Last updated on 03/01/2023
We are beyond excited to kick off the new year with these 2 beautiful guests – Deepika Mehta and Mark Robberds. Yoga couple, Ashtanga practitioners and movement specialists, teachers and successful Instagramers, humble and curious beings on the spiritual path – which of these labels come close to who they really are? Listen in!
Show notes
- Deepika’s path to spirituality
- Relationships, practice and parenthood
- Pareto principle in Mark’s approach to maintaining the practice
- Aging: Flexibility means fragility?
- Movement exploration rooted in the yogic tristana
- Benefits of a set sequence and creativity, yoga and surfing
- Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati
- Pranayama, Breathwork and Wim Hoff?
- James Nestor and Simon Borg-Olivier
- Cultural appropriation and Mula Bandha underwear
- Mark’s Instagram journey
- Meditation practice and personal challenges
- 3 new online courses
Deepika Mehta – https://deepikamehta.in/
Mark’s website – https://markrobberds.com/
Photo credit https://www.facebook.com/ashtangayogamoves/photos/a.556871981162779/784651255051516/
Hi,
Interesting episode. The part on Pranayama, Breathwork and Wim Hoff made me thinking.
I don’t know what Wim Hoff inspiration was. It could be pranayama but it also could be some Tibetan Buddhism techniques as some of them are meant to generate internal heat and cold exposure is such a big part of his method. When it comes to asanas, in one of his online training he brings experienced yoga teacher to show them – which I think was the correct way to do it.
With techniques coming from freediving, the link to yoga is maybe more direct and not few hundreds of years old but as these breathing techniques were tested in extreme sport, the link is probably lost by most practitioners.
Also, not all breathwork is pranayama. Many techniques are variants of Holotropic Breathwork and work of Stanislav Grof and other transpersonal psychologists. Some specific breathing techniques are used there but in the end, it is a form of group therapy inspired by South American shamanic traditions and psychedelics.
I don’t think it will be such a great idea if all these people will suddenly start to call it Pranayama or Yoga. I think then it will be a case of cultural appropriation, not now.