Guys Talking Yoga

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 the Iyengar method for twenty years and led classes at two of the most respected backcare studios in the country, Samamkaya and Yoga Union.

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 of having an ongoing practice as he enters his 50s.

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 designed to work with military personnel and first responders – those considered tactical athletes by occupation. In this conversation Dan shares how a significant back injury in this youth ultimately led him to yoga and his interest in musculoskeletal health and physical fitness while also shaping his commitment to public service and giving back.

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 and he now teachers at gyms, pediatric centers, health fairs, schools and churches.

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.

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.

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.