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Wellness and breathing expert Max Strom is one of the world’s most respected yoga teachers. He is a TEDx speaker and best-selling author, travelling from the west coast of America to continental Europe and the Middle East, giving speeches to major corporations, government bodies and hospitals.
In this episode of triyoga talks, Max discusses the ethics a yoga teacher should uphold, how breathing techniques can release feelings of grief, and how technology is driving us apart instead of bringing us closer together.
Speaking on happiness, he says, “I don’t think I really started discovering a continuous feeling of happiness until I started practising Hatha yoga. After practice, I would have tears running down my face and I had no idea why… What was happening was all the grief I had suppressed was leaking out because of the ocean breathing – or ujjayi breath. It wasn’t that it was making me happy; it was unburdening me.”
Max’s best-selling book, “There is no app for happiness,” argues that technology is contributing to unhappiness and creating an obstacle to intimacy. The key, Max teaches, is in our breathing. “Our society now needs breathing patterns more than we have ever needed them, because of the explosion of anxiety, depression and sleep disfunction… To me, because breathwork can help so much, it is the primary thing we should be offering [people] and have the postures support a breathing practice.”
Max has also developed his own code of ethics for yoga teachers, based on existing teachings, which he calls the five causes.To find out more about Max’s five causes and his further thoughts on breathing, grief and the UK’s new ministry for loneliness, listen to our full podcast online or subscribe using the buttons above.
Max will be teaching a weekend of workshops on “from chaos to beauty” at triyoga Shoreditch from 17th-18th November. He will be covering how movement and breathing patterns can release us from our own self-built prisons. He is also be running a special workshop for men, “the calibrated man,” on 16th November. Click here for full details and to sign up.
Listen to our other podcasts in the ‘triyoga talks’ series here.
