Natalia Petrzela is a scholar, writer, teacher, and activist. An Associate Professor of History at The New School, her first book, Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford, 2015), explores the roots of the culture wars in American public schools, specifically amid heated battles over sexuality and bilingual education. Natalia’s latest research traces the rise of “wellness culture” since the 1950s, asking how... Read More

Paul Shapiro is the VP of Policy Engagement for the Humane Society of the United States and the author of Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World. We discuss the fascinating new technologies that will reduce animal suffering while offering us optimal nutritional options in the very near future. Stay in touch: http://www.derekberes.com.

We talk about fitness often, yet the most important aspect is often left undiscussed. Attention matters in physical, cognitive, and emotional health. This is the first half of my keynote lecture at Shape Michigan 2017. Thanks to Brian Tass for inviting me to speak and teach a movement class. Stay in touch: http://www.derekberes.com.

Robert Lustig is an American pediatric endocrinologist and author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease. A professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he specializes in neuroendocrinology and childhood obesity, his 2009 lecture, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” has been viewed over 7.3 million times on Youtube. His new book is The Hacking of the... Read More

Will Lopez is a 20-year-old Political Science major at UCLA who was born in Mexico. He is also a DACA recipient. We talk about what it’s like hearing the president call Mexicans drug dealers and rapists, what being a Dreamer entails, and his own political ambitions in California. Stay in touch at www.derekberes.com.

Ground rules for yoga pulled from Derek’s fourteen years of teaching. Stay in touch at http://www.derekberes.com.

Yoga Journal recently published an article in which senior teachers speculated about the future of yoga. Derek responds. Stay in touch: http://www.derekberes.com.

The intersection of yoga and music has defined much of my movement career. In this episode I discuss the basic foundations of music in a yoga class, playing samples of tracks that work well during different phases of the flow. Stay in touch at http://www.derekberes.com.

Robert Wright is the author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, The Evolution of God, and most recently, Why Buddhism Is True, the subject of this episode. We discuss mindfulness meditation, Buddhist philosophy, identity, essentialism, tribalism, and techniques for overcoming the perceived unsatisfactoriness of life. Stay in touch at http://www.derekberes.com.

The title of this podcast is taken from Brooklyn-based yoga teacher J Brown’s blog, which he runs at jbrownyoga.com. J is the owner of Abhyasa Yoga Center in Brooklyn and is a prolific blogger and podcaster. I find myself reading all of his articles, and so reached out to take our online chats into the “real” world. Stay in touch at derekberes.com.