Finding Your True North Through Yoga – Baron Baptiste : 991

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You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Thank you for taking some time today to listen to the show and to experience it with me. And if you're in my mentorship group, thank you for being here live and helping me ask the best questions. You can invest the next hour of your time in anything you want to do. You can listen to music, you can read a book, you can go for a walk. You can actually do all those things while you're going for a walk. You can listen to this episode. You could listen to one of the other almost thousand episodes that appeals to you. So I'm going to keep telling you why you might want to consider today's show. And I'm also going to tell you why you should pick a different episode if this isn't the right one for you, because it's just not your thing. I get it. Today we're going to talk about inner transformation, which is a major part of being a biohacker. You can't just say, look, I'm ripped. I'm a ripped asshole. You technically want to be someone who is in the condition that you want, which doesn't always mean ripped. Ripped is actually hard to sustain in biologically a state of being a little bit stressed. That hunted wolf look is not nearly as good as the satisfied wolf who has plenty of game look. But it's kind of sexier to have all those veins and whatever. So maybe you want to be ripped for a short period. I totally support you on that. But maybe something else else is important to you. And we're going to talk specifically about yoga, and we're going to talk about how it got to be here and what it does besides giving you some muscle and some flexibility and things like that. And it's with a guy who knows a thing or two about it. He started seriously studying yoga at age 12, and for 30 years he's been teaching yoga at a very big scale. His name is Baron Baptiste and he's trained what I like about him. He's trained in all the major traditions before he started teaching in the late 80s. And he created Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga in the mid-90s. And we're talking celebrities, Olympians, and the Baptiste Power Yoga Institute is a very, very big thing if you're into yoga. The reason I like it is it's cross lineage. When I began my yoga practice years ago, I didn't know the Difference. I just knew you show up at the time. There's a class and there's like, you know, women's military yoga, which is also known as Ashtanga, where it's like, you will do these series in this order and you will. And I'm like, ah, like I don't know how to do this. And there's other like, playful. And I'm like, there's lots of women in yoga pants in here, but I didn't break a sweat. Right. And. And you just realize that, that there's there's different, very different sensations you get from these. So someone who's like, I've studied with every master from one discipline versus someone who's learned from many disciplines and then brought it together. I feel like now is the time for fusing of things. And that's why I wanted to have Baron Baptiste on, because he did that. Baron, welcome to the show, man.

So good to be here with you. Yeah, really good to be with you here again. And of course you first time on this show. But back, good to be with you again. Last time we were together in Arizona. We were.

And a quick shout out to Joe Polish, dear friend who runs the Genius network. And he's actually been on the show. Really shocking, amazingly deep episode on addiction. And you know, Joe's now a very just venerated marketing expert. He's been an advisor and friend with his Genius network for almost 10 years. So that's how I met you. I always like to give credit where credit's due because you were on his stage and we got to chat afterwards and it's like, I always want to connect with you, so we got to do that.

Yeah. So good.

I want to start out with something that people might not know about you unless maybe they've read one of your New York Times books or something. But you were the son of yoga nerds. So tell me about, you know, being the child of yoga people, because there weren't that many of those back in the 70s and 80s.

Yeah, yeah, really good. My, my parents opened the first yoga center in San Francisco in the early 1950s. Like 1952, 1953, the first yoga center in San Francisco. And maybe at that point in time there was just barely a handful in all of California. And maybe at that point in time there was barely a handful in all of California. And they were really pioneers to yoga back then. You know, you said yoga, and it was obviously before I was born, but I, you know, learned a lot of their experience as pioneers and what they were up against. But you said yoga back then and people would say, well, wait, what flavor? Like yogurt or, you know, or they just thought it was something so esoteric and so foreign to people, even in a place like San Francisco. And my parents, you know, my father started out as a bodybuilder, an early bodybuilder, natural. Back then, it was all natural. And he trained to the competitively and he competed. He became Mr. Run, Mr. America runner up. So he tied for first place in 1948, I believe. And, and he was just someone who was always looking for, you know, his, his mind was just so curious about how to optimize the human body, how to optimize human potential, how to optimize mindset, attitude. He, you know, something he taught me early on, he's like, you know, I'd say I'm tired as a teenager. I'd be, you know, hanging out with my friends late at night. He's like, you know, and I'd say, I'm tired. I'm too tired to take out the garbage or something. He's like, he's like, look, dude, you, you're a spiritual being. You're not a candle. You know, candles burn out. You know, you burn a candle at both ends, the candle will burn out. You're not a candle. Human beings are not a candle. They don't burn out. You are always regenerating and you're always dying. And he said, and you can direct that, you can direct that energy. So if you're doing things that are depleting you, killing off your energy, bleeding out your vitality and your life force, then, yeah, you're going to end up tired and like that. But he was someone who, you know, my dad and my mom, like, they really were pioneers about, you know, living principles that would make a real difference for people, like alter people's lives. So, yeah, they started. My dad kind of shifted at a certain point from bodybuilding and more traditional Western physical culture to Eastern teachings. His uncle was, was like, like the public relations person for Yogananda. He was a monk. And so he kind of influenced my dad early on into Eastern kind of principles. So my dad started adding meditation and the mind, Mindfulness aspect of physical culture and started integrating the two worlds of west and East. And, and my dad then also started creating the, you know, the physical yoga practices, integrating them with bodybuilding and weight resistance training like that.

Wow. Frank Zane, who probably your dad knew. Yeah, just was, or not just a couple years ago, was on the show and it was so fascinating. This guy was a super mindful being. He's like, yeah, I play the flute every day. And, and he was really, you know, pretty far along the personal development path. And, and we all have these mindsets. Oh, you know, if you're a bodybuilder, you're probably like a meathead shooting up roids. And there certainly are those out there. Dude, if you eat a calorie again or whatever, you know, if you eat a sugar, there's just a lot of like anger at some levels. At other levels, there's a huge amount of physical awareness that leads to spiritual awareness. So your dad was a super early adapter there and he gave that to you. Is that why you wrote your book by the kudos on the title, My Daddy is a Pretzel Yoga for Parents and Kids. Was that actually your story?

Well, it's an animated book, right. A kid's book. And it's my son and I in that book going through a series of poses and yeah. And the story goes, my son Malachi in there is like, well, my daddy's a pretzel. And it was this lineage of. Yeah. For my dad to my son, you know, so it's kind of passing the lineage along. And you know, on the note of Frank Zane, he was. Yeah, my dad and Frank Zane were pretty close. My Frank Zane always kind of considered my dad. He told me, you know, he's like, he's always someone who was inspired by my dad's wow. Willingness to stand in the, you know, adversity of the early days. Cause even bodybuilding and weight training in the early days was considered pretty weird. And then especially the diet that went along with it.

And I remember the cottage cheese and stuff like that and all that and, and full fat.

And full. Especially in the 70s, was it 80s when it's when, you know, low fat became a thing. And my dad was always about you know, full, you know, full fat, whole foods, like foods from the earth, what you teach.

Yeah, yeah. At a certain point, if you're paying attention to your physical form or your brain function, you end up at that maybe you should eat the fat with the protein and it should be the right fat. And I've always wanted to, as a part of building the world of biohacking, it was I, we must have the bodybuilder knowledge set. We must have the yoga and Eastern spirituality mindset and the anti aging mindset and the neuroscientists and you know, the pro athlete, which is performance driven and different than a bodybuilder or Even like a fitness competitor. Right. Because there's how do I look and then there's how do I power lift and all those things. There's these unique viewpoints, but we circle around some universal truths. But when you bring people together, the cross pollination is fantastic. And so I didn't realize that in that level of detail about your dad. I knew he was well known in this, but I didn't know like the Frank Zane connection. And that is fascinating because who would have thought that we had that connection going back before most people listening to the show, even including me, were born, that all this was going on. Did he talk to you about where yoga came from before that in the US because it's a really fascinating story.

You know, my parents would go to India more and I think, I mean, I do know some of the history of how yoga was brought, you know, early on, was it Vivekananda like in the late 1800s and is that what you're referring to? Some of the early on, yeah.

And it got mixed with gymnastics. Right. And calisthenics.

Yeah.

So that what we're doing as yoga in the west is not really what was happening in India where maybe it was a little bit more mental and metaphysical and then it, it got westernized. So even in the late 1800s, early 1900s, somehow they brought in what you would do at whatever the gym was back then. And some of the poses that we have now are maybe not original lineage, but they work and it evolves like it's supposed to. Right?

Yeah, yeah, that is. Yeah, no, it's really good. Just a little bit about that. So what happened there? One of the, you know, the, the fathers of modern like Hatha Yoga, the physical yoga is Krishna Macharya and he was the teacher of Iyengar, BKS Iyengar, who's father of Iyengar Yoga. And then Patabi Joyce, which is kind of the father of the Ashtanga yoga series. And, and Krishna Macharya, I believe it was Mysore. And at the my in Mysore, India, he had his yoga, his yoga academy there and he started teaching the royal family right there in Mysore. And the royal family brought over from Britain the Britain gymnastic coaches to teach their kids, the prince and some of the royal family and including even some of the security and the military, the gymnastics training. And Krishnamacharya met these British gymnastics coaches and they started integrating. Krishnamacharya started learning from him and they started learning from each other and a lot Krishnamacharya adopted quite a bit of the gymnastics and Some of the calisthenics that were sourced from Britain. England.

Yeah, so. So we're both talking with a certain amount of familiarity with yoga. I mean, you've been doing it since you were born, basically. And I started when I was about, was I. I was about like 32 or something. And the woman who's my wife now, back then we just gotten to know each other, but we weren't quite yet dating. And she said, you should go to yoga. And I'm like, I'm a Silicon Valley engineer. Yeah, right. And she said, well, Dave, you need to, you need to go to a yoga class with a really attractive yoga teacher. And I'm like, what? And she said, yeah, that way you'll keep going to yoga. Okay. It turns out that the yoga teacher I was gravitated towards was named Ken Graham. He was a young guy and he's still teaching yoga to this day. And we ended up doing some work on how the vegan diet was destroying his health. And to this day he's still eating some full fat instead of trying to run eight classes a day on carrots. It doesn't work for most vegans. What's your take on that? I mean, nutrition has always been a part of Ayurveda, which is the, the origin, at least in part, of yoga practice. Is, is there a, you know, a holier diet than another one?

Well, you know, I think a lot of the influence with vegetarianism comes from Hinduism, not necessarily directly from yoga.

Got it.

You look at the classical yoga texts, there's not much about diet in there. And there's in fact not near. There's almost nothing about the physical ostodus. The physical.

Right. It's all meditation.

Right, all meditation, yeah. Spiritual discipline, spiritual practices. Nothing. Yeah, nothing really much about physical. The. In the. There's this one man manuscript called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. That's like a classic yoga text. And in there, the only. It really doesn't speak. It says something about just be comfortable in your body so that you can sit so that you're comfortable sitting for meditation.

So eat bacon and chocolate. That's what I hear.

Yeah. So. And then. But well, there, there certainly is that whole push, I mean, especially going back to like the before 1990s, you know, it was very vegetarian push around yoga. In fact, if you ate meat, I, in fact, I was on the coaching staff of the Philadelphia Eagles. So I worked in the NFL and I created a whole like alternative programs for the Eagles athletes and. But I, I got interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer. This is in 1996 or 98, even maybe 99. Something like 97, probably. But they interviewed me about diet, and it was about vegetarianism. And I said that, you know, I love animals. I think they're delicious. And. And I happened to say that in the conversation. They took that and. And really ran with that. I. I don't know if it was a headline, but it was almost like that. And my point in sharing that is. Man, I got so much hate.

And from the yoga community. The. The peaceful yoga community.

Yeah, the peaceful, loving, totally accepting, all tolerant yoga mop. Yeah.

I'm just like, PETA stands for, you know, the People Eating Tasty Animals. That's just what I thought it stood for. Yeah, right. So. And by the way, yes, I'm trolling animal rights activists and vegans right now, blatantly. Guys, it's not good for the animals or the planet or for you. And that's just how it is. And you wanna be vegetarian? Fine, you'll be vegan. Just stop. So there that I. I said my bias. Now. Now we're done. And you can disagree with me and listen, or you can get angry and go away. And either one's okay. Like, you gotta pick your own path. And when you go away, you should definitely be doing what yoga pose should people do when they're censoring other people who disagree with them. Is there, like, an ideal pose for that?

You know, headstand's a good one. Just turn them upside down. Turn it upside down.

Yeah. So when you cancel someone for saying something that's offensive to you, you should do a headstand as you're doing it. Okay. This is really important yoga advice. Thank you, Baron. I feel already enlightened by our conversation.

Flushes the brain with lots of fresh blood. Hopefully some new thinking.

And what's that pose where you stick your head right up your ass? Is there a name for that one? Because they could do that one too.

Yeah, I don't have the name for it.

I've been working on it for a long time. People keep telling me to. They keep saying, dave, you should do this. I'm like, I'm bending. I'm bending, but I just. I don't quite have the spinal flexion. But I'll get there. I'll get there.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah. And then you get there and you realize there's nothing new there.

Right, exactly. That's right. I was an asshole the whole time. No, I just personal with it now. Going back to something more useful for Listeners other than laughing, which is useful and is actually. There's a laughter yoga out there. Right. But let's talk about sort of the, the. The beginner's guide to yoga. Like name the top four or five styles and like the two words that describe. Or three words like. So give, Give me a grounding in the universe of yoga as it is today. Give me a grounding in the universe of yoga as it is today.

I'm not a total expert on all the different styles and like that, but there's, you know, there's a, there's yoga that's purely based on spiritual practice, you could say. And then there's the Hatha yoga, which is what I, I lean into, which is the physical practice where you, you know, get on a mat, maybe you turn up the heat, you go through. Through a sequence of physical postures that has, has. Can really contribute to general fitness, general preparedness in life and cleansing, detoxification.

They're in order, right? Like, like within. Within your teachings. Their, their sequence to do something because the order is creating an effect in the body. And if you did them out of order, it wouldn't be the same. Just for people who've never done yoga, it actually matters.

It really matters. Yeah, there's, you know, there's. What we refer to is sequencing. And sequencing is a real thing. It's an art. It's a skill. And I've created a sequence that I call Journey into Power. My book, Journey to Power is based on this sequence of postures. It's about 54 poses. And you go through these warmups, sun salutation warmups, and these more integrative postures that then also raise your body temperature. They then you move into like standing balancing postures, into twists and, and then into back bends and forward folds and hip openers and then what we call inversions, like the headstand, shoulder stands, handstands where you turn upside down, basically reverse the flow. And, and, and the sequence has. Yeah, it kind of order to it from the warming up and the preparation, the mobilization of your body and sun salutations into, you know, the balancing sequence is really powerful in, in creating equilibrium. Right. Fortifying one's equilibrium with aging. It's one of the first things to go, I think people living on, you know, devices all the time now too, that people's equilibrium is off. So I think that kind of training is powerful. Back bending is. The back bending postures are very, you know, they is kind of counter gravity, you know, the typical, you know, for. We're like Folding forward. Our shoulders are slumping toward our chest. We're caving in as we go through life in, yeah, surrendering to gravity. And the back bending has this reversing effect of sitting. It's a reverse of sitting. And in a way it has this opening. And when you go through this whole sequence, this order, uh, it, it really leaves you just generally open a new kind of freedom, power, vitality in your body, as you know, and it has something, it does something to the brain, the mind. It can really clear your. Your head and get you out of the head.

I. I think I just came up with a really cool analogy for a yoga newbie. A yoga teacher is kind of like a DJ. So the DJ is reading the crowd. And there's certain things that DJs, you know, there's a drop, you know, where they're building things up and then there's a drop. But then they have to choose the elements of the music that are going to make the crowd get into the state they're looking for. And it is an art, but there's also a science to it, which is why you can teach it. And a really experienced yoga teacher puts together a series of sequences the same way a DJ puts together stuff to make the crowd do what they want. And it's never quite the same set. And what I feel like you did with Baptiste methodology, with your sequences, the way you've done it there is you basically made a song that would be exceptionally popular because people are like, wow, I do that and I feel really good reliably. Meanwhile, though, you can go to lots of different places where there's DJs of various schools and various Morehouse or EDM or whatever, and you can enjoy those. But there are some big hits, and I think you basically made one of those big hits because it worked reliably. I don't know if that helps someone who's never done yoga. Imagine why this kind of mystical. What the heck are they doing? What do you mean? Like twisting and bending and whatever. That's why. Because it's to create the state in terms of the really mainstream stuff. Like if you were to go to some random yoga place, there's going to be like Iyengar style. And I believe you did study some of that. And that's like more precision versus Ashtanga, which is more sort of like timing and doing it the same way. And then there's like Vinyasa, which is softer, more kind of flowy and gentle. And then there's restorative yoga, which is More like super vinyasa with a lot of laying on bolsters. Like what am I missing? And is any of those characterizations wrong?

No, no, I think you have it right. I think. Yeah. Iyengar is known. Iyengar Yoga is known for its precision in alignment.

Yeah.

Bringing the body into alignment. And it's, it's really a brilliant model and method to. You know, most people are very structural, out of balance, in, in ways they don't need to be. You know, certain things from accidents or certain things, genetically certain postures, certain things that throw us off balance we maybe don't have control over. But there's a lot of imbalances we have control over and, and the, like a younger, when you pay attention to alignment and that's really essentially what I did is I borrowed. A younger was one of my primary teachers and I. One thing I borrowed from him is that the, the rigor to a body alignment. And then I. What I call it in my methodology is true north alignment. So we practice these principles, a body of principles. There's five organizing principles of true north alignment. And the idea is you're coming into your north, your true north physically, and you go through us. Like the first organizing principle is more attitude. It's like create the physical foundation. Be intentional in creating the physical foundation of your body. So for instance, where are your feet? Like even right now where you're standing or you're sitting. Like where are your feet and how are your feet just splayed out or your hips? So you be intentional on how you sit. You know, your natural lumbar curve. You know, a natural. Like be intentional in your overall form and foundation of your body and be up to something bigger than yourself. So you've got this growth kind of attitude. And the second organizing principle of true north alignment is it's called Sthira Sukha Asanam. And the word sthira means stability. And sukha is freedom or relax. So you create stability in the body and then also freedom. And you're looking for that in each pose. You're looking for that in general when you walk off the yoga mat into the world, into your life like that. And. But those Prince. We practice principles more than poses is what I like to say. It's like we don't practice poses, we practice principles. And then the principles give substance to the form.

So what are, what are your five organizing principles you mentioned? Like building a foundation. What are the other four around? True north alignment.

Yeah. So be intentional in creating the physical foundation. And be up to Something bigger than yourself, then stability and freedom. And then the third organizing principle is what I call the five pillars, which is drishti. So it's your eye gaze. Like you create a soft gaze. It's your focus. You use your physical eyes to put your attention to one point. It's an amazing brain training. And it's also a, it's a meditative, so it's an open eye, meditative thing. When you're going through the physical poses, you're setting your eyes to a point and you move point to point with your eyes. The second pillar is ujjayi breath. So pranayama is the yoga breathing. We do a deep, like it's a diaphragmatic breath, a controlled breath. It's you keep your belly firm and you're breathing more through the upper torso part of the body and from the throat and you breathe through the nose. That. And then the third pillar there is tapas, which is heat. So heat is the, the, there's a natural heat. Tapas. In yoga you've probably had this experience. So there's the outer temperature of a room that you know if it exceeds your body temperature, then you'll sweat. But tapas is more of the internal heat. When you're, when you've got that drishti, that's focus and you've got the breath, the controlled breath. And then you've got the movement, what we call bandas, a controlled movement in flow. The friction and the flow, it creates this heat, this natural tapas. It's a cleansing, purifying kind of heat. It's often what, it's a kind of heat too. Something happens to the brain. There's some part of the brain that gets maybe you know about this, but when you're in heat, your, your body hits a certain temperature. It hits a relaxation response.

Oh, it's some vagal thing.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a little Sanos will do it too. But it's unrelated to all the heat shock protein and all that stuff people are talking about.

Yeah, so it had. Exactly. And it has this general relaxation response, the vasodilation thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the increase of circulation. So. And then the last two are in the true prince organizing principles of true north alignment. So coming into your center is total body integration. So we organize all the peripheral parts of the body. We organize them into the center and core, the spine line, the center line core. So you're always in this dance of integration. And then from integration, the last organizing principle is full expression. So the force moves out from the core, from the center, the force moves out, it beams out.

Yeah, it's really funny. Anytime I get to talk with a yoga teacher or a spiritual teacher, and I've probably been to maybe like 800 or a thousand yoga classes over the years. Right. So I've heard a selection of them. What you always end up doing is you, whether you're in a monastery in Tibet or whatever, there's always this language to try and explain feelings that don't really have words to them. Yeah, like. Well, you're like, bring, like, the force and power out of, like, your third nipple. And you're like, well, I don't even have a third nipple. What are you talking about? And like, we're trying to make up words for a felt state. And what I, I believe yoga is doing in, in general, much like a meditation teacher, you're trying to tell you do these things, you're creating an energetic state. Right. And one of the things that I appreciate very specifically about your practice is that many yoga teachers don't even talk about gaze versus eyes open, eyes closed. And since Ujjay, which is a form of breathing that lets you. That lets you kind of sound like a seashell, it's something I've talked about in terms of my sleep training. Like, it'll knock you out if you need to go to sleep. But there's all these other breaths that are part of yoga. And breath work has entered its own thing with Stan Grof and holotropic breathing. And you get Wim Hof and all these breathing things, those are all kind of yogic and ancient lineage spinoffs. But the gaze, which is a part of your yoga programs, it's maybe not equally important, but maybe in some cases more important. And I teach people this, like, during neurofeedback stuff at 40 years Zen. Oh, if you close your eyes and you put your gaze here, something entirely different happens than if you look down. So when you're doing a pose, the idea that part of the pose is the hardness or softness, what does it even mean of your gaze and where it's directed? But you address it in language that I think connects with people really well. And it's a super subtle thing, but it's so important that if you fast forward three years from now, there'll probably be some people going, well, I used to be a breathwork trainer, and before that I was like an urban ayahuasca shaman, because I did it three times. And now I'm a gaze practitioner. And I'm just Going to teach you to like, look up into the left and like, it'll be like this kind of absurd, like junk food distillation of a yogic practice. And I believe you incorporated that very well in what you're doing. So congratulations. Because it's really hard to even put words to what you're doing. It's neat because you have gay gaze, you have breath. And now there's the Ujjayi breath itself, but there's a bunch of other, you know, holding your nostril stuff. What's your take on that?

Yeah, like the nodi, the notice shodana, the where you close off one nostril. You breathe in, you hold.

Yeah.

Opposite. Opposite nostril breathing. I. I mean, and there's a lot. Yeah. There's the kalabati breathing, that fire breath.

Yeah.

There, you know, some of them, like the kalabati, that fire breath is more exciting. It. It excites the system. It arouses the system. The. They have different effects. That. That alternate nostril breathing can be very calming.

It knocks me out on the brain.

Yeah. Yeah, right. Like super. Like, it just. If you're in an upset, like if you find yourself stressed out or in some kind of upset, just three or eight. If you just stop and do the alternate nostril breathing, it has a way of just settling the muddy waters, you know, the upset and the muddy waters of the Mayan. It just settles things down. I don't know what it does physiologically exactly, but you probably have that experience with that kind of breath, the power of it. There's no question. And when you add drishti, the gaze, I mean, to your point on that it. With the breath, something else happens. I don't know what it triggers in the brain exactly, but it, it alters one's experience of life in the moment. It alters the experience of their own body. Often people have the experience of actually coming into again here. I'm talking some yoga speak, but you have this experience of getting grounded in your body. Suddenly you feel your feet on the floor. You're aware of your bones, your muscles, your stance, and you naturally want to stand taller because you just have this body awareness that not a concept, but you're actually in the experience of it. That the gaze and the breath. Yeah. It creates that connection.

And even then. Creates that connection. Like, what does that even mean? And the bottom line is, I don't know. Go try and do what the yoga teacher says they could go to. By the way, how many yoga studios are there where there are teachers you've trained. It's pretty big scale. How many teachers have you trained?

Oh, yeah, I've trained 30, 40,000.

So kind of a big deal in the world of yoga, right?

Yeah.

So when someone finds one of your yoga studios, just do what the teacher says. Right. And then all of a sudden, you'll feel this weird thing. And I'm saying this from experience. Go, I didn't even know that your body could do that. And I didn't know the state was possible, so clearly I wouldn't know the name for it. And then your yoga teacher says, oh, that's the grounded connected state. Well, there you go. Now you know what it is. Right. And there's digital ways or whatever to do it, or you can listen to a meditation app or go eat some mushrooms or whatever you do, but you realize there's states you didn't know about, and there must be a name for them. And maybe if you can use the right name, then you can talk about it with someone. And so that's what your yoga teacher's job is to do.

Yeah. And important is to find a teacher. You may have to try a few.

Yeah.

To find the one that you resonate with that inspires you that they grab the teacher as the right teacher is important. And different teachers, you know, different people are attracted to different teachers. I think that's really important. I also think a yoga practice often can be the missing ingredient for people. Like, they're doing all the different types of, you know, modalities of health, fitness training, diet, and it's working pretty well, perhaps, or something just seems off. And often I hear from people, like, I added yoga practice to my routine and regimen, and it just shifted everything for me. It's a very different way of working. Your creature, your body, mind, breath, integration.

How many times a week does someone need to do yoga to start seeing the benefits? And before you answer, Joe Polish, who introduced us, you know, the guy who's been on the show and a dear friend, he, a few years ago just said, look, I'm doing yoga every day, no matter what. I think it was for 90 days. And he said it was one of the most transformative things he ever did. And if he was traveling, he would hire a yoga teacher to show up. And it was. You could just see him changing as a human being. So is it like daily for 90, or is there, like, the lazy man's version of that? So walk me through frequency of yoga.

Yeah. Okay, so class more classical. You know, if you're getting trained In India, more classically, they're going to say it, you know, six days a week, you take Saturdays off.

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If you're getting trained in India more classically, they're gonna say it, you know, six days a week, you take Saturdays off. Cla. That's classic. I always would say, you know, if you're newer to it, you want to actually do it more frequently for a while to build the kind of foundation, the base of, and you know, the openness and, and, and also get some skillfulness in the movement. So I would do it more three to even three to five times a week. I think that if you add it in once a week, twice a week, it's going to be beneficial. I, I think it also has to do with what results you want. I often would say to people in one of my studios in Boston, I had a big sign when you walked in, it said if you want to, if you want some good results, come one to three times a week. If you want a life transformation, come six days a week.

I did five to six days a week for the first year or two of learning yoga. I think mostly because I was bored and yeah, I was bored and I had just separated from relationships Way, way back. And so I'm like, you know, I don't have that much of a social life right now. I had a bunch of friends, but they're all off doing whatever. So it was just one of those, you know, every day after work I would just go do yoga with different teachers. And yeah, it was, it was physically really transformative. And you. I would just keep finding like, oh, my God, there's a muscle in my calf. I had no idea there was a muscle there. And like, I didn't know my shoulder had that. And it's like all these control systems throughout my body woke up.

Yeah.

And am I typical that way, or was I just really, really poorly connected to my body?

I think that's pretty typical.

Okay.

I think, you know, and, and look, I bet even you are probably walking into that yoga practice, yoga studio, yoga practice, more aware than general people. So. No, no, you weren't. You know, most people, when they, when they walk into my classes, they. Most people are pretty disconnected, disassociated from their bodies. And I think they're the one powerful benefit is you, exactly what you described. You start really getting more inter. S Inter. Intimately connected to your body and just your body structure and your muscles and in a different, unique kind of way than you'd get from, you know, CrossFit or more conventional train, weight gym, weight training or resistance training. And I think that different than Pilates, very different outcome. Even though there's similarities, but they're, they're very unique and different. And I, I think that. But now how off so fast forward. So you don't practice five or six days a week now, but going through that period was probably a good education in a lot of ways, I'd imagine.

Oh, it was, it was fantastic. And it still affects my movement. I can still put, you know, a leg behind my head. I'm only at 28% of my expected lifespan of at least 180 years. Uh, but as a 6, 4 guy, he used to weigh 300 pounds and couldn't touch my toes. Wow, that's damned amazing. Of course, nutritionally, I might have an advantage because I know a thing or two and I've had more collagen than most people. I made it into a billion dollar business. So, you know, everyone knows about collagen now and there's all kinds of brands, so it became a category. I do believe eating that for, well, more than more than 14 years matters because the half life of collagen in your body is seven years. So what that means is that if you start doing yoga now and you start eating bone broth and collagen, seven years from now, half of your connective tissue will have been replaced with higher quality collagen. Wow. But if you start going on a vegan diet, which is collagen deficient and deficient in the amino acids to make really good connective tissue, and you're trying to build muscle and whatever else, seven years from now, even though you might be bendier, the core quality of your fascia and your connective tissue may be lower than it would have been if you'd eaten collagen. So I, I think that's part of, part of my, my path. And that weird dance between foundations of having enough minerals, having the right kinds of building blocks, and then yoga being the stimulus that tells the body what you want it to do.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me. I, you know, so I went early in my 20s. I, I would practice yoga, very vigorous, like Ashtanga, a Yengar Bikram. I would do three hours a day, five, six days a week. And I did that for a lot of, maybe 10 years. And, and during that period of time, I went through some different diet phases. I was macrobiotic for a while. I did, you know, natural hygiene. Vegetarian, did macrobiotic. Then I went just vegetarian, went vegan, raw. I. And I was in.

Me too. Vegan and raw hair, too.

So.

Yeah. Yeah.

And. But what started to happen, the, the, with this physical, the intensity of my yoga practice, my joints started coming apart. Yeah. Like I was in a lot of pain. And the only antidote I really had at that time was, okay, I must be still eating too many toxins. Somehow it's sneaking somewhere. Or it's the water, the air, maybe. Yeah. Lack of not enough kale, something. And not. Somehow I'd have to. I was trying to alter my yoga practice without losing the intensity. So I was, you know, I was always trying to correct there, but it. Something was missing. And at a certain point, I, I was talking to my father about it and he actually opened up about. He's like Baron. You know, I, you were very small, but I was. He was like a fruitarian for two years. He went through these phases of, you know, raw, total, then raw veganism, all that. And he said he started losing his teeth, you know, coming apart. And so he really went toward. Back to his old bodybuilding days of like, eating goat, you know, like, we had a farm out in Sonoma county. And you raised goats and sheep and, and we. He would chickens and ducks and Goose and all that. So we went and, and that's what I remembered more. So I went back to my childhood diet which was more like animal real, you know, live animals. And I'll tell you, within a few months I started immediately feeling better. I had severe like sciatica down both legs. I had. And when I just altered my diet and brought in some, you know, just intentional, like animal products and I still kept my plant based stuff but I, I, it was, it was night and day actually. The level of strength and even my yoga practice, it was showing up on my yoga mat as much. I had much more vitality, strength, endurance, all of it.

Yeah, you're not going to make that heat, that internal energetic heat you're talking about if you know your body's just not getting what it needs to build the furnace that makes the heat. Right. It's really interesting that your dad went through that, that fruitarian thing where, well, you know, the plants want you to eat their fruit to reproduce, therefore fruit is really healthy for you. There's even, you know, one of my friends in the carnivore movement is there like, you know, piece or two of fruit. Good for you. Eating a ton of fruit every day because you like it. I don't think that works. I know because I tried it. Even if you're eating a lot of, if you're eating a lot of meat, you're exercising all the time maybe. But for most of us, if you eat six pieces of fruit and rib eyes all day, it's not going to be the same thing as doing nose to tail, grass fed and a little bit more balanced. So I'm with you there. And it varies individually. I do feel for yoga teachers. I've talked to dozens of them over the years who go, well, I want to be more spiritual. I became a yoga teacher because I wanted to evolve as a human and I wanted to serve others, which is probably your classical someone who signs up for your 30 or 40,000 person teacher trainings. But then like, well, I also had to start restricting my diet much like you did, much like so many of us did. And as a teacher, it's not like they're going to one class a day, they're doing like six classes a day plus their own practice. This is pro athlete level output. But they're not eating like pro athletes, they're eating like salads and wondering why they're tired and why they're floaty and yeah, you know, I was pretty good at corpse pose today. Well, it's because like you're there's not enough calories and there's not enough fat or enough protein. And so I just. A genuine heartfelt for any yoga teacher out there. If you're trying to do yoga on cucumber juice is. It's not a long term sustainable strategy to evolve yourself. I don't think our bodies will let us do what we could do. If you do that and you're talking with a couple guys who've kind of been there. It sounds like your dad was too. And, and so you gotta eat what works for you, but just be experimental. Any other words of advice for your, your students on nutrition? Like what do you teach em in class?

Well, I think that there's, there's no evidence that being like vegan or vegetarian makes you a kinder person.

Yeah.

I know plenty of nasty vegans as I, I know some nasty meat eaters so.

Exactly.

Like, I think that people can often get caught up in the form and I think, you know, Hitler was a vegetarian. Right. And, and the Dalai Lama eats meat. It's like there's these contrasting, you know. Yeah. And I think that there's something though about like what you pointed to like being in your own self discovery and really experimenting and I like experimenting, like doing without something as much as, and then when you add something in, just add one thing in.

So smart.

Yeah. To see like maybe dairy is just not good for you and you don't. So just try no dairy for a week or, or two weeks. I don't know what you would say for how long, but take it out, see how you feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then put it back in and, and if that's not it and then take something else out and, and maybe try putting meat in and notice if you're in some kind of dogmatic kind of thinking or ideology, you know, that, that then which is always going to be disconnected from your real life experience.

Let's, let's talk about life experience a little bit. There are a lot of spiritual gurus and yoga teachers who end up having some sexual dalliances.

Right? Yeah.

You know, certainly that, that was, I'm not actually gonna. There. There's one Buddhist monk who's been on the show who's very open about that. But there's lots of others, even some famous yoga people who've had those, those things happen. And it almost seems like it's a trope. Right. You know, you get any guru there, there's going to be something like that. And whether it happens sometimes. Yes it does. Other times it feels like, there can just be angry takedown energy that maybe there isn't a lot of evidence for it, but either way, it just seems to happen. And people think, oh, these yoga teachers, these spiritual people are on a pedestal. But you've been, You've been out there talking about, like, you know, drug use and talking about, you know, business falling out and divorces and things like that. Why do you, why do you think those things are public for you? Like, did you intentionally make them public, or is this just like proper Rotzi following you around?

You know, I. I've always, you know, I was always clear early on I didn't want to be anybody's guru.

It's annoying. Yeah. You don't want to.

Yeah. And people just will put. Kind of put you on a pedestal regardless. So I've always been in the practice of just kicking the. The, you know, stool out from underneath my feet, doing it for me, so no one else has to.

Good for you.

And with that said, I still, you know, get plenty of, you know, trolling or hating and, and there's a lot of envy and jealousy in the kind of wellness yoga so much, and people love to see a falling star or a falling light and, and get on that bandwagon, but I. I think there's something in humans that are quick to put people on pedestal. So what I've seen over the years, and. And you've seen it as well, I'm sure, is that you see these gurus who a lot of them prop themselves up as having, you know, that's a warning sign answers, and that's always a warning sign. Like, I. I can listen to someone without getting caught up in them, but I don't think everyone can. I think a lot of people get caught up in. In putting. Putting someone on it, and we do it to entertainers and rock stars and celebrities and gurus are no different. And I think that it's a trap, though. It's a trap because eventually they're going to disappoint you. I always used to say, you know, most of those yogis or gurus walking around the orange ropes, they've got no underwear, no panties on underneath. And don't get too close because if you don't want to get touched, because I think. Think that they're human and even if they're. They've tapped into something other, some kind of wisdom or some kind of enlightenment, they've still got their human side. And I think it's important to know that, like, and. Because if you. Yeah. Expectations are always A setup for disappointment.

Like it's, it's nice and, and, and you can be really grateful that you have a chance to serve, you know, millions of people and, and that's where I like to remain. But once you start saying, oh, look at me, I'm doing that, it's like a slippery slope for your personal happiness as well. Did you fall into that or have you always been like this because you got the right yoga training since you were 12?

You know, I, I think from a pretty young age I watched people around me, including my, my dad who was a guru and other gurus, and I was like, I watched how people would, you know, get glossy eyed and, you know, and, and kind of this kind of adoration. And I was like, I don't want to be on the other end of that. I remember being, you know, 10 years old in India and we, with my parents going to different ashrams like up in Rishikesh and in the Himalayas and, and seeing these like western, you know, yogis devotees with their gurus and it was like they get in such into this hypnotic kind of trance and they get lost in it and. Okay. And though for me it was always a red flag and I was just clear, okay, maybe that's some people's jam. That's not mine. I don't want to be on either end of that spectrum. I don't want to be the total devotee follower and I also don't want to be the guru.

You figured it out early. One of my teachers, and I would cite which one, if I remembered which one exactly, taught me this, but they talked about that and they said, look, when you rely on a guru to reach a certain state, that's awesome because you got to the state. But if you don't learn how to put yourself in that state, that guru is going to die and then you'll be completely abandoned and you'll be unable to access the state that you've come to rely on. So by definition you have to be your own guru. You have to learn how to do that over time. And that's a lot of biohacking will change the environment around you and inside of you so you have control. And yoga fits right into that. Because that's what you want to do, is be like you're in control, not whoever you put on a pedestal as your guru.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Give your power away to no one would be my. Yeah. Advice. Give your power away to no one and, and be able to take the best from different teachers and different. You Know methods and, but my focus is, has been, for many years is teaching principles, teaching a methodology rather than just being the teacher over here. So it then also becomes scalable, like others can learn that methodology and how to teach and lead others in that methodology and it's scalable like that. So I've been more someone who develops leaders than followers. Yeah.

All right, now I've got to ask the tough questions.

Yeah, bring it.

Well, so has, has yoga teaching evolved and is it better or worse with this sort of like, oh, if I, if, if I feel anything other than perfect, you know, I'm not safe kind of mindset?

Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I mean just to go back to like the 80s 90s, it was, it was, it was very different. Much more hands on assisting, you know, poses and, and, and it would, I mean some teachers had reputations of being, you know, whatever you want to call them, just slutty.

Yeah.

You know, gropers or things like that. Typically though, they would.

The group is going to get caught right away. Yeah. This is more about like consensual post class with multiple students. Whether it's a male or female teacher. I'm not like not calling out either one.

Yeah. I mean I think that in the long run it doesn't work. But when that's your work environment and you're exactly, you're living there. You know, if most people I know who own yoga studios or a lot of the bigger name yoga teachers, they've met their, their partners, their spouses and in their yoga spaces, in their, in their classrooms mostly. I mean my ex wife, we, we met at Rancho La Puerta, the Golden Door. We were both teachers, but she was taking my class. She'd come to my class all the time and, and then when I was teaching in la, she'd come take my class. And then we ended up marrying. Marrying and having three beautiful boys together. And I don't regret that. And, and then another girlfriend I had for eight years I met in my class. And, and it kind of goes like that. But I'll say in general I got to the place where I was like, I'm not gonna. Yeah. I stopped dating and meeting people to hang out with in my programs and trainings. I just separated the two worlds that seem the smarter way to go. But I think that it now more than ever whether, whether in the classroom, if you're hands on assisting people, the better, better practice is to ask, say hey you, do you want me to assist or not? You know, different studios have different Protocols for that. You could put a little sticker or something at the front of the mat if you don't want to be touched or like that. I mean, certain point. I don't know. Yeah. If, if it. I. I stopped doing hands on assisting quite a few years ago. I want to say 10, 12 years ago, I just stopped all hands on assisting.

It makes sense at a certain level because you also become a target, like you said, for people who, you know, have the envy and whatever. I can say that sometimes some of the hands on assists I got, I'm like, I had no idea that I wasn't inter rotating my leg the right way. And until someone grabs your damn thigh and twists it in, goes, no, like that. And they're like, oh my God, I can touch my toe. It kind of mattered for my practice. And I sort of feel sad that some yoga teachers are walking around and going like, I don't know if I can help people the way that I'm supposed to help them, because someone in the room might be triggered by, you know, me putting my hand on their shoulder blades. Right. So I'm hopeful that there's good communication protocols. But I live on an island. I haven't been to a good yoga class in quite a while.

Yeah, it's. It definitely a changed world.

All right.

Who knows if it'll stay like that or. But yeah, right now, especially if you're a male teacher, better not to touch too much. But I'd say for whether you're male.

Or female, permission is always good. Like, hey, is it okay for me to adjust you and. Yeah, you know, that, that seems pretty healthy to me. But hey, you know, what do I know?

Yeah.

And, and clearly in your case, anyone who's, you know, at the top of their field, there's different rules apply.

Yeah.

There's also a power dynamic thing when it's, you know, you versus if it's your yoga teacher, go to yoga once a week and then you say, hey, let's have coffee. I think that's actually acceptable. Right. But, you know, I guess it depends on your own boundaries and all.

Yeah.

What happens if, you know, you're injured, overweight, or have some limitations? You go into a yoga class, what is that like?

Yeah, no, completely. It's. You scale, you scale, you modify, you adapt, you, you know, if you have injuries, it, it really could be the. Some of the most tremendous physical therapy can be. Not always, but it can be because it, it's so whole body movement. You know, one, one thing I have sometimes against traditional Physical therapy is, it's so isolated. There's, and there's something about the whole, the whole body moving through its full range of motion from integration through full range of motion, integrate and you repeat this and has a lot of therapeutic effect. And so, but injuries can be great teachers. So you get on a yoga mat and you're moving through these poses and you work within, you adapt the movements, you stay just above the pain or you know, you develop a kind of consciousness. So your injuries can be great teachers too. You know that you learn a lot about your body and. But absolutely, yes, you can adapt. I've worked with people with, you know, severe brain trauma, Ms. I've worked, done a lot of programs for people with Ms. I've done, I've worked with veterans, I've worked with, with, with every kind of, you know, physical trauma, loss of limbs. And the answer is yes, it's pretty amazing to see how it can light up people who have been so limited because of whether it's accidents or something like Ms. Or brain trauma. How yoga practice can be such a phenomenal add in it, it really can be.

And there's something else that it does too. It, it lets you get over yourself. Right. You know, I, I used to have the body image of weighing 300 pounds. And so, you know, I am, I'm over, over being concerned about stuff like that in part because I think I have a pretty rocking body right now. But even when I had a pretty, I was looking pretty good, I still kind of felt like I was heavy. But you go to a yoga class, right, and you do crow pose for the first time, I promise you, you're going to face plant and you're going to do it in front of like a dozen or two dozen people and they're all going to laugh. And you're going to laugh too, because they're all doing it too. Until there's like those two people in the class that are like, look, I'm doing a one armed crow pose and I'm scratching myself with my foot. And you're like, you jerk. And then pretty soon you end up learning how to do that. So I think there's something about doing yoga in community that just allows you to be playful and laugh at yourself and realize that everyone else is laughing at their own selves too. And that maybe doesn't get stated often enough, but doing things as a group is powerful, which is why I think it's awesome that you're teaching teachers to go out and build those communities.

Yeah.

But you also do virtual stuff, which is really cool. And people can go to baptistyoga.com and, and just check all that stuff out.

I also have a lot of videos on YouTube.

Okay, let's go to your YouTube channel. Yeah.

An abundance of great yoga practices, meditations, content.

Yeah, I'm just going to encourage people. Yeah, check out YouTube, you know, look at the virtual stuff. The biggest thing you can do is go to one of your studios or a studio with one of the teachers you've taught and just do yoga in front of people. You'll just realize something different happened there. Any other words of wisdom for, for people who are listening? These are biohackers. They're curious about themselves. Like what, what should, what should they know that I didn't ask you?

You know, three things that are similar in yoga that is a powerful practice is what Buddha said. There are three routes to suffering. It's attachment, delusion and resistance. Why I bring those three points up attachment, delusion and resistance is there's something about just getting on a yoga mat and people often say, well, can tell me about, what's it like if I come to a Baptiste yoga class? Or, you know, can you tell me about. I'm like, well, are you, are you available? What are you doing tomorrow morning at 9am because really, the only way to really know is to just show up and do it and, and find out for yourself. But I think what you'll discover is there is this like, attachment to things. I, I often. Maybe you've had this experience, Dave, but it's like things release you, stresses things in your, whether in your mind or even tensions in your body, stress in your body. It's like these things we're kind of attached to or attached to us have a way of like dropping off, letting us go so there's some suffering right there. And then delusion to me is like just too much overthinking. Life, worry stresses, you know, living in the head. Yoga is a way of taking us out of the head and, you know, through the drishti, the gaze, the breath, the movement, the sweat. It has a way of relaxing you in a way that you come out of your head and you come out, I like calling it out here. You know, you're in here in your head or you're out here. You walk off the yoga mat and suddenly, you know, you see people and you see that, you actually see them, or you, you know, you suddenly you see the birds and the flowers and you're just more out here with life and rather than in the delusion in the head and then the third, the resistance. You just have the experience of less resistance and you walk a little more in balance from center. You have a sense of center and less resistance, more flow, more momentum that you bring from your yoga practice into your life. Yeah. So do the thing. And as Emerson, do as Emerson said, do the thing and you will have the power. I say just do it and try it. Do, just commit to doing it 10 times, 10 times over, you know, 15, 16 days and, and, and then, and see how it went for you. Yeah. And determine then. Yeah.

Love that advice. Baron, thanks for taking the time to be on the show today. I know you're a busy guy and it's really hard to train 40,000 people in something and you're writing books and doing all kinds of stuff. You have an Emmy, so you can tell you still have great passion for yoga and self improvement and I always appreciate when you get a chance to talk. So thank you.

Thank you for having me. And I really just admire your work and your contribution to health and well being and personal development. Really. Thank you.

Yeah, likewise my friend. Guys Baptist yoga.com if you'd like to learn more every show, you'll notice I kind of mention a link where you can learn more about whatever that person's working on. Because if this show resonated with you, seriously, go to yoga class like there's a directory on there and you can do it. And if you're going, this one wasn't for me then, and just learn the stuff you care about and that would make me happy and grateful. And then I get to go into a flow state through service to others the same way that Baron does. We went either way and so do you. So thank you so much and thank you Upgrade Collective for hanging out in the live audience and helping me ask good questions. See you all soon. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

A Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully, read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider this podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.