Guys Talking Yoga

Dr. Dan Bornstein is an associate professor in the department of health, exercise, and sport science at the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, and leads one of the only graduate degrees in the nation designed to meet the growing demand for exercise science specifically designed to work with military personnel and first responders – those considered tactical athletes by occupation. In...

Greg May is the Director of Athletics at Saint Thomas Academy in Minnesota and a former college hockey player who has coached among the top high school and college programs in the country including the University of Minnesota where he was director of hockey operations. After highlighting his experience working with the Gophers, Greg goes into detail sharing how yoga became a key component of off-s...

Andrew Stackhouse found yoga nearly fifteen years ago as a means to compliment his path to sobriety and was instantly hooked on the physicality of the practice as well its humbling and empowering qualities. “Stack” shares his well-earned perspective from being dragged to yoga by his wife to ultimately becoming a teacher and co-owner of a studio in Southern California and defies the image of the ty...

Derek Sabori got into yoga as means to recover and balance out his jujitsu training and got hooked by its body-breath coordination and the intellectual challenges in pulling off an advanced inversion called parsva bakasana – more commonly known as side crow pose. His passion and appreciation for its many benefits lead him to founding a yoga apparel company called Kozm and creating a killer pair of...

With three decades as a high school physical education teacher combined with thirty years of service in the Navy and Army Reserve, Craig Shimel has amassed a ton of perspective and knowledge around life, community, service, and fitness. And in the mid-1990s he helped pioneer the integration of functional movement and yoga in youth fitness after teaching himself simple sun salutations exercises by...

Bolsters, blocks, belts, chairs, and even walls, can safely offer support for weak muscles and unstable joints as practitioners navigate nagging injuries and challenging yoga poses (“asanas”). Combined with an experienced Iyengar teacher, the use of props can also help unlock a subtle, unexpected awareness within. Today’s guest is Andi Wirz, a friend and native of Switzerland who has been teaching...

I met Tom Strachan during the high-flying dot-com boom days in the early 2000s while working for Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was his passion and dedication to yoga that inspired many of his colleagues to try yoga, and thankfully I was one of them. In our conversation, Tom shares how Bikram yoga helped him cope with his early days of sobriety and speaks to the many benefits...

The first of two interviews, Dr. Dan Bornstein is an associate professor the department of health, exercise, and sport science at the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, and the director of the Center of Performance, Readiness, Resiliency and Recovery (CPR3). He leads one of the only graduate degrees in the nation designed to meet the growing demand for exercise science specifically d...

With over thirty years in the fitness industry, Steve Safrit is the owner and founder of SoFul Yoga and a co-founder of The Forum Gym in Salisbury, North Carolina, and he is a passionate advocate for yoga’s many benefits for the mind, body and spirit. His path began in 2001 when he earned his 200-hour teaching certification as a means of complementing his weight lifting regimen and karate practice...

Curt is the director of the center for innovation at the Fessenden School and a long-time friend since college. Curt shares his path for how he got into meditation in high school and how his practice helped him manage stress-related back pain while making a career shift from financial services into education.

Bill Rexford is a longtime coach, teacher and athlete who has had a successful career playing lacrosse for Dartmouth College and at the top level of club leagues. Rex talks about how yoga came into his life in the 90s as a high school coach in Oregon and how it has helped him navigate the realities of past injuries and roadblocks with intentionality, both in his practice and his life.

Bryan Wymbs is a lawyer in North Carolina who got into yoga over fifteen years ago and shares his experience taking his first class at a local gym and how the non-competitive practice of yoga has helped provide balance in his life, particularly in managing stress and focusing on the moment.

I met Alaska native David Demers while playing lacrosse for the Portland Ales in Oregon during the late 1990s. Dave shares how yoga has helped him manage his chronic lower back issues that he has struggled with since his college days and allowed him to keep playing lacrosse and hockey well into this 50s.

Welcome to the Guys Talking Yoga Podcast. I got into yoga twenty years ago while working for a tech startup in Boston during the dot-com boom when a couple friends on our sales team invited me to check out a class. And while that Bikram class didn't change me over night it did become a door into something that has brought me physical, mental, and spiritual benefits ever since. Benefits that many g...