OM: How would you describe your style of yoga?
MS: The style I present in yoga studios is really an amalgamation of
hatha yoga, Qi Gong therapy and additional techniques that I have
learned along the way from teaching for over 20 years.
I used to teach vinyasa flow yoga, but I found that it was so
limiting in terms of how many people in our society could do it – it
was a narrow bandwidth of people who could actually do it – and
I wanted many more people to receive the benefits even if it’s just
one benefit. For example, if people come because they just want to
sleep better that’s a good enough reason for me. Maybe they don’t
want to increase their range of motion or strength. In my Inner Axis
method, we don’t teach vinyasa flow – there is still movement, but
it is slow and graceful, so that if your mother or grandfather came
to class they could still do a lot of it very successfully, with great
benefits and no risk to injury.
The same goes for someone who is obese, they can come and
do almost everything. And therefore we now have a much larger
demographic than most yoga classes do. It is also centred around
breathing patterns to alleviate panic attack disorder, general anxiety
disorder, depression, and so on. We can get relief after just a few
days of doing this – not years – just a few days. And if you can
suddenly sleep better without medication, well that’s life changing
because you’re no longer walking around exhausted all day.
OM: What have been the highlights of your career?
MS: I gave a workshop in a major city and a well-known teacher said:
“Do you know why I come to your workshops every time you visit us?
I had been practicing yoga for seven years and teaching six years
but I still had anxiety. After one workshop with you I stopped having
anxiety, so now I do your breathing exercises. And I haven’t had
anxiety for seven years.”
When I hear things like that, it makes me feel like I’m contributing
in a meaningful way to humanity, to people who are suffering in
this digital age from ridiculous amounts of stress, and able to help
without the use of medication. I want to add that I’m not saying
people shouldn’t take medication, but I don’t know anyone who
wants to live off it for the rest of their lives.
OM: What do you know now that you wish you’d known years
ago when you started?
MS: As a student I wish I had known about hatha yoga at a much
younger age and I wish it had been available to me at a younger age.
It was not available at that time where I lived in Santa Cruz, California.
I wish that the teachers early on had emphasised that this was not
a sport or a competition and to not be competitive. I had to learn
this on my own. If you compete in yoga you will get injuries – that is
the cost. I injured both of my hamstrings in one class because the
teacher did not look after us as beginners, or educate us. It took
nearly two years to heal my hamstrings.
You get so much more if you view yoga as a healing modality. For
example, if someone has chronic lower back pain and the reason is
because they are a runner, and they never stretch, simply stretching
every day can solve their lower back problems forever. So, something
as simple as that can be life changing. They can be pain-free rather
than paying for a chiropractor session every week. Or someone can
now sleep well when they didn’t before. We offer the opportunity for
people to heal both emotionally, physically and, somewhat, mentally- but the student has to learn the simple breathing patterns and
stay consistent.
OM: What are you looking forward to in 2019?
MS: I’m happy to be releasing my online breathing course called
Breathe To Heal, which is a follow up to my TEDx talk of the same
name that is approaching 1 million views. It is a seven hour online
course that includes my lectures, how to, and follow along, breathing
exercises. It is categorised by various symptoms such as anxiety,
depression, sleep disorder, and so on. It is a culmination of 23 years
of teaching breathing patterns.
We are also going to be releasing a breathing app called Strategic
Breathing that is designed specially for the military and first
responders with PTSD. But is useful for anyone with extreme stress. It
is really an extraordinary app that uses animation quite effectively. It
doesn’t use any yoga language, jargon, or symbolism at all so I predict
will be accepted by people who would not ordinarily try yoga.Find out more about Max Strom’s Inner Axis system at
maxstrom.com or watch his Breathe to Heal talk on
YouTube: https://maxstrom.com/breathe-to-heal/FM
“You get so much more if you view yoga
as a healing modality. For example, if
someone has chronic lower back pain
and the reason is because they are a
runner, and they never stretch, simply
stretching every day can solve their
lower back problems forever.”