark: Look at any symbol of the Yin Yang, the Taiji symbol within the dark yin squirrel there’s a white, dot.

451
00:52:46.250 –> 00:52:52.679
bernieclark: and within the white white scroll there’s a black dot which shows that nothing’s absolutely yin or absolutely y’all.

452
00:52:53.280 –> 00:52:54.700
bernieclark: and if I was to ask

453
00:52:55.570 –> 00:52:57.500
bernieclark: hot water, is it yin or young?

454
00:52:57.840 –> 00:53:01.320
bernieclark: You can’t answer that question until you say relative to what.

455
00:53:01.810 –> 00:53:04.390
bernieclark: Relative to boiling water. Hot water is gin.

456
00:53:05.070 –> 00:53:07.640
bernieclark: Relative to cool water. Hot water is young

457
00:53:08.060 –> 00:53:14.529
bernieclark: cold water, is it yin or yang? Relative to what? Relative to ice cold water is? Yang.

458
00:53:14.670 –> 00:53:22.710
bernieclark: Yeah, relative to warm water. It’s GM, so there’s no absolutes, as you say. What? What makes something hot or warm or cold.

459
00:53:23.000 –> 00:53:34.320
bernieclark: what there is is just our tissues and our intention. Now, if our intention is to really work the deep connective tissues of, say, the joint capsules.

460
00:53:34.980 –> 00:53:40.039
bernieclark: you’ll probably find more of the stress of the pose will go into the joint capsule

461
00:53:40.230 –> 00:53:42.720
bernieclark: when the muscles are warmed up.

462
00:53:43.850 –> 00:53:46.850
bernieclark: But if our intention is to work the ligaments and the tendons.

463
00:53:47.220 –> 00:53:52.410
bernieclark: more of the stress of the pose will go into the tendons and ligaments when the muscles are cold.

464
00:53:52.910 –> 00:54:03.039
bernieclark: Now illustrate this in my book in second edition of the Complete Guide, Yin Yoga, on page 224, the chapter section is called cold muscles versus warm muscles.

465
00:54:04.390 –> 00:54:17.229
bernieclark: I used to say, way back in 2,005, when I was 1st learning about Yin Yoga, that yin was elastic. Sorry. Yang was elastic, and Yin was plastic, and I was kind of

466
00:54:17.950 –> 00:54:29.389
bernieclark: using those 2 terms as differences. And that’s what I heard Paul saying. But then one day it was kind of re going through my engineering trainings and physics and realized, this actually isn’t correct.

467
00:54:30.540 –> 00:54:43.880
bernieclark: Everything is elastic to some degree. It’s just along that spectrum of elasticity. There are some things that are stiffer, like a really hard spring, and some things that are compliant like a rubber band.

468
00:54:44.090 –> 00:54:47.750
bernieclark: The rubber band is not more elastic than the spring.

469
00:54:47.910 –> 00:55:01.139
bernieclark: They’re both elastic. What elastic means from an engineering point of view is when you use a certain amount of energy to elongate something, and then you release it. How much of that energy is returned into motion, how much is lost into heat.

470
00:55:01.880 –> 00:55:08.940
bernieclark: Elastic band. If you stretch an elastic band out and then you release it. The elastic band has gotten quite warm after that.

471
00:55:09.050 –> 00:55:12.350
bernieclark: but if you take a stiff spring and stretch it out and release it.

472
00:55:12.470 –> 00:55:18.630
bernieclark: The spring hasn’t warmed up at all. All that energy has gone back into the kinetic release.

473
00:55:19.100 –> 00:55:28.169
bernieclark: So things that are compliant, they’re more yang like, if you will, things that are stiffer and more yin like. And we have these type of tissues within.

474
00:55:28.330 –> 00:55:30.740
bernieclark: Most tendons and ligaments are stiff.

475
00:55:31.150 –> 00:55:37.400
bernieclark: They’re still elastic. They’re stiff. They won’t stretch very much, but when you release that stretch they snap back.

476
00:55:37.740 –> 00:55:47.759
bernieclark: Most muscles are a little bit more compliant. You can stretch the muscles fairly easily, and they don’t snap back. You have to engage the muscle to contract it again.

477
00:55:48.270 –> 00:55:49.250
bernieclark: So it’s like

478
00:55:49.390 –> 00:55:59.489
bernieclark: plastic that way that you stretch out. Silly putty. It doesn’t rebound so much so. The muscles are a bit more like that, and the tendons and ligaments are elastic.

479
00:56:00.380 –> 00:56:10.649
bernieclark: Now this is a bit of a diversion, but a lot of critiques I’ve heard about the dangers of Yin Yoga is that we’re targeting ligaments and ligaments shouldn’t be stretched.

480
00:56:11.890 –> 00:56:17.689
bernieclark: Where did that come from? Ligaments do stretch, they can. They have to stretch?

481
00:56:17.690 –> 00:56:17.985
bernieclark: Yeah.

482
00:56:18.280 –> 00:56:24.339
bernieclark: Of it’s not a ligament. Think of the Achilles tendon connected to the plantar fascia and to the calf muscles!

483
00:56:24.640 –> 00:56:34.720
bernieclark: We are the running, jumping primate when we dorsiflex the foot we stretch the Achilles tendon, sometimes up to 18%,

484
00:56:35.090 –> 00:56:44.130
bernieclark: sometimes only 7 or 8% depends on the sports that you’re training, and that elasticity allows us to snap back and gives us the energy for jumping.

485
00:56:44.480 –> 00:56:50.419
bernieclark: Our hamstring tendons are the same thing, our it band very, very stiff.

486
00:56:51.400 –> 00:57:10.580
bernieclark: but it, too, stretches a little bit. There’s a ligament running up the back, called the ligamentum flavum, which literally means the yellow ligament, and our ancestors used to use pigs. Ligamentum flavum to make primitive elastic bands, because this ligament can actually stretch about 60, 70% and then snaps back like an elastic band. Does.

487
00:57:10.880 –> 00:57:29.690
bernieclark: This is our anti-grav ligament when we bend forward. It’s not the muscles that control us, because that would put too much compression in the intervertebral disc. It’s the layers of 6 ligaments on the backside of the muscle or the back, they start to stretch, especially the ligamento flavom.

488
00:57:29.870 –> 00:57:32.339
bernieclark: And that’s what helps to bring us back up again.

489
00:57:32.560 –> 00:57:40.530
bernieclark: So our muscle, our sorry, our ligaments, our joint capsules, our tendons are designed stretch. They just don’t stretch very much.

490
00:57:40.710 –> 00:57:48.850
bernieclark: but they actually are more efficient elastics, because once they stretch and release, they’re returning more energy to movement and less to heat.

491
00:57:49.750 –> 00:58:02.160
bernieclark: So that’s all. Okay. So when should we do the Yoga. Well, it depends what we’re targeting. If I want to target the joint capsules. Now, to understand this, you have to understand the architecture of the joint.

492
00:58:02.680 –> 00:58:20.790
bernieclark: A guy named Van der Waal, a Dutch anatomist. By doing very careful dissections of an elbow joint. He realized that ligaments are not joining bone to bone, as we learn in a textbook. Most anatomy textbooks show that ligaments join bone to bone tendons, join muscle to bone.

493
00:58:21.370 –> 00:58:23.340
bernieclark: but that is an artifact of

494
00:58:23.540 –> 00:58:25.139
bernieclark: the way you do a dissection.

495
00:58:25.850 –> 00:58:44.250
bernieclark: When you do a dissection, you either have to cut the ligament away to look at the tendon, or you have to cut the tendon away to look at the ligament, and he said, in doing that you’re destroying the relationships that are really there. When he took more time to actually dissect the joint, he discovered. The ligaments are in series with the muscles not in parallel.

496
00:58:44.900 –> 00:58:53.090
bernieclark: Now, if you have 2 things in series, and I demonstrated this with an experiment, I got a thick elastic band and a thin, elastic band.

497
00:58:53.300 –> 00:59:12.890
bernieclark: The thin, elastic band is stretchier. It’s more compliant. It’s easy to elongate the thick elastic band is stiffer. It’s harder to elongate. You. Tie them in series, and then you stretch them out, say 25 cm. The thin, elastic band, the more compliant one will stretch much more than the thick, stiff, elastic band.

498
00:59:13.300 –> 00:59:24.580
bernieclark: Now, if I take another elastic band, that’s a little bit stiffer than the easy one, and I tie those together, and I stretch them out 25 cm. Now the thick elastic band will move more.

499
00:59:25.460 –> 00:59:33.259
bernieclark: So think of this in your muscle and ligament or your muscle and tendon, they’re tied together in series. One becomes the others. If the muscle is

500
00:59:33.480 –> 00:59:39.850
bernieclark: so, if the tendon and the muscle is cold, more stretch is going to go into the tendon than if the muscle is warmed up.

501
00:59:40.520 –> 00:59:44.690
bernieclark: The muscles warmed up. It’s like a loose, elastic band. It’s going to take all the stretch.

502
00:59:45.370 –> 00:59:48.919
bernieclark: But if it’s cooler, more stretch will go to the ligament and the tendon.

503
00:59:49.110 –> 00:59:56.110
bernieclark: So if your intention is to target your tendons and ligaments do it when the muscles are relatively cooler.

504
00:59:57.280 –> 01:00:01.500
bernieclark: but the joint capsule and the muscle tendon is in parallel.

505
01:00:01.820 –> 01:00:12.460
bernieclark: So if I want to work at this, the tissues in parallel. I have to make sure these tissues are very loose, because if they’re stiff, I’m not going to get any tension into the lower parallel tissues.

506
01:00:12.630 –> 01:00:19.499
bernieclark: So if I want to target my joint capsules, I should do it when the muscles are very lax and warmed up.

507
01:00:20.350 –> 01:00:22.629
bernieclark: So it depends on where you want your.

508
01:00:22.850 –> 01:00:23.180
Nyk Danu Yoga: Right.

509
01:00:23.180 –> 01:00:23.690
bernieclark: Go.

510
01:00:24.000 –> 01:00:30.569
Nyk Danu Yoga: So if somebody was, for example, you know, quite stiff in their muscles. And actually they were doing yin, as a

511
01:00:30.800 –> 01:00:36.149
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, muscular practice with benefits, then that might change how you would approach it.

512
01:00:36.570 –> 01:00:38.040
bernieclark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

513
01:00:38.040 –> 01:00:39.970
bernieclark: It all depends on your intention.

514
01:00:40.170 –> 01:00:40.639
Nyk Danu Yoga: Makes all.

515
01:00:40.640 –> 01:00:43.540
bernieclark: So I would never say you should only do yin, yoga, when you’re cold.

516
01:00:44.400 –> 01:00:48.660
bernieclark: or you should not do you and yoga, when you’re warm instead of what’s your intention?

517
01:00:48.820 –> 01:00:50.960
Nyk Danu Yoga: At the end of the day we’re warmed up.

518
01:00:51.240 –> 01:00:56.299
bernieclark: But I often, when I was teaching at Sembra viva, I often taught Yin Yoga classes in the evening.

519
01:00:56.750 –> 01:01:07.800
bernieclark: It wasn’t physiologically the best thing for people’s tendons and ligaments, but they didn’t care about it. They had a busy day. They wanted to relax, chill out before sleep.

520
01:01:07.800 –> 01:01:08.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Nervous system.

521
01:01:08.470 –> 01:01:15.310
bernieclark: Physiological benefits. Yeah, it was the psycho emotional benefits they were after. So who cared whether they’re warm or cold?

522
01:01:16.160 –> 01:01:17.407
Nyk Danu Yoga: I almost feel like

523
01:01:18.840 –> 01:01:24.718
Nyk Danu Yoga: Maybe some some of somebody in the Yin community needs to make t-shirts that say, it depends.

524
01:01:26.320 –> 01:01:27.120
Nyk Danu Yoga: yeah. So

525
01:01:27.120 –> 01:01:33.280
Nyk Danu Yoga: somebody made me a T-shirt like that after a course. They oh, really, it said, Yes, no, maybe it depends. Yes.

526
01:01:33.280 –> 01:01:38.361
Nyk Danu Yoga: yes, we should. We should start. We should start a line of of Yin T-shirts.

527
01:01:38.830 –> 01:01:44.699
Nyk Danu Yoga: So I just wanted to really highlight what you just said. Because

528
01:01:45.270 –> 01:01:57.970
Nyk Danu Yoga: and I and you know, people can go back and listen again and again. And this is one of the reasons that I really wanted to just kind of bring to you some of the common questions that I I know I see in here that people are like.

529
01:01:58.080 –> 01:02:01.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: you’re kind of missing the point or oversimplifying.

530
01:02:01.780 –> 01:02:03.179
bernieclark: Rather than making it binary.

531
01:02:03.180 –> 01:02:12.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, there’s there’s no which is such a human thing to do. Right? Like you said, with the whole, even look at our political system. Look at. I mean, everything is just like this or that, and

532
01:02:12.920 –> 01:02:16.280
Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t know about you. But the more I age.

533
01:02:16.400 –> 01:02:30.509
Nyk Danu Yoga: the more I realized that actually, the Buddha had it kind of right with the whole Middle Way thing. You know that like, actually, there’s a lot of gray. There’s not a lot of black and white. There’s very few things

534
01:02:30.670 –> 01:02:36.400
Nyk Danu Yoga: now that I’m you know, in my fifties that, I would say are Yes, no.

535
01:02:36.971 –> 01:02:41.189
Nyk Danu Yoga: without without asking more questions 1st and sitting with it, you know.

536
01:02:42.550 –> 01:02:46.070
Nyk Danu Yoga: So yeah, my, my thought was, it’s like, well, how could you even define

537
01:02:46.170 –> 01:03:14.170
Nyk Danu Yoga: cold muscles? That depends where you live? What you’ve done beforehand, I know in my body who still, which still for the most part other than maybe my hips, deals with a lot of okay, maybe not, maybe hips and some spine muscular tension in a lot of areas like, I’m just built that way. And before I became a yogi I was a competitive bodybuilder, so I spent a lot of time tightening myself up, and so for me, I like to do like I would never

538
01:03:14.410 –> 01:03:15.640
Nyk Danu Yoga: willingly

539
01:03:15.870 –> 01:03:21.800
Nyk Danu Yoga: roll out of bed, and go right to my in practice on my mat, without having, like a warm shower or a warm bath. First.st

540
01:03:21.800 –> 01:03:22.290
bernieclark: Yeah.

541
01:03:22.290 –> 01:03:36.169
Nyk Danu Yoga: So I don’t like need to, you know. Do an active practice first.st But I do feel like just that gentle warming just kind of gets enough of the also age enough of the creeks out that I’m like, okay, this is my familiar body. Now let’s practice. You know.

542
01:03:36.880 –> 01:03:42.040
bernieclark: I remember Paul Grilly commenting on this question of, Is there such a thing as Hot Ian.

543
01:03:42.250 –> 01:03:42.850
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

544
01:03:42.850 –> 01:03:43.935
Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s why I wanted to go.

545
01:03:44.370 –> 01:03:54.049
bernieclark: Yeah, there are some people who are naturally stiffer than other people, and unless they’re warmed up in a hot room, they can’t even get into the pose.

546
01:03:54.050 –> 01:03:54.590
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

547
01:03:54.590 –> 01:03:55.639
bernieclark: Like you think of

548
01:03:55.820 –> 01:04:14.999
bernieclark: caterpillar tashimotanasana. Some people can only do the pose. They’re trying to come forward so gravity can draw them down, but they’re so tight in the hamstrings. They’re fighting gravity just to stay upright, so they have to engage all the muscles. But you let them warm up, and their hamstrings release a bit. Now they can finally get into the shape and relax.

549
01:04:15.240 –> 01:04:26.939
bernieclark: So for them, the only time they can actually do the practice is when they’re warmed up. And you’re gonna say to these guys, no, that’s wrong. You shouldn’t do that, but I enjoy it. I’m getting benefit from it. No, no, that’s wrong. You can’t do it that way.

550
01:04:27.970 –> 01:04:34.997
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And I think that you know it is controversial. There’s so many people out there that are that. Say, you know that that

551
01:04:35.400 –> 01:04:42.109
Nyk Danu Yoga: Just the thought of of hot yin is like impossible because yin is cool, and you’re now you’re heating the body.

552
01:04:42.110 –> 01:04:43.710
bernieclark: Relative to what.

553
01:04:43.710 –> 01:04:44.250
Nyk Danu Yoga: Exactly.

554
01:04:44.250 –> 01:04:45.880
bernieclark: In compared to boiling water.

555
01:04:45.880 –> 01:04:52.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: Exactly, I mean, you know. And then there’s there are people that have perhaps legitimate concerns that sometimes

556
01:04:53.020 –> 01:05:16.039
Nyk Danu Yoga: when you’re really hot, you can go too far in a pose muscularly. You can kind of pull a muscle, but I can tell you from experience that that can happen in a Vinyasa workshop weekend workshop, too. So you know, I’ve you know, I did a workshop with an overzealous adjuster once in a Vinyasa workshop and ended up pulling my hamstring, and that was just my own body’s warmth. So

557
01:05:16.870 –> 01:05:23.819
bernieclark: If somebody has that concern, it’s legitimate, then don’t do hot, you know. Yoga, but don’t let everyone say nobody else should ever do it.

558
01:05:23.820 –> 01:05:44.370
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, and I I would say, as a teacher from from my experience there’s kind of 2 styles of yoga that tend to attract sort of a type, competitive, athletic folks, Ashtanga and hot. And so you may have to guide with your words a bit more to like

559
01:05:44.550 –> 01:05:50.090
Nyk Danu Yoga: we’re actually not trying to do the fullest version we can. We’re actually trying to be. You may just have to encourage

560
01:05:50.220 –> 01:06:04.110
Nyk Danu Yoga: those students to back away a little bit so that they don’t think that this is circus olay, that they’re competing for and that can help prevent injury. I always do it with jokes, because that’s just my the way my brain works. But

561
01:06:04.290 –> 01:06:18.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know I have personally and not, I’ve personally done what I would consider not taught, but attended a class back when I was in Calgary. That wasn’t really a hot in meaning. The room wasn’t heated while you were in the room.

562
01:06:19.300 –> 01:06:27.929
Nyk Danu Yoga: but it was a hot class right before, and so, even when you turn the heat off, it was a hot room, and you know, would it have been my preference?

563
01:06:28.190 –> 01:06:39.342
Nyk Danu Yoga: No, but you know I really liked that teacher, and the time slot worked well for me, and you know I’m obviously a big in fan and so I I did it.

564
01:06:40.320 –> 01:06:49.579
Nyk Danu Yoga: but yeah, I I really just wanted to address that whole heat. And can’t you do hot yet? And then the other thing I’d like to say on that from a teacher’s perspective is.

565
01:06:50.120 –> 01:06:53.960
Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t teach hot yoga. I don’t enjoy hot yoga.

566
01:06:54.080 –> 01:06:56.290
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think that there are some.

567
01:06:57.560 –> 01:07:00.789
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think that there has been a bit of a unfortunately, a

568
01:07:01.110 –> 01:07:04.170
Nyk Danu Yoga: trying to think of an accurate word, a

569
01:07:08.970 –> 01:07:13.060
Nyk Danu Yoga: maybe a downgrading of the intention of Yoga

570
01:07:13.300 –> 01:07:30.229
Nyk Danu Yoga: as hot. Yoga has become so popular because there are so many people that especially younger generations that were attracted to it because they were looking to get a workout, and to detox that sometimes the the myriad of other benefits other than the physical of Yoga get lost in that.

571
01:07:30.230 –> 01:07:30.880
bernieclark: Right.

572
01:07:30.880 –> 01:07:35.198
Nyk Danu Yoga: And at the same time, because there’s always an and

573
01:07:36.040 –> 01:07:39.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: if people come to that practice.

574
01:07:39.450 –> 01:07:59.539
Nyk Danu Yoga: and that allows them to come to their mat and to build a consistent practice, and it helps their body, and it helps their nervous system. And it helps their mind. And maybe just maybe it, stokes that little yoga fire in them, that then they do go on and try other styles, and maybe try to meditate and do other things that that if you were to remove that

575
01:08:00.240 –> 01:08:04.850
Nyk Danu Yoga: from the like, if we just imagine the Yoga scape, and we just suddenly took away hot Yoga.

576
01:08:05.290 –> 01:08:26.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: that how fewer people we would have that would later eventually be going into these deeper practices because they didn’t have that sort of, you know, accessible, meet them where they’re at mentally, emotionally version of Yoga that made them feel like, oh, I could do Yoga, because I’m going to go sweat and detox and get my workout.

577
01:08:27.010 –> 01:08:27.520
bernieclark: Yeah.

578
01:08:27.529 –> 01:08:31.689
Nyk Danu Yoga: And that can evolve into something that that becomes much deeper over time.

579
01:08:32.689 –> 01:08:40.739
bernieclark: Yeah, like you, I don’t really care what brings somebody to the mat. All I care is that they come to the mat, and eventually the evolution will take them where they

580
01:08:40.739 –> 01:09:05.169
bernieclark: hopefully really need to or want to go. I, personally don’t like hot yoga. I’m pit already, and it just makes me throw up and pass out. I don’t like Kundalini Yoga, because it’s a bit too vigorous, but that doesn’t mean other people don’t get benefits from it, and I’d never deny that to them. So that’s human variation. We have all these different paths and lots of different paths to the ocean. It doesn’t really matter how you get there

581
01:09:05.169 –> 01:09:07.039
bernieclark: as long as you’re on that journey.

582
01:09:07.179 –> 01:09:10.229
bernieclark: But there are some paths that are higher risk.

583
01:09:10.369 –> 01:09:16.709
bernieclark: There’s a reason why insurance rates for hot Yoga studios are quite a bit higher than for non hot yoga studios.

584
01:09:16.710 –> 01:09:17.210
Nyk Danu Yoga: And how you.

585
01:09:17.210 –> 01:09:18.160
bernieclark: Is riskier.

586
01:09:18.160 –> 01:09:22.289
Nyk Danu Yoga: As well. Yeah, yeah, there is risk there for sure.

587
01:09:24.660 –> 01:09:27.039
Nyk Danu Yoga: And it might be exactly what someone needs.

588
01:09:27.359 –> 01:09:28.009
bernieclark: Yep.

589
01:09:28.010 –> 01:09:31.330
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I I mean a lot of the students that come to my training.

590
01:09:31.640 –> 01:09:46.000
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, to take their in training, whether I’m their 1st training, or their second, or their 3, rd or their 10th in training. Because I get a lot of that, I’m sure you do. To people that have taken shorter trainings elsewhere. And then they, you know, because I I and I actually really love that because I think that each

591
01:09:46.470 –> 01:09:50.229
Nyk Danu Yoga: each Yin teacher trainer has their zone of genius

592
01:09:50.520 –> 01:10:02.539
Nyk Danu Yoga: that they’re gonna just like dive deep into into their training. And then the person next to them might have a totally different zone of genius. And so, if you love, you’re madly in love with Yin, why wouldn’t you want to take?

593
01:10:02.770 –> 01:10:10.440
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know it’s just like other forms of yoga. You don’t just take your 200 h and then go. Oh, I’m good for the rest of my life. I’m never gonna take any more training, right? You.

594
01:10:10.440 –> 01:10:10.920
bernieclark: Right.

595
01:10:10.920 –> 01:10:32.010
Nyk Danu Yoga: You want to, you know, and I feel like Ian is the same way like I know. For example, in your training you go over things in depth that I don’t even touch on, because that’s your zone of genius, you know, whereas I probably go into things in depth that you don’t touch on, because it’s my particular zone of genius. So it’s the same thing with styles of yoga. If hot yoga is what gets them to the mat.

596
01:10:32.490 –> 01:10:35.189
Nyk Danu Yoga: and they don’t injure themselves hopefully.

597
01:10:35.370 –> 01:10:39.999
Nyk Danu Yoga: and that sparks a love of yoga. Then I say, that’s a win.

598
01:10:40.310 –> 01:10:42.570
bernieclark: Yeah, exactly. Same.

599
01:10:45.910 –> 01:10:53.009
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh, the other thing I wanted to mention, because there’s been whole podcasts on this insert eye roll for those of you who cannot see me right now

600
01:10:53.200 –> 01:11:00.189
Nyk Danu Yoga: who have been rattling on and on and on about the performance deficit from static stretching.

601
01:11:00.920 –> 01:11:03.559
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I know you’ve talked about this in depth.

602
01:11:04.560 –> 01:11:12.345
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I think you might even have a Pdf. And if you do, I’ll put it in the show notes. I know you’ve got another. Pdf, that I use often. I’ll put that one in the show notes as well.

603
01:11:14.410 –> 01:11:17.590
Nyk Danu Yoga: But it is temporary. Yes, this performance.

604
01:11:17.590 –> 01:11:18.740
bernieclark: There’s there’s

605
01:11:19.370 –> 01:11:28.169
bernieclark: there’s been a cycle of views over the last 40 years of whether you should warm up and stretch before doing sports.

606
01:11:28.750 –> 01:11:46.029
bernieclark: and I won’t go through the whole cycles of the years. Yes, I have written about this, but I think the current understanding right now is the effect of stretching and warming up before an athletic performance is minor. It’s on the order of one to 4%.

607
01:11:46.210 –> 01:11:51.249
bernieclark: Now, if you’re an Olympic athlete, 4% slower in a hundred meter. Dash.

608
01:11:51.250 –> 01:11:51.650
Nyk Danu Yoga: A lot of.

609
01:11:51.650 –> 01:12:09.719
bernieclark: That you don’t qualify for the final heat. It’s the difference between gold and nobody knows your name, but for a weekend warrior that 4%, you won’t notice it. It’s not going to be reflecting your personal best, or if you’re a tennis player or a hockey player, just a weekend player. You’re not going to notice it

610
01:12:10.250 –> 01:12:14.510
bernieclark: definitely warming up and stretching a little bit will reduce injuries.

611
01:12:14.750 –> 01:12:17.269
bernieclark: and especially if you do it after the practice.

612
01:12:17.410 –> 01:12:22.739
bernieclark: after you’ve done your sports, do some stretching to help reduce the chance of injuries.

613
01:12:23.270 –> 01:12:33.749
bernieclark: If you’re a hockey player, we’re in Canada, we can talk about hockey, and you’re a goaltender, and you’ve got to do the splits in order to stop the Puck. You want to warm up and stretch before you get onto the ice.

614
01:12:33.930 –> 01:12:38.060
bernieclark: But having stretched out those things, remember, we talked about springs.

615
01:12:38.380 –> 01:12:49.599
bernieclark: If you have a looser, more compliant spring, it’s not going to react as quickly as a stiff spring. So the more you warm up your springs, the slower your reactions are going to be.

616
01:12:50.050 –> 01:13:07.979
bernieclark: and that may result in a quite slower performance. Now you don’t want to do 2 h of yin yoga before going onto the ice and being a goalie, because you’ll be so mellow, you’ll think. Oh, here comes the Puck. Here comes another Puck. No, you still need some snappiness into your springs, but you need to be able to do the full splits.

617
01:13:08.540 –> 01:13:11.379
bernieclark: so everyone’s got to figure out what works best for them.

618
01:13:11.680 –> 01:13:26.129
bernieclark: But in general, this whole, should I warm up, should I stretch definitely warm up? Everyone agrees you should warm up before doing any sort of thing, but that’s only 5 or 10 min. Just get the blood flowing to the muscles, so they’re ready to take the instantaneous stresses.

619
01:13:26.560 –> 01:13:32.110
bernieclark: Should you stretch well, if you overstretch, you’re going to lose one to 4% of your performance

620
01:13:32.930 –> 01:13:42.100
bernieclark: for me. That’s trivial. So I don’t mind stretching and warming up for 1015 min before I play pickleball or golf, because it’s not really going to have a big effect.

621
01:13:42.250 –> 01:13:47.440
bernieclark: But if you’re an elite athlete. Okay, warm up, but don’t stretch. Save the stretching, for afterwards.

622
01:13:47.690 –> 01:13:53.870
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. And you know that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t on your off day. Your non training day, you know.

623
01:13:54.080 –> 01:13:54.500
bernieclark: As an app.

624
01:13:54.500 –> 01:13:59.919
Nyk Danu Yoga: Go to a Yin class and then tomorrow go back to your your training routine, right? Like I think.

625
01:13:59.920 –> 01:14:00.580
bernieclark: Yeah, cause that’s.

626
01:14:00.580 –> 01:14:01.090
Nyk Danu Yoga: Somewhere.

627
01:14:01.090 –> 01:14:01.540
bernieclark: Build, this.

628
01:14:01.540 –> 01:14:01.860
Nyk Danu Yoga: This was.

629
01:14:01.860 –> 01:14:02.250
bernieclark: Bring them.

630
01:14:02.250 –> 01:14:12.839
Nyk Danu Yoga: Lasting permanent, you know thing and it will have come out before your episode. I did interview to Tiffany Cruikshank, who works.

631
01:14:12.840 –> 01:14:13.209
bernieclark: Oh no!

632
01:14:13.210 –> 01:14:17.629
Nyk Danu Yoga: With a lot of athletes, and so we talk it a little bit more in depth about this

633
01:14:18.105 –> 01:14:24.730
Nyk Danu Yoga: and she’s got, you know, great perspectives on on that, too. So if people are interested, they could go back and listen to that, too.

634
01:14:26.530 –> 01:14:37.109
Nyk Danu Yoga: but yeah, the thing I guess I wanted to. Highlight is that when you hear people say that if you do static stretching before your workout, or whatever that you’ll be weaker

635
01:14:37.210 –> 01:14:48.420
Nyk Danu Yoga: again, they’re oversimplifying and overstating, and that the weakness is temporary. It’s not like tomorrow. Oh, now I can’t go do my weights because I did a yin yoga class yesterday.

636
01:14:49.170 –> 01:14:51.960
bernieclark: Well. The whole point of exercise is to weaken the tissues.

637
01:14:52.560 –> 01:14:59.640
bernieclark: And then the tissues adapt and become stronger, so to say, I don’t want to be weak before I do my weightlifting. Well, after your weightlifting. You’re really weak.

638
01:14:59.640 –> 01:15:00.050
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

639
01:15:00.050 –> 01:15:04.079
bernieclark: You just stretched, stressed those tissues a lot. Yeah.

640
01:15:04.080 –> 01:15:04.430
Nyk Danu Yoga: You want.

641
01:15:04.430 –> 01:15:13.399
bernieclark: Don’t be afraid of being temporarily weak, because through sa id specific adaptation to impose demand. That’s how the body gets healthier and stronger.

642
01:15:13.400 –> 01:15:18.230
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, you’re sending the body the signal you need to pay attention here. Yeah.

643
01:15:19.423 –> 01:15:40.380
Nyk Danu Yoga: This one was fascinating, and I I’ll get y’all to eat. Explain it. But I also just want to mention that there will be. Bernie was kind enough to send me a video explaining this, so I will link that in the show notes like little Youtube, video as well. But we’ll get Bernie to chat on it as well. I have never heard before

644
01:15:40.660 –> 01:15:47.560
Nyk Danu Yoga: until I read your book. Remove wristwatches and anything that is metallic that makes a complete circle around the body.

645
01:15:48.828 –> 01:15:50.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: Does that include rings.

646
01:15:51.170 –> 01:15:51.890
bernieclark: Yes.

647
01:15:52.080 –> 01:15:53.340
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay, so.

648
01:15:53.500 –> 01:15:59.909
bernieclark: Necklaces, rings, anything that makes a circle. If it’s a cutout, and it’s not a complete circle, don’t worry about it.

649
01:16:00.060 –> 01:16:03.419
bernieclark: but if it’s a complete round piece of metal.

650
01:16:04.110 –> 01:16:07.430
bernieclark: It may affect the flow of energy in the body.

651
01:16:07.600 –> 01:16:19.060
bernieclark: Now that’s the speculation I have. I 1st heard this from Saul David Ray, my Thai Yoga massage teacher, who said that we should be careful of metal rings.

652
01:16:19.060 –> 01:16:38.429
bernieclark: The Taoist say, now, I don’t know where he got it from, and I haven’t heard any Taoists saying this. It’s just something that he told me. But later, when I met Paul Grilly and Paul told me about Dr. Morayama, as in his experiments with the flow of electricity through the water filled areas of the body. Then it all kind of clicked into place.

653
01:16:38.690 –> 01:16:40.510
bernieclark: So let me back up a bit

654
01:16:41.130 –> 01:16:47.349
bernieclark: again. Coming from the physics point of view. In the early 18 hundreds there was a guy in England called Michael Faraday.

655
01:16:47.570 –> 01:16:57.599
bernieclark: and he was playing with electricity and magnetism, and he discovered, if I have a wire and I move a magnet along that wire, it induces an electric current.

656
01:16:57.800 –> 01:16:58.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm.

657
01:16:58.630 –> 01:17:07.880
bernieclark: And, conversely, a guy named Lentz, LENZ. Who’s from Estonia. He was verifying a lot of Faraday’s early experiments, and he noticed that

658
01:17:08.210 –> 01:17:16.890
bernieclark: when I move a magnetic object through a metal cylinder it creates an electric current.

659
01:17:17.010 –> 01:17:20.650
bernieclark: but the electric current also creates a magnetic field.

660
01:17:20.890 –> 01:17:26.359
bernieclark: Electricity and magnetism are just 2 sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other.

661
01:17:26.580 –> 01:17:32.810
bernieclark: so electricity can create magnetism. Magnetism can create electricity when we’re dealing with metal circles.

662
01:17:33.320 –> 01:17:42.590
bernieclark: So the video that I sent you demonstrates Lenz’s law. It’s in the 18 hundreds all these people discovering these things. So they got the law named after them.

663
01:17:43.220 –> 01:17:51.740
bernieclark: When you put a current through a circle, you create a magnetic field, and that will resist the flow of the current.

664
01:17:52.070 –> 01:17:52.700
Nyk Danu Yoga: Interesting.

665
01:17:52.700 –> 01:17:57.969
bernieclark: Now Murayama is saying that through our body we actually create little conduits of electricity.

666
01:17:58.400 –> 01:18:10.489
bernieclark: He thinks that’s 1 of the forms of Qi. And when we move and when we’re doing our Yoga practice, Qigong, Tai, Chi Yin Yang practices, we’re creating little electric currents through the body.

667
01:18:10.630 –> 01:18:19.600
bernieclark: Now, if we happen to have a metal circle around that area. It’s creating what’s called a back Emf, a back resistance to that flow of electricity.

668
01:18:19.840 –> 01:18:20.430
Nyk Danu Yoga: Oh!

669
01:18:20.430 –> 01:18:24.140
bernieclark: So Lenz’s law is well defined. We know that. But

670
01:18:24.250 –> 01:18:29.180
bernieclark: we’re not. Not. Everyone agrees that these activities create electric currents.

671
01:18:29.420 –> 01:18:57.979
bernieclark: But we think that’s how acupuncture works the work of Helene Longevan and her crew from the 2,000 to 2012 or so she mapped out where these water filled spaces are, and she discovered they were not in the muscle and tendon, but in the fascia around them, and in the kind of interfaces between the fascial areas. So she mapped them out for the arms, and they lined up pretty closely to what Dr. Moriamo was finding.

672
01:18:58.170 –> 01:19:06.160
bernieclark: So if we understand that Chi, one form of Chi is electrical, and if it flows through the fascia of the body.

673
01:19:06.490 –> 01:19:12.580
bernieclark: then if we put a metal circle around it through Lenz’s law, we can actually reduce that flow of energy.

674
01:19:12.960 –> 01:19:22.130
bernieclark: Well, that’s why I say speculate, but try it. Try your exercise with and without it, especially if you’re an energy healer, and you can sense energy very easily.

675
01:19:22.370 –> 01:19:25.299
bernieclark: Most people can’t sense energy. They’re not going to notice a difference.

676
01:19:25.570 –> 01:19:29.379
bernieclark: But metal rings, and the worst, according to

677
01:19:29.750 –> 01:19:32.510
bernieclark: Saul. David Ray is the belly button ring.

678
01:19:32.630 –> 01:19:35.729
Nyk Danu Yoga: He said. You’re short circuiting the gate of life.

679
01:19:35.730 –> 01:19:36.600
Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm!

680
01:19:36.600 –> 01:19:39.760
bernieclark: In the ear. It’s okay in the earlobe, but not in the cartilage of the ear.

681
01:19:40.020 –> 01:19:52.639
bernieclark: he said. If you’re ever going to get body piercings, and I would add, body piercings that include metal circles, not just pieces of metal. Make sure you have an acupuncturist do it because they’ll know kind of where to put it, and where not to put it.

682
01:19:52.800 –> 01:19:59.609
Nyk Danu Yoga: Except they won’t do it. And acupuncturist is gonna be like, wait a minute. You want me to pierce your ear. No, thank you. They’re gonna be like

683
01:19:59.610 –> 01:20:00.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: we do it.

684
01:20:00.020 –> 01:20:06.320
Nyk Danu Yoga: I do that. Yeah, interesting. That’s so fascinating. I mean, I don’t. I don’t wear.

685
01:20:06.450 –> 01:20:14.790
Nyk Danu Yoga: I mean, I sometimes wear necklaces, but I take them off to practice anyway, just because they’re in the way, right? It’s very interesting. And I was gonna say, and even in my ears.

686
01:20:15.070 –> 01:20:23.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: I tend to most of the time wear semi-precious stones. I do have one through the cartilage that is metal, but it’s not a ring, it’s a

687
01:20:23.920 –> 01:20:24.710
Nyk Danu Yoga: it’s a poll.

688
01:20:24.710 –> 01:20:27.159
bernieclark: Just a piece of metal with a stud.

689
01:20:27.160 –> 01:20:27.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

690
01:20:27.510 –> 01:20:46.580
bernieclark: That’s not creating a circuit. It has to be complete closed loop. So that video I shared with you. You can visually see it. They drop a pencil down a tube, a metal tube, and the pencil just falls at the speed of gravity. Then they put a magnet in it. They drop it here and you’re waiting. You’re waiting. You’re waiting. And eventually the magnet falls out.

691
01:20:46.780 –> 01:20:55.909
bernieclark: because, as the magnet moves, it creates electric current in the cylinder and the electric current creates an opposite magnetic field that slows down the magnet.

692
01:20:56.150 –> 01:21:04.360
bernieclark: Well, the same thing would be happening. The Chi that’s flowing through our body. If we have a metal ring around it, it is getting slowed down or retarded.

693
01:21:04.510 –> 01:21:05.039
bernieclark: Do not.

694
01:21:05.040 –> 01:21:06.700
Nyk Danu Yoga: That is so, Trippy.

695
01:21:07.060 –> 01:21:15.609
bernieclark: So that’s my speculation. I’ve got no proof that actually happens to the body. I’m just saying, Lenz law says this, and if we do have electrical.

696
01:21:15.610 –> 01:21:17.378
Nyk Danu Yoga: B could equal C.

697
01:21:17.820 –> 01:21:18.400
bernieclark: Exactly.

698
01:21:18.400 –> 01:21:25.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: Interesting. And again, those of you that are want to check out the video. I will link it in the show notes of the episode so that you can check that out.

699
01:21:29.460 –> 01:21:34.920
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then there is. There is a couple of here that are not questions. They’re just thank yous.

700
01:21:35.140 –> 01:21:36.240
bernieclark: So yes.

701
01:21:36.510 –> 01:21:42.990
Nyk Danu Yoga: Page 201. Your section on bulging discs as somebody who’s a yoga therapist and has helped people with back pain for

702
01:21:43.350 –> 01:21:50.670
Nyk Danu Yoga: 1718 years. Thank you. That’s all I have to say about that. Thank you. Because in Yoga people are obsessed

703
01:21:50.790 –> 01:21:52.920
Nyk Danu Yoga: with seated forward folds.

704
01:21:52.920 –> 01:21:53.580
bernieclark: Yeah.

705
01:21:53.580 –> 01:21:56.889
Nyk Danu Yoga: And for some people that is the worst thing you can do.

706
01:21:58.000 –> 01:22:05.780
Nyk Danu Yoga: I like to just say, just flip them on their back and do the same pose, you know. Put them against a wall, give them a strap, you know something that’s a little bit more

707
01:22:05.910 –> 01:22:10.359
Nyk Danu Yoga: bulging disc friendly. So I just wanted to really thank you for that, because

708
01:22:12.350 –> 01:22:16.569
Nyk Danu Yoga: I feel I feel like that is something that most Yoga teachers

709
01:22:16.880 –> 01:22:20.890
Nyk Danu Yoga: don’t have a lot of information on back health and.

710
01:22:20.890 –> 01:22:21.270
bernieclark: You know.

711
01:22:21.270 –> 01:22:28.409
Nyk Danu Yoga: 80 to 85 depending on the statistic. You’ve just listened to. A percent of people will have back issues at some point in their life, and for many

712
01:22:28.730 –> 01:22:40.380
Nyk Danu Yoga: persistent or chronic. So it’s something that I think more Yoga teachers, even if they don’t want to specialize in it, should at least have an awareness of, because odds are. You’ve got people in your class with back issues.

713
01:22:40.900 –> 01:22:45.519
Nyk Danu Yoga: and many of those are disk like bulging discs are not at all rare.

714
01:22:45.690 –> 01:22:51.090
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know, to have someone in your class that either is currently struggling with it, or has in the past.

715
01:22:52.380 –> 01:22:55.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: So for those of you that want to read that that’s on page 201.

716
01:22:56.390 –> 01:23:09.710
Nyk Danu Yoga: That was a thank you. And then the other. Thank you. Was I really noticed it in your latest edition was, Thank you for adding, some upper body poses pictures in, you know. Yeah. And and because you know and I, I’ll have done

717
01:23:09.840 –> 01:23:28.209
Nyk Danu Yoga: before this episode comes out. I’ll have done a whole episode on kind of my journey with upper body in, and how you know the I love the practice, but it always felt incomplete for me as somebody who’s really like, very tight and restricted in the upper body from my years of being a hairdresser and a bodybuilder.

718
01:23:28.690 –> 01:23:47.300
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I just instinctively, when I would, I would go study with Paul, and then I would come home, and I would take some of the things I did in my other yoga, whether it’s, you know, arm stretching, shoulder, stretching, or like laying on blocks, or putting a bolster here, and I would just instinctively start doing them in a yin way, and noticed huge benefits from

719
01:23:47.420 –> 01:23:53.250
Nyk Danu Yoga: from doing that. So I love that you added more of those upper body things.

720
01:23:54.230 –> 01:23:55.330
bernieclark: You’re welcome.

721
01:23:55.780 –> 01:24:01.710
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. So because I know people will say, Well, there isn’t any, you know, upper body stuff in the Yoga books. I’m like.

722
01:24:02.160 –> 01:24:17.499
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes, there is. Go look at Bernie’s book, and then, of course, I think most teacher trainings that that when the teacher itself, like myself or you that guides upper body stuff. Obviously, you’re going to learn that in a teacher training, you’re going to learn more upper body stuff. Yeah.

723
01:24:21.330 –> 01:24:27.790
Nyk Danu Yoga: And then I’m wondering. So I hear I’ve heard this from you, and I’ve I’ve heard it from

724
01:24:30.510 –> 01:24:37.609
Nyk Danu Yoga: linked to Sarah as well these next 2 points, actually. And of course, whenever I talk to Sarah I will ask her her own opinion about these things.

725
01:24:38.490 –> 01:24:42.750
Nyk Danu Yoga: But sometimes again with the telephone game.

726
01:24:44.140 –> 01:24:52.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: and maybe this is a bit of a bone to pick with me because I did go study Chinese medicine for 3 years. I did not finish my program because I realized that I don’t.

727
01:24:53.100 –> 01:24:55.359
Nyk Danu Yoga: I don’t actually want to put needles in people.

728
01:24:55.360 –> 01:24:56.010
bernieclark: All right.

729
01:24:56.323 –> 01:25:04.800
Nyk Danu Yoga: So I’m going to be diving into. I was right about to when Covid started, so we had to hold that for a while. Medical Qigong study.

730
01:25:05.500 –> 01:25:07.879
Nyk Danu Yoga: Because I absolutely love Chinese medicine. I’m a

731
01:25:08.130 –> 01:25:11.499
Nyk Danu Yoga: big nerd with it, but just the needling part left me going.

732
01:25:13.260 –> 01:25:19.719
Nyk Danu Yoga: But you know there’s this statement that is made often that Yin Yoga

733
01:25:20.130 –> 01:25:23.860
Nyk Danu Yoga: accesses the meridians the same as acupuncture.

734
01:25:24.880 –> 01:25:27.609
Nyk Danu Yoga: and that drives me crazy. I’ll just.

735
01:25:27.610 –> 01:25:28.190
bernieclark: Say.

736
01:25:29.106 –> 01:25:35.500
Nyk Danu Yoga: Excuse me not that not that yin yoga doesn’t have an effect on the meridians. Of course it does

737
01:25:36.900 –> 01:25:42.479
Nyk Danu Yoga: but saying that it’s like same same to acupuncture is where I think

738
01:25:43.180 –> 01:25:49.819
Nyk Danu Yoga: things can get off course, or that it’s the same as acupressure.

739
01:25:50.356 –> 01:26:19.129
Nyk Danu Yoga: Because when we’re doing our yin practice. I think we’re accessing. We’re accessing the meridians, but I actually would think more accurately like the sinew channels are affected. And it but in a more gross way, like in a more kind of larger scale way, whereas in acupressure, acupuncture it’s very specific kind of point by point, and there’s so much diagnosis that goes into like which point you do for what? And so I just wanted to. Sorry. Apparently I have a frog in my throat.

740
01:26:19.130 –> 01:26:19.760
bernieclark: Yeah.

741
01:26:20.340 –> 01:26:26.989
Nyk Danu Yoga: I just wanted to give you the opportunity to just talk a little bit about your thoughts on you know

742
01:26:27.590 –> 01:26:28.620
Nyk Danu Yoga: how

743
01:26:29.310 –> 01:26:36.390
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know we’re working with the meridians, Indian, and how that may or may not be by your view, different than acupuncture.

744
01:26:38.400 –> 01:26:44.769
bernieclark: When I 1st took a class with Sarah, she mentioned there was 4 ways to stimulate energy.

745
01:26:45.660 –> 01:26:49.250
bernieclark: she said, the 1st way we don’t do acupressure acupuncture.

746
01:26:49.700 –> 01:26:51.859
bernieclark: We’re not licensed to stick needles in people.

747
01:26:52.900 –> 01:26:58.619
bernieclark: The second way is active pressure, then directed awareness, and then breath work.

748
01:26:59.530 –> 01:27:08.279
bernieclark: So she was the one that 1st brought to my awareness that our Yoga practice could stimulate the flow of Chi through the classical organ meridians.

749
01:27:09.190 –> 01:27:27.790
bernieclark: Now I’ve never really doved deep into traditional Chinese medicine. I’ve done some superficial reading. I’ve read 3 or 4 books. I’ve listened to Sarah. I’ve read most of Dr. Moriyama’s books that are in English, so I have made an attempt to go into that. I’ve also looked at studies by. I mentioned Helene Langivan and some other people.

750
01:27:28.140 –> 01:27:31.919
bernieclark: so I can kind of understand where they’re coming from.

751
01:27:32.990 –> 01:27:42.390
bernieclark: But in the second edition to the Complete Guardian, Yoga, where I talk about how these poses may affect the meridian minds. I use that word May.

752
01:27:42.520 –> 01:27:49.320
bernieclark: whereas in the 1st edition I was a little bit more dogmatic about it. This will stimulate Chi flow through this meridian line.

753
01:27:49.420 –> 01:28:02.020
bernieclark: I’m not. I can’t really say it will, as I learn more. As you said once you write a book, it’s it’s fixed, and I wish I could go back and kind of soften some of that up. So in the second edition I had the chance to do that.

754
01:28:02.250 –> 01:28:11.790
bernieclark: But let’s let’s kind of dial back a bit. And again, from a physics point of view, look at what happens to the body in acupuncture. And then during our poses.

755
01:28:12.980 –> 01:28:16.250
bernieclark: we have 2 theories as to how acupuncture may work.

756
01:28:16.450 –> 01:28:35.250
bernieclark: I don’t think there’s any debate anymore that does acupuncture work definitely acupuncture works. It has an effect in the body that’s been observed in many experiments and repeated. It doesn’t necessarily do everything that was claimed over the last 3,000 years. It won’t reverse the vasectomy and all these sorts of things.

757
01:28:35.250 –> 01:28:38.687
Nyk Danu Yoga: Neither does Yoga to all the things they’ve claimed. Yes.

758
01:28:39.000 –> 01:28:42.689
bernieclark: Yeah, right? There’s there was no truth in advertising back in those days.

759
01:28:43.590 –> 01:28:48.389
bernieclark: but it does definitely affect the body. So the question now is, how, how does it affect the body?

760
01:28:48.700 –> 01:28:52.780
bernieclark: Well, the 2 main theories we have is one is

761
01:28:53.050 –> 01:29:06.830
bernieclark: again from Helene Longevan’s point of view. When you put the needle into the tissue. You don’t just put it in there and leave it. You have to wiggle it, you twist it, you pull on it. The practitioner wants to feel the key that tugging on the needle.

762
01:29:06.830 –> 01:29:07.330
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yep.

763
01:29:07.330 –> 01:29:28.729
bernieclark: So what her observations are shown is with ultrasound and other things. We actually look at the de key when you turn the needle, the collagen fibers inside the superficial fascia become wrapped around the end of the needles. So as you’re turning it, you’re putting a mechanical stress into the tissues now living within. Those

764
01:29:29.170 –> 01:29:39.069
bernieclark: kind of scaffolds of collagen fibers are cells called fibroblasts, and they’re the ones that produce the fibers. They are like a spider sitting in the middle of the web.

765
01:29:39.390 –> 01:29:49.309
bernieclark: And imagine if you’ve got a spider on the web and you elongate the web. The spider is listening to that stresses. They know what a fly caught in the web feels like.

766
01:29:49.470 –> 01:29:58.480
bernieclark: and they also know if you’re just touching it. That’s a false alarm. But the fly okay, that’s a signal. I’m going to go and do something well, the same way. Our fibroblasts are

767
01:29:59.470 –> 01:30:13.979
bernieclark: listening to the tension in the collagen scaffold, and when you put a certain tension into that after a while, and according to Helene’s research, it takes about 20 min. The cell will react.

768
01:30:14.760 –> 01:30:28.220
bernieclark: When I stretch the web. I’m actually stretching the fibroblast. The cell itself is becoming elongated, and after 20 min of that it starts to release certain chemical messengers called cytokines.

769
01:30:28.580 –> 01:30:41.319
bernieclark: One is Atp, which normally inside the cell, is like a little battery. It’s a little source of energy. But outside the cell it’s a communication signal. So now these fibroblasts start to release chemical messengers

770
01:30:41.430 –> 01:30:43.019
bernieclark: from these stretches.

771
01:30:43.930 –> 01:30:55.759
bernieclark: In one article that Helene wrote she showed the needle going in, and she showed an artist’s conception of the the collagen fibers getting wrapped around the needle, but she also showed somebody doing triangle pose.

772
01:30:56.390 –> 01:31:13.469
bernieclark: And the same thing is happening when we’re doing triangle pose. The collagen fibers are getting elongated, and the fibroblasts are also becoming elongated. Now the thing is, we don’t hold triangle pose for 20 min like a needle in there, but in yin yoga we might hold a stretch.

773
01:31:13.560 –> 01:31:36.599
bernieclark: or say, like the inner legs. You might do butterfly. For 5 min you feel the stretch in your legs, then you do straddle fold. You might feel the then you might do half butterfly. So over time you might spend 20 min stretching that area out, in which case we can hypothesize that these fibroblasts are reacting to the mechanical transduction.

774
01:31:36.800 –> 01:31:38.889
bernieclark: And we’ve known this since the 1850 S.

775
01:31:39.780 –> 01:31:45.999
bernieclark: Cells. Listen to these mechanical signals and they transform them into biological changes.

776
01:31:46.510 –> 01:31:59.399
bernieclark: But one of the ways we think acupuncture works is by physically creating a stress on the cells within the tissues and the cells are reacting via mechanotransduction and doing certain biochemical changes.

777
01:32:00.510 –> 01:32:03.319
bernieclark: The second thing that we think might work

778
01:32:03.510 –> 01:32:09.270
bernieclark: is something called pz electricity or stress generated electrical potentials.

779
01:32:09.920 –> 01:32:16.100
bernieclark: Go back to the bone example I talked before. If you were to bend a bone like a femur, and

780
01:32:17.030 –> 01:32:26.299
bernieclark: the top of the femur starts to get elongated, the bottom of the femur here the bottom side of the bend gets compressed. Well, that separates, charges.

781
01:32:26.360 –> 01:32:54.190
bernieclark: Little Ionic charges inside the bone, and most electricity in the body is Ionic electricity. It’s the movement of ions, and that creates a voltage across here which attracts other cells to the area. To help adjust this tissue, to make it healthier, stronger, more able to handle that. So that’s why doctors who say, if you’ve got osteoporosis, you need to compress the bones. You need to do a lot of walking

782
01:32:54.270 –> 01:33:10.629
bernieclark: bones are stimulated through compression. Cartilage is stimulated through compression. Bones can also be stimulated through tension. Ligaments and tendons are only stimulated through tension, so depending on the mechanotransduction that you’re applying. You’re creating these little electrical currents.

783
01:33:11.310 –> 01:33:16.930
bernieclark: Well, it turns out as you twist the needle. You also may be creating a piezoelectric current.

784
01:33:17.120 –> 01:33:23.199
bernieclark: Now electricity flows well through water-filled spaces. Water is a great conductor of electricity.

785
01:33:23.900 –> 01:33:34.870
bernieclark: Actually, pure water. Distilled water is not. It’s a resistor. But if you put a little salt in there, some calcium, ions, potassium sodium. Then the electricity flows very easily through here.

786
01:33:35.170 –> 01:33:51.769
bernieclark: so as you start to insert the needle, you might be creating a mechanical stress and through mechanic transduction. That’s a particular type of signal. But you also may be creating these Ionic currents or piezoelectric currents which will flow through these channels.

787
01:33:52.550 –> 01:33:59.130
bernieclark: Now, as Helene Langerian has shown and Dr. Moriana shown, these channels are not the muscle sinews.

788
01:33:59.280 –> 01:34:10.250
bernieclark: they’re not the muscle and the tendons. They’re in the fascial wrappers around the muscle tendon groups, and it’s actually in the water. All the these boundaries are lubricated with water.

789
01:34:10.630 –> 01:34:15.709
bernieclark: and that is the conducting line of the classical Oregon Marines.

790
01:34:16.120 –> 01:34:25.619
bernieclark: So the theory is that you’re creating these little piece electric currents and those currents are actually flowing through the conductive interfaces and are ending up somewhere else.

791
01:34:26.370 –> 01:34:32.409
bernieclark: So I do believe that you can stimulate electrical currents through the classic meridians.

792
01:34:32.410 –> 01:34:32.770
Nyk Danu Yoga: Huh!

793
01:34:32.770 –> 01:34:40.129
bernieclark: Not through the sinew channels, but through the organ channels, and one last little thing to put on the buffet table. Here

794
01:34:41.340 –> 01:34:47.469
bernieclark: there is a type of current the body generates when it’s damaged, it’s called the injury repair potential.

795
01:34:47.720 –> 01:34:52.820
bernieclark: So if you cut yourself, there’s a separation of the ions, and that creates a voltage.

796
01:34:53.180 –> 01:34:56.580
bernieclark: Well, actually, every day there’s a voltage in our tissues.

797
01:34:56.770 –> 01:35:06.150
bernieclark: The inside of the cell is negative to the outside of the cell, because the inside of the cell has negative ions. The outside has positive ions, and we have

798
01:35:06.640 –> 01:35:16.459
bernieclark: sort of proteins on the surface of the cell that are regulating this, and when the time’s right, they open up a channel, and these ions can switch directions.

799
01:35:17.030 –> 01:35:23.880
bernieclark: Same thing happens in our tissues themselves. Healthy tissues has a voltage of about minus 50 degree 50 millivolts.

800
01:35:23.970 –> 01:35:47.880
bernieclark: If you cut this area, the cut area drops down to 0. So now we have difference between the voltage in the healthy cell, the healthy tissues, and no voltage in the damaged tissues. That voltage creates a current, and that current is a signal to mobile cells like white blood cells to come in here and take away bad guys, infections, bacteria, but also

801
01:35:48.000 –> 01:35:50.100
bernieclark: stem cells will migrate there.

802
01:35:50.180 –> 01:36:18.199
bernieclark: Fibroblasts will go there and lay down a scaffold of scar tissue, and it’ll help over time to rebuild that whole area. So this is the injury, repair, current or potential. But if you actually put a needle into a spot and you twist it. The theory is you’re stimulating an injury. We haven’t actually injured the area, but we’re affecting the voltage there, and the body reacts as if I’m damaged. So it sends heating there.

803
01:36:18.390 –> 01:36:25.500
bernieclark: But imagine if that signal actually happens to be on one of these conduits these channels that connects up to the heart.

804
01:36:26.020 –> 01:36:30.540
bernieclark: Now the heart cells are getting the signal that you’re damaged. Well, let’s heal.

805
01:36:31.040 –> 01:36:42.409
bernieclark: Well, the heart’s not really damaged, and the signal is coming, originating from far away. But it’s coming through these water filled spaces. The electric current is going down here, and it’s sending out the heal me signal.

806
01:36:42.910 –> 01:36:46.689
bernieclark: So that’s another way. We speculate that acupuncture can work.

807
01:36:47.820 –> 01:36:51.050
bernieclark: Now we don’t do acupuncture, but we do acupressure.

808
01:36:51.500 –> 01:36:57.150
bernieclark: and that can create the piezoelectric currents that we talked about just like when we do, bending the bone

809
01:36:57.250 –> 01:37:00.319
bernieclark: when you create a stress along

810
01:37:00.560 –> 01:37:12.549
bernieclark: the tissues. And these currents, these conductive lines happen to fall within where the stress is those piezoelectric currents are going to start to flow to other areas of the body.

811
01:37:13.080 –> 01:37:15.719
bernieclark: So this is how we believe acupressure works.

812
01:37:15.860 –> 01:37:34.050
bernieclark: So even though we’re not using acupuncture, and we’re not leaving the needles in for as long. We are creating acupressure which could create these stress generated electrical potentials which can flow through these water-filled conduits and reach tissues far away, which may signal them. Hey, we’re damaged. Let’s heal.

813
01:37:34.620 –> 01:37:35.880
bernieclark: I think it’s a.

814
01:37:35.880 –> 01:37:36.390
Nyk Danu Yoga: A language.

815
01:37:36.390 –> 01:37:41.050
bernieclark: There’s a lot of theoretical background to understanding this. But whether it really happens or not.

816
01:37:41.510 –> 01:37:50.980
bernieclark: we haven’t done any experiments to show that it actually happens, it’s some hypotheses that are well founded. Yeah, that’s why I had to say it may be happening.

817
01:37:51.330 –> 01:38:06.209
Nyk Danu Yoga: I think it’s it’s a language thing with the term acupressure, because acupressurists, or people who do shiatsu or medical qigong are doing acupressure in the way that an acupuncturist would be using a needle.

818
01:38:06.490 –> 01:38:21.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: They’re doing a pressure on a point, you know, sometimes stimulating it, sometimes tapping in Chinese medicine. There’s, you know, Tweena, there’s like a kind of it’s it’s gross oversimplification to call twina Chinese massage, but it has elements of that.

819
01:38:21.850 –> 01:38:28.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so I think I’m not comfortable saying that my yin yoga pose is giving me acupressure.

820
01:38:29.100 –> 01:38:41.680
Nyk Danu Yoga: because to me and to the people that practice it. Acupressure is a again, there’s an intake. There’s a diagnosis. There’s a point by point. Manual stimulation like you would with a needle. But without the needle.

821
01:38:41.890 –> 01:38:55.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: whereas I do believe in Yin. Absolutely. We’re affecting our meridians, we how could we not be? The other thing I want to clarify is when I say sinew channels. I’m talking in the Chinese medicine version of sinew channels. Not this kind of

822
01:38:56.241 –> 01:39:03.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: you know. Anatomy trains ish vibe when you study Chinese medicine, most

823
01:39:03.450 –> 01:39:20.220
Nyk Danu Yoga: all of the 12 meridians have a sinew channel that corresponds. Some of them follow exactly the same pathway as the meridian start to finish, and some stop a bit early. So, for example, the liver, the sinew channel of the liver doesn’t actually go all the way up onto the torso. It stops in the inner leg.

824
01:39:20.370 –> 01:39:33.490
Nyk Danu Yoga: And so for me. I always say to my students, now you cannot. You cannot separate the sinew channel of the liver from the liver. Meridians like you can cut these apart and pull them apart. Of course they’re, you know, interwoven.

825
01:39:33.600 –> 01:39:37.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: but that I feel like it’s more accurate for me to say

826
01:39:38.190 –> 01:39:42.739
Nyk Danu Yoga: Butterfly is going to affect the sinew channel of the liver.

827
01:39:43.130 –> 01:39:45.559
Nyk Danu Yoga: Then the whole liver meridian.

828
01:39:45.760 –> 01:40:06.230
Nyk Danu Yoga: because that to me is is what we’re accessing in a yin practice. So I think it’s definitions of words to me. I’ve become like you are with with the word stress, because you have your science background. Now that I have this Chinese medicine background. I’m like, Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Can we stop saying that me doing my butterfly pose is the same as acupressure.

829
01:40:06.980 –> 01:40:08.069
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know what I mean.

830
01:40:08.070 –> 01:40:12.400
bernieclark: Yeah, yeah, I think we can say, you create a stress to the inside of the legs.

831
01:40:12.400 –> 01:40:13.090
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

832
01:40:13.090 –> 01:40:13.520
bernieclark: That, and.

833
01:40:13.520 –> 01:40:14.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: Thereby.

834
01:40:14.020 –> 01:40:23.530
bernieclark: It’s attention. Stress, and that may cause Ionic flows of energy. Electricity, or piezoelectric flows of electricity through the water, filled spaces.

835
01:40:23.830 –> 01:40:32.289
Nyk Danu Yoga: A 100% agree that I mean, how how could how could our Yin practice not be affecting our meridians? I just am very careful with the language that I use, because.

836
01:40:32.290 –> 01:40:32.800
bernieclark: Yeah.

837
01:40:32.800 –> 01:40:48.660
Nyk Danu Yoga: You know so many, and be I’m I’m careful with it for one reason, because it’s it’s important to me, just like you’re careful with your language on certain things, but also because, as we just discussed with the telephone game, someone is gonna hear a teacher say something like, you know.

838
01:40:49.370 –> 01:40:56.770
Nyk Danu Yoga: some people think that our Yin Yoga practice affects the meridians of our body like acupressure would right?

839
01:40:56.910 –> 01:41:06.789
Nyk Danu Yoga: That could be an accurate statement. But someone’s going to hear that, and they’re going to go. I don’t need to go to acupuncture anymore. I’m just going to do my yin yoga practice, and it’s same same. And it’s like, or teachers will start

840
01:41:06.890 –> 01:41:14.640
Nyk Danu Yoga: teaching a whole bunch of meridian information when they’ve never studied Chinese medicine, because they just, you know, oversimplify things. So

841
01:41:14.910 –> 01:41:19.749
Nyk Danu Yoga: that was my resistance with that one. It was like Whoa! Let’s not use the word

842
01:41:20.170 –> 01:41:24.379
Nyk Danu Yoga: acupressure. Let’s just say it. We can access the meridians of our body.

843
01:41:24.730 –> 01:41:27.281
Nyk Danu Yoga: that, so that to me feels more accurate.

844
01:41:27.600 –> 01:41:30.410
bernieclark: End of the day. It’s really. How do you feel.

845
01:41:30.640 –> 01:41:31.360
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

846
01:41:31.800 –> 01:41:44.660
bernieclark: Is this working for you? And then it’s nice to know. Yeah, it is working. Why is it working? I mean, that’s the whole joy of science is to try to figure out. Okay, I have this result. Why do I think that results happening?

847
01:41:45.360 –> 01:41:51.840
bernieclark: But who cares if it feels good? If you do, yin, yoga, and you feel much better for it. Great! That’s all you need to know.

848
01:41:51.840 –> 01:41:59.159
Nyk Danu Yoga: And I have a theory, and it’s just my own personal theory. This is not backed in science at all. Everybody, so don’t be, you know, hold me to this for the rest of my life.

849
01:41:59.720 –> 01:42:03.099
Nyk Danu Yoga: but that you know one of the reasons that

850
01:42:03.580 –> 01:42:08.840
Nyk Danu Yoga: if we’re looking at a spectrum of of, you know still versus movement, Yoga, that yin

851
01:42:09.010 –> 01:42:11.740
Nyk Danu Yoga: feels very different to the nervous system

852
01:42:12.350 –> 01:42:29.689
Nyk Danu Yoga: in my own body, and what I witnessed in my students, then it may be a Yang form of yoga that there’s like, if there’s a there’s that yin thing that vibe that happens after yin class that’s kind of hard to explain or put your finger on it, but we’ve all felt it right. We’ve all been after a really good yin practice, and just been like Whoa

853
01:42:30.197 –> 01:42:37.490
Nyk Danu Yoga: and I also teach restorative yoga, and have a lot of training in restorative, and I would say that that Yin

854
01:42:38.040 –> 01:42:51.919
Nyk Danu Yoga: Zen I’m going to call it for lack of a better word. That yin vibe is also different than the relaxation you get from a restorative practice, that these 3 things feel very different in our bodies and our nervous system. And my personal theory is that

855
01:42:52.350 –> 01:43:15.540
Nyk Danu Yoga: because in Yin we are accessing the sinew channels, Aka, thereby also the meridian in whole or part that that’s why Yin has this different feeling. Of course you could do a Qigong practice and access your meridians. Obviously we can’t move without accessing a meridian. But it is this relationship with the meridian, and then the sinew channel

856
01:43:15.890 –> 01:43:19.730
Nyk Danu Yoga: in Yin that is so unique because of the time.

857
01:43:20.030 –> 01:43:26.690
Nyk Danu Yoga: and that fascia release, that that I feel like. And again, all theory on my part that

858
01:43:26.790 –> 01:43:46.969
Nyk Danu Yoga: we’re sort of bathing in our meridian for lack of a better word for a longer period of time, and that that’s why, because of our accessing the sinew channels which again, are connected. That releasing of the sinew channel, and accessing the meridian in that deeper way, is what gives that sort of

859
01:43:47.130 –> 01:43:52.479
Nyk Danu Yoga: yin glow afterwards. But this is just all conjecture and theory on my part.

860
01:43:53.360 –> 01:43:54.065
bernieclark: Cool.

861
01:43:54.770 –> 01:44:06.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. Cause I think we all, I think anyone who’s done a lot of yeah knows there’s there’s a there’s a feeling mentally, emotionally nervous system. Wise that is quite unique, like it definitely has its own magic.

862
01:44:06.900 –> 01:44:09.190
Nyk Danu Yoga: And that’s just my theory as to what it is.

863
01:44:09.380 –> 01:44:11.440
bernieclark: And that’s why they keep coming back to it.

864
01:44:11.440 –> 01:44:12.850
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah. Yeah.

865
01:44:13.241 –> 01:44:20.999
Nyk Danu Yoga: Okay. And then my last one, before we move into some really quick closing questions. Sorry this. This interview has kept you a little longer. Are you okay to go for a couple more minutes.

866
01:44:21.000 –> 01:44:22.725
bernieclark: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let’s go.

867
01:44:23.398 –> 01:44:25.699
Nyk Danu Yoga: What’s the deal with the Ocean breath?

868
01:44:25.910 –> 01:44:26.510
Nyk Danu Yoga: Are you?

869
01:44:26.910 –> 01:44:37.020
Nyk Danu Yoga: Are you referring to Ujai, and just kind of calling it Ocean breath? And if so, what is the energetic goal of Ujai, and does it feel like a match

870
01:44:37.330 –> 01:44:48.869
Nyk Danu Yoga: for a yin practice? And is this your former Ashtanga practice coming into the yin. And the reason I speculate on this is because, as somebody who comes from a lineage where they don’t focus on Ujjay.

871
01:44:50.160 –> 01:45:13.450
Nyk Danu Yoga: I. And also with Paul. He’s never guides Ujjay or Ocean breath, or anything during practice. He just kind of is like, just breathe but I noticed that you focus on it. I think Sarah also mentions it in her book, and I know both of you have an astonga background. So it’s like, Is there a link to, you know, cultivating this breath and bringing it into your yin practice, based on your your former practice.

872
01:45:14.920 –> 01:45:21.509
bernieclark: Well, Paul also has an Ustanga background and a hot Yoga background. He ran a hot Yoga studio. But

873
01:45:21.850 –> 01:45:29.939
bernieclark: yeah, I call it that for 2 reasons, one is to not associate it with the Ashtanga Darth, Vader, Ujai.

874
01:45:29.940 –> 01:45:30.700
Nyk Danu Yoga: Gotcha.

875
01:45:31.281 –> 01:45:45.549
bernieclark: I call it that because Max Strom is a wonderful Yoga teacher. He wrote a book breathing, or I can’t remember the exact name of it, but he calls it ocean breath in there, and I just like the poetic sound of that. So it’s a very soft Ujjay.

876
01:45:45.730 –> 01:45:47.290
Nyk Danu Yoga: The whole point.

877
01:45:47.550 –> 01:45:51.600
bernieclark: Of Ujai to me forget the Ashtonga reasons

878
01:45:51.720 –> 01:45:53.730
bernieclark: is to slow down the breath.

879
01:45:54.590 –> 01:46:02.169
bernieclark: Way back in 2,009. I think it was. I went to a conference in La, the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

880
01:46:02.590 –> 01:46:05.110
bernieclark: They have these fairly technical conferences.

881
01:46:05.110 –> 01:46:07.349
Nyk Danu Yoga: I was formerly a member. Until recently.

882
01:46:07.670 –> 01:46:24.289
bernieclark: Yes, and this year they had a presentation by Dr. Luciano Bernardi, the University of Pavia, in Italy, and he was talking about breath. He studied breath. He studied monks and nuns, and the Vatican, chanting Ave Maria!

883
01:46:24.790 –> 01:46:30.320
bernieclark: Studied nuns and monks in Tibet doing.

884
01:46:30.680 –> 01:46:37.590
bernieclark: and he found some amazing effects when you slow the breath down to a 10 second cycle.

885
01:46:37.920 –> 01:46:38.880
bernieclark: So

886
01:46:39.310 –> 01:46:56.850
bernieclark: that’s inhale to account of 4. Pause, exhale to the count of 4. Pause. When you do that I won’t go into all the findings he had, but it affects your heart, rate, variability, your blood oxygenation, reducing hyperventilation, improving your

887
01:46:56.970 –> 01:47:03.850
bernieclark: barrel reflex, which is dealing with blood pressure. All these wonderful benefits came from just slowing the breath down.

888
01:47:04.180 –> 01:47:08.999
bernieclark: So my view of the ocean breath is just to trigger the parasympathetic, nervous.

889
01:47:09.840 –> 01:47:11.400
bernieclark: That’s in effect, where it is.

890
01:47:11.400 –> 01:47:11.750
Nyk Danu Yoga: Gotcha.

891
01:47:11.750 –> 01:47:18.859
bernieclark: Now the parasympathetic nervous system is the rest and digest. It’s the feed and breed type things. Everything’s calm.

892
01:47:19.070 –> 01:47:22.820
bernieclark: but it’s a bit like a light switch, you know, when you turn the lights off

893
01:47:23.080 –> 01:47:24.779
bernieclark: you don’t have to turn them off again.

894
01:47:25.450 –> 01:47:35.059
bernieclark: So once you’ve done this Ocean Breath for 2 min at the beginning of practice. You don’t have to keep doing it. It’d be like going up the light switch and keep turning it off. You’re already off.

895
01:47:35.450 –> 01:47:42.779
bernieclark: Parasympathetic nervous system is turned on the flight or flight. Sympathetic nervous system is turned off, and just leave it that way.

896
01:47:43.410 –> 01:47:48.740
bernieclark: So generally in all the classes I teach for yin yoga, we’ll do 2 min of

897
01:47:48.770 –> 01:48:16.680
bernieclark: just simple movements, like a 3 part Taoist breath, or a 4 part Taoist breath or just century movements. And basically, while I’m doing this, I’m counting myself. Inhale. 2, 3, 4, pause. Exhale 2, 3, 4. Pause. Now, the students don’t know that I’m just guiding them through this slow, moving breath. I don’t refer to it as Ujai, because a lot of people know Ujai, and then they’ll start to do that through the whole class.

898
01:48:18.150 –> 01:48:22.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: That’s why I asked. Because I find that happens all the time in yin class where people are so

899
01:48:25.600 –> 01:48:35.010
Nyk Danu Yoga: obsessed trained to do, Uje that they’ll be doing it through the whole yin practice. And I’m constantly having to kind of like, hey, you can just breathe like, you know. Yeah.

900
01:48:35.010 –> 01:48:47.520
bernieclark: Yeah. So I just call it the Ocean Breath, because they don’t know what that is. Do it for 2 min, and I don’t even tell them why we just start that way. The lights are turned off. People are in the parasympathetic mode, and then we go to the class.

901
01:48:47.520 –> 01:48:58.069
Nyk Danu Yoga: So the point of it for you. The intention is, let’s get into our parasympathetic so that we can really actually explore this practice. I do similar breath tech, not similar breath techniques. But I do also offer breath

902
01:48:58.220 –> 01:49:06.590
Nyk Danu Yoga: techniques and awareness for the same reason at the start that like, let’s just let’s just fully arrive first, st and now we can make funny shapes with our body.

903
01:49:06.800 –> 01:49:09.210
bernieclark: Because you never know where the students have come from.

904
01:49:09.210 –> 01:49:09.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: Totally.

905
01:49:09.720 –> 01:49:11.680
bernieclark: What sort of state of mind they’re in. So.

906
01:49:11.680 –> 01:49:17.030
Nyk Danu Yoga: You can feel it sometimes. But yeah, yeah, as they walk in vibrating, you know. Yeah.

907
01:49:17.030 –> 01:49:32.809
bernieclark: Now, sometimes people, because their mind goes into things, they might get into an anxious state, and halfway through the class they may have retriggered their sympathetic nervous system. So for those people, they might need to do that breath again. But I generally don’t mention again after the start.

908
01:49:33.230 –> 01:49:36.430
Nyk Danu Yoga: Beautiful. Thank you for that clarification.

909
01:49:36.730 –> 01:49:40.219
Nyk Danu Yoga: We are at the fun part of the class, or of the

910
01:49:41.140 –> 01:49:45.479
Nyk Danu Yoga: fun part of the interview. Now where I’m just gonna ask you some random questions.

911
01:49:45.810 –> 01:49:46.400
bernieclark: Alright!

912
01:49:46.400 –> 01:49:49.260
Nyk Danu Yoga: Very non technical and very personal, not very personal.

913
01:49:50.000 –> 01:49:55.460
Nyk Danu Yoga: Nothing that you won’t feel comfortable sharing. I don’t think. The 1st one coffee or tea.

914
01:49:56.340 –> 01:50:02.190
bernieclark: Oh, I hate coffee! I tried it once when I was 10 years old, couldn’t stand it so never tried it again.

915
01:50:02.340 –> 01:50:04.200
Nyk Danu Yoga: T. For me, please. I was like

916
01:50:04.200 –> 01:50:12.170
Nyk Danu Yoga: lucky the 1st time I tried coffee. It was in a very fancy latte, and so that’s what got me, you know. Had it just been like coffee, I probably wouldn’t be there.

917
01:50:13.170 –> 01:50:16.640
Nyk Danu Yoga: Do you have a favorite ice cream flavor, whether that’s dairy or non-dairy.

918
01:50:17.670 –> 01:50:26.760
bernieclark: I do chocolate, but as much as I love chocolate, it doesn’t love me. It’s not required love. I get migraines from too much caffeine, so.

919
01:50:27.470 –> 01:50:28.970
Nyk Danu Yoga: Do you have a back so waiver.

920
01:50:29.160 –> 01:50:30.190
bernieclark: Vanilla.

921
01:50:30.190 –> 01:50:30.790
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

922
01:50:31.780 –> 01:50:32.263
bernieclark: It’s.

923
01:50:33.230 –> 01:50:37.239
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, there you go. One thing. People often get wrong about me.

924
01:50:39.060 –> 01:50:40.030
bernieclark: Man.

925
01:50:41.360 –> 01:51:00.170
bernieclark: Maybe they think I’m an extrovert because I tend to talk a lot in my classes. I just won’t shut up and put me in front of a group of people, and I talk and talk and talk, but in my private life I’m very introverted. I don’t go out. I don’t socialize. I’m just on my own, and happy.

926
01:51:00.590 –> 01:51:04.040
Nyk Danu Yoga: Think the same of me often, they think because I’m well.

927
01:51:04.683 –> 01:51:30.150
Nyk Danu Yoga: I I had to become well socialized in my careers that because I’m comfortable talking to people and standing in front of people, and also can go on and on and on about something I’m excited about that. I must be an extrovert. But I’m I’m like you, I’m actually very introverted. Yeah, yeah. Need plenty of alone. Time. Yeah. Do you have a pop culture vice like, is there a TV show, or a podcast series, or a series of books that, like

928
01:51:30.540 –> 01:51:32.060
Nyk Danu Yoga: you’re obsessed with.

929
01:51:32.820 –> 01:51:34.189
bernieclark: I’m a sci-fi guy.

930
01:51:34.190 –> 01:51:34.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: Nice.

931
01:51:34.720 –> 01:51:44.120
bernieclark: I always grew up with, you know the classics, Isaac Album, of Robert Heinlein, and all that, and when I hit 30 I kind of got out of that.

932
01:51:44.420 –> 01:51:47.850
bernieclark: But when I hit 60 I’m kind of getting back into it. So I like.

933
01:51:47.850 –> 01:51:48.310
Nyk Danu Yoga: Been getting back.

934
01:51:48.310 –> 01:51:50.010
bernieclark: Star Trek, Star Wars, Xenon.

935
01:51:50.010 –> 01:51:50.560
Nyk Danu Yoga: Too.

936
01:51:50.560 –> 01:51:52.180
bernieclark: The marvel, universe.

937
01:51:52.180 –> 01:51:55.720
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah, I’ve been diving back into it as well. Yeah.

938
01:51:56.860 –> 01:51:59.590
Nyk Danu Yoga: When I’m not practicing yoga, I am.

939
01:52:02.335 –> 01:52:05.979
bernieclark: I’m either playing golf or pickleball now, or reading.

940
01:52:06.390 –> 01:52:09.670
Nyk Danu Yoga: Nice one weird fact about you.

941
01:52:10.410 –> 01:52:12.890
bernieclark: Weird, weird.

942
01:52:13.040 –> 01:52:19.500
bernieclark: Well, I’m a Capricorn born on December 25.th My mother’s name is Mary. My father’s name is Joseph.

943
01:52:19.870 –> 01:52:23.150
Nyk Danu Yoga: Wow, that is kind of weird.

944
01:52:23.150 –> 01:52:26.430
bernieclark: I do try to keep it quiet, because you know what happened last time.

945
01:52:27.696 –> 01:52:28.533
Nyk Danu Yoga: No.

946
01:52:29.732 –> 01:52:30.820
bernieclark: Yeah, it’s like.

947
01:52:30.840 –> 01:52:34.400
Nyk Danu Yoga: Shuck, you share a very auspicious birthday.

948
01:52:37.380 –> 01:52:39.759
Nyk Danu Yoga: What the world needs now is.

949
01:52:42.280 –> 01:52:43.420
bernieclark: Balance.

950
01:52:43.420 –> 01:52:44.410
Nyk Danu Yoga: Hmm.

951
01:52:44.410 –> 01:53:06.560
bernieclark: Beware of the binary. It’s all one way or all the other way. Somehow we have to see the other points of view and get back towards the middle. The nice thing about this Yin Yang symbol is it’s not static. Yin is becoming young. The young is becoming in. There’s always a flow so balancing to me is never being in the middle.

952
01:53:06.870 –> 01:53:17.419
bernieclark: It’s you’re a little bit off balance and you correct. But then you overcorrect, and you go back. So balancing is a verb. It’s it’s the flow back towards the center.

953
01:53:17.560 –> 01:53:22.110
bernieclark: And I feel like in modern culture. We’ve missed it. We’ve become polarized.

954
01:53:22.110 –> 01:53:22.999
Nyk Danu Yoga: We gotta get back to.

955
01:53:23.000 –> 01:53:23.850
bernieclark: Designer.

956
01:53:23.850 –> 01:53:26.630
Nyk Danu Yoga: Agreed. I think it’s the only way forward to be honest.

957
01:53:26.630 –> 01:53:27.120
bernieclark: Yeah.

958
01:53:27.120 –> 01:53:27.710
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yeah.

959
01:53:29.018 –> 01:53:33.480
Nyk Danu Yoga: One thing I wish I know this is going to be hard to pick. One thing.

960
01:53:34.670 –> 01:53:37.901
Nyk Danu Yoga: One thing I wish people knew about yin. Yoga.

961
01:53:39.087 –> 01:53:41.569
bernieclark: It’s for everybody.

962
01:53:42.270 –> 01:53:42.910
Nyk Danu Yoga: Nice.

963
01:53:43.120 –> 01:53:54.689
bernieclark: When I started teaching Yin Yoga in Vancouver, I was teaching at a place called City Yoga. This is before Simpraviva bought them out. It was an Ashtanga place. None of the Ashtangis wanted to do. Yin Yoga.

964
01:53:55.370 –> 01:54:01.630
bernieclark: The point of Ashtanga is to get to the next series. So if you do 1st series, you’ve got to get second series and advanced A and B.

965
01:54:01.940 –> 01:54:12.090
bernieclark: But once I explained to them how Yin Yoga helped me get to the second series faster because I could do. Then they said, okay, teach me about that.

966
01:54:12.450 –> 01:54:15.579
Nyk Danu Yoga: I also used to teach in at an Ashtonga studio. It was very interesting. Yeah.

967
01:54:15.580 –> 01:54:16.085
bernieclark: Okay.

968
01:54:17.590 –> 01:54:20.900
Nyk Danu Yoga: Is there anything else that I forgot to ask you that you’d like to add.

969
01:54:23.400 –> 01:54:28.139
bernieclark: I think that’s enough for this one. Maybe we can do another 1 1 day and do all the other stuff. But.

970
01:54:28.140 –> 01:54:28.470
Nyk Danu Yoga: Yes.

971
01:54:28.470 –> 01:54:34.900
bernieclark: I mean, these these books are pretty dense, so it’s hard to get through everything in just one session.

972
01:54:35.150 –> 01:54:40.330
Nyk Danu Yoga: 100%. Yes, I’d love that. Let’s have you back all right. Well, I think

973
01:54:40.700 –> 01:54:49.460
Nyk Danu Yoga: you and I can say our proper goodbyes. Once I hit stop record, but for those of you that are listening or watching. Thanks for coming and bye, for now.

974
01:54:50.370 –> 01:54:51.150
bernieclark: Town.