 Hello, you guys, welcome back to esoteric Atlanta, little bit different of a video today, mainly because I have a fever today. I've been, something very strange has been going on with me for the last couple of months where I will get these like really high spikes, fever spikes for like a day or two during the week. And very odd. And I know I've spoken before about the yoga fever and that could be what's happening in another version of a yoga fever. If you missed that episode where I talked about the yoga fever, I will put a link to it in the description box below. But just to make a long story short, within the practice of yoga or any type of holistic exercise, when you're, it's normal for your body to occasionally create like a low grade fever because it's burning up old patterns. And we can go into more detail about that in a future episode with Amy and Stephanie. If you guys want me to talk more about that. And that could very well be what's going on with me, but I don't know at this point. I have some other ideas as well. But because I woke up this morning and my fever was around 100, which my resting body temperature is around 96 Fahrenheit, which is very low. That's normal for an RH negative to have a 96, a very low resting body temperature. So a hundred is pretty high for me. So I've just kind of been in a bed today editing, trying to get some work done. But I wanted to, my plan was this morning was to actually do a getting stronger part two video with some other exercises to do to help your body get physically stronger. But God works in mysterious ways. And because I woke up sick this morning, I was not able to do it, which brings me to this video that I am making here for you guys right now. As you see, I've put some pictures up in this video of myself. In my practice and strengthening postures. And yeah, I wanted to give you guys the opportunity at this point in this video to ask me questions regarding strength down in the comment section below so that I can, when I do film part two of Getting Stronger, I can be more thoroughly of service to you guys. Again, as I keep saying over and over again, you could never compare someone's chapter 10 to your chapter one. Or compare your chapter one to somebody else's chapter 10. And I have been heavily exercising for 16 years now. And so my perception of strength at this point is probably gonna be very different for somebody who is just starting out on the exercise holistic healing journey. And that's okay, right? Because strength is always ebbing and flowing. Like flexibility is always ebbing and flowing. And so with that being said though, when I make these videos for you guys, there might be things that I'm making that might be more of service to somebody who has been exercising for a while. And the reason why I bring this up is because I had an awesome comment. I'm gonna pull it up quickly while I have you guys here. I had a really awesome comment from one of our subscribers here on Esoteric Atlanta, one of our friends here. Regarding, sorry, that was me pulling up my channel. I'm gonna go to the video right now. Before you can. And I'm gonna find this comment, which was awesome. And I'm gonna read it to you guys. Let's see here. So Jennifer Calligan, you asked, thanks for teaching this and not just showing. The last bit with the lower belly and the sliding the feet. My hamstrings are super tight. It does not allow me to get that far with my legs straight and hands on the floor. Working on those hamstrings. Is there a modification this or any other way to strengthen the lower belly? Thanks very much. So Jessica, I think I might have said Jennifer. Jessica Calligan, sorry. Again, guys, I have a fever. So I'm sorry if I misspeak. Jessica, I thank you so, so, so, so much for asking that question because that kind of opened up this whole new avenue of different things to do for more beginner-based people which I am gonna cover on getting stronger part two. So if you watched Getting Stronger part one at the end, I did show you guys an exercise where I had you go to plank, where you put a towel or socks on and you pull your body up into almost like a hand, almost like you're going into a handstand but your feet never hit the floor. And that is regarding the lower belly. Now, yes, if your hamstrings are super tight right now at the moment, you're not gonna be able to pull in that far without bending your knees. And so this brings me to another topic because I actually don't want you to bend your knees. Bending your knees will cause the hamstrings to release and that's not a habit that I want anybody getting into. In the yoga practice, whenever the knees are bent, they're bent for a very intentional purpose which there is gonna be an exercise I'm gonna show you guys in part two where the knees will bend, but it's for a purpose. So when the hamstrings release in some of these postures, when we bend our knees, we're actually bringing more danger into the joints because once the muscles release, then we don't have control over the joints. So again, when we do bend our knees in a posture, it is very intentional and for a reason which I'll go into more detail later on in this discussion. But something I wanted to bring up regarding Jessica's question as well, which is something I don't know if I've actually spoken about on this channel and this is something that I speak about in my, in real life classes, my actual classes to my students a lot and that is the relationship between your digestive system and your hamstrings. There is a connection there. So a lot of times people confuse forward folding. A lot of times people think forward folding is just primarily about the hamstring stretch because in a forward fold, the biggest sensation that you're gonna feel is the hamstring stretch. But hamstrings are not the point of forward folding at all. The point of forward folding is your digestive system. And so that last exercise I showed you guys even though it was about strengthening the lower belly, the body was going into an active forward fold. Now with that being said, every time we forward fold in general, we want to be active, whether we're in a handstand or whether we're sitting on the floor, taking a forward fold, we want everything to be active because we need the muscles to be engaged. When we passively stretch, that's when we get injured. When we actively stretch, not only are we securing the foundation of our joints, we're keeping them locked and secured, but we're also allowing the energy in the body to flow. And part of the spiritual side effect of the physical work is getting that prana, that apana, to actually move in the body. And the only way that's gonna happen is by engaging the muscles. And that's when we also get this idea of tapas, or sweat, heat. And the sweat is necessary to purify the body. It's like, I think sometimes we think the only way that we will actually sweat is if we do cardio, but that's not true. If you hold your muscles in a strong, activated position, it will also generate sweat because the energy is moving. So when we're in a forward fold and we're actively there, what we're really doing deeply in the body is massaging the internal organs, most importantly, the colon. And so this is another reason why I've said in multiple videos, we never wanna belly breathe. Because when we belly breathe, we're actually pushing the stomach out and we're losing that control of Udyana Banda. We wanna keep the belly button pulled in and up the spine. Because that is also maneuvering the internal organs, again, more specifically the colon in something like a forward fold. That's something that's also very interesting about forward folding. And if you try this in your own practice, the more you're able to pull your belly in, the deeper you're gonna get into your forward fold. They work together. The more you pull up, the deeper you can fold in. And I say all the time with yoga, we're not necessarily looking for flexibility at all. That's not important. And so Jessica, for anybody watching that feels like they have really tight hamstrings, that's just something important for you to know about yourself. But it's not important as far as your overall spiritual growth. It's just not. And I will show you things to do so that you don't have to bend your knees to get your belly stronger in the next video. But I don't want anybody to judge their spiritual hygiene or their spiritual evolution or value based on how flexible they are. That's just not, listen, trust me, there are a lot of flexible assholes and psychopaths out there. Your flexibility has fuck all to do with your value as a human being. So I just wanna put that out there. It's all it is. As long as you're feeling friction in your practice, as long as there is an induced striking of energy, then that's perfect, then you're in a great place. So that doesn't matter. With that being said, if you can't touch your toes in a forward fold but you're feeling that friction, then you're right where you need to be. Sometimes the more flexible person has the harder work to do to actually generate that obstacle for themselves to create that change. Cliff High just released an incredible video. I will put it in the description box below where he talks a lot about karma and he talks a lot about friction. He doesn't call it friction but what he's saying is the same thing that I've been saying in my studies in India. You can tell Cliff High if you're listening. I really respect your work. You can tell that Cliff High has had the same level of information, the same understanding of information given to him through his studies that I have in India in my studies. And I went to one of and I'm still enrolled at one of the best yoga schools in the world in India and so that's awesome that Cliff is putting that out there. So I will link his video down below because sometimes it does take, two people can say the same thing but using different words. And so sometimes the way one person said something is gonna click with you but the way another person said something is gonna click with someone else if that makes sense. So I will link his video down below. But anyway, back to the friction. So within the physical body of the asana work we have to come to a place to find that friction. So again, Jessica, because your hamstrings are tight, amazing, awesome, you have friction, that's what we want, that's what we're looking for to create that change. As I've said before, when you strike a match, the match won't just light. You have to actually strike it to create the light. And so that friction, that control demolition that you're creating in your practice is what is giving you the opportunity to create that light if that makes sense. So do not fear the physical limitations that you perceive that you have. And I say perception, because your physical limitations are going to change. They're always gonna be changing, right? Cliff High talks a lot about when you actually work with your karma, you can then release some of your karma, release that burden. And so a lot of what's happening when you take on a spiritual practice like yoga or tai chi, you're actually taking your karma on, head on, head first, taking the bull by the horns so that you can start to change the trajectory of your karma. More than that, it is said that you are changing your family karma, your inherited karma for seven generations behind you and seven generations below you. And so that's a lot that you're doing. I mean, my friend Harmony from Canada, who's a teacher, she always says, when you take on a practice like ashtanga yoga, then you are literally speeding up your karma. You're speeding it up to get through it, to release it. And so with that being said, don't fear the hard stuff because the hard stuff is where the juice is. The hard stuff is where it's interesting. And that's what I want everybody's perception to change too, is again, when you get to that struggle in your practice, when you're having that issue because your hamstrings are tight or maybe you're really having to work for the strength, don't see the struggle as just struggle, see it as like, okay, now this is where it's interesting. This is where it's interesting. You think about watching a TV show. None of us, if a TV show is boring, if there's nothing interesting, it loses ratings and people don't watch. But the TV shows that are really jam-packed, full of action and adventure, it's interesting, right? That's what you're doing in your own practice, where there's struggle, that's where it's interesting. That's where you learn the most about yourself. And so I want everybody to see that as not a bad thing but necessary and actually in a lot of schools of thought, a good thing. You hit that struggle, yay. You know, my original teacher, David Green, that's what he used to say, the lucky people, the lucky people, their karma comes up in early, it comes up in primary series. So if you're already struggling in the primary series, you're very lucky because it came up early for you. You didn't have to get to the more extreme series, like third or fourth series. And again, I'm telling you fourth series looks like an exorcism, it's very extreme. You didn't have to get there in order to find that interesting part of you, that struggle, yeah? So I don't want you guys to see where you're weak or where you're immobile as a bad thing, but rather as a good thing. Now again, the reason why Jessica's comment made me wanna talk about the digestive system with the hamstrings is because she was saying she was having a hard time getting her legs all the way in because of the tight hamstrings. But look where that's targeting, that's meaning that she's not getting in the belly in for that forward fold, right? To create that massaging of the organs. And so for someone like Jessica, I would really have you work with a seated forward fold, which I will talk to you guys about in getting stronger part two video about how to properly forward fold to start to work on your stomach getting that massage. Now again, flexibility of body I'm not super interested in. Flexibility of organs on the other hand is something I'm super interested in. So we do, people don't talk about that. The older we get, the more stagnated our organs become. And we want to keep our organs flexible and young and youthful and agile. And so that is what's happening on a very physical level with a lot of these yoga postures as well is it's forcing the organs to twist and turn and be cleansed and create that flexibility. That's another reason why inversions are so important it flips the body and so these organs can drain themselves. So I hope that makes sense. But anyway, again, if you guys have any questions, I've got a couple of more drills or exercises I'm going to be putting in part two of getting stronger, but ask me your questions down in the comment section below and after I read through the questions, I can create more of a dynamic video for you guys. That's going to be more of service to you guys who are on this journey, especially for those of you who don't have a teacher. Again, super important if you can find your own teacher, but if not, I will do the best I can to help guide you guys in your own journey through your own physical labyrinth of stuff. So anyway guys, have a wonderful, wonderful day. Later today, I believe there's going to be a coffee chat with Catherine coming up and I know that Emmy, Stephanie and I are going to be doing another video together over Shadow Work 2 this week. And yeah, I will talk to you guys soon. Have a wonderful day.