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Yoga: Yaas Azmoudeh
47 Plays4 months ago
Yaas Azmoudeh is a medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University and a teacher of Vinyasa, Hatha and Tantra yoga. Listen to Yaas discuss the historical roots of yoga practice, her various yoga training experiences, and how yoga can be a helpful medical therapy for patients.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Wound Dresser Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
You're listening to The Wound Dresser, a podcast that uncovers the human side of healthcare. I'm your host, Jon Neary.
Meet Yas Azmude: Medical Student and Yoga Enthusiast
00:00:21
Speaker
My guest today is Yas Azmude. Yas is a second year medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University interested in obstetrics, gynecology, and integrative health. Yassa is also a teacher of Vinyasa, Hatha, and Tantra Yoga, having completed a 200-hour training program through Yoga Farm in Ithaca, New York. In the summer of 2024, Yassa has completed an additional 300-hour training program in Thailand with one yoga. Yassamude, welcome to the Women's Gressor. Hello, thank you, John, for having me.
Yoga's Evolution and Purpose
00:00:53
Speaker
um So you have a lot of experiences in yoga, both as ah a student and as a teacher. um I guess just we can start out big picture first and talk about, you know, what what is yoga? I think it's it's used in a lot of different contexts in our society and our healthcare system. But to you, um if you were to describe yoga to somebody, what is yoga?
00:01:13
Speaker
So I would say that there's two ways of looking at it, like this modern type of yoga, westernized yoga um versus the yoga that was first thought of like 4,000 years ago um in the Bhagavad Gita, if I'm pronouncing that correct.
00:01:38
Speaker
um And yoga and I'll start off with like that form of yoga that I have learned and I can say from my interpretation is um more of a meditative ah meditation.
00:01:56
Speaker
um it's
00:01:59
Speaker
It's not really based in like poses, but rather just going inside and meditating. and I would say that over time, it the definition changed. um There were some people from India who moved and came to the US to kind of spread yoga. um and This is all part of like the imperialist movement, which I don't have too much historical knowledge on, but I know that there were um a couple people who came and
00:02:36
Speaker
um introduce yoga to the western world and that's when it really took off as a asana practice which is more of like a posture postural practice um and then now in modern days and it's it's more seen as like this flow um i would say though that all of them combined the overall purpose is to go inward. So whether it is through like intense sweating and then um coming back to meditation, um I would say that that that is how I would define yoga, is going inward.
00:03:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to talk more about the experience of of practicing yoga in a second. But I know we mentioned that, you know, you teach a number of different forms of yoga, ah vinyasa, hatha, tantra. Can you kind of talk about the distinctions and all those different practices?
Understanding Different Yoga Styles
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. so um this is kind of We'll give some more context into what I'm saying of like this original yoga form. um There were the eight limbs of Patanjali, which is part of the Bhagavad Gita that speaks on these principles of living.
00:04:03
Speaker
um and A lot of them we could say in the modern world is also true, like non-violence. um
00:04:13
Speaker
speaking your Speaking the truth, Satya, um there's there is many that i'm I'm even losing track of, but these all bring you to the point of ah nirvana or this embodiment of liberation and ah this is what people were seeking at that time of like finding liberation ah moksha it was called and ah so this form of yoga
00:04:56
Speaker
was basically mostly done by monks. We call as monks now. And then over time,
00:05:07
Speaker
um Hatha was the first ah practice of yoga, sorry, Tantra was the first practice of yoga that became more um a system and like a belief that was well known in India. um And this was like over 2000 years ago at this point. So we moved like from 4000 years ago to another 2000 years after.
00:05:37
Speaker
And um at this time, tantra yoga was emerging. Tantra is more, it and was so hard for my teacher to even describe what it is, because it's so um esoteric in a way. like Abstract. So abstract, yeah.
00:05:58
Speaker
um What I would say like from doing the practice is that it's a lot of visualization. So a specific visualization that we would do would be closing your eyes, being in a sitting position that's relatively comfortable, spine straight, and just as you as you breathe and as you inhale, you notice a light going up.
00:06:29
Speaker
And then as you exhale, the light moving down you. So through this visualization of this light inside of you, they they said you come out of your body and you ah you are experiencing those sensations that your body can experience, like that imagination that you do have.
00:06:56
Speaker
and in a way, breaks you from your physical body and brings you towards this liberation. um Obviously, through practice. Practice was like the number one thing that was enforced consistently.
00:07:18
Speaker
And then I would say, now, back shot i fast forwarding to 1,500 years ago, um the hatha form of yoga started. And this was the first time where any form of asana was introduced at all. Before this, it was all meditation based, like literally sitting down.
00:07:45
Speaker
um At this point Hatha, the book Hatha Pradipika was the book that really showed householders. I say householders like people who you know functioned in a house setting like had um maybe like a nuclear family setting um and practice yoga. And so this form was actually like a ah set amount of time. um The Hatha practice focuses on staying in a position for as long as possible. Back in the day, it was two hours and 49 minutes to master a pose. To stay in the pose for that long means you have mastered it.
00:08:45
Speaker
um in today's standards Hatha practice like the poses you can stay in for maybe five to ten minutes and that would be like a classical Hatha class um and these poses are supposed to ah bring you to a state of alchemy between the cosmos and the earth's core. So like energy from above and energy from below, combining inside of you, forming this alchemy wherever that center of energy is in that posture.
00:09:31
Speaker
And it's something that I actually felt like while I was doing this. Our teacher would put like stick figures as like the poses and kind of like demonstrate where the the energy going up and where the energy going down was. And like for example, triangle pose, where um you have one foot in front of the other and then one arm down, one arm up to the sky.
00:10:02
Speaker
you're getting that energy from the sky through your hand all the way down and you're getting your energy from the ground from your legs and it's combining in your navel. And so from that you feel that energy. Another way, similar to Tantra, another way of finding this out of body like finding this like connection through i guess through your body, but like it's out of your body. you know
00:10:37
Speaker
um and It was powerful being able to stay in a pose for that long. It really does something to you after ah like a significant amount of time. You start to feel like you go through all of these emotions and I feel like there's kind of like a peak and then a trough and you're like when you're when you're kind of like through with that pose you're like oh wow like I can stay here for a lot longer than I thought um and then that's when you I feel like I started to get the benefits and then and
00:11:16
Speaker
So Vinyasa is like a completely different form that was introduced in the US by, I wish I knew the person's name who started Vinyasa. um i Can I actually look it up? Sure, yeah. Yeah, so it was Ipata bijois.
00:11:43
Speaker
um And so this is part of the ashtanga yoga system is vinyasa. And ashtanga is like a whole other form of yoga. There's so many now different forms of yoga that have been introduced in the modern world. But Pata B. Joyce was one of the founders of vinyasa. And vinyasa is a specific practice where you do a vinyasa flow. it And this might be the most familiar to people. um It's basically going into a ah like a plank and then going chaturanga which means like halfway hold down um like you're doing a push-up and then you go into an upward facing dog which is kind of like you have your chest out your hands are on the mat
00:12:33
Speaker
um And then into downward facing dog. And so you will do this flow, this vinyasa flow between every pose that you do. And in doing this, it does have this repetitive motion.
00:12:52
Speaker
um again, like the cyclical meditative motion that you do in the practice, but then it also increases your heart rate a lot because it's like constant. In Hatha, for example, they would, between poses, they have a time where they don't do anything and it's called the attention phase. And so you're kind of just like staying still or you can even be in shavasana and like be on your like all the way lying down corpse pose. um So in this way vinyasa became a little bit more of an exercise and like a workout um and a little bit more difficult on the physical body but not necessarily on the mental body. I think i think that all of them do have this ability to
00:13:50
Speaker
um to help with our mental health. And ah I think that they're just different approaches with the physical aspect.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that mirrors a lot of what I've heard. It it seems like, you know, many, many, like you said, a couple thousand years ago and so forth, that it started more as like a meditative only practice and it slowly evolved to include poses. And now it's like, now it's almost like a workout class ah for a lot of people. So it's like, it's definitely ah evolved. and And I'm sure it continues to to just be like this, this very,
00:14:32
Speaker
ah heterogeneous practice that people just like explore in a lot of different ways. I want to hear more about like your training. You've done a lot
Yas's Personal Yoga Journey and Training
00:14:40
Speaker
of extensive training. We said two hundred initial 200-hour training followed by a 300-hour training this past summer in Thailand. um So can you you know talk about what was involved in in both those experiences and what you got out of them?
00:14:52
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So I yeah started, I did my 200 hour training teacher training during the pandemic, like when it first started. um I think I started in like April of 2020. And that was something that I did with my best friend. um We were both kind of into yoga, but like,
00:15:18
Speaker
kind of also were like, let's just try this. Like we, we have this time. Like, I don't know. It just felt like everything had just paused and we were thinking about the things that mattered a little bit. You know, everybody just had 200 hours laying around where you could just, I mean, there was, there was definitely crisis going on. Um, and,
00:15:47
Speaker
you know, i'm I'm fortunate. I was fortunate enough to be healthy. And my family, like we got COVID, but we were healthy throughout it. um And so yeah, we were just we were at home though, we were all quarantining. And you this was kind of I was also I moved back home um from living With like my roommate in college, so I was at home um I wanted something to like kind of Move myself away from like
00:16:23
Speaker
just find my own like time in that at home. And yoga was a thing that like I would do. I would do like um these 30-minute YouTube ah yoga videos. And I really liked them. And I was like, OK, let me see. And I had a friend who did a teacher training, actually. um And so I signed up with my best friend.
00:16:49
Speaker
We did, it it was all virtual, so Ithaca is um in upstate New York, but we were both in Long Island and we we went along and and started this and the classes that we took were really, really insightful, some things I i still remember from it. um like just about being like a good human being you know like these principles of I think one thing specifically that has still stood out to me is like refraining from using the word you should or you have to to people um and like if you want to give advice like say do this or don't do this but like putting it into a
00:17:39
Speaker
a frame of like, this is expected of you. Things should be other than the way they are kind of. Yeah. And the way this was all new age spirituality. um So The teachers were all very insightful. um I really enjoyed everything I learned. And i and i that was like really where I first like continuously did yoga every day. And I would have a journal. i would like It was on an Excel sheet. But I would write like every day that I did yoga.
00:18:19
Speaker
something that I took from it um or like something in that class that like ignited my my interests or like something that the teacher said that like I liked I would just write down or like a pose that I learned that I liked I would write down and so looking back on that it's now like a I Actually stopped doing it. It was like a two-year kind of um two-year ah Excel sheet of like every day of my my reflections. So that was that was a really beautiful part of the training to that I did that. um And then some years go by, I'm still doing yoga. um I actually did it always at home. um I never had like a studio that I consistently went to, um I would always
00:19:16
Speaker
um Practice like with YouTube videos um and Then I I would also like teach my family like I would teach my parents my like my mom's friends My friends it was kind of like Like I also started a website where I had um virtual lesson like virtual classes. um So that went on. It was very casual for like a couple years and then now flash forward to like being in med school. I was thinking of like what I wanted to do um between my first and second year and because we have this beautiful big summer break.
00:20:07
Speaker
I wanted to do something that was um where I could travel um and then I could also like have an accomplishment after this time that I did it. i i um And then you know going into one of my passions. So um yoga was top of my list and in terms of that. And I um had a friend who was going to do her teacher training in Thailand, too, in that same summer.
00:20:44
Speaker
um And it ended up not working out for us to do it at like the same place. um But I ended up going here without any like right recommendation, like personal recommendation, but ah I got to like see the place beforehand and um I really wanted a place that would teach me authentic yoga because my previous experience I did not even know like I knew like maybe one word of Sanskrit of like a Sanskrit pose but like I did not know how to say most of the poses in Sanskrit
00:21:23
Speaker
um I didn't know where yoga started. i didn't I didn't have any of this knowledge. So I really wanted to, like if I'm going to be a yoga teacher, I feel like I should know this. um Because I feel like it...
00:21:41
Speaker
Connects back to the origin to the root. I there is a part of me that ah feels like it's so disconnected from that now and it feels like wrong in a way to be doing something that's like it it seems like It's just being ripped away from its culture, which Which I feel like
00:22:10
Speaker
a lot of things nowadays are. But for my own growth, I have like really connected to my Persian roots over the past, like since college really, it's really where it started.
00:22:26
Speaker
um come And
00:22:31
Speaker
I feel like it was giving respect to the practice to like learn more. And so this teacher training actually really did that. um Their main focus was on teaching us authentic yoga. So they really taught me all that I know about Tantra and Hatha and everything that came before that too.
00:22:51
Speaker
so um So yeah, and then we also had an anatomy and physiology class in that, which I was thinking could be interesting to bring up in this podcast of like how that relates to medicine um because I learned a lot of like facts like about like scientific backed evidence on the benefits of yoga. So. Yeah. You want to talk some more about some of those benefits?
Yoga in Healthcare: Potential and Challenges
00:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, um one of them that sparked my interest was this nerve flossing. Have you heard of this before? No, but it sounds intriguing. Yeah. Um, so you don't, you don't like, you're gonna, you're gonna go to your, uh, neurologist now and they're asking to ask you if you've lost too. Yeah. Yeah. ner um Exactly. Um, I liked that term for it. Cause it was like, it's literally like doing a certain movement to
00:23:58
Speaker
move the nerve in a way that it like hasn't before. And in this way, it helps you become more flexible. like Automatically, it can happen and litterate like if you do the nerve flossing like practice.
00:24:18
Speaker
And then for like 10 seconds, 15 seconds, and then you try to like do a forward fold, you'll like be deeper in the posture. Um, and so it's all about increasing the inputs into your brain and different variation and diversity of inputs to therefore increase your output basically make you more flexible.
00:24:47
Speaker
um So a lot of this was This was all evidence-based. My anatomy teacher was um very interested in like the scientific aspects of yoga and then also did a lot of work in like yin yoga, which is like the the Chinese um philosophy and Taoism and and Taoism and um and then the yoga that came from that.
00:25:23
Speaker
um And she saw the human body and I think we all can like see this as like one moving part. We're all like these nerves are all connected in making us. And if you manipulate one nerve somewhere, you can therefore do something else in another part of the body. so That was something that was pretty cool. Yeah, it kind of sounds like the classic you know phrase, use it or lose it, right? And your body has so many capabilities, and we don't kind of like engage them in a lot of different ways. So yoga can be a kind of way to to unearth and like you know tap into a lot of those those you know <unk> parts of our nervous system, parts of our body that are kind of like otherwise idle. right If I were to venture to guess, I would say that
00:26:22
Speaker
that you probably, um I would imagine you think that that yoga is underutilized in our healthcare system, right? It's like a good tool. So where else do you think yoga could be employed to kind of like serve patients um to to achieve a greater level of health?
00:26:39
Speaker
I was just in clinic yesterday and I had a patient um who had carpal tunnel syndrome. She just came in like past four to five weeks, has been having like really intense pain in her hands and numbness and tightness. um and you know she She has like a very demanding job um working with her hands specifically, um like food di deliver food preparation. so like doing the same motion over and over again. um Something that could have prevented this from happening was doing motions that were against this constant movement that she was doing.
00:27:24
Speaker
um The attending yesterday went in so much depth and um was so amazing at like building rapport with the patient and telling them like specifically what postures to do. Well, for carpal tunnel syndrome, it was just um like ah a splint for her arm and like rest.
00:27:49
Speaker
um I think this could have been prevented if she had been given these, um maybe some poses in yoga, like two, because it it just wasn't in her arms, it was in her feet too. She had like plantar fasciitis. So like those you can now do exercises for, which is like what the doctor was doing, but like for the things before,
00:28:19
Speaker
actually having this carpal tunnel syndrome, there could have been ways to prevent it and like to for it to not have gotten to this point. um That's like one example that I can say that yoga could help and like specifically if the the provider could give like specific movements for the patient to do. um I would say that like in my gap year, I um shadowed an OB-GYN who um was an endometriosis specialist and endometriosis is a condition, it's like a pelvic condition that causes, it can cause a lot of pain and he often would recommend yoga for the patient to do. um You know, obviously there's
00:29:15
Speaker
medications, their surgery that can be done and like these all are important too. um You know, it's why we're in the field right now learning all about this. But um I think that they're not independent of each other. They can definitely be connected and incorporated. And I don't think we should shy away just because we're learning like the scientific basis of things to discount the countless years of philosophies that
00:29:52
Speaker
have existed about yoga and the benefits of meditation. um so I think something important for providers to do is like to really give specific poses though. Cause when you just say do yoga, it could be hard to like know what type of yoga to do for your body. Um, so in that way there needs to be some sort of like, I guess knowledge from the provider of the type of yoga that could help.
00:30:32
Speaker
um I would say for people who have like chronic conditions and maybe movement is difficult to even begin and like going into an intense vinyasa class is difficult to begin.
00:30:47
Speaker
um i would I would just start with meditate meditating. um I think that like and that awareness that we bring to our like sensation and our body is is really powerful.
00:31:05
Speaker
and i know another thing too um I've been a frequent flyer at the YMCA for a number number of years and they have chair yoga. So that's another option for folks who have limited mobility. I was gonna say, yes, yes, chair yoga. you know I took a yoga class once where my teacher was in a um ah wheelchair. And I think that was just so like symbolic of not needing to actually do movement to do yoga. you know
00:31:39
Speaker
um And he was like one of their most renowned teachers like in that studio. That's awesome. Speaks to the that mental and spiritual aspects too, right? Yes. um Are there other like research questions related to low yoga that you would really like to see explored?
Exploring Yoga's Spiritual and Psychological Benefits
00:32:00
Speaker
to That's a good question. i think I would like to, like since I'm interested in OBGYN, I would like to see the the benefits of yoga in or meditation in like these um conditions that can cause a lot of pain, like endometriosis specifically.
00:32:26
Speaker
um I do have a focus on studying endometriosis and like i I do see myself um continuing to like work on this specific condition. And so I want to see what benefits can be like quantifiable with um with pain right for yoga. That's really cool. Yeah. I think the like when I'm thinking about like integrative health research in general, but more specifically, meditation or yoga, I was having a really good discussion with
00:33:05
Speaker
Um, Dr. Jeff Greason, who's a mindfulness professor at Rowan. And it's sort of like, there's sort of, there's sort of like these two lanes, right? You can do that sort of research and be very like outcome driven, but like,
00:33:25
Speaker
When you when it's almost like when you when you when you are very outcome driven with something like meditation or yoga, it can almost like compromise the practice, right? Like trying to quantify the benefits or trying to like, that's true, really put your finger on like how it's working. So I don't know, that's that's something I continually struggle with is like, having um a way to communicate that these things are evidence based, but also, you know,
00:33:56
Speaker
with an understanding that you can't necessarily pinpoint um in a very like clear-cut, outcome-based way like how these things are working. Yeah, I think something that has motivated me to think that we can think of it in a quantitative way is the way that psychology has evolved in our current day from like even a hundred years ago, like the way that I know it's still so subjective sometimes with psychology too, but like,
00:34:32
Speaker
we've really come a long way in being able to quantify the psychology and like make it a science, really, um
00:34:43
Speaker
and come up with all of these terms for things that like people, how people act, what like what what but goes on in their mind to like do this, do that. like um
00:34:59
Speaker
so I feel like spirituality is like the next level after psychology. And so like, I think in time, it will come. That's my I i already feel like we have evolved to like think of. It's so interesting because we're we're thinking of this all in like a Western mindset um of like the more research we do about it, the the better it is, and like the more like we can trust it, um which is I'm not i'm not like against that.
00:35:42
Speaker
It's just sort of one lens though, right? Yeah, yeah I think there is there is wisdom in our past and
00:35:56
Speaker
Like all of these traditions that we even continue on to this day, like people hold on to through religion and you know spirituality, um this is part of our human nature. So it must be studied. you can It sounds like you're you're saying you can find truth in other things besides sort of like a scientific Western lens, if if things stick around for a long time, that they're there might be some some truth in that.
00:36:27
Speaker
um Um, yeah, I don't know. I think it's, I think it's like hard to like what you were saying about spirituality though, how that's like the next frontier. I feel like in a lot of ways it's like, it's, it's very hard to measure, very hard to like pinpoint. So um um I'm going to keep my eye on on what you're doing. Maybe, maybe pick up some things from you. We'll see. We'll see.
Quickfire Personal Questions with Yas
00:36:47
Speaker
ah With that it's time for a lightning round a series of fast-paced questions that tell us more about you. Okay, let's go it go for it What's your go-to yoga music? So in my previous teacher training I um played the Kamancha the Persian violin and I had that playing in the Shavasana, so I would say that's my favorite Who's your favorite high school teacher?
00:37:18
Speaker
High school. So long ago, right? who Who has been a favorite teacher in your life? How about that? Whoa. It's like that's even a harder question. I feel like it's been my mentors. They have been my teachers, but they haven't actually like taught me a class. My favorite teacher.
00:37:44
Speaker
John, you stumped me on this one. Who's your favorite podcaster? um not You. ah What's your ideal Saturday afternoon? I'm hanging out with my friends. um What's one book you want to read? I want to finish reading this book called Decoding the Spiritual Messages of Everyday Life.
00:38:12
Speaker
um So I'm like, i I've really just like gone halfway through it, but I'm i'm looking forward to finishing that book. Lastly, what's one change you'd like to see in healthcare? care Less wait times for patients to go and see a doctor. I'm all for it. Yasamuz day. Thanks for joining the show. Thank you, John.
00:38:49
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Wound Dresser. Until next time, I'm your host John Neery. Be well.