EP 20 I David Keil Transcribed with love, by Arlene Patnubay

OPENING: Hey everyone, its Peg Muqueen with your latest episode of the Ashtanga Dispatch podcast. But before we begin, I’m excited to share a little experiment we are trying. Many of you have asked, “How you can support the show beyond our iTunes ratings and review?”…which have been amazing and WE LOVE THEM!

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Now, let’s get on with today’s episode.NUMBER 20, Can you believe that? Needless to say, this one is pretty special. But not just because of the number, but more so because of who I am welcoming back to the podcast, DAVID KEIL.

David was here in Montana, where we led a 5-day retreat together, which was a huge honor and treat for me! I mean, David has been my teacher, my mentor, and my friend for A VERY long time. And maybe it’s because we have these levels of relationship, that this episode turned into less of an interview and more like a real conversation between the two of us. Exactly the way we talk when no one is recording. So get ready to be a fly on the wall, as David and I cover the gamut of topics including how we both have changed in the ways we practice and how we look at practice. David teases and calls himself, lazy and me, Hippie Dippy. But that laziness is actually efficiency of him and my nutty crunchy granola approach these days is inviting more ease. In other words, we are both growing and we are both changing.

Anyway, neither of us hold back, so grab a cup of tea and hang out with us for the next hour. And while most if it is pretty light and even kind of hilarious at times, we did get pretty serious towards the end. We ended up on the subject of yoga and injuries and the significant inquires David is posing for his new project. I’m not going to say much more because I want you to listen. In fact, Let’s start now. Here’s David Keil. David Keil: ALRIGHTYYYYYY!! (laughter) It was a good week

Peg Mulqueen: It was a REALLY good week!!!

D: Ok, Listen IT WAS A RRRRREEEEEAAAALLLLLY GOOOD WEEK

P: See that's the drama I'm kinda looking for. (both laugh). What was your favorite part?

D: Um.... Does Yellowstone count?

P: Totally!

D: Yeah, Yellowstone. I know you want to talk the yoga stuff.

P: No, I know, I actually, no I kinda of .... The Yellowstone thing was cool right?!

D: It was fun. It was AMAZING!

P: And it was beautiful.

D: It was my first time and it was like... i mean obviously you dragged me through it all but pretty quickly but I’m that kind of tortoise anyway.

P: Well, you got out of the car pretty adventurous.

D: Why wouldn’t I get out? People just drive through and don’t get out of the car?

P: Yeah, I mean when we say we did a drive through, I think we need to clarify that we only had a day, we didn’t even have a full day and we did drive my scenic drive thru. But we got out plenty and we saw a lot. We saw a lot.

D: Absolutely... and it was awesome!

P: I feel like moving out here changed my perspective on a lot of things. That drive through to Yellowstone, being outside like that and experience nature in that way, it’s – that’s yoga to me.

D: Yeah ... I’m with you. I mean extensive views like that certainly give a sense of sort of...well extensiveness.

P: Yeah, of how small other things can be. How you get out there and all of the sudden all that matters is...this amazing beautiful view in front of us. If there is nothing else that matters … time stands still.

D: Yeah, its super attractive, meaning it, you know, it’s hard not to get absorbed in it - just because it is so beautiful.

P: And you’re such a small part of it.

D: And dramatic P: And dramatic AND you’re not separate

D: No. You are not separate

P: You are not separate. You’re out there and...I really do feel that oneness when I’m outside like that. I didn’t get that same kind of feeling before I moved into a place that made it almost easy, right?

D: Right. I mean you could even like image even the Tibetans up in the Himalayas and just having this never ending expansive kind of view - must just open your mind up just as well. It’s kind of like one deflecting the other or something. So...yeah.

P: Part of it makes me curious that because I think I should have been looking for – I know I said should and shouldn’t say should but – I should have been looking for that before it become so easy to find it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I’m lazy. There’s no enlightenment here. I can walk outside my door and now it’s there and I don’t have to look for it, I don’t have to find it and its right at my finger tips

D: Take advantage of it. (laughing)

P: And that’s why I am and that’s why of course I invite you out here to do this with me and to bring people out so that they can experience it, so that they don’t have to move OR maybe they do but that you get that experience so that maybe you could go home and find it wherever you are.

D: I mean certainly environment effects us. I do not know how long the impact lasts for but, I mean, if you get a little taste of it you can bring it home. That’s a good thing. It’ll It surprises you, It’s in a way surprising to me how just, phew - HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS OUT HERE.

P: Yesterday’s hike, I was exhausted. To clarify, we had 5 FULL DAYS MYSORE, some workshops, hiking, talks …

D: Yellowstone …

P: Yellowstone. Morning, night, we were going going going … Of coures, by Friday, I was tired.

David: I was tired too.

P: Yeah, I was a lot tire and we got out there to Spanish Creek and I haven’t told you, but I was like “I think we need to make this short, like you know….”

D: I was expecting it to be short, it’s true

P: But then we started to walk with everyone and when we started to go down the path and I don’t know, we ….I mean there was no, there was no destina, I hate to say like that, there was no destination.

D: Right we were just going for a walk.

P: I’d never been down that path.

D: Well…. P: Isn’t that funny (giggles) I had no idea what was down there ... we were kind of just walking and as we started to walk, I just got more energy. It started to become energizing instead of exhausting.

D: Yeah, I was feeling tired for a while and then I think when we like hit these little goals, “Oh, there’s a fork up here. Ok, so let’s walk up to the fork and then see what happens. And then from the fork, we can either go to the falls or not go to the falls, and then it’s like … OK, well let’s just go to the falls. We are already this far out. And it’s interesting because you know the expectation was that it was going to be short then you find yourself fighting that. Or I did!

P: I did too!

D: And then just letting go and how these, these little things that rope us in and ties in and it’s not that difference in practice …

P: I was just going to say that!!! (laughing)

D: When your practicing you’re like “Well, I don’t know if I can do anything, well ok let me just do sun salutations and see what happens” You do sun salutations, You can certainly do the first 6 fundamental postures you know, then you do those, and the next thing you know, you’re to waterfall. You know.

P: Well I realized I use to practice yoga, the way I lived in the DC area.

D: (Laughing).

P: I had somewhere to go, right??! No, seriously! You see where you need to go and you get there the quickest way you can get there, but I wouldn’t say it’s not a lot fun. There was this space in between of where I was and where I was going … that was kinda just like a “I just got to get through. I have to get there.” So it was more about where I was going and my yoga practice became singularly focused in that way.

D: Right. You’re going somewhere

P: it was like, OK, I gotta do something, this is what I gotta do. I gotta do it.” And yes you have some fun along the way but it was more like I gotta get it done. It has more of that feel to it. It has a MUCH more meandering feel to it now.

D: Like that trail.

P: Kinda like that trail You get to the fork. You don’t know what’s coming. Yeah, I practice a little bit more like I hike now. Or maybe. I don’t know which one comes first.

D: Yeah maybe they are just reflecting each other.

P: It’s a lot more enjoyable now.

D: Because you can easily do a hike with a destination in mind. That waterfall could have been like “We are going to that waterfall no matter what” but that’s not how it was. P: But I guess there is a time for that, right?

D: I guess. I mean its part of a process. And that’s the part. I think that actually we drew from the most during the week was, you know: What is the process that is happening here? What is it we are doing? And why are we doing it? I mean it’s important to remind people that – I mean I know it clichique to say Oh it’s not the destination, its….- oh whatever the word…

P: We have to find other words for it because every time I day that I sound too Hippie Dippie.

D: Yeah, Well you did move to Bozeman,

P: I know, I know… I am getting a little crunchier.

D: You are getting a little granola. But I mean it is cliché but then and that unfortunately that makes us push it aside but that’s really the whole point, is that journey. What are you doing on the path, that’s leading you somewhere and and acknowledging that the process leads you there, Not just getting there. Not just focused on the goal but on the day to day process part. That’s what leads you there.

P: When people say that in ashtanga, it’s the pose or something like that, but what I see more, is that the destination is wanting to get it right. People are soooo hard on themselves. I see a lot of: I NEED TO GET IT RIGHT” Sooooo hard on themselves, you know…. As if there’s one right ANYWAY?

D: Right.

P: Do you know what I mean?

D: Yea, Yea.

P: Really zaps the joy.

D: Yeah, I think it’s part of the culture, I think it’s part of a western thing. I mean I did it. I still do it as times It’s about wanting to get something right as opposed to letting it be what it is. And of course once you say right there’s a wrong, it’s the whole dual, non-dual thing as well…let’s throw that out there. But yeah I don’t know if anybody knows exactly what the right way is. Everybody wants to be believe they know what the right way is. You know, it’s a slippery slope too because you have to you have to put effort in a way that it is leading you somewhere. In that sense, it is RIGHT But as you said, there is more than one of those sort of ways to get there. So it’s tricky because you don’t want to say that there is no right or wrong, so nothing matters. Because then, that’s not true either. It does matter.

P: It does matter.

D: That’s why I like to go with the universal, versus the relative, you know and I I know on a universal scale, none of it matters, it’s true. On a relative scale, what you do within that process does matter but then it get broken down even more – does the posture matter? How many postures do you need? What are the postures teaching you anyway? You know, you go back and forth through this whole thing. You find some middle grounds and say, “OK, the postures are teaching me any number of things at this moment and these are part of the process that’s leading me down the path what we call yoga.” Which is different than - asana, itself, but there’re connected.

P: They are! Because it is through the asana that I feel I have been able to start exploring, you know, a sense of softness…maybe that’s what I meant with the right and wrong. To me, there was always a hard edge. You know, this is the way to do it. And then there was a way not to do it

And even though I would talk to other people, if I was talking to someone else, I would NEVER express it that way. But when it came to me, I absolutely thought it that way. It really is harder, there are some beliefs systems of right and wrong that are pretty engrained in me, and probably not just asana, but it gets very hard for me to soften those lines a little. And allow some breathing room, right?!

D: Right.

P: So in asana, that REALLY IS what I have been working on, not trying to hold some hard lines and execute shapes, moves, whatever - but to find some softness in it so it can breathe. So it can BE what it is, with my body even, naturally…my body is Different than another person’s body so a way I inhabit a shape may be different. Even though in my mind, I have a picture of it, and if my body doesn’t do it, in my mind, it was wrong. I’m not alone, cause I watch it all the time

D: Oh, everybody does it to one degree or another, that’s a common problem. Or it’s not even a problem again, it’s just part of a process. Like in a dual relative system, it’s like you got to know one thing to know, or understand the other. So if you dont go through that, maybe there’s no way to know what it is like to not do that. Either it’s a short process or a long process, or one that never ends it. And again, we can talk about it very loosely, but that’s also a slippery slope, that it being practice and not, you know, leavng the edges very blurry and stuff…. this can be a slippery slope as well. Because you never know objectively if I’m being lazy today or am I really honoring what’s going on? This is the tricky part, you know. Especially when you are out there on your own. For people who don’t have a teacher close by.

P: Especially when you’re out there on your own.

D: Rght, that’s the whole idea of having an objective observer who who looks at you and watches you and understands you enough to know when you are being lazy or when you need a little nudge or when you need to be pulled back.

P: And the practice itself is structured in a way to provide some of that for you.

D: I would say, you know the boundaries are loose within a confined sort of structure. It’s kinda both. You know, I usually say Pattabhi Jois and Sharath, they DON’T REALLY get that particular in alignment, I think they just kinda trust our body to do it the way our body is going to do it. You will approximate a shape and that’s kind of it. Because that’s YOU expressing them. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with other styles or other alignments, but as you were saying you get these stories in your head and then you believe them to be true and then the next thing you know you’re judging yourself based on that.

P: It is a slippery slope. I mean it is what you are saying, you can go too far in any one direction and you can take any one concept and go too far with it.

D: Absolutely!

P: You can get very rigid. You know, yes the system provides a very wonderful method and system that has some boundaries within it and some mapping and you could get super rigid.

D: Of course, people do all the time. You know, it’s like you do this or I’m not doing it right, then it’s all lost, or I am a bad yogi or whatever the other stuff that comes up for all of us, the judgements of ourselves.

P: And you can go the other way where anything goes!

D: (unenthused) Yeah, anything goes. You know I like orderliness and I like structure and organization.

P: Yes you do

D: But in a way it’s like the anatomy, its broken down into parts and pieces and all of that right?! I get that. This has always been my story, this is broken down into parts in pieces - but the truth is that it’s NOT. But you can look at it from that perspective if you want to. But we are always aiming for that middle path. It’s like, yes it is a bum by itself - if you make it that.

And yes, it’s intimately tied together with the tissues it’s surrounded with - the joints on either end and then whatever, just like the postures, it’s just the same thing. A posture is by itself but it’s also interconnected with a whole bunch of other postures. It’s both. Or the parts of the posture even. You can keep going. So you are always looking for that middle way of, “OK I am going to push, I am going to put some energy into this? But I am also going to try to relax a little bit but not be too hard on myself.

P: And maybe that’s what goes back to the expansiveness. Looking at something in a bigger way, you can see the parts, you can see the pieces, but you also see this bigger picture that’s so beautiful right? We can be like in Yellowstone looking down right on the top of the canyon and looking at the river and we are a small part of it and experiencing that, and yet at the same time can see this big beautiful picture out there and I think maybe that…that’s what opened up even more for me here… and on my mat

D: That’s what I refer to as context. Like I’m really big on reminding people of the bigger picture. The context within which all of this happening cause its easily forgotten because you get embedded into those details, you know. Yogas chitta vritti nirodha. It’s the embedded nature of what we do as humans, we get caught up believing our thoughts and thinking that they’re us or thinking that they are all true or whatever it is - and then you lose that bigger picture - and that bigger picture is the expansiveness of awareness, actually.

P: AND…I was so going there! D: (laughing)

P: So I was just going to tell you when you started talking about tissues and bones and all of that, that’s the first time this week that you have talked about anatomy. Of course, I’ve known you for a lot of years and the only time you really talk anatomy is when I ask you to. It’s either when I ask you questions that are specific, like I want you to put names to things that I am feeling …

D: Which is always fun.

P: Because it’s all about me. Or I’ll watch you in the yoga room and the only time you talk about it is if someone is hurt.. If someone is feeling hurt, you almost switch. You change from Yoga Teacher to Dr. Yoga Teacher. And you use different words and you just become very different in that moment. I’ve watched you numerous times but on the whole, you never actually talk anatomy.

D: No, I don’t talk Anatomicall

P: At all.

David: No, because it’s about an experience that encompasses all of that. There’s no use in using language that is so specific that 80% of the people wouldn’t know what I meant. Or the other thing is that when you use that kind of language, it switches everybody into sort of more left brain thinking, and then you’re lost in the thought aspect of things and not not in that bigger picture experience of it.

And so to me, when somebody gets injured, it more of a cautionary thing, like “OK, let’s stop for a moment and let’s do think about this and let’s use our thoughts in a positive way. In the sense we’re going to understand this enough so we know what to do and we start looking for an experience that doesn’t include that pain.”

P: Right!

D: So there’s no reason to talk anatomy if it is not necessary.

P: But you give clues. I want to tell anyone who hasn’t been in a room with you, some of the things you say are wonderful.

D: Awe…

P: I’m not talking about….

D: Not the jokes…

P: Not the jokes, but the jokes are funny. You are funny. You do use humor as a way to diffuse some of that over-working that we do and that we need to lighten up. And that’s what you bring in there. A certain chill, take it easy, I mean it not that like that “anything goes” ….The Slippery Slope … that’s not what it is. But you do have a way to diffuse some of that overworking, that over efforting, that over- thinking. And one of the things you said, which really resonated with me so much so that I can’t recall the exact words … D: (laughing) It must have been profound.

P: it WAS really profound. Basically it was “Use as little effort with…

D: Oh, I know what you’re talking about… Use as much effort as necessary and as little as possible.

P: Use as much effort as necessary and as little as possible. I want to actually put that somewhere.

D: (Laughing) That’s my quote, can’t use my quote.

P: I contributed! I’ll give credit!

D: Alright.

P: But that seemed to be the theme to me this week.

D: It is definitely one of my themes. In one way you can look at it as laziness but it’s not. It’s really about efficiency. It’s always been about efficacy. Of course, it can slip into laziness, if you are not careful. But I’m interested in being efficient. I don’t see any reason to expend any more energy then I need to or put more attention to something that is needed or talk about things unnecessary to talk about. Or whatever it is in my mind…. everybody wants to be more efficient - with their time, with their energy, with their practice - with all of it. Because, otherwise, what are you doing? You are wasting energy. And the whole practice is about cultivating energy and using it and in a sense manipulating it to do something with it. So if you are wasting it, then what’s the point. And we do not realize how much energy we waste when we overthink things, when we put 150% effort into places that don’t need it in that moment.

P: Right

D: That’s the thing. There’s always going to be something that does need 150% effort and if you don’t relax enough, you don’t know where that is. Because, as you were saying before, you know the stories we have about how a posture is, what’s right and what’s wrong, which is something totally made up by somebody. At some point, somebody made it up um and we all go looking for it. And then we have an experience of it, but then if our experience doesn’t match up perfectly with some other person who had a different body and a different life and maybe of a different culture, then all the sudden we think we are doing it wrong. But actually, we are probably just having our own experience.

P: I’m gonna give an example….because it’s easy for us talk in theoretical ideas and concepts, but I’m going to give a very specific example. One I posted, the other day on Instagram, and that was Bakasana. I use to never want to post a picture of my Bakasana because I did have the perfect dome. It didn’t have the dome…

D: Ohhhh, it didn’t have the dome, I see …

P: The dome!!! It didn’t have the dome and I tried!

D: It a good thing, honestly, the non-dome. P: Huh, I did it the right way?

David: Whatever that is - I don’t even know what that means (laughing).

P: Whatever it is, to me it didn’t have the right dome and the other one I struggle with for a while and actually only changed it when my shoulders were really hurting and for whatever reason - my body doesn’t like to seem to like to go really straight in Pincha Mayurasana. Isn’t that interesting, like it doesn’t want to do a dome in Bakasana and it doesn’t want to do perfectly straight in the other. And all that “doing it perfectly straight and working and efforting to really lengthen my leg, really point my toe and really work that line – was all breaking down my shoulders.

Very possibly there some other misalignments somewhere else that’s causing all that. But for me, efforting to make that line despite everything else that’s going on, was hurting my shoulders and you know, it was … it was frustrating and it was causing me even more physical exhaustion and mental exhaustion. I mean, it’s hard. It’s hard not to beat yourself up. “Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I …. ?”

D: right

P: And everyone shows you, “Well do it like this and do it like that” and still, it’s not there. But this past year, I really started to kinda let me be me.“Let me be me,” I know what a weird concept in yoga. Let me be me and start to experience the posture as I do. I don’t really takes pictures of it any more because I know it actually hurts me.

D: You don’t take pictures of it? Are you serious?

P: Well, I don’t take pictures of Pincha, because I don’t want to know.

D: What are your Instagram followers going to say to that?

P: I know, there’s none on there. You will not find Pincha Mayurasana in my Instagram pictures from the past year because I don’t want to take a picture of it. But just allowing myself to have the experience of posture, the way my body experiences it, there’s been no pain, I can breathe, I can balance, and it’s fine. It’s lovely and I’m not exhausted after trying it a million times.

D: Right.

P: So I don’t know what it’s suppose to be or what it’s not. But I watched you in the room work with people and I hadn’t really discussed it with you because I have learned not to ask anymore anatomical questions, but I was just like letting myself have the experience of it. And I watched you work with a student who was having the same kind of confusion, like being told to do it this way but her body is a little different and wasn’t making that and it was taking a lot of effort, a lot of energy - It was an energy suck. And it can kind of be frustrating.

D: Yeah.

P: And when you allowed her to go into it the way her body does, there was this ease and comfort and it was really nice and it was a really nice experience. Let’s just put it in the terms I want to put it in, no pictures were taken, no right or wrong, but her experience with the posture when you allowed her to be her, There was a a comfort that carried on into the practice and it continued on that way. It’s a powerful message.

D: It is. And from the teaching perspective as well…Can you really see who the student needs to be, or wants to be or is. And not who you think they’re needs to be or how they are suppose to be? And it’s so hard, you talked about it actually this week, our “bias”, that’s how I say it.

P: Yes.

D: We come with a bias, how we believe it’s suppose to be based on our experience, based on how our body works and all of that. And that’s a reasonable starting place. There’s totally nothing wrong with it. For me, I think it’s where the intersection of anatomy has been so helpful because I know so much about anatomy that I realize that there’s so many unknowns or or there’s so many variations that nobody’s the same. I mean we’re pretty much the same but functionally, we're different depending on body type and height and all this kind of stuff. And so it’s given me a little more objectivity, to see somebody like you’re talking about and go “Yeah, that doesn’t look like it’s working in your body, let try something different. Let’s just go the opposite direction and see what happens.” Because then you get the perspective of trying to do it in a particular way and trying to do it the opposite way and Maybe there is a middle to be found there. Once again, back to the middle.

P: Right, right.

D: Or you just realize that the opposite actually works. I find that happens a lot actually. I tell people to do things the opposite of how they do it and all the sudden something happens that enlightens them in some way, right? They have some kind of realization because they have been rigidly been going in some direction that they forgot that there’s a whole nother landscape of directions you can potentially go in and I think it opens up some sense of possibility and they are not big things.

P: They are not big things…

D: They’re not. It’s not, “Oh no, you do down dog with just one hand now” (laughing). It’s not like that but maybe it turning your hand is out or maybe letting your back be more of a backbend for a moment. Let’s see.” There are so many reasons why it could work at that moment and it might, and to have the sense of “OK, this is what’s going to work now, but maybe when I see this student in 6 months, she’s learned what she’s learned from going in THIS direction and she can start to bring it back to that line.” I have to hold that as a possibility, I think.

P: And that is the part of the process that, I think we undervalue because we think it’s wrong. Letting us be who you are in that moment, in this pose, in this day. This is the process and it’s not a wrong place. We all change as time goes on. I think I have changed, over the course of time.

D: You’ve changed a lot.

P: I think I have… D: I mean, you’re talking about relaxing in your practice, so that’s pretty big.

P: It IS pretty big.

D: You tried really hard for some time.

P: I Did try really hard.

D: And you learned something from it, that it’s not to be judged or wrong…

P: well it’s the “opposite” thing you just said. Sometimes when you go into the opposite direction, there’s a learning that occurs that’s even more profound because you’ve been in one place and explore the other. I don’t think I could speak to this softness if there wasn’t the other.

D: Well, that’s why I can speak to it because I’ve done the pushing, I’ve done the, you know, the seeking and pose seeking and all of that as well because I thought it was going to take me somewhere - but then I got there, wherever, at some point along that path and was like, “Is this really making me a better person? Is this really the direction I thought yoga was taking me? Is this why I signed up for this?”

P: Is this why I signed up for this? (laughing)

D: Yeah. And actually, “No, that’s not quite why.” Good lessons learned and all of that, and certainly really important understandings of who I am and all the reflection on the bad and all that stuff happened that part was fine. But the seeking and the ambition … I’m not ambitious in my practice, I don’t need to add anymore postures, I don’t care. It’s not AT ALL what I care about in my own practice. I’ve dug that hole, I know what’s in there and IT’S GOOD but I don’t need to keep digging just to make my nails bloody. It’s like, “Judges, I’ve dug a hole, it’s deep enough. Rest into that now and let’s do something else. Let’s move on, there’s more” And it’s not in a direction that leads to more postures, it’s the deepening of the experience of doing.

You can do it with Sun Salutations, everybody says it and it’s almost cliché “all you need is Sun Salutations.” Well that’s true. You might not even need that. You might just need to relax into your body.How far down that slope do you want to go? (laughing)

P: Oh, you are now in trouble!!! That’s a slippery slope!

D: (Sarcastically) Everybody stop practicing asana.

P: (Joining the banter) Everybody, stop practicing and go for a hike. (laughing)

D: Yeah, that’s not what I’m saying.

P: No, it’s not because there’s, I think whatever it is it is…we keep using the word “experience” right? We’re trying to experience ourselves and we have a lot of outside ways to bring that experience, in. We have teachers too, we have a practice, and we have Instagram (laughing)

D: Well then, don’t forget YouTube… P: And YouTube, I found that for me, if I just spent a lot of time outside trying to dictate the inside. Like I was definitely an outside-on kinda gal. I definitely was ….I wanted to do it right. You’re right, mine was the “right thing” I letting go and letting my experience be what it is. Right? And there is no right or wrong dropping that kind of thinking. If it hurts, that’s different. When I have pain, I figure there’s something that’s not right.

D: Something you should look at and change.

P: Yeah, I don’t have pain. That’s the crazy thing was when I was trying to get everything “right” I had pain and when I stopped trying to get everything right, I don’t have pain, I have a lot of joy. I really do love…. I LOVE PRACTICING. So I’m not giving up my asana practice. I actually really enjoy me asana practice. I enjoy exploring in every sense of the word, exploring myself through the practice, through what we’ve been given and if I get to the fork in the road and that waterfall is there and I have the energy, I keep going.

D: Right on!

P: And if this is enough, it’s enough.

D: Yea

P: You’ve taken a shift though, and I have to bring it up. First of all, some of the stuff you did in the room, the breathing exercises in the beginning to get centered were structured and yet so expansive. You want to talk about using a structure to bring about expansiveness, BOY, do you do that! I’m not even going to let you walk through that but the way you centered everyone in the beginning using the breath and the count was profound and every student said so.

D: Thanks.

P: I know, there’s nothing else to say. There’s this element and then the workshop, which is really funny because we were talking about, we talked about Functional Anatomy, that’s the book.

D: Right.

P: Right, that’s kinda what you’re known for. And then you talked about awareness in a way that was anatomical. You did…you called it Anatomy of Awareness.

D: Yeah. It’s like a way of talking about it functionally as well. You know, breaking it down =that’s the anatomy aspect of it, I guess. And it’s something that I am exploring right now, so, you know, the more I talk about it and wrap m head around it - it deepens my understanding and experience in it. So I’m trying to talk about it more, so that I um….so I clarify it for myself. And it’s definitely what happened with the anatomy. So why not take it to the next sort of iteration of, you know - that’s the David Keil Story anyway. This seems to be the next step and I don’t know exactly where it’s going, it feels like the right direction to be going, so I’m going there…I’m following it. Seeing what happens.

P: It felt good! D: Yeah! I mean for me, it was all based on everything I learned from my meditation teacher. You had him on the podcast, John Churchill, and his teacher, Dan Brown, and doing mediation. It comes from there. It’s not like it’s something I made up. But of course, you make it your own and then you relate it back to prior experiences.

So for me, I spent so much time practicing Ashtanga, that there is no way not to reflect back into the practice. And really the thing is, it’s the realization that all of the techniques we use in the practice, if you’re paying attention to them, are all preparatory of doing other stuff. And we kind of know that. We’re all like, “Oh yeah, you know…you want to open your body so you can sit in lotus. Why do you want to sit in lotus? To meditate.” But then, you get stuck in the asana so long, that you never find your meditation teacher or you never take it on as a formal practice because you think you can’t stop doing asana!

P: Well, because we think of meditation as a graduation from something instead of an integration with something. Does that make sense?

D: Yeah. And it tie it into the other things we were talking about, it’s very easy to go, “Well, I’m not really good enough in the asana, because I haven’t really been getting them right yet, so I haven’t finished….” What? (sarcastically)….4th series? 5th series? 6th series? (laughing) Another never-ending thing. So anyway, those judgements usually stop us from from doing that integration and exploring mediation.

P: That’s what I really like what you brought in. You brought in elements of breathing and mindfulness and tied them into the practice as we know it. So when you talked about the Anatomy of Awareness, you did use as a reference point a lot of the things we are doing within our practice as with the breathing techniques you brought in the beginning. Again very useful within the practice. You integrated those concepts really nicely and I know you are still forming ideas around it but I want you to keep forming ideas around it, because I think this is going somewhere really beautiful. But you brought it in a way that could be functional within a system that we know.

D: That’s just my nature. I cannot NOT do that. It’s got to be useful or else otherwise, I don’t want to do it. I’ve got to feel like that feedback comes back. Like one, I have to have that experience myself and see that if it lands that way with other people. Because at the end of the day, I’m pretty functional. It’s that efficiency. Like I don’t want to use extra words, I don’t want to say a bunch of stuff that either confuses people or wastes time. Not on purpose of course. It’s like, “I want to be really clear and focused and specific and create a particular experience.” Which isn’t going to happen all the time. But, to me it’s all tied together.

It all goes back to the context thing. How do all of these parts fit together? How do I create a particular experience in the Mysore room in the instruction, in the workshop that kind of helps people understand the big picture and at the same time, dive into the nuisance components that dive into that big picture?

P: Which you are doing again… (David laughs)

P: in another subject change! No, this is all great because it leads right into this next piece. And originally, I thought we would do a podcast about THIS, but….

D: What are you talking about?

P: The research that you are doing. It’s huge. It’s what we thought we were going to do something around that. That was my original idea, but obviously it’s taking me, oh I don’t know, 40 minutes to get there.

D: Yup.

P: Which all this kinda leads up to the way your brain thinks, which I LOVE. I do. I really do. You know, before we get into the research part, I gonna say this out loud: You’ve always been….You were my first teacher in a Mysore room, you are the one who absolutely got me hooked.

D: You always have to bring this up.

P: I know, I do… but really, I look to you as a teacher-mentor, like the way I want to teach…the way I want to be for others, is the way you are for others, the way you were for me and are for me….and the way I see you work with other people. There is a real specialness to it, you do look at everybody as an individually, you do bring in that sense of awareness and efficiency, even right?

D: Yes, as you know, I organize my weeks in my mind in some way…

P: Oh my god…he gave me a program…He’s helping me organize. Um, it’s a lost cause but I’m going to keep trying. (Laughter)

D: You come up with your own.

P: Yeah. And that you allow people the space to find themselves. You are both in the forefront and in the background and you’re willing to be either, depending on what the moment calls for. In the forefront, if somebody’s hurting, they need something, you’re there and then, when they are ready to have their experience, you back away. It’s this, really nice balance of knowing when to step in and being able to step away. Letting the individual have their experience in whatever way that is, but also technically being able to come in and organize information and….there’s a lot of breathing room in that and yet there’s a lot of direction. So all the things we are talking about, expansiveness, you do kinda live that way and teach that way. And I have always, always looked to you for guidance I guess. And yet, we’re so different in personality, but …

D: That’s fine.

P: And that’s fine, and that’s what makes it fine. Like you’re ok, I don’t have to be you…

D: Nor should you. P: Nor should I, but I can look at the qualities that you bring and I really do try to learn from those.

David: Well, its kind if like, do you remember when Sharath was in Miami during conference and he talked about Guruji?

P: Yes!

D: And he was talking about - don’t do what your teacher does. Just follow that direction… See where they are going, and find your way there. It was something along those lines.

P: You know, he said, “I can’t be my grandfather.”

D: No!

P: “I’m not my grandfather, but I am following in that way.” And that was pretty profound. I did take that away because that was pretty big because I think sometimes we are like, “If I admire this, I have to be like that person.” Then they will start to talk like that and kinda of lose themselves.

D: Yea, I think there is value in that kind of modeling when it’s done well. Meaning, Guruji sets this model of whatever or however you see it because you’re obviously seeing it in a biased way and through your own filters and all that. But whatever positive qualities you see in that teacher, it makes sense to adopt that first and go, “ok”. Because I did that with John, It would be like, “Ok, I wonder what John would do in this situation.”

P: WWDD! What would David do? (laughter)

D: Except for mine, it was JD. ”What would John do?”And I think that was beneficial. It has to be dropped at some point because otherwise you do lose yourself and you don’t know who you are in the scheme of the whole thing but….

P: Or you only know that person within your experience of that person. So if your teacher has taught you this way, you taught me something AND if I lose context, then I only know what you taught me.

D: Right

P: Me! In MY body.

D: Not the way you teach.

P: Not the way you’re taught, the way you taught ME!

D: Yeah

P: Yeah, Big difference.

D: A very big difference. P: I think watching you has always been really really cool to watch you in the room and in the context with everyone. And why a lot those realizations will come for me personally come from watching you, not with me but with others.

D: it’s a different perspective.

P: Yea, it’s a different perspective. So, that being said, it is that exploration part of you, it is that curiosity- seeking piece of you … The one that looks for exceptions, that doesn’t hold on to ultimatums, that’s always interested, always growing, always digging …You came up with a research project, a pretty damn big one.

D: Yea … go big or go home.

P: Go big or go home. So talk about that, Its BIG.

D: Well, It started actually a few years ago. That’s when the seed was planted and it was around the time where all of the conversation around injuries and yoga was happening and there was a big hubbub. Basically, as somebody who has dealt with a lot of people’s injuries and forget even in the yoga world, I had dealt with them there. But outside, as a therapist, who dealt specifically in chronic pain problems, that’s all I ever did. So everybody came to me was in pain and had injury and what you start to learn from that experiences, is that there’s a context: there’s pre-existing conditions that have influenced it, there’s so many possibilities. At some point, it doesn’t matter, you fix what is in front of you anyway. But many times, it was helpful to understand how they got there and for them … just as much for me, was to help them to understand how they got there.

So I was pretty upset to be quite honest because there were examples in injuries in yoga that were being paraded around without any context and left the feeling as if these things happen on a regular basis or the potential for them to happen is like just a moment away. And it was such bullshit.

P: So there’s subjectivity in making causal relationships. If you don’t limit variables, look at all these things you’re talking about, you can easily create causal relationships that isn’t true but you can say it because it looks like it. But then when you actually do research or limit variables or look at least all of them, you then really see. That’s why real stats are so important because it makes you look at those things, but if I write a blog, I don’t have to look at those things just like certain political candidates don’t have to look at facts, they can say whatever they say, “Believe me, a lot of people” … And you start saying it over and over again, and people believe without looking at the facts. Sorry, that was my little rant.

D: It’s true too! Because the way I have to approach people with pain, I had to be really objective and I have to listen to what they said, I had a choice to believe it or not believe it. Because I was going to be, it started with so-forms, subjective/objective, assessment, what protocol was used? And what you start to realize is, that sometimes the story a person tells about their injury is true and sometimes it’s not.

And the tissue itself, when you get really good at working with tissues, the tissues talk to you. Not like, “Hey David, this is what I really want.” But in a way, it’s like you feel tension or you feel softness or whatever it is. And at this point, I don’t even know what it is, it’s a knowing. It’s on a level you don’t think about it so much. I will start with thoughts, like that sounds something like rotator cuff or whatever, but let’s see what happens when I get there - that sense of openness. Anyway, people were bringing a lot of personal biased to it. It started with the article of the William Broad book.

P: Oh that’s right.

D: What was it…I’m trying to think of the title of it. You know?

P: Oh my God, I can’t think of it.

D: Yeah ok, everybody know what we are talking about.

P: if you don’t, Google it.

D: Which just triggered like a volcanic eruption in the underworld. Whoever wrote that article, did a great job of creating that volcanic eruption. That’s what they intended to do. Personally, I read the book. The book is good. It has good facts in it … blah, blah, blah … all that stuff. And it’s much more balanced. But anyway, the conversation started there and bled out and other things were being talked about… it was like….

P: So much personal biased in all that.

D: So much personal biased. It was Matthew Remski. That’s it. Matthew pushed this whole idea that people are really getting injured in yoga in a really horrible way and you know, he gave some examples. And those examples were pretty bad and horrible but they weren’t happening to everybody and they weren’t happening on a regular basis. And this was the kind of impotence for what is happening. It’s not necessarily a direct response to Matthew Remski, but it made me think, these people are not using any sense of context around this stuff.

It’s like you want to hold somebody up who blew out their knee in padmasana but you want to leave out the fact they sat in padmasana for 4 hours…without moving. Why would you leave that out? Don’t you think that’s important? Things like that. Those kinds of examples, it makes more sense when you look at that way. Like, yeah, that sounds a little more reasonable. Who’s doing padmasana for 4 hours on a regular basis in the modern yoga world? Nobody.

P: I don’t know anyone (laughing).

D: I don’t know anyone, either. So was it padmasana that did it? Was it the 4 hours? I don’t know. Was it the tension in that person? I don’t know. Were they a regular practitioner? I don’t know. There’s a million other questions you would want to ask somebody who had that happen to them. So I created the survey basically and the whole idea of the survey was to get this context in including age, location, like in my mind I can say that is it true that you are in a colder climate, you’re more likely to get injured or less likely to get injured. We might make assumptions about that. When it’s cold, my body is tight. But we might find out that people in cold climates are less likely to get injured because they are more cautious or for whatever reason, the causation is always there.

P: The causation is always there but even having some of the information is …

D: … is like, from the survey, and it’s not all about injury, although… to be honest with you, it’s really biased toward injury, in terms of questions. Based on the fact that it came out of wanting to understand injury but we did include stuff about positive outcome. Which is harder to measure and the whole thing is self-reporting anyway, so it’s taking it with a grain of salt.

P: So there’s that subjectivity already.

D: Exactly.. so you take it with a grain of salt anyway. But the whole point is when you have, number one, this many questions, some of them will overlap and in such a wide range. It’s a correlation survey. It’s not really a causative survey. We’re never gonna say, “This is the reason these people are getting injured.” But we might say something like, “Well, people who practice this style are 5X more likely to get injured or 5X less likely to get injured then people who practice this style or this style.”

P: That’s just measuring what it is. That doesn’t show the cause. It doesn’t say, “Because they practice this…” but it do show places where you can look further. Where you can creature further research into those areas.

D: Exactly. I have to say our aim was, the minimum that we needed was like 400 surveys and …it blew my mind by the way.

P: So there’s numbers that are set, and it’s not just you creating the questions on this survey?

D: No. Personally, I came up with the majority of questions to start off with and yeah, I have some friends who are much more intelligent than me.

P: Who are scientists.

D: Who are scientists. Which includes a double doctor and a doctor and a another doctor, a PhD, a PhD….and Md PhD and people who done is in the academic world and know about writing surveys and all this kind of stuff. They checked everything.

P: I just want to say this out loud. That alone would always stop me from doing any kind of real research and that’s how I knpw. There’s so much that has to be looked at. I mean you can’t just make assumptions.

D: You can’t just write a question.

P: No.

D: You can easily bias a question. You can easily bias an answer and it can get overlooked very easily so, I mean we poured through it. It’s taken me 3 years to launch. We spent a lot of time. It’s a lot of questions, it’s a big survey. And going back to 400 that number, based on the worldwide population who practice from a scientific perspective….

P: To make it valid

D: To make it valid, the minimum was something of 400. It was a little bit more than that but not more than …

P: By statistical reasoning, you only needed 400 to be considered valid.

D: The idea would really be we need 400 answers to each question. So there’s a point where you hit a maximum number that you need to get that 400 answers to each individual question, so that number seems to be around the 2500 mark. So at this point - I actually haven’t looked this week because we have been so busy - I pushed the survey out a couple of times, I have to say, I’m really close to 2500. We were like 24 something-something. So it’s just hanging there. Every now and then, a survey response comes in which is fine. We’ll leave it up there until it takes 2500. I got a little thing on the website for people to click on to take it.

But what interested me the most - and I can see the forms because this is all happening on my server, on my website, and so I pick a couple of questions in the survey that I thought I really wanted to see in real time that were coming in, you get an abbreviated version of it. But a lot of people either give their information anonymously or click a box and then be part of a long-term survey. And the people who clicked on the box for the long-term survey is like 85%. Which is huge. I’m jumping off into this because you brought up where you can take this data and you can break it down even more. So now you have, you can group people based on their style of practice and yet more nuanced questioning. I mean there’s a million ways to go with it.

P: David, I don’t think anyone has ever done this. I don’t think so. Not on this scale.

D: On this scale, I mean this is a BIG survey. It was a minimum a 15-minute survey and if you had multiple injuries or if you really dug into stuff, it could take you 20-25 minutes. And everybody who I know who’s a scientists is, “Oh yeah, how many survey responses did you get?” I’m like well, I just sent out my newsletter and we’re up to a thousand. And they are like, “WHAT?” They freak out because it’s kind of unheard of to get people and its really great I’ve gotten in this stage of my yoga career, so to speak, that I can hit a button and I can send it out in my newsletter and it’s like a flood!

P: But do you know why? Because we trust you. Because you are a trustworthy source. When we talk about ... Matthew Remski. I’m going to give him credit here by raising questions the way he did and the way he did it, did bring awareness. He did bring attention to things.

D: Absolutely

P: Even though I thought, “Woah, this one looks like an agenda, this is so subjective…” which is what it looked like to me. D: it was pretty biased to me as well. but the question, the base question, was totally valid.

P: But somebody has to light a fire so that other people get interested. But I don’t know if I would trust - in fact, I don’t trust the results that would come from that kind of investigative questioning. That seems very subject and cherry-picking for something … you want to look at someone that looks very objective but also interested. Somebody who can take an expansive view, but also be willing and be able to look at the individual pieces. And that’s a very unique way. Those are two very different kinds of skills, I think. We talk about two different sides of the brain, they are two different sides of the brain, I think!

But you are a trusted source and so by putting that out there. But I look at a survey you are going to put out and, Hell yeah I’m going to answer it! Hell yeah, I’m going to give you information and yeah, I want to be part of the long-term research.

D: I think the original thing you were talking about there was that nobody’s done this before. Um, if they have, nobody has really heard about the outcome of that survey. There are and actually as a result of putting out this survey, a couple of other ones popped up and people are like, “Have you seen this or have you seen this…”

P: I don’t think they’re the sort of general aim of it was a little bit different. Because mostly you don’t get regular people doing surveys like this. It would be in the academic world that somebody would be trying to pull this data together for a PhD, or some paper or for something like that, why would a private citizen be so interested in doing this, it just doesn’t happen that often. And I think … (Peg laughs) I just realized that this isn’t even something like, this isn’t a business venture, this is actually just like totally interest wanting to provide or know or curiosity seeking… It is a pet project.

D: It’s totally a pet project.

P: It is a huge pet project.

D: I do hope that helps broadens the conversation or makes it more intelligent and fact-based in some way. There’s always gonna be more to dig into but it seems like….yeah, and the other point, other researchers, they often don’t get out of the academic sphere. So nobody reads them.

P: You can’t apply them.

D: Right.

P: Or even know what happens.

D: You just don’t know. So, we’re definitely going to write loads of articles off of them.

P: So originally I was going to tell people to go and fill out the survey, but it will be over by the time

D: Maybe it will be there.

P: Maybe. So where can you follow, like if you didn’t sign up or whatever, how… D: I mean, we are just gonna put it on the website and put it out in the monthly newsletter as articles get written.

P: So yoganatomy.com.

D: yoganatomy.com. If you want to see if the survey is still up, just go to yoganatomy.com/survey.

P: I probably put the link, I’ll put it on the website.

D: It might be up still.

P: So if you are listening to the podcast on the website, we will make sure we will have those links available too.

D: Yeah, Its’ October 1st so if you are listening to this in November and December, chances are that its done. But whatever. Anyway …

P: Oh yeah! It’s October 1st.

D: So sign up for the newsletter and you will get the results. Yeah, it’s already October 1st. The year is coming to an end.

P: Oh wow!!! I have to get you on a plane soon. I don’t know why I do this to people. Like I make you do the podcast before a plane because you and I could sit down and continue to talk…

D: It’s sweet because I don’t get any travel anxiety because I’m so focused on this.

P: There you go. I did this on purpose.

D: Yeah, thanks.

P: But you’re coming back, next summer.

D: Yes

P: Summer 2017, I haven’t pinned down the dates yet. People are already asking me, we are looking at the first few weeks in August. It will go up as soon as its there.

UPDATE: David will be back in Bozeman, August 7-11. DETAILS HERE.