Yogaland Podcast

If you've been wondering how to incorporate resistance training into your yoga classes without losing what makes yoga yoga — this episode is for you.

In this conversation breaks down his exact six-phase structure bringing resistance training into a yoga context. The central insight: resistance doesn't make yoga harder. Done intelligently, it makes yoga easier, more embodied, and more effective than ever before.

We talk through:
-Why Jason developed this approach — the personal and professional reasons behind this evolution

-Why yoga props have always facilitated length and support

-How resistance training and yoga are complementary modalities that address each other's gaps directly

-Andrea's personal experience of how targeted strengthening resolved years of chronic SI joint pain

-Why pranayama and meditation are non-negotiable in this structure

-The interdisciplinary philosophy behind Jason's approach — why looking at embodiment through multiple lenses produces greater truth than any single ideology

-Why Jason is not replacing his existing yoga teaching — this is an addition, not a substitution!

NOTE! Jason's Strong Yoga: The Fundamentals of Resistance Training for Yoga Teachers will be open for enrollment soon! Click here to join the waitlist and we'll send you the details: jasonyoga.com/strength
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The summer went quickly; we thought we'd reconvene and catch you up on our latest in life and yoga. As a reminder! Yoga-ish conversations are where we share life stuff, and although it may cross over into yoga territory, it is decidedly non-technical. This week, we cover a lot of ground and talk about:

Books we loved this summer
What we're watching (spoiler: We're divided over Widow's Bay)
Surprising joy in our journey with memory care
Jason's professional evolution and the vulnerability that comes with it
What's coming next — a new resistance training course for yogis called Strong Yoga. Join the waitlist to learn all about it: jasonyoga.com/strength
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is yoga — really?

Most practitioners and teachers can answer that question with a pose, a breath, or a feeling. Far fewer can answer it with the philosophical depth the tradition actually deserves. This week's episode does just that.

Drawing on academic scholarship, Sanskrit etymology, and nearly 30 years of teaching and study, Jason identifies the six core teachings that appear consistently across the diverse spectrum of yoga traditions — from Hatha to Jnana, from Karma to Bhakti, from Patanjali to modern practice. Not a single reductive definition, but a genuine philosophical framework that holds up across lineages, eras, and approaches.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most yoga twists are done to the spine — not with it.

In nearly every conventional yoga twist, the arms and legs do the work: The hand presses against the knee. The elbow hooks outside the thigh. The leverage of the limbs produces the rotation, while the spinal muscles — the obliques, the multifidus, the deep rotators — remain largely passive. The spine is being twisted. It is not doing the twisting.

I turn this on its head in this week’s solocast. In 15 minutes, you’ll transform the quality and depth of three yoga-informed spinal rotation exercises by adding resistance bands.

This is not just about better twists. It's about building functional rotational strength that yoga's conventional twisting patterns cannot provide.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Jason and I have a conversation the yoga world has been dancing around for years: Does yoga build strength?

Jason offers an honest framework for understanding the ways that yoga builds strength — and where it genuinely falls short.

What You'll Learn:

Why strength matters — particularly for longevity
The two primary components of strength development and how yoga addresses each one
How yoga builds neuromuscular strength, efficiency, and coordination — and why that's more valuable than most practitioners realize
Why yoga will never produce hypertrophy — and what that means for long-term health, muscle mass, and metabolic function
What progressive overload is and why bodyweight training alone cannot provide it
Why yoga primarily recruits Type 1 fibers and almost never accesses Type 2 fibers and why it matters
Why resistance training and yoga are not competing modalities — they are extraordinary partners
The Iyengar yoga innovation argument: why adding resistance training tools to yoga is no different from what the greatest yoga innovators have always done

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.