Michaël Bijker — Yogalap A Deep Dive into Breathing Techniques: Traditional Methods and Modern Popularity

what's your dream what's your goal what's your motivation what's important to you what's your passion what can you do to change the world this is what's involved conversations with thought leaders and change makers from around the world hear stories of hope and inspiration to help motivate people like you to live your life find your passion passion and live your dream together we can all bring positive change to our world now here's your host David Watts and once again it is what's involved the special guest today I've been I've been looking forward to chatting to this gentleman for a while and I'll give you a bit of a background but who is he he is Michael Baker and I guarantee you I'm getting the name wrong and pronouncing it wrong but it's close enough hello how are you Michael how are you well pronounced well pronounced thank you very much all good I hope you're all well as well well fantastic now who is Michael what does he do well this is where the story comes in you see for a long time now I'm very very fascinated about self-development and personal development and in my younger days I was quite a keen martial artist but now I'm not in shape well I'm in shape I suppose because round is a shape but I'm not nearly as fit in and as healthy as I used to be and I came across Michael's website quite a while ago when I was I was looking for some things and she going was actually what I was was was looking for and then I saw on the website and then I was wandering around you do me one day and there was some of Michael's stuff and I thought got to have it because what Michael does okay is he is a breath work yoga pranayama meditation expert okay that's just some of the stuff he does so so Michael does things like breath work yoga and he talks about yoga and disease yoga and healing and breath work he also talks about creating a better life now that I've introduced you Michael and people know what you're all about give me a bit of your story how on earth did you get into this because judging from the way that you sound you're not from the Indian area not at all not at all quite quite the opposite I would say David I I was born and raised in in the Netherlands and in a very yeah let's say a Christian family in which I think Rex is like meditation and yoga and she couldn't we're really seen as yeah something that was like very in the occult in the bit almost like like dangerous for for for my parents I would see it as a bit of dark side but slowly when I was younger I I was always very interested in spirituality and I started to die I've deeper into it and I I had to go to church every Sunday and I think there's a lot of beautiful things about Christianity don't get me wrong with also something that don't really explain the whole picture of life so to say and then stay a bit dogmatic and I started exploring more also in to meditation Buddhism but also in other religions in Islam Hinduism all these kind of things and I saw like well it's almost like every culture or every religion has a different view on something which is in in essence the same but this cannot be really be explained it can only be experienced it can only be felt because as soon as you try to explain what it is it yeah it gets always the the the the projection of the mind of the person that is explaining it on it right so it is really not possible to still to do that it's almost like you see the wind and it blows in and you you you see how it moves the leaves you see how it moves the trees you see how it makes waves in the water all these things but as soon as you try to catch the wind in a plastic bag and then say to somebody look here in the plastic bag is the wind oh then of course the essence the power the wind is not there and I think it's the same with that with also trying to explain what God is what what creation is what life is it can be experienced it can be felt so from that point on when I was about to a 14 15 I started doing more and more meditation just feeling like okay what is it then what is life what is the mind what are emotions how why is it that some people look at the same thing but they see a completely different they experience a completely different thing and I like that I started to go deeper and deeper into the workings of the mind and so that yeah there there is such a depth to this reality that we that also science cannot explain but that's your if you just steal your mind if you sharpen your awareness you can really start to experience this deeper layer of reality and as a mother day I also suffered a lot from skin disease I had a big car accident when I was 18 it really shifted my life so from that point on I started doing lots and lots of yoga practices and and she go and this really helped me to on a physical level to heal so much as well it gave me so many beautiful benefits and yeah I just kept on traveling and then learning and and practicing and until I felt like hey yeah is this something I can share with others also there's something that I think the world needs well on that on that subject Michael I would agree with you and that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because if we look at the world that we live in today and and particularly you know us sort of coming out of COVID etc etc the world is in a mess and it's full of disease and a lot of people at this time still wear their stress like a badge of honor you know they're like oh I have to work 16 hours a day and and you know then when people get burnt out or have some form of emotional collapse they always wonder why I'm one of those people I'm putting my hand up as we speak because you know I know that I should be doing stuff and I know the benefits that martial arts and meditation have had for me in the past and yet I'm not doing it so talking to you today was partly for us to find out if there's a remedy for this disease in the world or dis ease and partly so that I could feel guilty and maybe show up and do some of the stuff that you teach beautiful I would completely completely agree with you about that the world that it's almost like a normality to be stressed yeah and then it's almost like you say like you wear it as a badge of honor that if you work really hard if you if you if you're stressed out then then you're you're you're succeeding or you're doing the right thing so there is there is a the thing is I think that people are get so identified with their work or so identified with the way other people see them or so identified with the things that they can buy or the freedom that they have if they can buy a lot of things or possessions or a nice house a nice car that they forget that the happiness or the sense of fulfillment does not happen because of external factors it happens within ourselves so so if we get identified with very much the things that in a way we are not really we prioritize very much let's say success in work or career or having a lot of positions we prioritize that over our own physical and mental health right so then it's really hard for people to say like ah what one hour a day spending on meditation or Qigong or yoga that's so much but it's so easy to spend eight hours a day behind the screen typing in numbers or doing things for work and that is that is a normality so I think what you prioritize is what you identify very much with I hope you're following what I what I'm saying here so the essence of it is instead of trying to force yourself really hard but I should be doing this I should be taking more time for meditation I instead of that get more identified in a way what what am I like okay I am NOT my job of course it's beautiful to to work and to do things but it's not your essence I you are not what other people say of you what other people think of you would you are not your your possessions you are in essence here this is wonderful body but on a deeper level there's this consciousness as soon as you get more identified with that you start to prioritize your lifetime also more towards that and see that without a healthy mind without a healthy body you won't experience life in a very pleasant way absolutely and you know as you were talking now I'm just thinking to myself the people that most need to hear your message are the people that are the ones who say we don't have time and if I think about it in my own business I'm totally guilty my fiance as well you know she will work a 16-hour day in order to meet her deadlines and when I said to her but hang on we need to do something here and it's projecting because I when I say we need to do something I mean I need to do something and she always goes I'm too busy I don't have time for that and yet you know I got to the stage where I had an absolute breakdown it was like I hit the wall and I turned into almost a vegetable I couldn't think I couldn't focus I couldn't do anything I wanted to just lie in bed curled up in a ball and feel sorry for myself and when that happens it's a it can be a very very big wake-up call Michael I want to dive a bit more into into breath work specifically so when we come back we'll continue my chat with my special guest Mikhail Baker and we'll we'll find out a little bit more about him it's fascinating and I love this and the idea of breath work I'll tell you what I think first of all about breath work when we come back this is what's involved back in a bit hey like what you're hearing share the podcast with your family and friends and spread the word this is what's involved and we're back with my special guest Mikhail Baker so breath work the first thing that I ever thought about when somebody mentioned breath work to me I thought about the ladies that are pregnant going to those Mars classes and you know you have to and I thought what is breath work what can it do yet I mean it's like literally the thing that we live on is our breath and this this practice of breathing in the way we breathe goes back centuries so so talk to me a little bit about breath work and what it can do for you so there is such a beautiful power of the breathing it's like a control a remote control for all the other systems in the body and for example if you breathe really fast and really strong you're really activating the sympathetic nervous system so you can release adrenaline you can increase digestive system you can increase the blood flow increase heart rate just with the breathing but on the other hand if you do really slow breathing you can also very much slow down the heart rate you can calm your metabolism you can bring the blood pressure down and very very important also influence your nervous system in a way that it becomes either deeply relaxed or very activated because it is really hard for a lot of people over for anyone really to control your nervous system right because your nervous system for a great part is automatic the way your heart rate is going the way your digestive system is going etc but with the breathing you can control this and especially when it comes to the mind a lot of people a I think pretty much everyone and that I know the mind is running over hours it's just going it's like a tool that doesn't stop it's constantly on and it's really hard for people then to think that okay now I'm gonna stop thinking and just enjoy this meal or now I'm gonna stop thinking and really listen to this person or watch the sunset or whatever you're doing to just have a moment of stillness or real presence and sometimes in the heart of you try to not think about something the more frustrating it becomes and the stronger the mind becomes however with some calmer breathing techniques you can really start to steal the mind you can relax the nervous system and this is a very important thing which is already hundreds if not thousands of years old they called pranayama and modern days called breathwork and in which they developed all these techniques the different breathing techniques on how you can influence your own nervous system how can you can influence your own physical body but also very much how you can steal the mind and also how you can unblock if there is blockages in your emotional system blockages in the mind how you can clean out everything and when the mind becomes clear when the body becomes more healthy let's say more pure and the mind and the emotional system as well then you are able to feel a state of peace a state of it's so good it's life it's good nothing to still worry about nothing to still feel I have to solve or this constant restlessness in my system or just being alive and feeling very very present and almost like a meditative state and these techniques now are becoming very popular I think partly also because people start to see I cannot keep on living in this way that I'm living now with with stress with not having much health or a mind that's constantly almost like like agitated restless all these things and this is really the key to bring more balance and healing and health in the mental and physical system because that's one of the things and there's two things I noticed well while I was chatting with you the one is I smiled because I thought back to my one mentor who always used to say to me I don't know why you are so stressed I don't know why you worry about this he says this is life none of us are getting out of it alive you know just do it and and and I thought to myself you know that's that is so true I mean we so often tend to be on this treadmill where we reaching and we racing or we in a race and and yet the only person we actually racing against is ourselves I mean you know I know when you're young and you somebody says to you how old are you and you go I'm three and three quarters years or you want to be six and then you big and then you get to me I'm on the on the wrong side of 50 now and you kind of go hmm okay if I look at the numbers you know I've got less time left on this earth than I've already spent here so we need to do something but again everybody comes up with it being too busy is is where's a good place to start we go is it is it with with the breath work is that would that be a good place if somebody goes I'm really stressed out I don't have time to do all of this and I think yoga is is weird and I think she going is weird is this is this breath work a good place to start absolutely absolutely and it's about creating a bit of a routine in your life right it's not like if you do it once a week on a Sunday or something it's it will make a bit of a difference but it's about implementing it into your daily life and you can just start off with doing something like just three minutes a day take three minutes in the morning to with a hand on the belly a hand on the heart take some very calm breaths and just start your day with that this would like taking 10 calm and deep breaths just to bring a bit more presence in to your day and once that becomes a habit pattern for yourself you will start to enjoy it just like some people really enjoy their cup of coffee and they need their cup of coffee in the morning you will start to feel the same way about having a little moment of breathing for yourself so what this does it also helps you in daily life to as soon as you start to feel okay now I'm starting to get a little bit stressed that you know okay I'm just gonna take a couple of calm breaths and you've trained yourself then to take these breaths with full awareness to calm down your nervous system to step out of certain patterns of thinking that will be self-destructive or will be very negative or restless that you can stop out of it and the more you do this the better you become at it so it starts to influence your whole daily life on how you deal with certain situations in your daily life how you treat other people how you treat yourself so I would highly recommend to just create this habit pattern to prioritize prioritize this is very important a little bit of your lifetime even if it's just five minutes a day to learn some of these techniques and they are very simple they are very wonderful and I've had so many so many people that have experienced the great transformative benefits on simple things in their daily life just to get a bit less irritated in their in their work and then have a little bit more energy or a little bit more focus and that grows and grows and grows until one starts to live more harmoniously and I think that is so important I mean I wanted to to meditate excuse me now I'm one of those people that I want to be able to learn something and I want to be able to learn it very quickly and I want to be very good at it so meditation I wanted to get very good at it very quickly and I couldn't my brain will not slow down okay it was like a drunken monkey on a rampage and somebody then again my mental suggested to me just sit and breathe just slowly and deeply like start off with like two minutes then get on to five minutes and when your brain starts to do its thing just concentrate on your breathing just focus on that in and out breathe and I cannot tell you how much that helped me it really really did Michael when we come back I want to move on though because breath work is brilliant but I want to find out about yoga and Qigong because as I said to you before Qigong is where my my heart lies at the moment so let's talk about that when we come back this is what's involved my special guest is Michael Baker and we're talking about Qigong we're talking about breath work we're talking about healing and becoming more present and it's something that we could all do with right now this is what's involved back in a bit this is what's involved don't forget to subscribe and leave a review more next and we're back with my special guest Michael Baker and just before the break I said I want to find out a bit more about this now again people I know and specifically my old mentor was a big big fan of yoga and in my younger days I went oh yoga is just for sissies men that's that's not a real men's exercise and then he talked me into doing it one day and I couldn't walk for three days afterwards so I changed my opinion on the but tell me what is yoga all about and how does that affect us and help us so yoga is all about creating a sense of unity within the unity between mind and body the unity between your yourself and in the creation that you're part of the living universe so to say and to really experience that sense of unity and a sense of peace and to in a way awaken also your full potential as a human being which is not just about being very smart or intelligent and or becoming really rich or something like that but to really make full use of your ability to in a way also create a bit your own reality and to do good to others right this is a very very important thing also to be a good human being and all these different techniques were created hundreds if not thousands of years ago by these wonderful rishis and they lived like out in the mountains out in nature and the only thing that they did was basically becoming really aware of okay what is the workings of the mind what is the workings of emotions what is the workings of the body and with what kind of physical poses with what kind of meditation techniques with what kind of breathing techniques can we really bring harmony within can we make the body strong can we clean out also old luggage that we carry in our mind and emotional system and this became the wonderful practice of Raja yoga that we that is now known as yoga but it's just a small aspect of yoga but the Raja yoga which includes meditation concentration practices and asana practices and asana is the postures that many people many people know so in yoga then there is the the first steps the two first two steps are the two conducts of healthy living of taking good care of yourself not lying not stealing just good conducts of being a good person and not adding negativity into your life or impurity in your life by not taking good care of yourself and in others and then comes the ability to make the body strong and flexible and healthy so that you can live without disease so that you can also sit still for half an hour without feeling your knee hurts your back hurts your neck hurts whatever it is but to feel that you can leave your body with peace and when you sit down in meditation this is called the asanas and then comes the ability to bring the awareness within which is Pratyahara and once you can if you close your eyes and you you notice like okay a lot of thoughts happening or maybe lots of emotions or restlessness in my nervous system that is Pratyahara that you become aware of what is happening within my systems and then the ability to control these systems what I talked about earlier on in our talk the it is pranayama the true breathing techniques you start to balance out you start to clean out unblock all these systems in the body and then you become able to have a still mind relaxed open nervous system and body and then you can sit and meditate and become aware about your true essence and also this is what I talked about in our head talk that we identify so much with things outside of ourselves that are not really ourselves but to become aware of what am I in essence and then one can experience unity and peace and love feeling like okay I'm part of this wonderful creation is this flow of creation of this this universe of God of life and I feel a unity with this and this is called Samadhi is a state of deep meditation in which we remember our essence and I think again that's important and I also think and I and I've said this many times on the show before and but even before Covid hit us we as a human race are becoming more conscious we're becoming more aware of there's more to this life than just being on the you know being part of the rat race for 12 14 9 whatever hours a day and I think people are starting to search more now certainly if I look at how many people are visiting your website and how many people have signed up for your your Udemy courses the evidence would suggest that that that is so so the question then Michael is is we're gonna get onto your website but I mean how would I start how would one start somebody that's listening to us now and I go okay well I'm prepared to dip my toe into this esoteric strangeness that David is talking about now she's actually not so strange rooted in science believe it where would they start would you recommend some deep breathing in the morning yeah how would they do that absolutely so I basically created the core especially for for that to that is seven days people can start to taking a little bit of time 20 minutes every day just to learn some of these simple breathing techniques to start to understand a little bit better okay why is it that I spent so much time on my work or on my phone or on the social media whatever it is and why is it that I spent so little time I'm taking care of myself to get a bit of a better understanding on that so in seven days you can learn really some of the breathing techniques you can learn some of the method simple meditation techniques and to create a habit habit pattern and it is about getting enjoyment also in this practice not that every day you think ah I should do it I have to do it and now sometimes you just don't feel like a theory of low energy and you don't do it but to get enjoyment like that cup of coffee that some people really enjoy in the morning and that gives them their energy shot that you feel it with this as well so I would highly recommend doing that essentials course on the yoga lab website and just get into get into some some simple breathing and meditation techniques and or Qigong also and yes start start doing it just start talk about Qigong as well and before we go into our next break Qigong is I am I correct in saying it's an offshoot of Tai Chi and it comes from from the Orient and just when when you say the word Qigong to me when I was doing the martial arts that I was doing Chi is your your internal energy your energy that you breathe in the energy of life and martial artists use it to focus that energy when they are for example defending themselves another place where I came across that this concept of Chi was in reiki which is a form of hands-on or hands-off healing depends how you how you think about it but basically it's it's this focused intention it's focusing this this energy yeah a bit more so well Qigong is basically the the foundation of Tai Chi Tai Chi is is the forms where people do it like like you block a kick or you you push somebody away that kind of movements you get in Tai Chi but on a more basic essential level just the slow slow movements with the breathing to increase your Chi your life energy or to balance it out is Qigong and Gong means work or method so it's basically some moving methods very gentle soft and slow moving and Gong is the work so and it is about also some breathing techniques some meditation techniques so it's a little bit like yoga but then from the Orient from from ancient China and it is getting more healthy more strong but also becoming able to really use your mind to go on a deeper level of awareness wonderful stuff we're running out of time I mean this happens all the time with me when we come back we're gonna be wrapping up with Michael and we're gonna be talking about his his website yoga lab.com because I'm blown away and I've seen a couple of changes in that website over the the last little while so I want to talk to him about that as well this is what's involved it's so good to have you along with us back in a bit you're listening to what's involved with David Watts have you been to our website check it out www.what'sinvolved.com and while you're there click on the coffee mug icon and buy David a cup of coffee he'll love it and we're back wrapping it up with my special guest Michael Baker and talk to me about about yoga lab Michael because that to me is it's an amazingly done website first and foremost okay the whole way that you've put it together is amazing and of course throughout the website there's you get to see you performing all of these poses and these stretches and these movements and I thought to myself goodness me if I could learn to be like even a 10th as flexible as that I would be very happy hey well you can become so flexible imagine yourself if you would practice it every day for for two months what what a big change can happen it's it's setting that priority right so but David yeah thanks for for complimenting on the website the idea of the it's the from the life awareness project yoga lab that I want to spread this knowledge as much as possible so also these courses if people cannot afford them they can do them for free they can just send us as an email that they can't afford and then then they can do them for free and I I just think that it's essential especially now in in modern life to balance our busy red race kind of life out with these techniques and like you mentioned also before there's an evolution of our of our consciousness happening right that we get more let's say more aware of ourselves and more aware of deeper layers of reality and start to become able to really tap into the beautiful power of the mind and this is my contribution basically to to giving back something to the world to to nature to life and it gives great joy to give and so that's why I set up this whole platform this website to share this knowledge and we are also now involved in in the tree planting project here in Portugal planting a lot of trees and and yeah sharing these cores with people that cannot afford them and of course if people can afford them their contribution is very welcome I think that's wonderful and that's one of the things I was I was going to bring up is you've got various courses here that are available seven-day essentials breath is life ocean of energy awakening there's a whole there's a whole bunch okay and when I when I have a look at that and when I was telling somebody that I was going to be speaking to you they were like oh yes he's probably one of these strange yoga master guru to our people and if you want to get what he's got it's gonna cost you thousands and thousands of dollars and you know here in South Africa we I think our current exchange rate to the dollar is about 16 rand to one dollar so so we battling okay and I see when I go in here if I go into like the seven-day essentials course the one you said we should start with I mean you've got you from $15 but choose your price you know and I think that is absolutely wonderful and the rest of the courses are pretty much like that as well and I think the fact that you're giving back and you're doing things the way you're doing them account is is absolutely wonderful how far can one go with you and on this website with your various courses well I think I give you a lot of tools but in the end it's about you learning to use the tools yourself right so there's for example there's this essential scores and from there you can learn more on the breadth is life course and it's not like the price gets more expensive for something the pretty you go now it's still the same thing you can choose your price or even get it for free if you can't afford but then you know the tools then of the different breathing technique of the meditation techniques and then it's about really you doing it yourself or maybe sometimes taking some days to go in nature and and do some of these practices for some days yourself or so yeah it is about creating also and that's very important in this course creating a lot of self-discipline also that you you you make it a very important part of your daily life to do these techniques and then the more you do it the the more like a like a tree or a seeds that you start to nurture a little bit a little bit of water every day every day it starts to grow into a beautiful plant it's like to flower it gets beautiful fruits that you can share to others as well so I just gave you a seed but eventually one has to be able to nurture that's that plants that's growing out of it themselves to create a beautiful tree out of it wonderful and the other thing and we sort of just skip past it but I think it's very very important these practices can be used to heal and to heal psychologically but also physically there's there's so many so many documented cases and you also you mentioned about your car accident but you didn't talk a lot about that but I mean after your car accident there there wasn't much hope that you were ever gonna be able to be you know as fit and healthy and as flexible as you currently are I think you surprised a lot of people by that yeah no I'm very very grateful for that thank God I'm very very grateful for that that that happened but absolutely the the the mind is also so strong in in all of this if you were child luckily had a very positive mindset and being able to bring that self-healing state into your meditations and to be able to create it in a piece you can you can heal so much and prevent so much disease because it it's about 90% of the doctors visit has is related with with stress or tension in the mind research is lately shown and when and this is that also that evolution of the consciousness when we really become aware of the power of that the mind actually has both on creating disease because there's can be so much tension and which results in wrong patterns of living wrong diet or wrong ways of dealing with our own health but also on how positive mindset can bring healing into our life once we really understand that power more and more we can start to directly influence our whole life and in our whole state of body and in relationships as well through the power of the mind so absolutely I think it is essential as a human being and I hope and I hope we're gonna teach this our children in the future that you learn how to use that tool of the mind and learn how to deal with emotions in states of yeah mental and physical state and then so that we can use that power right yep I think that is absolutely essential and go and check out Michael's website okay I'm very impressed and I don't often talk about how impressed I am with people's websites partly because that's some of the things that I do in in my other life when I'm not being a broadcaster but it is a beautiful website and it's so well put together and you get so much value from it it is yoga lap.com so y-o-g-a-l-a-p.com check it out go there you'll thank me for this I guarantee you Michael you've inspired me it's time I got back into this so you've changed one person today so that's wonderful then it's already worth it right wonderful great to hear that David wonderful and keep inspiring on us as well with your with your beautiful shows I will do my best Michael before I leave I always like to ask my guests what's next for Michael I mean you've been at this for a while now and and I've just over the last few years I've seen I've seen your journey me what plans have you got what's next at the moment I'm working on creating a asana course or the yogic posture scores because I think a lot of times when it is explained on the internet it's a bit about getting physically strong and healthy but that's it's a byproduct if we really understand these practices on a deeper level because in these postures we can create a deep deep sense of harmony between our let's say our our our small self and our higher self our bigger self about our connection with with life and I'm working very much on that at the moment and yeah hopefully that will come out soon as well wonderful stuff we wish you all the best Michael thank you thank you so much again that website is yoga lab comm go and check it out and get started today you know the best time to start this was probably five years ago the next place time is today so get it done thank you Michael and it's been great chatting with you thank you very much David all the best all listeners all the best piece in long there we go that wraps it up for this edition of what's involved my special guest Michael Baker and check it out yoga lab.com I'm inspired I tell you what I'm inspired for somebody who sits behind the desk most of his day doing interviews and recording and editing I think it's time I got off my butt and did something so as I said wraps it up yoga lab.com to each and every one of you look after yourselves take care and thank you for listening thanks for listening to what's involved we hope this episode inspires you to find your passion and live your dream don't forget to rate review and share the podcast and to see what's happening what's going on and what's coming follow what's involved on Facebook and Twitter at what's involved thanks again for listening