Benefits of Practicing Acro Yoga with Caspian Burrell

0:00 Acro yoga is basically doing yoga on another person. So, it's, it has a different forms. But typically the one you're going to see is like L basing. So where someone's lying down their legs are up. Their hands are up. And the other person is on top of them, doing different yoga poses or flowing through poses.

0:15 And moving through poses is pretty cool. Super exciting. Both the base or fly do either roll and looks amazing as well. Welcome to the going pro yoga podcast. Namaste. My name is Paul. Chiodo joined here with Michael Henry. Most yoga teacher, trainings are becoming watered-down and mediocre.

0:39 So we've created this podcast to help supplement those of you who graduated from a teacher training and don't feel confident going out into the real world. Michael, and I are lucky to have been trained by some amazing people. We've gone out into the world ourselves and had success and we want you to feel confident to protect your Cans and to build your career with integrity and authenticity, Welcome to our podcast.

1:06 Or what's up everybody. Welcome to the going pro yoga podcast. My name is Michael Henry. I will be your host for today. And today, we have a special guest joining us Caspian Barrel. Yes, correct. Hey Caspian Barrel. He's a close friend of ours who we've met over the last two years or so and he's been a neighbor of ours for the past year and he is a yoga teacher.

1:29 And pretty dominant in the yoga or the acro yoga space, will say he's very passionate about acroyoga and that's probably what we're going to be talking about. Mostly today is acroyoga. But before we kind of Deep dive into that a little bit, I want to introduce you a little bit more about Caspian and his story Caspian is from the UK.

1:49 If you can tell from his voice, so he's very proper and he sounds really nice a lot better than me. I sound a little bit more redneck, but Caspian has an interesting story. He actually was a aerospace engineer. Was that right?

2:03 Yeah. Well, for a while, I was an aerospace engineer before I left that life and found something new right? And now he lives here in Bali. So tell me a little bit about that. So just a brief kind of where you're coming from.

2:14 And now how you're here. And then we'll jump into the yoga pieces. Yeah, so I started my my life after University working in a, you know, industrial engineering company for Aerospace or designing parts for planes kind of complicated stuff like that. And at one point I had enough, you know, I decided I wanted to leave and travel.

2:35 So I spent a year, backpacking around, Asia ended up, Landing here in Bali at some point. I'd heard good things and I came here and I found a great community in the yoga and a curio Community here and that really made me stay.

2:50 So that's how I found my path path to this life. I'm now living. And how long ago was that, that I mean, I left my job around three and a half four years ago. And then travel for a year. So I've been in Bali two-and-a-half to three years now.

3:03 Yeah. Okay. And how long were you working in that space for before you had fully? We had enough? Yeah, full years in the industry. I would say the last year of my work was a challenging one, where I was not at my best and right, really showed up, and then eventually led to the decision.

3:19 Yeah, right, right. Okay, and then, when you were traveling around because I mean, you weren't a yoga teacher before you had left right? You had done your training somewhere along the line. So, tell me. So it kind of gave me a little bit of a story of the of your travels and then kind of how it transitioned into, you know, your ryoga space or becoming a yoga teacher and even the types of Yoga that you practice and teach.

3:42 Yeah. Sure. Yeah, it's gonna be a little bit of story. Let's go for it. So I'd never really traveled much before I left. I'd never done backpacking. My I'm half Singaporean. So actually I've spent a bunch of time in Asia before and I know some of the countries but always from a holiday, you know, with my family.

3:58 So Spending a little time in Resorts and nice places. And yet the, the urge to travel had never actually occurred to me, or hit me, you know, I have some friends who have always wanted to travel with my sister went traveling and backpacking for a while and that had never been on my agenda.

4:18 But at the point where I wanted to leave this job, I felt like I need to do something drastically different. So that's why I made the decision and amazingly. I don't know. I didn't really know what to expect of traveling. I What have?

4:30 I didn't think I'd even loved it. I wasn't really sure. I just felt like I went to go do something really outside my comfort zone. So, yeah, I went to Thailand first, I'd say that's like the easy step to come into Asia and partied.

4:43 A bit, you know, the standard traveling things. And then I'd say one of those significant bits for me was traveling through Vietnam. I bought a bike and I kind of drove around for three months in Vietnam and that's when I really found my kind of love for traveling in the independence and the kind of exploring and that was really amazing.

4:59 I think so. And eventually I went to Cambodia allow bunch of different places. Eventually, I ended up in India and that's where I decided to take yoga teacher training. So along the way, I'd been practicing yoga. I found, you know, in hostels and place. I was saying there's lots of people who come and do a bit of yoga.

5:20 You sometimes have guest teachers who are at the hostels giving free classes. So that was really what inspired me and got me on the path. And at some Point during my travels, after I've been going a while, people started asking me to share my yoga practice with them even though I'd only been doing it for a few months. Okay.

5:38 I got a question. Yes, dropped. Yeah, I'm curious because there's not a lot of males that are in the yoga space, right? And, you know, for Paul Byron and myself were three males and we talked a lot about yoga. So it's kind of unique to find more males.

5:52 So my question is, is what is it about yoga that attracted you when you're doing it with these you know, in these hostiles are these other spaces? What was it? That kind of Drew you in cool? Yeah, so I'm very sporty and during my travels, I realized that I wasn't doing so much Sports anymore. You know, I come from playing football all the time, doing, martial, arts, doing other kind of sports. So when I, when I was traveling, I started to realize that my body was starting to lose its

6:18 shape a bit and I wasn't keeping fit. So that was one thing that I found all this is amazing. I can do this like it's kind of like bodyweight workout. I can do it anywhere with just a matte and stay healthy and fit and I really felt the benefits for my body.

6:32 So that's definitely the main reason I did it because I had a bunch of time. I was traveling. So every day I'd be in a hostel. I just wake up, roll out a mat and do some yoga. Hmm. So, did you do your own practice or were you did you actually attend a class? Pretty much every single time.

6:46 Like, so when I started, I attended a bunch of classes with, in one of the hostiles, and that got me inspired, but then a lot of places, they weren't people doing yoga. So, any time I found someone who was doing some yoga, I would ask them to show me some For teach me.

7:00 But most of what I was doing was using an app actually. Hmm. There's an app called down dog. That's why why I started using. And it's just kind of pre-recorded sequences and stuff like that. And that was great to get me going.

7:12 Yeah, interesting. Cool. Cool. All right. Well, that was my Interruption continue from there. Yeah. Well I say we pick back up when I went to India, and I really decided to do a teacher training. So I went to rishikesh the home of yoga that, you know, where it originates from some people say.

7:27 And I studied hata and Ashtanga. We mixed. And also one thing that happened on the way was, obviously, I found some acroyoga on my travels as well and during the teacher training. I found some friends who are quite into a crow. So, in a way, I did a yoga training in how to run a Stanga, and I spent all my spare time, doing acroyoga on top of that as well.

7:47 Oh, that's super cool. I don't know that. Yeah. And curiosity with regards to your yoga teacher experience. How long was it was like a three week intensive. Was it spread over a couple months like it was a lot for me. It. 2:00.

8:00 So one month, intensive. We had 20 was a 28-day course with, I think for rest days. So six days a week, we'd start at 6:30 in the morning would finish around fire five, or six at night before dinner and show them everything.

8:15 Yeah, it was super intense, but I was I think after traveling for quite a while, I was in the mindset that I wanted to learn. I wanted to grow and I knew I was very interested in this pathway. So I went very much with the mindset of wanting to become a teacher.

8:29 ER wanting to learn and I was, I guess very prepared for the investment of energy and time and the intensity of what it was going to be. So it was really okay for me, but I can see and I have seen in recent times how it can be too much for some people, you know, doing that intense style of training a lot in a short period of time.

8:46 Yeah, for sure. And we've heard that actually, I've heard from Mostly Paul and Bayern that when sometimes when people learn yoga in an ashram or something like that, in India, that I can be years and stuff like that, so that's why I was curious. Yes, I was like, what are you there for that long? But maybe not to say the same case. Well, I've what at is obviously in modern times India's modernized their yoga as well.

9:08 So, in rishikesh, there is 300 ashrams in schools or loads of them. Offering 200 our trainings, you know, in the past traditionally, there wouldn't be trainings would be one master one student or maybe has a few students and it would be passed down just over time daily practice.

9:24 There was no kind of curriculum or timeline. So India is definitely modern. I used as well and there. Yeah, it's part of it is a business now, in India, and you can really see that in rishikesh, but I think the my takeaway at least is that? There are teachers there who have done it for a long time, have done it for their whole life. So they there's a lot of experience and knowledge that even if it is running, you know, a more modernized way as well. Interesting.

9:50 Okay. So let's bring it back to the to the acroyoga P. So did you pick that up from your teacher training? Was it like a one-off class that they kind of introduced it? Or did you just Some random people that were doing and you're like, hey, what's this all about? So funny story.

10:03 I actually first found acroyoga through Tinder. Oh, really? So when I was traveling in Vietnam, I had a Taggart. Why matched with someone on Tinder? And she suggested. Let's go to the beach and do Acro at this Acro jam. And I was I had no idea what she's talking about, but had the word yoga in it and it sounded cool.

10:21 So I was like cool game to try and okay. So just in case there's anyone listening to that has no idea. What a curio guess you've been talking about it for ten minutes. Tell me what acroyoga is, and then we'll continue with your story.

10:32 Sure. Acroyoga is basically doing yoga on another person. So, it's, it has a different forms, but typically the one you're going to see is like L basing. So where someone's lying down their legs are up. Their hands are up.

10:44 And the other person is on top of them, doing different yoga poses or flowing through poses. And moving through poses is pretty cool. Super exciting. Both the base or fly. Do I? The role and looks amazing as well? Yeah, cool. Alright, so now we're all cut out. Then tell us a little bit more about this tender situation, the juicy stuff.

11:04 Yeah, the I mean the the date was interesting. There was we kind of didn't quite call it a date. We said we're just me up and do a crew, of course, but was a really cool experience for me. I've never done it before. And she actually based me in a lot of stuff.

11:16 She was smaller than me. So she, she lifted me up and we did bird. We did throw in. These are like the basic poses for some, for any of you that don't know, and it was a super exciting experience. I still remember the feeling now, like, talking about, I can recall exactly. How I felt.

11:30 So that was amazing. And I was basically from that one experience hooked definitely want to do more but I couldn't find much more for a while because I was traveling. So when I did my teacher training in India, there's a couple of friends there that I met and they were also, kind of interested knew a little bit more than I did.

11:49 And yeah, we played every day between classes, you know, most people are like, tired from the yoga class. They just finished and I would like, run over to my friends and be like, let's do some accurate. Minutes before the next class.

12:01 Yeah, it was cool. Yeah. And I like I love the lingo and this might be new if you're not familiar with a crow, but just the term play. Yeah is referring to playing with a partner. Yeah, kind of playfully, you know, floating around on top of their feet or their hands and just kind of figuring out certain movements. So yeah, super unstructured.

12:18 I think that's what's nice. You know. Yoga is quite a, you on your mat, you're doing certain things. This is like, yeah, just play just come and jump, jump together and roll around and try different things. Yeah. Yeah, amazing. So, We'll continue with our story and then maybe we can talk a little bit more about a crow specifically, why people do it and stuff like that, but let's talk about more. So why you continue to pursue it and kind of how that Journey LED you to basically where you are

12:42 today? Sure. Yeah. Well, I would say, I pursued yoga a lot after my teacher training actually. So the, the first, the six months after India, I kept teaching while I was traveling and I landed in Bali, and I started teaching a little bit here, you know, exploring the yoga space here. But really, what turned me towards a crow was the community here in Bali.

13:04 I met some amazing people here, both in changu, and a bird. There's kind of two areas where we have nice communities. And when I first, I remember actually, when I first came to my first jamming changu, I was like, Blown Away by what some people are doing, because I'd been doing a little bit here and then I was like, oh, I think I could do this.

13:24 I'm alright, I can do yoga, right, and really sporty. And I got to tell you I was like, oh damn, like These people actually do Acro. I Acro Jam. Yeah, so, so what's an Acro, Jim? Okay. Actor, Jam is basically a space where everyone comes together and they play and you just share your practice with each other. It's imagine like a communal yoga space. If everyone's just doing their practice and kind of helping each other give pointers, you know, but in this case we're doing acroyoga.

13:50 Yeah something more casual. Kind of yeah. Less structured not like a workshop just like everyone comes hang out and yeah, there's no dedicated teacher or leader. So it's really just about Out practicing, sharing the practice and having fun. Even some people, come and sit and just socialize for a lot of the time and play a bit and just very casual. Right, right.

14:07 Okay, so you attended an Acro jamming changu and yeah, super inspired. Basically, I remember that moment. There was the guy called Vin who's he's damaged Angus do he's really good base and I remember seeing what he was doing and thinking I I need to be able to do that. I need to get to that level and I guess I'm still like pursuing that I'm still following that and still try and I get there. That's the journey.

14:29 Yeah, cool. Amazing. And did you end up doing a? Because I know you teach different styles of yoga now. So when you first got here, you're teaching predominantly half a. Yeah. Yeah, but only half a also because of obviously, Ash Tangos a bit of the root of Vinyasa.

14:46 I feel comfortable enough, teaching Vinyasa, and I also picked up a little bit of Yoga, Nidra meditation. So those, those are the things I've been teaching. I was teaching. Yeah, but only when I started here, okay, and then I know you do a lot of more like fly high.

15:01 Yeah. So in the last two years that I've been here, I have picked up additional things. I went and did a Thai massage training in Thailand. I've done the Fly High trainings, couple times here. So now I'm teaching those things as well.

15:13 Thai massage is beautiful practice. Yeah and Fly High, super fun. That's like an aerial type of yoga for those. You don't know. It's really good. Yeah, interesting. What about a crow? Did you did you do any other workshops or trainings or like how did you really try to pursue this wanting to be liked? Then the situation.

15:32 Yeah, so I started I mostly started by just coming to the jams lot coming to practice and training and I found a great partner in a story and a crow partner and we work together and trained a lot to level up our practice.

15:47 So I developed a lot without doing too many classes and workshops in all honesty in the first year since then, I've taken many more workshops and classes are. Now I took some in Singapore. I to some Festival in Malaysia and other places. So, I've picked up bits here and there, I still haven't done a teacher training.

16:05 I was actually planning to do an Acro training in the start of covid and everything. So unfortunately that fell through and I've been waiting kind of since interesting, interesting. Okay. And a stirry was your partner for a little while and she was pretty experienced. Yeah.

16:22 She's super experienced. Yeah, right. So the, she probably helped a lot of your you're learning or your development of your skills. We taught you a lot. Yeah. 100%. When in the start we were, we were training five, six times a week for two, three hours.

16:36 Each session. Oh, yeah, so that's like a teacher trainer. Yeah. And yeah, she she was way more. Experienced me. She'd been doing that crap for two or three years at that point. So she shared a lot of what she knew and it was really nice. So I I think I grew very intensely and the first three months or so and then since then it's going to be a more steady progression and development.

16:57 Yeah, just a cool. All right, so Let's fast forward a little bit to a little bit more about acroyoga. I mean, you kind of describe why you do it. Why do you think other people do? Why is it an attractive practice? What is it about it? That kind of lures people in this specially someone here is listening and they're like, I'm not really sure what it is and like tell me more about it.

17:19 So what would you say to that? Yeah 100% there's an honesty. There's quite a few things that I've you know, taught enough people now and being part of this space enough to know that there's so many attractive thing. About it. I think.

17:31 First and foremost is kind of the challenge that you think you can't do it. Like when you see what someone's doing, you can't imagine being able to do that yourself, but then suddenly your, when you try and song gives you some instruction or help, you're really actually find that it's accessible and you can start to do these things.

17:51 And it's pretty the feeling is yeah. Just super uplifting and exciting and it feels amazing obviously just to be able to do something that you didn't think was possible. Well, so that's that's the number one. I would say.

18:03 I think the, the other major parts is in my experience. Anyway, the community. It's because of the nature of the practice. It is teamwork. You are supporting, and lifting each other you are responsible for each other's safety, and taking care of one another.

18:17 And that in turn. Just generates a community that is incredibly caring supportive and genuine. So, yeah, my experience, that's another big thing that people feel very accepted. They feel very taking, Arrows. And yeah, they feel kind of loved by the community.

18:33 And that's a really nice Community beat to be around. I can't imagine spending my life, not around an Acro Community anymore because I feel like that would feel so much less fulfilling for me. Hmm. And then another point, I think that's quite a big one is playfulness and fun. So there's as adults.

18:53 I think we can all probably relate to this that we don't maybe have the most fun all the time and A crow is just a way where that fully comes out. Authentically. Like you can't help it. You just start laughing. Giggling, certain things are so much fun.

19:07 And so exciting to do and it really just unleashes your inner child. It lets it really come out. And that's, that's a big one for me. I'm quite a playful fun, seeking person. I've always stayed away from serious jobs in working as much as possible. And that's probably why I left what I was doing before. So for me, that's definitely a big attractive point. For sure.

19:30 Yeah, I think that's the main ones. Yeah, come to mind. Yeah, and just to kind of reiterate and maybe we can deconstruct them a little bit more. So the first one is ultimately, it looks challenging and intimidating. So if you've seen it, or maybe you're Googling it right now as you're listening to this podcast on Instagram and such acroyoga actress. Yeah, so there's heaps of stuff and it does look quite intimidating.

19:52 So the the first benefit I guess is like recognizing that you can do it and then kind of feeling that sense of accomplishment. Placement, feeling that sense of overcoming challenges, overcoming fear, if you will, that's powerful in itself.

20:05 That's this. That's a strong benefit. I'd say, that's what I heard you saying? Yeah, I understand. Yeah. The second one is the community aspect, you know, yoga in itself, is an individual practice. I mean, obviously, you can attend yoga classes and there's a community there to some degree.

20:18 But with a partner yoga practice, obviously, there's going to be more communication. There's going to be more of that connection, more of the conversation kind of going on. So you're building a little bit more of that plus if it's a Unity where you're learning from each other and maybe watching someone else and learning different moves.

20:33 Different techniques may be requiring and probably should be requiring a spotter someone to help and make sure that the movements are being safe. There's more of that Collective energy. That's working together. Yeah. Can I just elaborate on that as well? How does this say?

20:46 Yeah for me. It's the the interesting thing is yoga and Acro yoga and how kind of complementary and also different. They are and exactly what you touch on that. Yoga is a self practice. It's a personal practice you go on your map and the actual Point is not to care what other people are doing not to even look at other people focus on yourself and how it feels for you and you know, how it benefits your body and all these things and acroyoga. I see is almost the opposite of

21:09 that in some ways that it's a practice to teach you how to play. Nice with other people is a practice to share yoga, but with others and in a yogic way, you know, it's about how do you communicate? Well, how do you work with people that you maybe wouldn't, you know, make friends with or speak to on the street?

21:26 And how do you bring those amazing principles of team? Community into the rest of your life as well, live, those principles. Yeah. Yeah, amazing. Okay, and then the last one or the third one was playfulness, and I see it because I, I practice a crow and I, you know, I see the community and stuff like that. How does that come through?

21:46 Like how does playfulness come through with this practice? Like, I mean, I think I know the answer the question, but I'm curious to hear what you say with regards to like how does yeah, ultimate. How does it come through as playful? I think the best examples that come to mind. My mind is especially People's First experiences in a crow or when they when people unlock something that they've been trying to get, you know, and especially when I think back to teaching beginner classes, its

22:15 you often do an opening Circle and there's everyone's sat around and you kind of introduce like, okay introduce your name and where you're from and you know, share a funny something or whatever and you see as you go around the class.

22:25 There's quite a few close people. Like and this is the thing. I noticed all the time, the majority. If people are actually quite closed and quite sure why not? Not everyone's super expressive. They're not like yeah, my name is Michael and I'm from Canada and whatever most people like. Yep, Michael.

22:39 Yeah, whatever here to learn blah blah blah, you know, and it goes around. And then the amazing thing is you do normally in the beginner class. We do at the end of the session will set everyone down, and we're kind of just do a little bit of a go around and share.

22:51 Like, how do you feel? What did you learn today? Blah, blah, blah, and everyone is so jazzed. They're so high energy and they like you. Yes, this is amazing. I had an amazing experience. And you, you little, I literally see in the classes, the transformation of someone from kind of closed and a bit bored.

23:08 And like, you know, bit shut off to Smiling engaging high-fiving with people and having hugs and fun with people, they've never met before it's complete strangers. So that's the best example where people kind of open up and they're more playful and more expressive and more relaxed.

23:23 Yeah, amazing. And I think you nailed it on the head when you said open up. Yeah. Because generally speaking, most people are pretty close. They create their boundaries their walls, especially around people, that they don't know. They're attending a workshop for the first time. They don't know anyone but looking around the room. They're kind of evaluating.

23:37 What am I doing here? What you know, what is this going to be about? What am I expecting then? All of a sudden they get into it. They realize it's meant to be fun. It's meant to be playful and then you start to partner up with someone. There's you know, a physical touching component there which moves into a little bit more of a trust component. So you start to become more vulnerable or you feel more vulnerability come through and ultimately you get cracked open. That wall starts to Come down.

24:00 You feel a little bit more, vulnerable, feel more playful. And then ultimately, you're connecting with the partner that you're practicing with. Because if you're not connecting with the person you're practicing with, it's not going to be really enjoyable. Anyway, unless you're not gonna be able to do anything. Yeah, it doesn't work.

24:11 We don't connect. Yeah. So in order for you to connect, you need to break down the wall. Ultimately. That's how the playfulness. That's what I'm hearing is. The place in this comes through naturally, through the practice. Yeah.

24:21 It wasn't his choice. Yeah, to be good at a crow. You need to be able to connect communicate to trust, you know, all of these things and I see it's People who struggle with that Crow. It's often. It's not the physical. It's actually one of those components like they struggle to trust people and was amazing as well as this. This practice inherently allows and encourages those aspects in you.

24:43 And that's what I was saying about how it is. Kind of like teaching you how to interact nice with people in the rest of your life. Because like you said, you just can't do it without unlocking those things and accessing them.

24:54 Yeah. It's a beautiful practice. I love it. I love doing it. So something came up for me. You were talking to other and I wrote it down in this comes into pretty much any situation particularly yoga, but I'm curious to know how ego comes into play when it comes to a crow and what you might have to say about that. Because I can imagine that ego comes in different forms and different situations.

25:17 So, I'm curious to know how it comes through or how you've seen it. Come through in acroyoga. Yeah. That's a great question. Actually is something, you know, I've struggle with ego sometimes as well. We're human, everyone has For me, what I've noticed in a crow personally in terms of ego is sometimes I feel like I need to show that I can do this.

25:40 I need to show that I'm good enough. So there's times when we've been at jams here or kind of events where we're doing a crow and people are watching, and I've noticed, or this is in the past. I maybe I've learned a bit from this, hopefully, but I would be more encouraged to try something a bit more challenging, or, you know, push it and go a bit faster and I'm less. Just on the practice and on being Mindful and careful and more focused on.

26:04 Okay, I need to show off. I need to do something good. Now, people need to be impressed. Like they're expecting to see something, you know, so that was my own experience. I definitely I had one moment where I was aware that I was doing this and it was dangerous.

26:17 And I really learnt from that. I remember from that. The other thing I noticed about ego and a crow, is that also sometimes comes up in me a little bit is not wanting to take advantage. Is from other people or being a bit resistant to people's input that will naturally comes back.

26:36 Yeah, Andres naturally come back. Yeah, 100% is like, I know what I'm doing, what you tell me, you know what to do. But the reality is everyone's just sharing their own point of view and they're sharing stuff to help you. And but I've noticed this in other students, sometimes I've had students come to class whether maybe they're already a quite an advanced student and they're not far behind my level sure, but they're doing something I'm sharing a tip in and I'm teaching that class.

26:59 Cause I'm like, okay, this is my experience. This is what's going to work and help you here. And the students. I've had a few where they just don't do it and they refused and they revert to their old patterns, which it I see is not working for them.

27:12 But that's another experience, of ego showing up in a crow, a lack of receptivity. Yes. This is one of Byron's favorite word's. Oh, yeah, and receptivity. Yeah, so super important to be able to be open and let those walls come down and recognize that we're all learning. And it's not about who's better or Superior. Area.

27:30 It's just you know, maybe you'll learn something and you know, we always are going to be learning something new. We definitely don't know it all. Yeah, and I think the thing about egos was no one's put, no one's born with no ego, you know, we all have that. So the reality is we have to we have to go through these experiences or learn from them be. And it's kind of that receptivity you talked about is I, you know, I've had experiences necro with myself and it's just about recognizing

27:54 that and growing from that and learning and hopefully these days, I'm Les Is it go? Can my Acro practice and I listen more and more receptive. So I'm so gradually over time where I'll slowly trying to be friends with our ego and allow him or her to come out at appropriate times.

28:11 That's at least the relationship that I'm trying to build with my ego many. Yeah letting those of you that don't know my my egos name. I gave them a an individual named separate from my own name and his name is Lenny so I can separate whenever I'm not being my best self and it helps too.

28:29 Create an awareness for myself. So something that Christine and I do. So you can take that if you wanted. So it's a pretty good trick. Definitely a rough road. Once you start to college your own ego, or your partner, Carl set your ego, or in my case, with Michael calls, my my ego Alan.

28:42 Yes, so just be mindful of calling out. Someone else's ego. The ego, doesn't like it. It's a flare up a little bit. But anyhow, okay, great. So that was super, super helpful. And then, the next thing I think is interesting for people to know is, obviously we said a lot of the reasons why to do it.

28:59 From kind of a social perspective, kind of a mental perspective, emotional perspective. Maybe we can talk more about the benefits from like, maybe the physical perspective. Like what is it doing for your body? Like, is it more challenging than yoga itself? Is it less challenging?

29:14 Like, what can be talked about in this? Oh, yeah. I can, I could talk for ages about this. I think to start with one of the interesting things I'd say about it is doing a crow has immensely helped my yoga practice. So I, you know, those Poses.

29:29 Oh, maybe struggle with before in yoga. And after doing a crow, I'm, you know, I wouldn't even practice yoga. So regularly recently. I'm so focused on a crow, but suddenly I'll come back and I can suddenly do a forearm stand, but I couldn't do before, and there's different. Yeah, I really see the benefit and how it crosses over into yoga.

29:48 So, in my mind, the physical benefits for a crow is going to vary a little bit, if you're predominately basing or flying, but let's talk about the base of your lying down. You're going to build a lot of strength. With and a lot of stability in your muscles, and I really noticed this. You know, I'm someone who used to go the gym. I lift weights.

30:06 There's different strengths in terms of your like pushing or your your pure strength when you're trying to do a gross movement. Compared to when you're holding your arm straight in your trying to balance a weight on it. That's very small. More core muscles that are really stabilizing what you're doing.

30:21 And a crow is brilliant for building that stability. Which also transfers amazingly to yoga. You know, if you're if you're building a lot of stability in your legs and your thighs, Using your hips. When you go into a warrior pose, you're going to be pretty solid there. So as a base, it's building a lot of strength and stability as a flyer.

30:39 It's builds a lot of balance and body awareness. I think more than anything. So you have to be very aware of where you are in space when you're flipping upside down and around and, you know, on your back and you're looking up at the ceiling, you kind of to to get good at a crow.

30:56 You need to start becoming very aware of where all your limbs are. What your body's doing and where the weight is as well? So I think it's very good for spatial and body awareness and amazing four inversions. There's a lot of stuff you do in a crow is inversion poses.

31:11 And that's exactly why I'm saying, I think it's massively helped my yoga practice because I also fly on base and yeah, I can really see the inversion practice. I've had, I remember this guy, actually, this is amazing. She came to some Accra jams. She's a yoga teacher and she, she could never do a hands down before she was a yoga teacher.

31:29 Decent yoga teacher, good shape and, you know, practices a lot. She came to a crow for about a month to the jams, a couple times a week. And we were practicing star and kind of other inversion poses, which are, you know, upside down poses on someone's feet in Accra.

31:44 And after practicing things like that for about a month. She suddenly tried handstands again in one of the jams. I was kind of encouraging. Yeah, try some handstands and she went, from not being able to do a handstand to, suddenly be able to hold a 30-second handstand, and that was for me.

31:59 Me like, wow, that's you know, that's that's crazy. That's like couldn't do it. And now you can do a 30, second one even better than I could. At the time. I was like insane and I think you nailed it with regards to what's actually happening is so much stability being built.

32:15 Like that's the big thing that I see and feel whenever I'm practicing and ultimately kind of intuitively feeling into my own body with. A lot of my injuries that I have. I definitely trying to chase a little bit more stability and some of my weaker areas.

32:30 So just structurally, you know, from my perspective from the anatomy like, you know, if your L basing lying on your back your legs are up your arms are up in someone's body. Weight is being pushed down to your ankles or on top of your feet and through your hands. I mean, we start with the feet, you got your ankles, your knees and your hips before it hits the ground in order for the person not to fall, you need to stabilize. And you need to, you know,

32:51 control sway. Basically, in all directions, forward backwards side to side angles, this types of thing. So your ankles are going to be using a lot of stabilizing muscles to hold into place. Your hips are going to be kind of stabilizing to make sure that you don't sway too far to the side and then your knees are basically just engaged the whole time. So there's a lot of stability building in the legs. And then for the shoulders, or the wrists, and I'd say maybe the elbows a little bit as well.

33:17 Again, same idea. You're putting the weight down through it. So all these small little structures, like, you're saying are being forced to have to engage and not in a aggressive way, or a forceful way. Because you know, you can obviously adjust how much Uh, you want to put through it, and you can help to communicate to the flyer. So there's just a lot going on.

33:35 But there's also not that much going on but it's all small stuff. Right? And your joints are needing to make all these little micro adjustments, which is just so good for the body that when you're focused. You're so focused when you're when you're basing, particularly all this is kind of happening in the background. Yeah, you know, you're not aware of any of its all kind of subconsciously, your body's having to do it and your body, just learns by itself.

33:57 That's what it needs to do. And what I just add to what you said is I had a really bad ankle injury from football for a bunch of years and actually since doing a crow, I've gained so much strength and stabilization in the ankle joint.

34:09 It feels 100. It feels stronger than it ever was from doing a cure, which is amazing. And the other physical benefit that I really had is from, from yoga. I've always, I had tight hamstrings again from my football and martial arts background, super tight hamstrings.

34:23 I was that guy, you know, you look in class and he can't really do a forward fold. That was me and yoga. Helped for sure and has helped instill helps a bit. But more than anything basing. An Acro has really helped with my hamstring flexibility. I've gone.

34:37 Yeah, from not being able to fold to a deep forward fold. Now and I attribute it mostly debating an Acro because of the loaded stretching. That's happening when your legs are up in the air. Yeah. It's amazing. I love it in with two funky knees that I have going on. Any time.

34:52 I do Acro, it usually feels a little sore afterwards, but I can feel the gradual Improvement of the Ability, just as a personal note, but I'd like to transition a little bit into the flyer. Yeah, and if it's, which I think is really important as well. I don't fly that much because I'm six foot three, and I don't even know, 85 kilos, they still a couple times, but I'm a big boy and there's a lot of swaying and flailing of arms going around.

35:15 So it's a little bit challenging for the base. But, nonetheless, there's lots of benefits that come from a flower in a different way, which you mentioned things like, proprioception. So sense of body awareness in space and time, you know, you're going to be may be twirling may be twisting, you know flipping around to Degree, so, body control, body awareness is learned yet pretty quickly and also, just being upside down. Yeah.

35:38 So if you're not familiar with being upside down, you know, maybe you do a yoga practice and, you know, down dog and maybe have a couple simple inversions that you do with a crow. You can go upside down with a lot more feeling of safety and stability.

35:50 So you get to experience your body gets to experience. What it's like to be upside down to surrender a little bit to that, to allow the blood flow and circulation to change. And Shift to allow your nervous system to recognize, what's going on your vestibular system, which is basically your in your ear and, and allowing your brain to know, like, hey, I'm actually upside down. This is not normal, but I can feel safe enough to be here to get used to it.

36:14 Right? So there's lots of these little benefits that happen from a flyer, right? Yeah, 100. And I think in just as you were talking about time upside, that is like the when you do an Acro, you have the extra support of someone helping to balance, you know, Going to hold you there. So where maybe you can't access a headstand in yoga. Let's say if you're struggling with that, you can do it in a crow with someone who's a bit more stable and sudden able to support you, and it really gives

36:41 you that experience and that feeling. And that's what I've I've personal experience. I struggle to do head, stands in yoga when I when I was still even during my teacher training, my headstand wasn't great. And since doing a crow, I can do every kind of headstand now and handstands and all this stuff, and I really attribute it to doing a crow and And having that opportunity and experience that time being upside down and the other bit.

37:03 I think I just missed. Also, in the flyer benefits is really balanced. Yeah, you did mention it, actually. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think you get so much balance as a flyer. You have to get used to balancing on all the different random bits, your body, wherever the base is supporting you.

37:17 And again, if you're someone who's into yoga, that's incredibly useful, you know, there's all the different arm balances standing balance poses in yoga that all going to benefit from that that additional In control. Yeah. Yeah.

37:30 It's amazing. Ultimately. We just went through a crap ton of benefits, both mentally emotionally socially physically, it's freaking amazing. It's amazing, right? It is an amazing practice. That being said, it still is intimidating.

37:44 It's still is somewhat challenging and it could bring up some fear of getting injured. Yeah, of being hurt of safety. So we didn't really talk too much about it. But I think it's important that we do. Talk about that. Yeah, especially for my perspective as an entry. Prevention specialist.

38:01 Someone's, you know, either practicing has been injured or thinking, like I can't do that because I have an x y z injury. Well, what are some components that are considered from a teacher's perspective, and things that students should know? Or if you're practicing.

38:13 Yeah, to make sure that safety is an important factor. So, I would just start by saying it's like any practice in that there is some risk, you know, in a yoga, practice. There's risk, you can injure yourself. It's very much down to your knowledge, your Attitude and mindset and how much you push and how safe you are.

38:33 That's the reality in a crow. You can do everything safely. It's possible, you can use crash mats. You can use loads of spotters. You can wear a harness and attach ropes to yourself. There's all that Nolan spiders. Yeah. We went over that quickly.

38:46 What is the spotter? A spotter is an additional person. So there's typically three roles and a crow, a base, a flyer, and a spotter. The spotter is the person who is not involved in the movement, but they are responsible for For safety for helping, for coaching for giving emotional support. Even, but primarily, it's for safety, there. You know, if you're, if you're upside-down someone's feet, they're going to be standing behind your back and hips. To make sure you don't fall over

39:10 and hurt yourself to help gracefully lower your ground. It's really low to the ground. Yeah. And protect the flyer and then also you can have more than one spot or especially if you start to get more advanced stuff. So there is a high level of safety that should and can be applied with the practice. So it's just something to I think we Definitely, I think until little bit.

39:30 Yeah, I think the key thing is a few things is, as I said the mindset, but also how you're taught. So if you, this is why I really recommend for people to go to beginner classes when they start and the classes, they should be teaching you spotting. You should learn all three roles when you're a beginner. So you understand is important to understand all the roles to understand what's happening and what it feels like, but also so that everyone's fully aware of

39:55 each other's role and how it works and how safety works. And For me, when I teach spotting is the most important aspect of what I teach because it's most important that no one gets injured. If you, you know it if you get an injury, it's going to slow down your practice.

40:10 Your development is going to. There's lots of problems. It's just not a good thing. So spotting in the early stages is the best way to stay safe and you need to be taught. It is a skill, you know, if someone's falling you need to learn and know how to react and catch them and support them and lower them gracefully to the ground.

40:27 Yeah. I think that's really important. Obviously, but mostly just what the thing that you said that really landed on me was the to know the three roles, you know, we talked heavily about basing. We talked a little bit about flying mostly because we're definitely Moses, mostly basis.

40:42 And then we talked a little bit about spotting, but don't let the the amount of time that we spoke about these things, dictate. The importance of them, right? Slotting is the most important, you know, 100%? So, if you are a yogi who practices a crow and you're only familiar with one of these roles, like we would encourage you. You and I think asked me, would encourage you to learn the other roles, especially spotting and if you're a big person like me, and so now flying isn't always

41:07 an option. You can still fly that there's a possibility. I've had, you know, Christina only weighs maybe 120 pound. I don't know what that is. In kilos, 120 pounds. She's about five foot three. She can face me, right? Any Talent.

41:19 She's probably weighs even less. Kalin was on the podcast. A couple weeks ago. She's even smaller and she can base me, so you can play all roles depending on your size. It doesn't really. There's someone that can base you. There's someone that can fly you and you can spot everyone. Yep.

41:33 So in knowing all those three rules that I think an intricate part of. Yeah, the practice. Yeah, I was talking with someone about this the other day and saying how obviously if you're a smaller flyer. Maybe it's not the most ideal for you to be spotting a big person, you know, someone's twice your weight.

41:47 I wouldn't be recommending you to spot them in something where they're going to fall very heavily, but none that shouldn't stop you from learning how to spot with smaller people or how to spot things that are less risky where you're having to take. Take less weight.

42:00 Definitely peep. Everyone can learn to spot and should for sure. Yeah, it's always better to have a spotter. Even if you're small then to have no spotter at all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, and just to just to finish on the injuries thing and the risk.

42:12 There is some risk, you know, I've had some injuries in Accra it happens, but it's like any practice you have to learn. You have to learn the thing. I suggest in, why I suggest to go to classes, learn from others mistakes.

42:25 I always teach people now because of a few of the injuries that I've had. And I've learned from that and I want other people to learn from my mistakes rather than having to experience them again themselves, right? Yeah, amazing. Cool.

42:39 This is a lot of good stuff. I feel like I've learned a lot and I've been practicing a crow for a couple of years myself. What I think would be interesting is what would be a good place for someone to go and maybe learn a little bit more about a crow, maybe. Learn a little bit more about the playfulness. Maybe watch some videos, maybe learn a little bit from you Caspian.

42:59 Where could someone go to do this? And I didn't know we have we have a YouTube show or YouTube channel called the acroyoga show and we literally created this to help inspire people to help share the practice of bhakti-yoga in all the aspects. If you're a yoga person, who's maybe on Instagram and you see other Acro people, a lot of the time, what shared is the cool poses?

43:22 The tricks or the amazing looking stuff, but the other part of kind, of all the stuff behind that practice isn't shown like the training, like the spot. Like how we progress through things in the community and everything like that. So our YouTube channel, we created to show the whole aspect of acroyoga and that's our intention with it. We're releasing regular episodes. So you can head to the acroyoga show on YouTube. Amazing.

43:47 So many fun episodes some jokes. Like it's just it's the definition of playfulness that we were deconstructing. Before is basically the show to this YouTube channel so you can go check it out and have a good time. Ashley, if you're, you know, you can't get out and go practice on a grassy area. You can at least watch these and just kind of enjoy maybe practice at home with some family members or some friends. Yeah.

44:07 We even have a few tutorials on there to get you started as well. And yeah, there's plenty plenty to do on that. Yeah. Amazing. Cool. All right. Well, I think that's pretty good casting. Is there anything else you wanted to add? Maybe some particular anecdotes about a crow, something that if someone wanted to connect with you ask you some questions. Anything else you want to say to our listeners? Yeah.

44:25 Sure. I'll finish by saying all community that we've Appearing. The the group that run the acroyoga shown everything is called a crow spirit. That is our brand and this is kind of sharing the principles of what I've talked about of Community Connection and that's kind of what we want to teach and uphold.

44:42 So if you are interested in following us, you can head to Instagram and search a crow Spirit at a crow Spirit, to give us a follow. And check out what we're doing. And if you're ever in Bali, we are here, we have a community, we run Retreats. We want to mazing events.

44:57 You'll get to experience it firsthand. So just Reach out to us and come join Mike's part of our community. He's a pretty good base. He's a pin out of practice for a couple months. Mike's. Yeah. Yeah, I gotta get back into actually.

45:10 I've been thinking about it so much for my knee. I was like, man, I really gotta do it, but I've been nurturing a back thing and not to make excuses on the podcast. Nobody needs to hear this. I'm planning on it. I'm planning on it, for sure. Awesome.

45:21 Thank you so much Cassie, and I really, really appreciate you coming to join us. Thank you, everyone. For listening taking the time to allow us to speak into your Year for the last 45 minutes, you know, I always have that gratitude towards you, but otherwise, thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a beautiful beautiful day. And if you are interested to join our wait list for are going pro program, our online platform or membership. You can just go to YT.

45:45 T masterclass.com. This is all going to be in the show notes and you can sign up to the waitlist there and you'll find out when the next training and when the platform will be available, and that's it. Nice. All right. Have a beautiful day and we'll talk to you next time.