Brett Larkin is the founder of Uplifted Yoga, an online yoga and meditation community, empowering students to personalize their practice and ignite their best life on and off the mat. She’s instructed at top studios, companies like Google and Pinterest, and leads the world’s most interactive online yoga teacher training programs. She teaches to a social media following of over 400,000 people. Her content on YouTube is streamed for three million minutes each month. https://www.brettlarkin.com/300-hour-online-yoga-teacher-training/
Vincent Ferguson
Brett, how are you today?
Brett Larkin:
I’m well, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.
Vincent Ferguson:
Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here today. But before we talk about your company, Uplifted Yoga, tell my listeners more about your personal journey into health and wellness. Where did it all begin for Brett Larkin?
Brett Larkin:
I’m someone who has suffered a lot of anxiety, especially in my late teens and early 20s. I felt panicked all the time for no reason. It’s hard for me to even really remember back on that period of my life, because I can’t even remember how I was functioning, honestly. And for me, yoga ultimately became this doorway that led to a completely different experience of reality, where I was able to be fully present, let go of a lot of the fears and negative predictions, and kind of figure out how my mind had been patterned since I was really young and kind of rewrite a new narrative for myself. So for me, it’s been very much both a physical practice, but also something that really changed the way I see the world. There’s so much rich philosophy in this practice as well for those who are interested in that.
Vincent Ferguson:
So what was it about yoga that attracted you to that type of training?
Brett Larkin:
Well, it’s interesting because I was a big naysayer of yoga, maybe like some of your listeners.
Vincent Ferguson:
Okay.
Brett Larkin:
As a child, I was a ballet dancer. I was very into kind of hardcore dance and very intense training. So I always thought yoga was sort of for losers who just wanted to stretch and sing, and I kind of naysay the whole thing, but then I had a dance injury and I started exploring Pilates. And I had a boyfriend at the time who said, “Hey, this is interesting. You are really into Pilates.” And he and I have been kind of dabbling in a little bit of meditation. “So, Pilates and meditation, why don’t we try yoga? That would be really great for you. It makes a lot of sense.” But I was like, “Absolutely not. That’s for weak people. I’m super strong, I’m a dancer.” But he kind of encouraged me to go.
Brett Larkin:
And so, my first yoga experience was with Bikram yoga, which some of your listeners may be familiar with or have done, it’s super hot, I think it’s 105 degrees or more room to do a set of postures. There’s a mirror so you can really analyze your form and it’s a very intense experience. And so, that actually was the yoga that resonated with me the most at first, because it was kind of the most familiar to me in that it felt like a really intense dance or training experience type of class with the mirror and everything. So that was sort of my gateway, my first yoga experience.
Brett Larkin:
So it was very much about the physical and the sweat and everyone’s different and is going to find a different style of yoga that meets you where you are in this moment. So I always really encourage people, don’t write off yoga like I did until you try a lot of different styles because there’s so many flavors out there. More than I think people are even aware of. And of course, that first Bikram journey led to then a much deeper exploration where I ended up eventually trying every style and studying with every school and it spurred a whole exploration from there, but that was my initial starting point.
Vincent Ferguson:
Bikram yoga. Wow.
Brett Larkin:
Yeah.
Vincent Ferguson:
Every time I hear it, I cringe, because I know it’s very hot.
Brett Larkin:
It’s so hot. It’s funny because I mean, I haven’t done Bikram yoga now in probably 10 years, but that was my entry point. So that’s another thing I encourage people to be open to is the style of yoga you start with, or that you might be attracted to initially might not be the one you end up sticking with long-term. So it’s important to have an open mind and kind of be ready to go on the journey.
Vincent Ferguson:
And I was going to ask you what type of yoga would you recommend for a beginner to try? Because I think if someone exposed me to Bikram yoga right away, that would have turned me off completely.
Brett Larkin:
Right. So my recommendation as strange as it sounds, would be to do a lot of experimentation. I think one of the things I see happen a lot is someone will go to the yoga studio closest to their house, or they’ll do one YouTube video routine. And if they don’t like it, they kind of just write off yoga as a whole, which would kind of be like writing off speaking when you’ve only sampled one language. Think about how many languages there are in our world and dialects and things. So I really, really encourage people to kind of approach it like you’d approach finding a mate. You’re going to date a bunch of different people and sometimes it’s going to work out and sometimes it’s not and you just want to have fun. So, to kind of sample a lot of different styles… And I actually have a little challenge on my YouTube, where it’s called “Find Your Style.”
Brett Larkin:
And I introduce people to five different styles over five days, because that was one of the things that I saw really prevented people from enjoying this practice. They just kind of have one impression of it and then think that was the whole story. When really, there’s Restorative, there’s Vinyasa, there’s Hatha. Even within that Hatha word, there’s Ashtanga, there’s gentle yoga. There’s Viniyoga. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. So I really believe there’s something for everyone. And I think you need to really think about who you are, what your background is.
Brett Larkin:
If you’re more that intense athlete person like I was, trying to do yin or gentle yoga, it’s probably just going to be too far from where you are right now to maybe appreciate it. So you might want to start with a more athletic style, like Bikram or Ashtanga. If you’re someone who has no fitness background whatsoever, those styles are going to be insane, right? You might want to start with yin, or even restorative yoga, or something very beginner gentle hatha, just to kind of gently get your body moving. So it’s really like a dating game, I guess. Date all the styles of yoga. Try all the teachers in your area.
Vincent Ferguson:
I like that.
Brett Larkin:
Yeah. That’s my biggest tip for everyone.
Vincent Ferguson:
Great tip. I like that advice, I truly do. Now, would you say that yoga is a lifestyle or just a way to exercise and meditate?
Brett Larkin:
Oh, that’s such a loaded question. It’s so interesting because when we look back at a lot of the ancient texts, what we see is that yoga was being written about as a means to achieve enlightenment. Right? Or a means to connect to whatever is beyond this plane of consciousness that we live in. And that the physical postures and the breath are all kind of a tool, a medium for that bigger aim. And then over the years, a lot of the physical piece of yoga got fused with a lot of the aerobics movement that was happening in the 70s and 80s. And there’s sort of a modern yoga that’s emerged that’s in many ways quite different than what we see displayed in the yoga sutras or the hatha yoga pradipika or something like that.
Brett Larkin:
So, it’s really what I think, is it’s what you want to take out of it. If you just want to use yoga to improve your breathing and just really think of it as a breathing practice or a mindfulness practice that helps with stress reduction, you can view it through that lens by putting on that pair of glasses and looking at the body of work that is yoga through that framework. And there’s so many great mindfulness-based programs or anxiety reduction programs, many that have huge scientific studies from major universities behind them now.
Brett Larkin:
For other people, right, you might be actually drawn to yoga because of the spiritual side of it. Right? You’re kind of resonating with maybe the chanting or what’s called Bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion. You’re looking to connect to something bigger, and that’s available too. Then others are more, I just want to use this for cross training. Right? This is something that is going to improve my overall fitness and they’re more focused on the postures. So it’s kind of this buffet where again, finding the right teacher and the right style is so important because different styles bring in more, like Kundalini yoga, for example, which I do a lot of now is pulling in a ton of the chanting, the spirituality, all those things. So if someone’s not interested in that, that’s not going to be the right style for them right now. Right?
Brett Larkin:
So it’s a buffet. And so I think you can make it a lifestyle, you can make it a religion if you want to, or you can really just see it as something like Pilates or breath work that is helping whether it’s cross training or helping with anxiety. Pull out what works for you and try not to label the practice as a whole.
Vincent Ferguson:
So, basically yoga can be mental, spiritual, or physical.
Brett Larkin:
Yeah. And I think in its most beautiful form, it’s all three, but that’s not always… People aren’t always either ready or wanting that. In which case you can completely divide it up. And like I said, it’s like a buffet. Just take what works for you and leave the rest.
Vincent Ferguson:
Huh. Again, excellent advice. Now, do you associate yoga with Hinduism?
Brett Larkin:
Well, that goes back to a little bit what we talked about earlier, where, when we look at the origins of yoga, it did develop in India, Southeast Asia and these countries later, much, much later than when the yoga texts were written by the Brahmin sages. Much, much later, these are areas of the world that developed into different religions. Right? We see Buddhism, we see Hinduism, but most of the yoga texts, and I’m not as much an expert on this as some people like some of my teachers, but they predate a lot of what these religions look like now in the modern world. So, I think you can practice yoga without dabbling in Hinduism at all. For those that are interested in those connections, there are certain texts and gods and goddesses and chants where you can forge that connection. So again, it’s really up to you.
Brett Larkin:
Again, I think the biggest maybe thing that I hope to share is yoga as a word, what does that even mean anymore? Right? It almost… It’s like if we took a word like aerobic exercise, I mean, there’s so many different forms of how that looks. A long time ago, we probably didn’t even need to do it because we were hunter gatherers and running around all the time and then it emerged and it looked like fencing or something. And then it changed. And then it looked like a gym or kind of some of the stuff we see now. It’s the same with yoga. Even the way yoga was practiced in the ancient times was so different depending on what region it was practiced in. For example, up in the Himalayas originally, where people were relatively safe, they were up in the mountains, cave dwelling, they practiced a very meditative type of yoga that was focused more on kind of the spiritual aspects and seated meditation.
Brett Larkin:
If we look at people who were living more at the border where the Mongols were at these times, thousands and thousands of years ago, their yoga was much more like what we see as Ashtanga yoga today. Very athletic because the military was actually doing it. It was training for them because they lived in a place where war was constantly breaking out and they needed to defend themselves. So even when we go way back in time, it’s not like there’s one style or one definition of what these practices are. It was very much variable based on people’s kind of lifestyle and what, again, they needed to take out of the practice or what made sense to take out of the practice. I don’t know if that’s helpful to think about, but-
Vincent Ferguson:
It is, it is.
Brett Larkin:
It’s a broad perspective. Keep a broad perspective is what I say.
Vincent Ferguson:
Amazing. Yes. So it’s not just one piece, it’s a broad potpourri or whatever they call it. You know what I’m saying?
Brett Larkin:
Yeah, exactly.
Vincent Ferguson:
Now in yoga, you often do you often hear the word chakra.
Brett Larkin:
Chakra, yes.
Vincent Ferguson:
Yes. What are they and how do they affect our daily lives?
Brett Larkin:
So chakra is, I think of them as programs, they’re considered energy centers. So, some of your listeners may be familiar with traditional Chinese medicine or acupuncture, which is really mainstream now. I think most insurance even covers acupuncture. So, the Chinese medicine system, they work with these acupuncture… They call it meridians, right? These lines in the body. And the yogic system, instead of calling those channels meridians, they call them nadis. But it’s the same thing. It’s basically a pathway of energy in the body. So there’s the heart meridian, the liver meridian, all these things. So the systems are the same, just using different words.
Brett Larkin:
And then in the yogic system, a chakra is where we see a lot of these meridians or nadis intersecting. So if you imagine a rotary in a busy street or town, right, where all the cars are coming together, all the roads are coming together in this big rotary. Those areas of the body get pulled out in the yogic philosophy as these energetic hubs. And the word chakra literally translates to wheel or disc. And I think of them as like a program, because each of them resides in a different area along your spine and sort of governs a different… Saying it’s an area of your life is an oversimplification, but deals with a different realm of how you interact with the world.
Brett Larkin:
So for example, your root chakra at the very base of your spine is very much associated with your sense of safety. Your security. Are your needs being met? Are you getting enough food? Are you getting enough sleep? Things like that. While something like your throat chakra, which is obviously much higher up, is dealing with how well do you communicate? How well do you listen? Do you have trouble speaking up? Or are you kind of the over-boisterous type who doesn’t let other people get a word in edgewise? Right? So each of us have these unique energy centers that are manifesting in different ways, that kind of result in how our life unfolds, right?
Brett Larkin:
So you might just be like, “Well, that’s my personality. That’s the way I am.” But what yoga kind of teaches us is if you want to investigate these energy centers or work with them, you can kind of reprogram them. So just like when you sometimes get an update, I have an iPhone, but I think Android is the same. Every six months, there’s a new operating system, right? Download the new system. So, we can be unaware of these energy centers and just operate the way we do. Or we can be like, “Hey, I want to rewrite my programming around safety and getting enough sleep. Or I want to rewrite how I act and give and receive love in relationships by working with my heart chakra.”
Brett Larkin:
So it’s just an opportunity to bring more awareness into your life. And then the beautiful thing about the chakra is you can work with them physically by doing Athena, you can work with them on a meditative level, on a spiritual level. So kind of like we talked about before, there’s a lot of different ways you can tap into them. Or you can say, I’m not interested in the subtle body. This is, we’re now in the realm of the subtle body of yoga. I just want to stay focused on the athleticism, the yogic postures. For those who don’t resonate, they don’t even have to go there. Right? It’s kind of just this other layer of the practice that you can tap into if you choose to.
Vincent Ferguson:
I like it. I like it a lot. Can practicing a certain type of yoga, bring abundance into your life or the chakra bring abundance into your life?
Brett Larkin:
Oh, I definitely think so. Yes, yes, yes. I love working with this theme of abundance and abundance comes ultimately from gratitude. They’re linked. So in order to attract abundance, we need to shift into feeling grateful and a sense of gratitude. So there’s lots of wonderful practices that can help with that. There’s classes on that specific theme. One of the biggest things that yoga helps with is just helping slow us down. So we can’t be grateful if we’re rushing or stressed. Or I don’t know, maybe someone out there can be, but I know for me, when I’m rushing and stressed, I’m not in a state of gratitude or reverence. I’m usually not being very kind to my family members who are near me. So, counteracting that rushing and counteracting that stress and anxiety I think is so pivotal as a first step, to even allow someone to slow down. Right? Step into those feelings of, what am I grateful for?
Brett Larkin:
And what really separates yoga from all other forms of exercise is the focus on the breathing, the breath. So, no matter what style you use, if people are feeling overwhelmed listening to this, honestly it kind of doesn’t matter because all the styles have this common thread of using the breath to calm the nervous system; to shift into what we call the parasympathetic nervous system, which is more of our rest and digest functions, instead of being always on kind of stressed out, orange alert, which is where we live most of our lives by default, just because of the way our society is set up and functions. So much is being asked of us, especially with technology, and we’re bombarded with information.
Vincent Ferguson:
Yes, we are.
Brett Larkin:
So, that’s the biggest thing. Just doing any kind of yoga, really doing the breathing. And if you commit to it, you’ll see after most yoga classes you feel calmer. Right? You feel more grounded. You’re feeling more in your whole body instead of just living up in your head with all your thoughts spinning. And that’s usually how people are like, “Oh, I like this feeling,” and how they end up coming back to classes.
Vincent Ferguson:
How do you find a good yoga instructor? What should you look for?
Brett Larkin:
It’s a great question. I think someone who’s talking a lot about the breath would be really important. I think someone who is constantly kind of challenging you to play, instead of saying the posture has to look just one way, kind of giving you a couple different options. That’s what I really like and look for in instructors. So instead of it being really dogmatic and rigid, kind of being more about finding your personal edge, because a lot of these athena, these kind of an alphabet of the yoga postures are going to look different on different people. Right? Depending our height and our weight and our background and our prior athletic experience.
Brett Larkin:
So I think someone who’s really encouraging you to explore rather than saying you have to get to this exact thing, is something that I would recommend looking for. Someone who’s talking a lot about the breath. And then, honestly, just someone who resonates with you. That’s the most important thing. We all are going to have different teachers who resonate with us at different points in our journey. So your job is again, to just kind of do that dating work I talked about and find the one who’s going to meet you where you are right now.
Vincent Ferguson:
Yes, yes. That was really good. Now, Brett, you’re not just another yoga teacher or instructor. You are what we call the gold or platinum standard, the creme de la creme of teachers. But from where and from whom did you get your training?
Brett Larkin:
So I studied with Alan Finger, who is such an incredible teacher. He was the original co-founder of Yoga Works, which is a huge yoga chain that some people may be familiar with. So he was the person I originally did my training with in New York, and he has just a wonderful background in Viniyoga, it’s called. And he has a lot of knowledge about tantra, which isn’t anything… You say tantra and people think like tantric sex and weird stuff. No, it’s really a deep knowledge of the ancient yoga texts and philosophies. So I absolutely love his work. And Anodea Judith is another huge teacher of mine and inspiration. So she’s kind of the world’s authority on the chakra system. And she has a PhD. She’s done a lot of work integrating the chakras into her work with patients as a psychotherapist.
Brett Larkin:
So, she is an incredible resource and has lots of books on the chakras for people who are interested. I love… Some of my other teachers Guru Singh, Kia Miller, Elena Brower. Different people again, who resonate with you at different moments. So I think it’s really important to find that teacher who resonates with you and then learn as much as you can from them. Embody what they have to share, make it your own, and just keep building your own experience. So yeah, those are some of the people who’ve been highly influential for me.
Vincent Ferguson:
So everyone had someone to help them get to where they are today. Correct?
Brett Larkin:
Absolutely. And in the teacher training programs I run now, that’s a lot of what we work on, right, is helping you find your own unique style, your own unique voice. Figuring out what different parts of this lineage and this practice you want to blend together. Do you want to teach something that’s very spiritual or do you want to veer away from that? These are all choices that even as instructors, we end up needing to make. Yeah.
Vincent Ferguson:
I see. Now you call your business Uplifted.
Brett Larkin:
Yes.
Vincent Ferguson:
Where did that come from? I don’t know. Tell me.
Brett Larkin:
I don’t know either. It’s when I started my initial… I mean, it just kind of came to me when I was originally starting my own yoga community and kind of my own style. I noticed that one of the things I was really seeing within the community before it had an official name was just people being so encouraging of one another, kind of really lifting each other up. All the programs and everything I do online is extremely interactive. So whether it’s through our app or the trainings, you’re not practicing alone. It’s always very community-based. If you’re moving through a program, it’s cohort based, meaning you’re with the same students going through an experience at the same time, even though we’re online. So there’s just a huge comradery. And then, obviously Uplifted is how I feel when I do yoga or after I do yoga. So, that’s kind of where the name came from. It just kind of came to me one day.
Vincent Ferguson:
You followed your gut, your feelings, and you went with it because now it’s extremely successful. And how did you get to this point though, Brett? What inspired you to turn your yoga expertise into a business and make it so successful online?
Brett Larkin:
I think, life is so interesting because I originally started posting videos online because I was too nervous to teach in person. So originally-
Vincent Ferguson:
You, really?
Brett Larkin:
Yes. Yes. So back in 2011, it was almost a cop out because I was still trying to build my confidence to audition for studios and that kind of thing. So I ended up teaching a lot online because for me that felt less scary somehow. I didn’t really think anyone would watch any of the videos I put up. Now, the YouTube channel has over 400,000 subscribers.
Vincent Ferguson:
Amazing.
Brett Larkin:
So it grew madly over the course of time. But I think, kind of how I mentioned before, the community and the connection with the students and seeing how the training, whether it’s a training plan they’re doing in the Uplifted membership, kind of something smaller that we designed for students, or the full certification program. I think for me, what’s most rewarding is really seeing how it affects all areas of their life. I mean, most people who come out of our programs or a part of the community say that the way they’re speaking to their kids and their partner is different. The interactions, the relationship, it’s a complete shift, not just on the yoga mat, but in kind of how they’re experiencing reality, the world.
Brett Larkin:
Like the same thing I experienced as a young person, once I started having some of these breathing techniques and tools to help me cope with a lot of the anxiety and stress I was feeling. So, I think that’s what really drove me. I never really set out to be, “Let’s make this a business.” It was always, how can we just help and serve more people and connect with more people and grow the community? And I think that’s part of what ultimately has made the business successful because it was never really about building some corporate thing or the money or anything like that. It was always sort of just a passion of mine. Almost like a side project and then it just kept getting bigger. And now obviously, it’s my full project, but that was never my intention. So, I’m just so grateful to the community because I think it’s not just me. It’s like A, the team; my team that now supports everything we do. And then our entire infrastructure of all our graduates, all our alumni, all our students. I mean, they’re just the most incredible people.
Vincent Ferguson:
Do your students come from all across the country or any one particular area?
Brett Larkin:
They come from all over the world. It is so incredible.
Vincent Ferguson:
The world.
Brett Larkin:
Yes. I was in the Facebook group for one of our trainings yesterday and it’s like, Poland, Russia. We’ve shipped our training manuals to Zimbabwe. It’s crazy. And then, of course, I mean, we have a lot of people in the United States, but I would say 30-35% international and from everywhere. It’s amazing.
Vincent Ferguson:
Unbelievable, Brett.
Brett Larkin:
Yeah.
Vincent Ferguson:
Wow. I knew you were a rockstar, but wow. That’s amazing.
Brett Larkin:
Well, it’s really fun because it makes the training experience so incredible because you’re getting these perspectives from people all over the world, which is so different than just doing something that’s local. I mean, that has a beauty to it too, but I think that’s been something. I mean, every time we run a training, I learn so much from the students. I always tell them that. Right? Because they just have such different backgrounds and so many diverse ideas and it’s just, really makes it really rich. Yeah.
Vincent Ferguson:
But is there a problem because of the language barrier?
Brett Larkin:
No. One of the things that a lot of our international students appreciate is everything is recorded. So, when you sign up for a training, you get prerecorded content, whether as a student or a teacher, there’s a lot of prerecorded content. So they can re-watch, they can slow down. But even everything that we do live is, they also get recordings to all of that. And then they have the manual to follow along. So for a lot of them, they’re more comfortable with written English as opposed to spoken. So obviously, you need to know English. I mean, otherwise it’s not going to work. They’ve said it’s actually really nice because if something’s confusing, they could just rewind. Right? Or listen to it again, which makes it in some ways better than actually a live training where you don’t have that option to press pause.
Vincent Ferguson:
Wow. What an amazing model, business model, that you have going and I can speak for hours about it because it’s just very, very exciting to me and interesting how you were able to do this. But at this particular time our country and the world is going through the Coronavirus pandemic, and it’s been a very challenging time, mentally, spiritually, physically, and financially for some people. But are more people turning to yoga to help them deal with the stress of these times?
Brett Larkin:
I think so. I mean, just looking at pure data, we saw a huge spike in the interest in yoga, the interest in online yoga, the interest in online yoga trainings during this time of the pandemic. A lot of that is because a lot of people who I think didn’t consider studying online suddenly were sort of forced to because there was no other option.
Vincent Ferguson:
Yes, of course.
Brett Larkin:
But I do think there’s a bigger theme of people realizing that we need support structures. We need a home practice more than ever that really supports us during these times of intense stress. And if you look at everything with yoga, from the 1950s until now, it has only grown, it has never dipped. Whether we look at the success of Lulu Lemon or yoga studios or the interest in the keyword online. I mean, it just goes up and up and up because I think it’s just becoming more mainstream, and more and more people are figuring out that they can kind of connect with it in whatever way they want. And that it’s really the ultimate life hack to deal with uncertainty, anxiety, and coming back to the breathing and all the science that’s backing up how important that is. So, I think it’s growing because of the pandemic, but it was growing before that, and I think it’s just going to keep growing.
Vincent Ferguson:
Well, I think so, too. And as I shared earlier with you, before we started recording the interview, I run a nonprofit organization whose focus is on obesity prevention for families, especially children. Do you recommend yoga for children as well? And if so, what age should parents introduce yoga to their kids?
Brett Larkin:
I definitely recommend yoga for kids. I do yoga with my own. It’s wonderful, wonderful and you can just introduce it simply by inviting… I mean, even when you just invite a child or anyone to take a deep breath, that’s yoga. Right? That’s a core yoga concept. So for kids, I think what works best is, or for little kids, is to do the different poses that relate to the different animals, like lion’s pose or butterfly pose. They absolutely love that, because it’s just like you’re playing around on the floor and kind of introducing them to the idea of moving their body. And then songs and music are a wonderful, wonderful way. There’s so many great yoga kids’ albums that again, just get kids moving, acting like animals. And then before bed is always a really nice time.
Brett Larkin:
I always invite my son to do deep breathing with me before bed. He doesn’t even know we’re doing yoga. Right? We do deep breathing. I put my hand on his belly. I encourage him to breathe into his belly. Something we see with people who have different medical conditions or maybe are struggling with obesity is often that they’re a reciprocal inhibited breather. So if you’re a reciprocal inhibited breather, what that means is your diaphragm isn’t operating in a way that’s the most anatomically efficient for your body. And it means that you’re not getting as much oxygen, as much breath, as you could be. It’s like you’re getting 20 or 30% instead of say 80 or 90% each time you breathe in. Which leads to short, shallow, rapid breathing over time, that can just end up feeling normal unless we kind of counteract and try to correct that.
Brett Larkin:
So, people can Google or look up diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing, but that’s something that I would work on for yourself, but also really with your kids because it calms them down. And it’s kind of insuring that they’re going to have a breath pattern that… And what’s interesting is breathing in this way has actually been linked to reducing obesity.
Vincent Ferguson:
Really?
Brett Larkin:
Yes, and restorative yoga as well. There’s been great studies on this. So, I think a big takeaway for the obesity focus is it doesn’t have to be hardcore athletic yoga that helps reduce or aids in weight loss, let’s say. Actually these restorative, simply lying down, focusing on your breath-based practices, have a huge effect as well in weight loss. Yeah, it’s incredible.
Vincent Ferguson:
This was an awesome interview, Brett. Where can my listeners find out more about Brett Larkin?
Brett Larkin:
So you can simply Google my name, Brett Larkin. You’ll find YouTube videos, you’ll find our website. Or upliftedyoga.com will get you to kind of our members’ area. I have over a thousand free videos on YouTube, so you can practice with me any time. And then if you want to go deeper, we have so many courses and designed experiences with a lot of interaction for both students, the student community, and people who are looking to teach. So, that would be the next step. I’d love to practice with some of your listeners on YouTube. So hopefully they can look me up, Brett Larkin, and find a class that works for them. https://www.brettlarkin.com/300-hour-online-yoga-teacher-training/
Vincent Ferguson:
And on social media-
Brett Larkin:
Yeah. Mainly YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. So, yeah. And the same, Brett Larkin yoga will get you there.
Vincent Ferguson:
Perfect. Now Brett Larkin, let me just say on behalf of my organization, Body Sculpt of New York and Six Weeks to Fitness, I truly want to thank you for coming on my show today.
Brett Larkin:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Vincent Ferguson:
You are amazing. To my listeners and readers, I truly hope this program was informative and encouraging and inspiring, and that you will continue tuning in to our Six Weeks of Fitness podcast. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the show, please leave them on my Six Weeks to Fitness blog at http://www.sixweekstofitness.com or email me at vince@sixweeks.com.
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