One of Leslie's oldest Yoga friends, Larry Payne, Ph.D. joins him to talk about some of their shared background, their mutual teacher T.K.V. Desikachar and the history of the individualized work that has become Larry's trademark.

Larry is the co-author of Yoga Therapy Rx, Yoga for Dummies and The Business of Teaching Yoga. Larry is founding president of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Larry's website - Samata International

Vintage Desikachar Yoga Routine for Soccer and Football - with Larry Payne, 1986

DVD of Krishnamacharya Tribute, Los Angeles 1987

Remembering Rama Vernon - Zoom Tribute December 2020

Mara Carrico - YogaLady

Speaker A: All right, we've hit record. And I'm here with my old friend, one of my oldest yoga friends, Larry Payne. So when I say you're an old yoga friend, I mean it in both ways. You're old and you're one of my oldest yoga friends.

Speaker B: Well, the major story is I knew you as a Swami.

Speaker A: Yes. I was still wearing orange when you first met me.

Speaker B: You were marrying people.

Speaker A: I did the one wedding that was it.

Speaker B: That counts. That counts. You married people.

Speaker A: Yeah, I have that video still. I'll probably post that at some point with commentary on my platform. That was a trip. Yeah. Rudra and Kamala were their names, as I recall.

Speaker B: Oh, my God.

Speaker A: I did the fire ceremony and all that. But we're not here to talk about me in my past. Although my past does intersect with yours at numerous points.

Speaker B: Yes, it does.

Speaker A: We're here to talk about you now. Just so that you know, I'm in New York. Most people know that. You tell us where you are sitting right now.

Speaker B: I'm in Marina del Rey area, and we've had this family house for 40 years. And what happened is, when my mom was in her last stages, I gave her this house for eight years and I moved into the marina, which doubled my rent. But she only got one mom.

Speaker A: And.

Speaker B: Then she passed and she had a lovely life. 95, I moved back in. And my old buddy Shashi, who was the first person I met in India.

Speaker A: Astrologer.

Speaker B: 7Th generation psychic, plumbus. He's living in the back. And it's a wonderful relationship.

Speaker A: Wow, cool. It's like a Larry David thing, sort of.

Speaker B: Yeah. That guy is more raunchy. Shocky is more up and up.

Speaker B: That's the way I tell it to you.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're working in publishing. You were the la. Person from a calls magazine. So it wasn't just La. It was the whole west coast. And so you ended up getting involved in yoga for very personal reasons because of what was going on with you at that point in your life. So tell us a little bit about that story there.

Speaker B: What happens when you're in the advertising sales business that you have no outs. The better you do, the more they pile on you. And they kept piling it on me until I started getting a twitch and then I started getting a back problem. And La has got some good doctors. I went to several doctors and nobody could the hell is wrong? So my running partner, Bill Grant said, larry, my wife goes to this yoga class, why don't you come and go out of yoga? Come on. So I went and it was a disciple of Indra Debbie. Her name was Renee Taylor and she's the one who helped ender Debbie write her first book, the Yoga for Americans.

Speaker A: Right. We're talking about the goes way back.

Speaker B: Yeah, for her, yeah. Anyway, I walked in, I was watching these women warm up. I said, I can't possibly do that. Just do what you can and you'll be surprised.

Speaker A: That'S your imitation of Renee yes. Describe the scene. Okay. Because this is not like yoga studios we're familiar with now. Right. So what is this room you're walking into?

Speaker B: Like, I think it was a library of like a public library room or something like that. It was not like her center and they're all familiar with it and warming up. And so she said, do what you can. So at the end she gave a 15 minutes shavasana. When I opened my eyes, my back pain was gone, my twitch were gone, and I felt like I've been smoking something, I was so high. And it lasted for four or 5 hours, so I just didn't even look back. I thanked her. I went to where I lived and there was a man named Ragavon who had scientific Yoga Center. And I went over there and I just never looked back. Within a year I was off to India. But what happened before that is that he would have a juice cleanse on the weekend. And I always liked that. And he said, well, if you really want the full effect, you'll go away and take a two week cleanse at this place called Metalark. I said two weeks. That's my vacation. He said no. So I went there and the big surprise was the father of holistic medicine, doctor Everett Loomis was there. And he was there for 20 years. And he just took me in and he was way ahead of his time. They had intensive journaling and every morning an interactive psychotherapy session with everybody. And at the end of the two weeks, I decided that I wanted to leave my career. And so I wanted to take a trip around the world. And he gave me a list, he had done it earlier. He gave me a list of some people. I didn't go to too many of them because I got sidetracked in India.

Speaker A: So if you're in India, these are the people you have to meet list.

Speaker B: More like the people outside of India, like in Europe, the Black Forest.

Speaker A: I see. So this wasn't the India list of people?

Speaker B: No, I got that from somebody else.

Speaker A: Okay. Just for our listeners who are not in our age bracket. And I'm putting myself in your age bracket. But you're older than me. But the point is that metalark was sort of this proto New Age Spaish kind of place that has a connection to a tradition that actually went back even further on the West Coast, because we're talking like the nature boys who were early health food advocates. People like gypsy boots.

Speaker B: Gypsy boots.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah. And Gypsy used to come by the yoga center and sell his dates. I mean, he used to hang out. Right.

Speaker B: When I had my entertainment magazine, he had a call of minutes. Yeah, no, I remember we talked about Gypsy Boots, but Loomis was really the father of holistic medicine. So I went to my boss in McCall's magazine and I said, you know, I really like you guys, but I quit. I'm going to take the soldier. And he did something amazing. He said, look, don't quit. I'll give you a year sabbatical. Well, that's unheard of in advertising.

Speaker A: Really. The next question waiting to replace you is nipping at your heels.

Speaker B: I had a press card from a Cause magazine, a brand new camera recorder, and I was from California, so wherever I went, nobody turned me down for an interview until I got to Christian Machari.

Speaker A: Okay, so who did you get the India list from? Who to visit in India?

Speaker B: Okay, well, I had a cousin that I had only met a couple of times in my life. My mother told me about his father was a physicist and he was studying the same thing in college. He took acid and dropped out, went to India and became a sadu.

Speaker A: For real?

Speaker B: Took on a sadu name, the robes and all this stuff. And my mother said he had a headquarters. He hung out at the Theosophical Society in near Desert.

Speaker A: Right in adyar. Sure. Yes.

Speaker B: And if you join that before you go, when you get there, you can have cheap accommodations. Really? Good. So what happened is that my first thing that was the only thing that was booked was a teacher training with Shivan Nanda. And Shashi was the one who picked me up at the airport. He was one of the teachers.

Speaker A: No, wait, this is in Trandrum.

Speaker B: That's where it was, yeah.

Speaker A: Wow. They must have recently acquired that property because they couldn't have had it for too long. When you were there in what was it?

Speaker B: Yeah, they had it for about a year. And Shashi's family was part of Shawami Vishnu getting it.

Speaker A: Oh, really? So he helped us.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: His father was there in 81, and it was still new, right?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Yeah. And when I came here, they're calling me Walla Car and all that white guy. I walk in there. So anyway, just on the ride from the airport to the training, I told Shashi that he belonged in America. He didn't belong there. And I ended up sponsoring him to America, and he ended up saving my life. When I had horrible me being dysentery, he took me to a hospital, and there was no room there. And he pulled some strings that got me in.

Speaker A: In India? In trend room. Yeah. I think Joshua was still there in 81 when I was there. He didn't come right away to the States, did he?

Speaker B: No, it was a couple of years. A couple of years. But the thing is, when you're asking me who clued me, and the only person I knew of other than Shivananda was Iango. I knew I wanted to go see him. So I went to see my cousin, and I heard he was staying. He was headquartered at Theosophical with all of his properties and stuff. So I went to this woman who was the head of It, and she had been there forever. Her name was Norma Shastri. Probably 50 years. She was the head of It in India. I'm looking for my cousin Ri Angona. And she took her glasses and she said, Here is cousin. She says, you see him in the library. He's got dreadlocks saru, robes, and he has horrible bo.

Speaker A: If for your back pain. And that Shavasana in a library. And then studying with Ragavan and all of that. You would never even have known about that. You had a cousin who was a sadu, which is absolutely crazy that someone in your family had already made that journey for themselves. Yeah.

Speaker B: And so I sat in front of him. I only met him, like, probably once in my life when I was a kid. I said, I'm your cousin Larry. And he looked at me and just stared at me. And his eyes filled up with tears. He went outside and it was morning, and we sat and talked until it was dark.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: And he said, Listen, I've been to all these people. He says, Why don't you go to Angar's teacher? He's right over here. And I started writing things down, and he gave me all the ones, and he told me the ones that were faked, the ones were not. He told me about Sai Baba. He told me, Debbie, was there.

Speaker A: Anything?

Speaker B: The funny story is that when.

Speaker A: I.

Speaker B: Was staying at the Theosophical richard Miller Reserve, that's where we met. And that's where I approached him. Let's start aiayt. And after he said yes. It took almost like seven or eight years to really get it going, but that's where we started. But anyway, he sent the arrowgram to Ayangar and said, I'm Richard Miller. I'm here observing yoga teachers. I like to come and observe your class. I answer right back. Nobody observes my class. I suggest you go somewhere else. So I said to it, dear Mr. Angle, I've come all this way to be at your feet. It would be such an honor if I could study with you. Oh, please come. I don't know if I could teach you anything.

Speaker A: You're teaching Richard? This is how you kiss a guru's ***. This is how you get him to say yes.

Speaker B: Well, I was in sales.

Speaker A: You were in advertising? Sales.

Speaker B: He dressed up interview. He took me to his level one class, level two and level like a therapeutic class.

Speaker A: Was Richard with you?

Speaker B: Richard company?

Speaker A: You didn't bother to put in your letter? Would you mind if my photographic assistant no, that's harsh.

Speaker B: But you know, his level two class warmed up with standing drop over backfits. So I had to literally be in a bathtub for an hour before I could even come to this class because I was so sore from the day before. I was there for two weeks.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: One thing I do and descatchara was that you make a lot more money off of Westerners and they always had a place for the locals and charge them local prices. So I thought that was very honorable.

Speaker A: Sure. So now you were in ADJR at the theosophical society, literally walking distance from Krishna Macharia's house and the kym, the Krishna macharia yoga mongaram. And on your very first trip there, you run into Richard Miller and you're already talking about organizing something like IYT on that.

Speaker B: I came to him and I said, I want to start this organization. And he says, well if you do, you're going to need a journal. He says, I can be the editor of the journal. I said, Well, I'll be the publisher and I've sold some advertising, so I'll be the president and advertising director.

Speaker A: The reason that I'm pointing this out is that the unbelievable chutzpah it took for you at this very early stage of your yogic connection to already being appointing yourself president of an international association of chocolate therapist.

Speaker B: Why not? That was older than you.

Speaker A: How did it go with the attempt at connecting with Christian Macharia? Seeing as how you're right around the corner?

Speaker B: Hilarious. Yeah, because everybody I went to was so cool about an interview and everything. So I get there and Descachar reach me. At that time, AG Mohan was the managing director of the Krishna Mondra.

Speaker B: Believe, who co founded Desk Guitar. And his father, well, he was a co founder. I didn't even know that.

Speaker A: As far as I know, that's the story I heard. But anyway, they were still working together at that point.

Speaker B: Yeah, they met each other. They were both engineers and they met each other at work. And then his guitar brought him into the fold. Also, Mohan's wife Indra was really popular there. She's wonderful. So I came there and desktop, I met Mohan and he says, I'll see desk charge comes in. He goes, I'm sorry sir, my father doesn't do interviews anymore. And he says, but if you want to wait for two weeks I'll see if he can meet you. So I had Mohan for two weeks and private lessons and then Descatchar gave me one. At the very end, his father comes out and I didn't know anything about touching their feet and all that kind of stuff. He was like five foot one or five foot two. And he walked around and jollander bonded energy. He comes out with his son and I just went like this. And because I didn't drop down and all that stuff he looked at me like, who and the f or you? And turned around and walked away. And that was the first meeting after two weeks. Then when I got home, I called deskar and said, can I study with you and one on one? And he said, okay. So it was about two years later I came back and he said, I've been looking at your background. And he said, I've always wanted to do a tribute to my father in America. Would you consider it? And I said, yeah. So then he coached me. He and Mohan were giving me private lessons twice a day and he gave.

Speaker A: Me all right, you're being tag teamed by Desiccatchar in Mohan in lessons.

Speaker B: They're trying to beef me up because I was going to be representing them.

Speaker A: I see what to do. Are you selling that DVD, by the way, of the tribute that you have it.

Speaker B: And most people now are on digital, so I have it that way, but ends up I made a whole bunch of them. Now I'm sort of giving them away. That people, however you're distributing them now.

Speaker A: If people are interested in seeing this amazing document of this tribute with Gary on stage demonstrating Asanas. Yes, gary, Captain and Desiccats are champing and telling stories. And of course the special guest who arrived and told her story was Indradevi. Right?

Speaker B: It's the only place they have Indradevi speaking English in a video. And I gave it to the people who did the yoga unveiled to use. But it's not like watching Homeland. It gets boring in between. But if you just skip to the places like under Debbie speaking or Desktop Charles chanting it's pretty good. It's like an hour and a half.

Speaker A: Any part of it. I was fascinated. But anyway, we'll put a link to you and we'll put it on with the episode. Okay.

Speaker B: Then he brought me into his father and his father wanted to do a blessing for me to do this thing. So Christian Petri gave me a half hour ceremony. Well, I knew all the stuff from desktop and keep my eyes on him, touch his feet, all that stuff. So that was a thrill.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: And so then we put it on at the Manley Hall Center. And that's where Interdevie came in, desktop came in, all those people came in.

Speaker A: In Los Angeles, just to be clear. Yes. Okay.

Speaker B: And we owned it.

Speaker A: It's available. And we will put that link there, which I encourage everyone to take advantage of because it's a historic telling of the story with the archival photographs, many of which have become very well known at this point. But it's really the first chance for people outside of India to see it all kind of collected there. And of course, Chris McCarthy was still alive when you did this, but was very shortly going to not be alive. So in less than a year after this tribute, he was already gone. But they were already gearing up for this and tender celebration in India, I would think, at that point, because he was about to turn 100. And they have this other film that was made, the documentary that was made of 100 years of the attitude, right. Of the ceremonies that we're doing in India around this 100th birthday.

Speaker B: And at this tribute, Christian Machari at 100 years old, did a 32nd home to start it off. Try that sometime. I'm just barely getting there.

Speaker A: After Covet, I'm down to about average day, about 45. But I used to be able to do a minute fairly consistently. But that was before that's, nothing appeared to some people I know.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: But for 100 year old 32nd home, that's damaged.

Speaker B: Yeah, pretty good. Then somewhere along the line, I heard about Leroy Perry and came over, met you, and what you did over there with you. You set it all up for me. You had it all ready.

Speaker A: Yeah, let's get to that part of the story because one of the significant moments in my development was telling when I first met you, maybe the first 2nd time I met you were telling me this story about your trip to India. And of all the people you met and got to work with, you were most impressed with Desktop, at least in my recollection of your retelling of that. And when I asked what was most impressive about him, you said, well, it's all in the breath. Of all the names you mentioned, I had heard of all of them except us. I'd heard of a Yangar, and I think did you go to Lo Navala, to the Cavalyatam? Because I had heard of the Cavaliere Ham and the work they were doing in Lanavala, which is the Santa Cruz.

Speaker B: The Viva Canada Institute.

Speaker A: Yeah. The only name I didn't recognize was Desiccatcharge. And I said, well, what's so special about him? And you said, well, it's all in the breath. I didn't say a whole lot more at that point, but it got me thinking and it kind of shifted well.

Speaker B: You expanded on that one.

Speaker B: Were you with Linda before she came to ISI?

Speaker B: She was caster and played in a woman's professional football league.

Speaker A: Linda did a lot of things. I mean, this is a woman who wrote an autobiography at age 27, so she already had full enough life to fill a book at age 27 with the significant stuff she was doing.

Speaker B: We love people in there.

Speaker B: Well, you laid the groundwork, and you were very kind about it, because you could have tried to go for it yourself.

Speaker A: I was just being honest. I've been teaching yoga for what, maybe five years at that point. But yoga therapy, that's a whole other thing. In particular, yoga for back pain was your Baileywick at that point. That was your thing. And that's what they wanted. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: John Hertz was there, and the chiropractor John Hurts and the infamous pain. Hertz back clinic got started, and shortly.

Speaker B: After that, Dan Too Good and Blur Sweet came in. So it was sweet. Pain hurts too. Good. But pain hurts. Yes, we did radio shows on Pain Hurts. We had a lot of fun with that. And I still in touch with John herz today.

Speaker A: Oh, really? Is he back up in Oregon or.

Speaker B: Is he no, he's here and he's teamed with another medical doctor, and he's got quite a following, as usual. He always had a lot of celebrities. He's doing fine. I saw him not too long ago. His hair is white and they're doing great.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that was a really interesting, exciting, creative time. The Olympics were coming in 84. Linda and I were traveling all over the place. We were also working as travel agents, so we went to Australia a couple of times. We went to Helsinki for the first World Championships of Track and field. Everyone was interested in the Acouscope, which was really doing wanderers with speeding, healing and soft tissue industry and injuries. And I was starting to learn body work and myofascial release from Craig. And I got a fly on the wall when Leroy was giving these seminars for all the chiropractors who are coming in, learning functional taping and extremity manipulation and biomechanical analysis and all of that stuff. So what are your strongest memories from those days at the International Sports Medicine Institute when you were doing the yoga therapy there?

Speaker B: Well, first of all, with my old marketing stuff, I inquired at the Yoga Journal, and they did the first ever story on yoga therapy in Yoga Journal? In the Yoga Journal with me and Leroy, it really stood out to me. I remember that right next to my little office, madonna would come from massage. He and I started doing this I like that kind of stuff. And then on a given day, walking and practicing a walk was Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley McClain.

Speaker A: Her brother.

Speaker B: Dolph Lundgren. That was the most every week he was on TV because he ****** off the doctor. So they were always going at each other and library was fixing people.

Speaker A: He was. And he was good at ******* off people in the medical field and other chiropractors, too. But he got results. And I learned so much just from watching his hands as he worked. And I didn't realize I was learning how to do some of those things just by watching because I'm like an observe and absorb kind of learner. So it's sort of like through osmosis influenced me in ways that still inform a lot of the stuff I do when I do hands on work with people. So it was an exciting time. And I left La in the fall of 84 after the Olympics, drove back to New York, started working here. I started working for an osteopath who I was connected through Herbie Berger, who was another big Acoustope guy because Herby was working for him here in New York. And so I started sort of eventually developing some of the connections and the skills that would let me go into my own private practice. So from 84, how long did you work at?

Speaker B: I think two or three years.

Speaker A: So you stayed on there?

Speaker B: Stayed on there. And I remember for a while your mom used to come to my group.

Speaker A: Class when she was visiting me in La. Yeah.

Speaker B: There were so many wonderful people that came into that place and Celebrity City. And then also, the other thing is there was a movie that didn't do too good called Clan of the Cave Bear.

Speaker A: Well, those Darryl Hannah. Yes.

Speaker B: So he had all of them come in for yoga class. So I'd be teaching the class and then Jackson Brown would come in and they would get in this convertible Dodge and her hair would fly behind her. It was a lot of fun. And there were several people there that were actors in that film that I knew later on and worked with and so forth and so on. But that's kind of stuff that was going on there.

Speaker A: Yeah, it was a feel like being at the epicenter of celebrities getting their backs fixed. We would be after hours just pulling their X rays and looking at celebrity X rays, too. And with the way HIPAA is now, that was so uncool, if you think about it, that we were just saying, oh, wow, look at so and so spine. That's interesting. But I learned a lot by looking at a lot of spines, actually, celebrity or not. I mean, the spine, you did learn.

Speaker B: A lot, that reputation.

Speaker A: So at what point and I asked this question of Gary, and nobody had ever really framed it this way before, or in this language, because this is called Clinical Corner, this podcast. And I know when I think back to the experiences I had, where I started to think of myself as somebody who specialized in working one on one with people, I wouldn't necessarily have attached the word. Clinician to it back then. But now when I look back, I can see the progression of what I went through to become something like a clinician. So if you kind of turn that lens back on those days and the ones that followed in your life, in your career, at what point did you start to see yourself as someone who was actually going to focus not just on teaching yoga classes but doing more of this one on one focused yoga therapy, clinical work with people? And did you start to think of yourself as a clinician at some point.

Speaker B: Right after desk Guitar because that's how he worked one on one and then with rolling with the international associations of yoga therapist and I started having to associate that. And then also you and I were both like associate directors or whatever of unity in the area.

Speaker A: Vice president.

Speaker B: Yeah, we both had a similar role with Mama Vernon and she connected so many people. She was the one who got all the different schools that come together and the most stubborn was A Ingar school and they finally came and we met in Marietta and that became the yoga journals conferences.

Speaker A: The most stubborn, Larry, are the ones who never show. Shivananda never showed up to conferences as an organization showed up eventually, but Shivananda had a policy about not really sort of mixing things up with other schools or with conferences or things like that.

Speaker B: We both work with Ron Mcrnham and we have to give her a lot of credit for putting all this stuff together, all the schools come together and became what happened at the Yoga Journal and all those conversations and so forth and so on. So I gave her a lot of credit. But I started pretty quickly right after desk a Char and Leroy coming back and just having my own little center going. And then I worked in another chiropractor's office. Name was Brad Harder. I also worked with the late Jesse Hanley who was an empty in Malibu. I was doing those kind of things. And then I really started to get heavy duty with the Yoga therapy association because I was running it and all the magazines came out and they were in my bedroom and it was like I was living and breathing that. And then we did our the first ever IYT teacher training, yoga therapy training was at Metalark with Dr. Loomis.

Speaker A: And what year would that have been? Oh God, you got to dig deep here Larry.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would give it sort of.

Speaker A: Late eighty s. Yeah, late 80s, early.

Speaker B: Ninety s. And it was all centered around AG Mohan. AG Mohan came and this is when Desk Guitar and I had our first falling out.

Speaker A: Since you brought up Mohan, I was going to see if you were willing to talk about that a little bit because that was a big deal for you.

Speaker B: Yeah, it was a big deal desktop. Char didn't like the fact that I asked deskar to clear it. I asked Mohan to clear the desktop and he said he would. And desktop goes, no, he didn't. And it was like not fun for about a year or two. And then we finally got back together.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, they had a pretty significant falling out and it was never reconciled as far as I know.

Speaker B: You know what's amazing, Leslie, is no matter how evolved these people are, whether they're Buddhists yoga, when somebody leaves the fold, they act like little kids.

Speaker A: They really do.

Speaker B: It happens in Buddhist circles. And Des Guitar Morning when he been talking to each other and it was just like he was a co founder of the center.

Speaker A: Well, you see, that was the thing about Rama because Rama would just call that bullshit and say, look, if frigging yoga teachers can't get along with each other, who in the world can? Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, she was wonderful.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well. By the way. I'm going to put a link to that tribute that we did. That Zoom call that we did a while back after Rama passed. Because people listening to this. If you haven't heard of or don't know enough about the incredible influence that Rama Jotie Vernon was on everything that's happening today in the yoga world. There's not a thing. I think. That's happening in the yoga world that is more than two or three degrees of separation from something that Rama significantly contributed to. It's worthwhile clicking on that link of that video we made of the Zoom tribute where we all got together and talked about Rama shortly after she passed away.

Speaker B: And the other thing is, she set up this thing that I went on a peace conference in Israel. She had the Soviet American dialogue. She was amazing. She was beautiful. She was beautiful, too, inside and out.

Speaker A: Right. So you've got the starting to do the yoga therapy trainings, and this is long before obviously IYT started having discussions about accreditation standards for yoga therapy because we're talking late 80s or early 90s, something like that. And all this time you're not just teaching classes. Well, it's some out to the classes aren't necessarily it's not a huge place. These are fairly small classes by the standards of what was going on in La at the time, where things were just blowing up tremendously. Right. With the power yoga and all that. Yeah.

Speaker B: Took one teacher training and it was at my studio with me and Mara Corriko.

Speaker A: Well, let's give a shout out to Mara, by the way, because if anyone here is familiar with Jane Fonda's yoga video, you don't think Jane designed it, do you?

Speaker B: That was Mara, and Mara did the first ever book on yoga for the Yoga Journal.

Speaker A: Oh, really? Cool.

Speaker B: Yeah, the first book. So she did a lot of pioneering things.

Speaker A: Where's Mara now?

Speaker B: She's living down near San Diego and she has private clients and she does yoga and bodywork and movement therapy. And she has a little newsletter out. If you just put in Mara Corrico, you'll get on her newsletter. And she's still moving to Japan.

Speaker A: Still doing it.

Speaker B: Yeah, still doing it.

Speaker A: Right. So yoga is blowing up all over the place by the early to mid 90s, right? Just like the early to mid 80s, fitness is blowing up. The fitness industry is actually inventing itself out of so many influences, not the least of which was Jane Fonda.

Speaker B: She was big.

Speaker A: Yeah, huge. And she was coming in to get treated by Leroy when she got messed up because her studio was just down the road, just on Motor Avenue, and Leroy is on Motor and national. And so about ten years later, yoga is blowing up in the popular culture because fitness and yoga are now forming a partnership, because all these more athletic forms of yoga are being practiced. And that's largely the Ashtanga influence. The Vinyasa style. That you can get a workout. You can get sweaty. You can do all of that. But you're sticking to your guns. And you're taking things in the direction of let's focus on smaller classes. Let's focus on the individual work. And let's recognize that we inhabit aging bodies that are not going to be able to do this kind of stuff forever. Right. So at what point did you make the very intentional focus on this? What eventually turned into yoga for prime of Life?

Speaker B: Eleven years ago.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I mean, I was heading that way also. I had a big following in Malibu. I went out there and those classes were big. It was in like a student auditorium kind of a thing. And we would have 40, 50 in that class.

Speaker A: But you're not teaching Vinyasa yoga here. You're not jumping around and sweating.

Speaker B: Sort of doing my own style. And there were a lot of celebrities out there teaching classes. Oh my God, I'm sorry.

Speaker A: You know what? I forgot one thing before we jump into that era. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you just a little bit about Mataji, because your very first yoga experience, that Shavasana, that changed your life of her student, and by exponential association so many thousands of other people's lives because of the influence you've had, that was a student of Mattigie of Invadebi. Right. And so you first met her when? And what was that special connection? Because you and her were working very closely.

Speaker B: I first met her at the Cheryl Herriman studio. So Cheryl Herriman was the first black yoga teacher in Los Angeles, and so she would come there, and that's where I met her. And so then when I took my trip to India, she remembered me, and I asked if I could interview her while I was there in India. And she says yes, but she said, you know why you're here? I want you to meet Saibaba.

Speaker A: She was very close with Saibaba. Yeah.

Speaker B: She raised some money for an orphanage. So Sai Baba was coming to dedicated. So there was this area that was roped off. They hold maybe twelve seats and wherever side Bob would go, there'd be hundreds of people. So I was invited in. As you look around, it just looked like that. It was all sea of heads. So I'm sitting here. Next to me is a three star general in the army. So he's got a neck brace on. Baba comes in with she says, this is Larry Payne from Calls magazine. And like this and he was kind to me went like that. I mean, right next to me is this guy with the neck breaks. So Sai Baba looks at him, he takes his kurta and shakes it down to his shirt. And so you can see there's nothing on his arm, no tubes or anything like that. He put his hands down. This guy had his hand open like this. Out of his hand was booty the holy ash. It happened. I was sitting like literally twelve inches away, right in this guy's hand. So he went into his hands.

Speaker A: And.

Speaker B: Then he put some here. He took off his neck brace and went like this. I have a picture of it. And for the next book I'm working on is called The Autobiography of an American Yogi. It's on the cover that shot. And Shashi was there and it was his friend who took the picture.

Speaker A: So because of India, Debbie, you got to witness that and meet Sai Baba. Now had she already made the move to Argentina at that point in the early 80s?

Speaker B: No. So what happened is that she had a place near Rancho Laporta that she purchased with somebody who was like an adopted daughter.

Speaker A: Okay, so for people who don't know, rancho Perta is one of the earliest, perhaps the first real pioneering vacation new Age spa run by Debra Zak in Tecata, Mexico, just over the border from California.

Speaker B: Just for a little update, is four years in a row. We're the number one fitness destination in the world by travel and leisure. And Debra Zanke just celebrated her birthday.

Speaker A: Amazing, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, amazing. And she comes and gives talks there like all the time.

Speaker A: When I think of indra Devin, I think of Deborah. I think these are like they're cut from similar clothes. These people who are living to over 100 and still doing their thing and just pioneers in what they've done.

Speaker B: What happened is people started invited Indra away from her center to different places. So somebody invited her to Argentina. She gives a talk and in her audience was a guy named I don't know if I pronounced right, fioro, who was the Elvis Presley of Argentina. He got this vision that she was his mother from another lifetime and announced at his next concert that his mother from another lifetime is given a yoga thing. The next weekend.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker A: Instant red carpet, instant celebrity, instant popularity. And this is before Instagram, an ambassador.

Speaker B: Passed when she was on flying, that she got on in first class or she didn't get on at all.

Speaker A: I never heard that story of how she ended up living the rest of her life in Argentina, but she still traveled because I met her several times.

Speaker B: She would go back and forth, and David and Yana Lefar are the ones who started the Indravi Foundation and took care of her until she died. And they're dear friends.

Speaker A: At the age of 102, was it.

Speaker B: Almost 103, I think, yeah.

Speaker A: Wow. Okay. So I thought people would be interested in that because there was renewed interest in Integrated Debbie, because people are interested in some of the roots and history of yoga. Plus, Michelle Goldberg's book came out, the goddess Pose, which tells the story of her life, which, interestingly, has no photographs because David hated the book and wouldn't give her permission to use them. Right.

Speaker B: It wasn't the most flattering thing about her. She did other stories about her. And I'll tell you, I never saw anything negative about her, ever. She was always giving and kind and just a character.

Speaker A: And if you want to see her in full character, that video of the tribute to Christian Acharya yes, absolutely. Shows her in full character. So anyway, just to scoot forward then to where I interrupted the flow, we.

Speaker B: Could go for days.

Speaker A: I know, but we have about ten minutes left before the hour long break before we go into the clinical stuff. And just for the listeners to the audio version of this, that's the premium content that you can get@breedingproject.com.

Speaker B: I highly recommend.

Speaker A: Well, thank you. Yeah, you can try it out. First month free, no obligation. And there's a lot of stuff up there, including the video version of this conversation, the next hour where we're going to talk shop about the clinical work that you do, and we have some nice video footage that we'll analyze. So you're teaching Malibu these big group classes. But as anyone knows who does what we do. The bread and butter really is the private work. Because as many people as you can put in a room. Paying whatever it is for the class. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of schlepping. And you're making very close to that. Or even more in many cases. Just in 1 hour working with somebody. And so that was my bread and butter for many years. And you're still doing that work even at your advanced age, Larry, which we won't necessarily mention unless you want to.

Speaker B: Say it 78 and feeling great.

Speaker A: There you go, 78 and feeling great. So, yeah, it's prime of life. Why should you not tell us how old you are. That's your whole thing. Yoga help fix your back. You did have some challenges that many people have as they age with your hip. Right. I remember the years you were struggling with that. Now this is just osteoarthritis that developed as a result.

Speaker B: I counted to being a runner for 19 years on pavement.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: That didn't do me any favors then. Early was football and then I had martial arts for about five years. All those things banging on you. But I think more than anything, the running on the pavement was not my friend.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, that'll get your joints. But was there a family history of osteoarthritis, too? Because sometimes we're a little more prone to it.

Speaker B: So you came by family history was atrial fib, which I probably have.

Speaker A: I had to have mine dealt with as well. And the covet didn't help.

Speaker B: I tried four times and it didn't work.

Speaker A: The ablation?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Sometimes it doesn't take. So tell us about the spare parts you have in you now.

Speaker B: I prefer not to.

Speaker A: I didn't want you to talk about the Pen Isle implant. Larry, come on.

Speaker B: We already know about that. I had two partial knees and one hip.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And one of these days the other hip's probably going to be needed because eventually gets there. And there's a man in La who is one of the only ones at this level who still takes Medicare. His name is Andrew Young and he's fantastic.

Speaker A: Cool. Shout out to him now.

Speaker B: They're all doing it with robots now.

Speaker A: Yeah, but the reason I brought this up wasn't just to do more of a reveal about your body, but so many of the people in this prime of life age bracket are dealing with. Exactly. I have a client who I'm working with now who has a knee replacement. Replacement. They had to go in and redo one of the knee replacements. And that's actually people are living long enough now that that's become a sub specialty. There's doctors who are focusing just on that because it's a whole also, if.

Speaker B: You get a partial, at some point you may need a full it's just all that. But the full knee is a long recovery. The hip is not that bad. Full knee replacement is a long recovery. Partial knee wasn't bad.

Speaker A: Right. So I'm going to ask you now, and I don't know off the top of your head, but if you could estimate what percentage of the people in this aging bracket have had some kind of orthopedic procedure, either a replacement or menacectomies or reconstructions or something that they've needed surgery to help them overcome.

Speaker B: I hate to say probably half. At least something on the joints and stuff, at least a third. But as far as something, probably a half by the time they hit 70, 80.

Speaker A: And that includes procedures and valves and all of the things that happen as.

Speaker B: We age older operation. Sure.

Speaker A: So this idea of that Desiccutter had, of tailoring the yoga to the individual, not the other way around, learning how to adapt, how to modify, how to basically enter into a relationship with somebody where they're at and base the practice on their condition, their aspirations, their capabilities, all of that, that was your training pretty much right from the beginning.

Speaker B: It was. And that's beautifully stated, Leslie, because that's where it was. And as you know, Des guitar, if you came to see him privately, if you had that honor, you had to tell him what you wanted to do. Otherwise he would have sit there and shoot the **** with you.

Speaker A: He did that to me. I had a whole list of things I thought I was going to study when I was in India. And then he just wrote on a piece of paper and sent me away and said, Think about this question. Come back tomorrow, and I pull up a piece of paper. I was like, Why are you here?

Speaker B: Oh, God.

Speaker A: We had a way of reorienting your priorities pretty quickly and getting you to really engage in an inquiry about what was really important for you, he did in that relationship.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it was so sad that he died so young and with all the things that he did. But what I think has something to do with is the fact that the Chris Mature's family was very inner bred, almost like they were marrying cousins and everything to keep the lineage. And I think that has something to do with it.

Speaker A: Really? I never thought of it that way. I wasn't aware of the sort of well, you stay in your cast. Well, actually, Desiccatchari didn't. And I believe that Chris Mataria's wife was from a different Vaishnav sect is what destination?

Speaker B: His wife was a Yanggar's sister.

Speaker A: Older sister. Yeah.

Speaker B: I don't know enough about it to say, but I just know that it was very strict about who they married and so forth and so on. And I think within that were cousins. And also there was one of Deskatar's child that was not the same as the other ones.

Speaker A: Well, his oldest son, Bushan, was developmentally challenged. Yeah.

Speaker B: Nice guy.

Speaker A: The sweetest, sweetest person, Bushan, but just needed help. But yeah. And so the irony, of course, is that we had Christian Acharya on this planet for over 100 years. Indra Devi lived to 102. Byangar lived to 96. Pitabi Joyce lived to what, 94 or something like that. And so there was just sort of this expectation of longevity in this lineage.

Speaker B: About this guitar.

Speaker B: As long as you're giving credit, mary Lou Skelton was the one who discovered him and invited him to Colgate and really was the president of the vinyla America. And she was a wonderful lady.

Speaker A: And she brought the students from Colgate Gate to India. And her husband Bill was a very famous ethnomusicologist and he was very taken with carnatic music. So he would bring his students there. And then she started bringing her yoga students along on those trips. And she got to meet and work with Christian Atari. And of course, Gary Kraftsaw was one of those students in the Colgate who got to take part in all that.

Speaker B: Not to take too much time on this, but there was one really funny story that when one of the times when I went to Colgate because you see Desiccatar privately, then you go wherever he was going. And I used to play a lot of football, so I noticed that in the summer there, the football team was practicing, so it was soccer. So I said to Mary Lou, I said, why don't we have Desk guitar, give them like a yoga routine? So she knew the football coach, so she went to ask him and he said, okay. So Deskitar comes to me and he says, we're going to do it and you're the model.

Speaker A: I've seen the footage of that.

Speaker B: For them, he went something customized. So it was jumping and all that stuff because they were young kids. So I go, Heck, start to find the bottle.

Speaker A: Where did I see that footage? Is that on YouTube or was that YouTube?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay. So I'll put a link to that because that was hysterical.

Speaker B: Who else could have this much history?

Speaker A: Anyway, that's a good note to end this part on. So I'm going to put a pause in the video and I'll just remind everyone who has been listening to consider logging into Breathinproject.com. You can check out everything that's there, including the video version of this conversation we've just had and the one we're about to have where we talk shop and really get clinical with the work we've been doing. So I'm going to conclude this part. It's been great. And we'll take a pause and we'll come back and do the next thing in a minute.

Oh, yeah, indeed. If you as a listener feeling a little bit teased at this point, that is quite intentional. We really do hope that you will come and check us out at breathingproject.com to see the video version of this conversation. Which includes that second hour where Larry and I look at video of him working with some of his special students. And we talk about our thought process when we're working one on one and basically have a chance to talk shop and get into some of the more technical clinical details of Clinical Corner. So you can try it out for only $15 a month or only $99 for a whole year. First month is always free, so there's no risk to check it out. And we hope to see you there at Breathingproject.com.

So until next time on Clinical Corner, take good care and we'll see you next time around.