Chris Magee (@mageesy), head of yoga at Psycle London, is a teacher's teacher who runs trainings and retreats worldwide (in normal times), when he is not offering what is marketed to be the toughest yoga class in London, aptly named OMFG.
The accomplished Irish yogi has had a surprising and compelling path. A keen rugby player in his teens, he then trained as an actor in London and was dutifully sent to yoga by his movement coach while in recovery from several injuries he'd previously suffered on the field. One thing led to another, more yoga and more injuries. He moved from what he referred to as 'ego-driven unawareness' to an entirely new path, one that revolutionised the way he trained himself and how he shared that with other people.
Chris holds the highest available E-500RYT from Yoga Alliance and is trained in Hatha, Vinyasa, Budokon, Ashtanga, Rocket Yoga and Acro Yoga, with roughly 2000 hours of training to date.
In this conversation, Chris candidly shares his wins and challenges around practice since his early start, his move from acting to training to yoga and how all three talents combined somehow into a 'perfect storm'. Anne and Chris discuss the difficulties that can be expected while teaching in a pandemic, what are the ways in for beginners away from a studio, and what it's like to hold space for all different types of students to find what they need out of the practice.
Not only is Chris an incredibly experienced teacher with much to share, but he also knows how to make his story come to life - we can only imagine how fun this must be for the students in his yoga class. Find all links to Chris' website and other details below. Enjoy!
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You can find Chris on his website Mageesy.com
or on Instagram @Mageesy
Links to his retreat later this year is here
or on the website Down To Flow Escapes
The next teacher trainings with Chris are listed here at Empowered Yoga School
Or train with Chris on Fiit.tv
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A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield
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Anne Muhlethaler:
Hi, hello, bonjour, namaste. This is Out Of The Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness and I am your host Anne Muhlethaler. For this episode I was lucky to interview Chris Magee AKA Mageesy, who is currently head of yoga at Cycle in London. He's also the founder and teacher at the Empowered Yoga School. So for those of you who are maybe new to the podcast and don't necessarily know me or my background, I came to yoga in my early twenties and it took me quite a while to find a teacher that I connected to the first teachings that I experienced were via video, VHS even, yes, you can just about figure out how old I am and the thing is, it was with a master teacher called Eric Schiffman. So of course, after experiencing him, it was a little bit difficult to find the right fit.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Also, I sustained a bunch of injuries over the years, particularly in both my shoulders. I then was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. So while I am currently teaching mindfulness meditation, as well as being a business and communications consultant, I decided to dig deeper into yoga studies and so I obtained my 200 hour teacher training two years ago with Suzanne faith. So that is one of the reasons why I am so interested in talking about both business and wellness, mindfulness of course yoga on this podcast. Anything really that peaks my interest and that helps the body, mind, heart, spirit connection is something that I feel interested in pursuing. Anyways, Chris' experience, I think is remarkable in many ways. Let me just say that he tells his own story beautifully and with a talent that I would say is an attribute of his origin as well as his early passion as an actor. So here is my interview with Chris Magee, enjoy. Chris, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to see you and to meet you.
Chris Magee:
Well, pleasure's all mine. Thank you very much for having me as a guest I'm pleased to be able to be here and to chat to you.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Fantastic. So first I wanted to ask you, where am I finding you right now?
Chris Magee:
I am in Haggerston, which is just by the canal.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I used to be in Kings Wharf.
Chris Magee:
Oh yeah, literally just the other side of the river to where I am now, yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Because I saw a post of yours on Instagram that said "Haggerston Riviera". I love that area of London so much.
Chris Magee:
It's very cool and it's been a blessing being here because it means that every day when I go out and have a little walk or whatever, I get a chance to go to the canal. You get to be by the water. It's a bit more kind of chilled out. It's sort of, it's got that nice kind of dual quality of, I still feel like I'm in the city, but I still have an opportunity to sort of escape a little bit from the potential claustrophobia of the city or of being stuck inside at a time like this.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So I thought that first I would let you tell me your story kind of freely pick up wherever you want.
Chris Magee:
I suppose the story in general is a little bit more yoga related because that's sort of what people know me for. So let's go for somewhere around the emergence of yoga, I suppose, as a good place to kick off. I was a rugby player all throughout my life. I started when I was nine years old and I played my last game at 22, 21 or 22 and with that game, the kind of the laundry list of injuries that generally tends to emerge from such a delicate and genteel sport. My passion was to become an actor. So I was really into drama and I was really into acting whenever I was at school and I worked a lot with the National Youth Theater of Great Britain. So I had opportunities to come across and to spend time with them working in London and I did plays at the Hackney Empire and I did plays in Kiln and things like that before I was even 18.
Chris Magee:
And it inspired me to apply to drama schools instead of traditional universities, as a means of continuing my education and I got an unconditional offer to a drama school, I was lucky enough to get an offer. So I moved when I was 18 to London to attend this drama school and as I arrived there just happened to have us fill in a form that was like, hey, anything that's going on with your body or any injuries or anything that you think that we should know about since you're doing all of this kind of moving and you're doing whatever else and I filled the form in and didn't think anything else about it and kind of laying there and gave it to the office and we were going to buy it. and I think it was maybe the second or third week of class and the head of movement ran at me in a corridor and was like, ah, I've only just caught up with these forms.
Chris Magee:
And I've seen that you've got all of these, your shoulder has this thing and your, and this is with your neck and your knee and your ankle and this and this and this and I was like "yeah, it's all right, don't worry it's all good" and she was like, "it's not all good. You have all of these injuries, all of these problems. How long have you had these things for"?
Chris Magee:
And I was like, "Oh, years so don't worry about it. It's fine". But inevitably it was creating a problem because I had all of these kinds of habits in my body and the way that I moved and that obviously doesn't lend itself to you being able to kind of build a character or embody or impersonate someone else, because you can't really get rid of your own characteristics in order to be able to do that.
Chris Magee:
So she said to me. "Okay, it's got to stop, we have to make you well. We have to kind of get you back to a place of moving well and feeling good and that means no more rugby, no more weight training, no more of whatever you're doing at the minute that's brought you to this point because it's not productive". It's not good for you kind of thing and I said, "well, what do you expect me to do instead" and she said, "you should do yoga".
Anne Muhlethaler:
I love this.
Chris Magee:
Yeah. And I was like, well how long do I have to do this yoga thing for? And she was like, you do it until you're better. I will be the first to admit, I have a very Type A personality.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Chris Magee:
I said, okay well, you know what, if I'm not allowed to play at the minute I go to the gym three times a week. I train once a week on a Thursday night and I play on a Saturday. So instead of doing those things, I'm just going to go and do this thing instead, because if I do it five times a week, the faster I'll get better. Once I'm better, the faster I can stop and I can go back to doing whatever I want to do again, alas. Unfortunately it didn't work that way.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Chris Magee:
So, that was my kind of naivete in my mindset at that moment. Yeah and I went alone. I already was going to a gym so I just went past the place where I normally went and worked out and I went to the little room at the back and I did the class and for the first six months it was kind of like a competition. It was like, what's that person over there doing okay, well, I'm going to have to do it better than them.
Chris Magee:
So I have to get my hand further to the floor or I have to do whatever, but everything that I had done, all my movement stuff up to that point was competitive. There was an element of competition in everything that I'd pretty much done movement wise from my whole life. So it was very foreign to me to find myself in an environment where there was no sense of winning or losing. I found it very difficult to adjust to that, especially in those early phases. I was lying at the end at Savasana lying there with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. What is this bit like, why are we just lying down and we could easily have done like a couple more moves. I could have stretched my hamstrings more during this time. What's this whole lying down thing, about.
Chris Magee:
I didn't really get it and the first six months were tough. It was really hard because I left the class every day. My body didn't feel any better, nothing felt good. Nothing felt like it had changed. I didn't feel like I'd opened anything up and it was kind of, my stubbornness was the only thing that was sort of keeping me there at that point and then very quickly, I got to that level where I was like, do you know what this doesn't work. She told me I had to go and do it. I tried it for six months, it's not like I tried it for a week and gave up. I tried it, it's not helping me. My body doesn't feel any better. I don't feel any looser. I still have all these injuries and this thing is tough.
Chris Magee:
I find this tough, I'm sweating and I'm shaking my shoulders hurt and everyone is much better, air quote better than I am at making these shapes. So what's the point if I'm not getting any benefit from it, why am I sort of putting myself through this? That's my fuck it moment. If you.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
Excuse the language where that was the first day where I went into class and I was like, do you know what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you can't touch your toes, it doesn't matter if you can't do that thing was the arm that she's doing over there. It doesn't matter if you do all the poses, it doesn't matter if you stop and take a little break in the middle, it doesn't matter if you do any of this and that sort of permission to take the pressure off myself then meant that I was like, end of class, completely flat out asleep into Savasana and the teacher wakes me up.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Amazing.
Chris Magee:
And then your like what huh, Oh okay I'm so sorry and they're like, no, it's okay. Don't worry and I left and then later that day or the next day was the first day where I was like, Ooh, like I actually feel good. My body feels good. Stuff has opened up, something's going on and that was the sort of light bulb moment because I know that my story is kind of a rare example because I'm a big believer in this is that people find yoga when they need yoga and it was almost a reverse from me because someone made me go. So the first six months I wasn't connected to it because it wasn't me being there and it took this moment of, at the point of quitting or at the point of breaking and this kind of realization where I ended up taking all that pressure off myself to then allow my body to truly benefit from what was going on because mentally I wasn't blocked anymore.
Chris Magee:
So there was a mental block in place to everything that was going on up to that point, because my mind was set in a certain way of, I'll do this until I'm better and then no more, it serves a purpose. I'm only here for this one very specific thing and I'm here to be competitive. So I want to be the best at it and all of that mental stuff had just inhibited all of the physical benefits that I needed from the Asana practice at that point. So it took it to that point by six months in when actually I was like, wow, I started to feel good and then once I started to feel good then I started to do it all the time. I started to do much more dynamic practices, stuff that was sweaty stuff that was more challenging because then that let me feel like I was working out as well as getting the other benefits of what it was.
Chris Magee:
And it allowed me then to go back to being able to lift weights and so on. I left university, I was working as a professional actor and I was trained as a personal trainer on the side. So that was my kind of side hustle and inevitably I think with everything in the creative industry at some point in time, there was a low in work. So the side hustle becomes the main hustle and I was seeing maybe 20 clients a week teaching 20 to 30 classes a week. Everything from sort of spinning to HIIT, to cattle bells, to whatever, and then training myself on top of that. So I was doing about 70 hours give or take.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh man that sounds heavy.
Chris Magee:
Yes. Very heavy, not a lot of sleep, not a lot of recovery, not a lot of time spent on looking after yourself. A lot of time spent on exertion and kind of giving your energy to other people and that inevitably is completely unsustainable as I'm sure you can imagine and off the back of that then I was starting to feel all of these little injuries coming back and stuff was kind of creeping back in and I was like, well, I don't really feel very good. Ah, do you know what I'm going to take up yoga again, because that's what I did before and I'm just going to work it in. So then I sort of eased off on my training a little bit, started to incorporate a bit more yoga, find a bit of better balance within that started to feel really good, said, you know what I'm telling my clients to do this. I'm like, Hey, this is the thing that I do in order to make sure that I'm looking after myself, you should do it as well.
Chris Magee:
And they're like, Oh yeah, I'll find time to go and do it and inevitably they never did. So the emphasis for me to do my first training was just so I had the opportunity to share this with people that I was already training and I know that you're not going to go and do it on your own. So you already come to me. So why don't I just have this tool in my toolbox to be able to help you when you come to me anyway. So, that was where the first teacher training happened. I never intended to teach a public class. It was never my intention to share with any more than one person at one time. But as the arc of time went on, I ended up giving myself another really bad injury. I had to take a little break.
Chris Magee:
I had to have a surgery.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Can I ask what it was?
Chris Magee:
It was a hernia, an inguinal hernia. So kind of at the edge of my obliques by my hip, I tore my abdominal wall. It was a silly thing to do because in hindsight it was an ego thing. The fitness world is great, but it's also highly competitive and dare I say a little egotistical at times.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You may.
Chris Magee:
From certain characters and I was caught up in the bravado, caught up in the sort of the machismo, Jim bro kind of attitude of certain things and I was working on it in a way that kind of really wasn't serving me and I was heavy leg pressing and I got stuck if someone was working out with me and had moved the there's like a little break on the machine and the thing that I was doing needed to be set at a certain height and someone had kind of moved to a different height.
Chris Magee:
So I ended up getting stuck under, I think it was like 650 kilos or something like that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
What!
Chris Magee:
Yeah and I was in the middle of the gym floor and it was like four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. There was no one else around. So I was stuck and I was like, okay, I'm going to have to push this off me to be able to get out and leave the gym. So I pushed the weight off me and as I pushed it off me, that kind of like intra-abdominal pressure just like popped my abdominals.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I can see you, I can see that gym. You've painted the picture, man. Okay, so you're well that's the
Chris Magee:
I'm well now and ultimately again, similarly to being forced to go into yoga. I look back on that moment as a pivotal thing, a real turning point because ultimately having to then recover from that operation, not being able to do anything for a couple of weeks and just be bed bound was a time of real reflection and then I kind of went into the introspective part of the yoga practice a lot more. A lot of breath work a lot of very gentle moving because I just didn't have the capability to do anything else. I was then also not allowed to handle any external load for six weeks and the surgeon obviously knew what I did professionally. So he said to me, unfortunately, you can't lift any weights. You can't hand a dumbbell to someone else. You just can't because at the moment your body hasn't healed, the mesh thing hasn't healed into your abdominal wall.
Chris Magee:
So, and I said, well, is it okay if I do yoga? Do you mind if I do something and I'll just make sure that it's very gentle and he said yeah. It has to be very gentle, 20 minutes a day. No more than that. So that then meant that all of my other training kind of went away. I ended up just with my yoga practice and I had this epiphany where I was like, wow, like I did myself some serious damage because of my ego. My ego was not in check at that point in time. I wasn't aware of it. I was operating from that place of unawareness and I've injured myself and it completely revolutionized the way that I trained myself and then ultimately the way that I shared with other people.
Chris Magee:
I stopped teaching people weights, stopped personal training altogether and just went completely into yoga and then just used something functional, like kettlebells as a means of supplementing someone else's yoga practice. So it's like, Hey, you need a little bit of this or here's a way to kind of like be 90% yoga with just a little sprinkling of some other things in order to make that practice a bit more balanced or a bit more rounded and then inevitably I just did less and less fitness and I did more and more yoga and it ended up being my full career and my full passion.
Anne Muhlethaler:
It's really beautiful. I'm sad that it took such a painful injury, but I'm so happy that you're fully recovered. I started twisting my ankles when I was 12. It's like a long legs. It's almost like a sport for me and later on, I got double bursitis and tendonitis in the shoulders, most likely related to rheumatoid arthritis because I was diagnosed in 2014. So I feel very connected to people who have recurring issues in their body and I think it's really important for people to be aware of the impact of the injuries. I've met several teachers who are amazing at teaching people through injury and who know how to recover with doing gentle movement but it's true that it's not necessarily the first thing that you noticed when you're in your twenties and you want to get in shape. Most of my yoga teachers probably had that in their vocabulary and in their lessons. I just don't think I listened presently.
Chris Magee:
I Mean, that's the lens that we see the world through in our twenties, right. I think at all times we are the hero of our own story but at the same time, there's this sort of blinkeredness that we have. We like to see the world only from our perspective and only in our way and because of that, we tend to kind of like shun and shut out a lot of outside information rather than being a bit more broad and open to words around us to then be able to have the opportunity to change your mind.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
I think everybody, I mean myself included when I was 20, I thought I had it all figured out.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I did too.
Chris Magee:
Yeah, exactly and they cut to 12 years later and I still didn't have a clue what's going on, but I'm also okay with that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, beginner's mind.
Chris Magee:
Exactly that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Which type of yoga did you first train into, because if I read correctly, you've done more than a thousand hours of Yoga teacher training. Am I correct?
Chris Magee:
I mean the accreditation system kind of topside at 500, so you become a through yoga once you become an E 500 RYC, which is just an experienced 500 art teacher. So you've done a minimum of 500 and you've taught for, I think it's five years or something like that, which qualifies for that as a marker. I've just finished another two and I think I kind of don't really count them anymore if I'm entirely honest with you. I think I'm kind of just shy of 2000.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's wonderful.
Chris Magee:
Somewhere right there. Yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And I'd love for you to tell me about what you found in the different lineages and the different teachers. How did you navigate that path of going from one style of yoga to another
Chris Magee:
First I trained in a style which I saw had the most transferability and it was basically like a yoga for athletes course. It was yoga almost through the lens of fitness because that was kind of exactly where I was. I saw that as my point in the market and I was like, ah, this fits the bill exactly for what I need. I was able to take it on with very little difficulty. The real thing that that course did for me was it just opened my eyes to all of the things that I didn't know and it was like, what's going on? I did 200 hours of training and I feel like I have more questions than I have answers and it then became really apparent to me that actually this was not something that was going to be ticked off in one course and then put to bed.
Chris Magee:
It was something that was going to have to be an ongoing evolution and a constant sort of learning process. So it just spurred me on and I kind of picked that first course for convenience if I'm being entirely honest and don't think I had the greatest experience for that very reason, I hadn't really done enough research into the teachers. I hadn't really done enough of my own kind of personal digging to figure out what it was that I needed to learn. Just sort of did it. I was like, Oh, time-wise it works. So then you, okay, it's not too expensive and yeah. All right and it's kind of in the style of things that I'm going to share, so cool. That'll do and again, hindsight being a wonderful thing. Having had that experience, then my next 200 hours that I did, I spent a lot more time researching who was doing it, who is this person?
Chris Magee:
It doesn't matter where in the world it is. I was in a position where I could pay whatever I had to pay for it, but I was like, cost is not as important on my list of priorities as what is being delivered and who is delivering it. In the early days I certainly did that. The more I practiced, the more I had questions on that could be questions about specific movement or transitions. It could be questions about Asana. It could be questions about the integration of yoga into your life, history, whatever it is when I had those questions and I went sort of digging for answers, inevitably, a teacher or some teachers kind of popped up and then I was able to say, ah, okay, this is a person that interests me, this has piqued my interest. It could be like, wow, look at what they can do with their body.
Chris Magee:
I would love to be able to closely examine or trying to pick up like how it is that they do what they do or how they've achieved that level of mastery or wow I really like what they share. I like that ethos or, Oh wow 10 people I know have all been trained by this one person and these are all great yoga teachers. So that actually must be a really good person to learn from as well. So my learning evolved through that. Again, I was in a fortunate position when I arrived at Yoga Teaching because I had no problem standing up and speaking in front of the people because I had a degree in professional acting and I had all my kind of wealth of experience from the fitness world. So I didn't have any problem in terms of constructing a class or dealing with anatomical language.
Chris Magee:
So one of my good friends said to me, he was like, you're like the perfect storm because you had all of these other skills that you were able to really just pull together and put under the banner of yoga, which meant that when you came off your first training, you were delivering a much greater caliber of lesson than someone of your equal kind of stature. Who's only just done their training, but I felt very fortunate, especially in those early days with things like that but then that also meant that I felt like I didn't have to pursue trainings to learn to teach better because I was like, I already teach. The teaching bit is not the bit that I necessarily feel like I need to work on, but I was much more interested in my own personal growth and development and so all of my training just kind of like stemmed from that and that went through various different styles or various different kind of avenues and whatnot.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You must have one that emerges as a favorite, right?
Chris Magee:
To be entirely honest with you with the thing that I'm probably most known for. The thing that I teach the most of is just dynamic Vinyasa flows. So I wouldn't label it necessarily on, I've been done the route of teaching Rocket yoga, Ashtanga, Hatha, I can teach Yin. I can teach restorative Buddha con, which is the sort of like the yoga martial arts flow. I learned to teach that as well. I can teach acro the partner yoga, there's lots of different strands and lots of different kinds of ways to do it but really I find the most joy, the kind of like the most creativity and expression on the biggest capability of fitting the things in that I want to fit in to a lesson. If I sort of pop it under the banner of Vinyasa,
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
I mean, I love teaching it all. Don't get me wrong. Like I said, I say I pick one, there's a special place in my heart for everything that I've learned and I think that to choose the broadest category, which is Vinyasa, because you know, it's Ashtanga, Vinyasa is the system of movement is the type of Vinyasa. Buddha con is a type of Vinyasa. Rocket is a type of Vinyasa. So if you just kind of pick Vinyasa, then you've got the umbrella of a lot of different styles. So then you can kind of pick and choose from the different disciplines. Or you can be a little bit more interpretive with where your inspiration comes from in order to try and craft the best session possible for your students.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, that speaks to me a lot. And I find that wherever I go in the world, if I do a Vinyasa class, generally, there will be a lot of things I know, but there may be as bunch of surprises in there because each teacher has the room to bring in their own style, I guess.
Chris Magee:
And I think there is real merit to the repetition of things in order to achieve some mastery. I use that word very loosely, but to achieve some level of comfort within the Asana, it has to be done again and again and again. So I'll still teach a version of some sun salutations at the start of every class, because I think what you said is great about the idea of creativity and being able to learn something new but with that, and it also can create a level of trepidation and you could be like, "Oh, I've just had the worst day. Today has been... Oh, my brain is all over the place. And if I go to Chris's class and he's trying to get me to step the left foot, round the back and over the top and this to here into whatever else, my head's going to explode."
Chris Magee:
Whereas if you come in and you're like, "I know that we are going to do five some As and we're going to do five some Bs and then we're going to do a standing series and then we're going to do our seated series and then we're going to do some back bends and we're going to lie down. And I know the whole journey top to tail, there's no surprises coming. And I know I can handle that. I kind of pulled on that thread a little bit when I structure my classes and I try my best. I sort of have, let's say maybe 10 different versions of how to kind of the start of the class goes, the first kind of 15, 20 minutes and students who have been my students for a long time pretty much know all of the different paths that it might go down.
Chris Magee:
But then that way there is still some familiarity in that. So there's still a loose skeleton in there. So they know that I'm not going to go like crazy off-piste. And then it also gives them that time to be able to settle in, because if you have had a crazy day or you've had all of these other things, the yoga is going to help that. Because it's going to draw you into, it's present moment awareness, it's be here and be here now, and not still at your emails are still at your desk.
Chris Magee:
But that doesn't happen instantaneously. It's not like, ah! I've arrived in the room and bam! My brain is now only here. Whereas familiarity in that first little bit of time, lets you just settle. And then once you're settled and once you're a little bit more in this space, then maybe it's time to play. Maybe it's time to get a little bit more creative. So if you spoke to me five years ago, that might not be my answer and if you speak to me in five years’ time, that might not be my answer anymore either. And that's the beauty of it all.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, of course. Now I really appreciate what you're saying because it's true that I know sufficiently about yoga, especially having done my own first 200 of teacher training that, there's a reason why classes are built in a certain way because it's also about opening and warming the body and strengthening certain areas, and I think a lot of the students have no idea about the reasoning behind the series as their belt.
Chris Magee:
The peak behind the curtain.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Exactly. So right now you are a teacher at Psycle in London and apparently it is the toughest and sweatiest class in London. Tell me about how you built this particular style.
Chris Magee:
This I would say is a lovely marketing strategy. If I'm entirely honest with you. As I've progressed through being a teacher, I find myself in a position where people kept asking me to come and lead programs and lead the team of teachers, and I came on board to build a studio called Another Space, which had several chains in London, and I was the head of yoga there on the sort of the lead architect of those studios in terms of what we were offering as a yoga program, they don't exist anymore. Actually they were sold last year. So there is no more of that. But off the back of that, my journey was to come up to Psycle again, to be the head of yoga myself and my co-head of yoga Gemma. They were building their new site at Mortar Mystery, which is Oxford circus and it's a six story facility.
Chris Magee:
So they have spin studios in the basement and they've got changing rooms, smoothie bars, and they have a cafe on the first floor. They have a strength studio on the second floor, they have a yoga studio on the third floor and they have a bar studio on the fourth floor. So everything has its own space, so that it's this beautiful big 50 person. Well, pre COVID times was 50 person yoga studio floor to ceiling windows and really beautiful natural lighting, and it was a real amazing space to teach in. As I mentioned, my style tends to be more dynamic Vinyasa. Yoga often gets bad wrap for not strengthening things or only working very specific ranges of things for strength, and just as the years have gone by my background in personal training, my evolution of the structure of what it is.
Chris Magee:
I have a much stronger style, or shall I say I'm much more balanced styles to where we definitely do a lot of strength stuff, but we also do a lot of release work and we'll do specific mobility work as well as flexibility work and trying to make it a much more well-rounded experience in terms of the offering for your body, but also a much more well-rounded experience in terms of people understanding why they're doing the things that they're doing rather than just mindlessly doing the same old chat around, go over and over again and being like, "why are my arms still really weak? Or why does my shoulder hurt when I do this?" And it's maybe because we're only doing the bare minimum when we just do this one bit of it. So here's a couple of different ways to spice it up and try something else.
Chris Magee:
And it's not necessarily traditional yoga Asana, but it all has merit and benefit. I've been very fortunate to travel around the world and lead workshops and teach at festivals and things of that nature. I suppose my reputation as people know me is to teach a really hard class. So when I became the head of yoga at Psycle and they were opening this brand new yoga space, they were like, "we want to do this class and we want to call it OMFG. And we want to pitch it as the hardest class in London." And I was like, okay. I mean, I'm sure that will get some people through the door. All right, cool.
Chris Magee:
It was tough. It was a real tough class. And we had some nice landmarks that we made sure that anyone that was teaching that style, had sort of hit these key pillars, these key moments in the class in order to give it some integrity and to give it some through-line. So if you went to my class or you went to someone else's class, you could still tell that it was this OMFG thing. Was it the toughest glass in London? I mean, that's entirely dependent on who you ask, right.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yes of course.
Chris Magee:
Because it's so subjective, for me it wasn't an outrageously tough class. It was 90 minutes long, it was certainly strong. It wasn't drastically different from the way that I would have taught a level two, level two-three Vinyasa class. Anyway, there's some classes that I go to that are two, two and a half, three hours long. That to me is a much tougher class because the endurance that is required for a class of our nature is drastically different from something that's 90 minutes long.
Chris Magee:
So is a three hour class tougher than a 90 minute class. Well again, what's in the 90 minute class and what's in three hour class, and who are you as the student? What experience level do you have? What strengths and weaknesses do you have? What are you feeling like on that day? There are so many X factors into it that sort of a sweeping statement, I'm like, "cool. I get it. There's a marketing team and it'll be nice for people to write about it." I'm like, "okay. Yeah, let's, let's go with it." In hindsight, actually it wasn't really necessary because as it was the birth of a yoga studio in a company that had never had a yoga offering before, they didn't really have an experienced client base.
Chris Magee:
A lot of the people that were coming to yoga were coming to yoga fresh, have never been before... Obviously there were students of mine that were coming from other studios on people that were drawn in, who were more experienced yogis, but really ultimately the timetable needed to be structured and was structured much more around foundational level beginners classes, sort of level one flows and things of that nature really set a nice, good base level of everyone's understanding of here's how we move, here's how we breathe, here's ways to chop and change and modify before we start to give you any of the craziness.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's really interesting because I was going to ask you about where your students were coming from. There's a part of me that feels everyone knows about yoga nowadays, but then again, if I look at my own family, I'm the only person who practices, it's a big deal in terms of culture, I guess, in some countries or in some areas or in some circles and given the way that I could hint at what the marketing team were doing with your class, I'm guessing they were particularly trying to get to more of a male demographic. Can you tell me, what are they like when they come to yoga class? What do they seek from it.
Chris Magee:
Yeah. Specifically with what the marketing team are doing there. I think they were analyzing and seeing that the other disciplines that they had in-house were very high intensity and that they're kind of typical user obviously had a real thirst for something that was sweaty or something that was higher intensity or they want to come out and be like, Oh! That was so hard. I loved it. Oh! It was really challenging. It was really tough. They don't want something that was necessarily gentle. So they were almost trying to put a high-intensity sticker on the yoga practice. Did it work? Maybe? I don't know. They might they might've caught a couple of people that they wouldn't have caught otherwise because of that, was so... fair enough. To speak more about the gender split. It's still is not as widely accepted by men, but I would say that we are in a much, much better place than we were when I started teaching.
Chris Magee:
And that's what, 10 years, 11 years this year. So at first it was me and a room full of women. And that was it at that time, I think I was teaching probably 25 classes a week. So, I probably would've seen somewhere around 500 people and I'd have maybe seen five men a week at that point. And I think it started to turn a corner much closer to 2015, 2016. I would say that I'm very fortunate because I am a man and I look the way that I look and I have the history that I have because there is then a greater level of relatability to me on my story. And that can be the thing that removes barriers for people. As you said, everyone knows about yoga, but not everyone practices yoga. Right. If you were to ask someone that doesn't practice, they probably have an idea.
Chris Magee:
They probably be like, Oh yeah, that downward dog thing, or they be like, oh! Yeah, everyone's in those stretchy pants, they would have preconceptions of what it is before they step into that as a space. I saw that in myself, when I first started practicing, it was in those early days with the injury, it was female teachers and they would show things and they would do things, and I would be like, well of course you can do that because you're not built like me.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Of course.
Chris Magee:
You don't have a shoulder like mine, you don't have the density of your torso to move around like this thickness of your leg or whatever it is. So there is so much of it about that, where it's understanding of yourself and how you move yourself and ways that you interpret a pose because ultimately your body is not like mine or like anyone else's, but really it's not an aesthetic that you're after.
Chris Magee:
It's a feeling practice. It's not a seeing practice or a copying practice. So you're in that slight gray area where it has to then be very clear that actually this is a way to share, not a way for people to learn, I'm sharing something, but the EM is not for you to then roll them out and try and copied on do exactly what I do. You can be inspired by it, but ultimately you have to have a practice of self-awareness to understand that you're going into and out of something with control in a way that you're going to utilize whatever tools you have at your disposal in that moment of time and not do damage or not put yourself at risk.
Chris Magee:
And to sort of double that back to men, I get a lot of dudes, ex rugby players or people of that nature because they're like, "Oh, I read that you were rugby player. What position did you play?" And just something like that just sparks a conversation. And then when I demonstrate sometime or if I go, "Hey man, you should try this because instead of forcing yourself up to there, that probably feels terrible for your back ride. That did for me when I started try it like this instead," and it's like, "we'll do." Because then there's instantly a level of trust of, this guy knows because this guy is a guy like me and that's our slight bias as humans, right? If you go and you're like, well, I can't do anything that the teacher does because the teacher doesn't share anything in common with me, then you might not go. And that's where I slot myself in.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, I really relate to you saying it's a feeling practice rather than a visual practice. One of my favorite teachers taught at Equinox in New York city. It's a beautiful studio in the West village, and she always pulled the curtains over the mirror. If she was in a room where she couldn't, she would get the class to turn away and look at the wall because she was like, I don't want you to look at yourself. I don't want you to look at the shape that you're taking. I want you to feel warrior two or whatever she was putting us in.
Chris Magee:
We're in a different state of the world at the moment because you everything is on zoom and everything is online. But generally speaking, if I'm leading a session, I don't demonstrate, I just teach, and it's getting... and when people first come to class, I say, "Hey, it's like paint by numbers." I'm going to say, "put your right hand here, put your left hand here, inhale." I'm going to say, "put your left foot here, put your right foot here and inhale or exhale" And initially you're going to have the five second delay where you're like, which hand is my right hand? Which hand is my left that I'm like, "it's cool. Give yourself that time. It doesn't have to be beautiful and fluid immediately." The more you do it, the more comfortable you'll get with the language. The more you'll start to understand the the rhythm of how things go for the minute, just feel your way out. And it's okay if it's a little clunky, because it's the first time that you're experiencing it in your body, you don't have to look at what they're doing.
Chris Magee:
It's put your right hand. It's not do what they're doing with their right hand. It's you put your right hand and hey, do you feel this? Great stay where you are, you don't feel it. Maybe try this. You feel a little too much, maybe try this. And that way, it's a range of expression within it. But obviously at the minute, it's me talking and doing a class and oftentimes it's a little blank squares where people have got their cameras turned off and I'm like, I don't know if you [inaudible 00:40:55] .You might've sat down, you've got a cup of tea, watching your newest Netflix show, watching Chris perform his Asana instead of actually taking the class. So who knows? I hope if any of my students are listening, please, I hope that you're all still doing the practice, even if you don't have your cameras on. Yeah. But that's again just the experience being virtual at the moment is that inevitably I have to show because I'm not there in the room with people in order to be able to see their bodies and gives them any kind of direct feedback.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, I know it's a challenge for some of the teachers I've been following and I am incredibly impressed with everyone. Who's doing it. I'm impressed with you for doing it and showing up for people. I've heard a lot of yoga teachers and meditation teachers have had a lot of weight on their shoulders, I guess, because this has been a time where people have been in real need of getting your support. How have you felt your way through that?
Chris Magee:
Firstly, I'm so thankful for having the yoga because if I didn't, I'd have gone crazy by now and I understand what they mean when they say the weight of it, because we have this structure, we have this tool at our disposal, we have these lessons that we've learned, we have this awareness that we take into everything that other people don't necessarily have. And because of that, you feel now is the time when everyone needs this, everyone needs it in order to be able to take care of themselves. So we got to share. It's similar to when people first become yoga teachers and they inevitably just spread themselves to seem... It's a process of trial and error to figure out what your boundaries are, and that's the cleanest way to put it, I suppose, is just have good boundaries.
Chris Magee:
It's a very difficult thing to talk about because whenever I first started teaching, what I was doing in the fitness world, compared to what I was doing in the yoga world, 25 classes a week didn't seem that much to me, but 25 classes a week to other people would destroy them. That was my bindery, that was a good place for me. I felt good, I felt energized, I felt I still had enough time for myself. I didn't struggle with that. But for some people that might be 10 or that might be five or it might be... Hey I'm available to chat for 10 minutes at the end of class, come say hi, ask me any questions that you like, rather than I'm here for 30 minutes or I'm here for 40 minutes and it's no one's fault because the students often will see you as a person that they can share with when there's not necessarily someone else that they can share with.
Chris Magee:
And again, that's why it's a very personal thing as to who you end up practicing with, who are your teachers? These are the people you resonate with, these are the people that you feel there is some kind of connection, and it's knowing that you have to have that boundary in your own mind to say, "Hey, I'm only one person and I don't have all the answers. So if you're trying to fix things for other people, then you're fucked." That I learned early on. One of my teachers always said, "You can't help people. If you're trying to be a yoga teacher because you want to help people, you're going to fail." He said, "You can't tell people, you can't, it's as simple as that. But what you can do is you can hold the space for them to help themselves." And to see it in that way, it takes the pressure off.
Chris Magee:
You don't feel the weight of expectation. You don't feel the weight of having to share. I just opened up. It's like, "Hey, I'm here for you to do your thing." And that also allows me to cover a wide range of people because some people are there for their mental health, some people are there because they really want to connect to that spiritual side, some people are there because they love the breath work, some people are there because they want to explore the Asana, some people are there because they want to do all of the strong handstands and tricky stuff, some people are there because they want to stretch their hamstrings. How do you please all of those people at the same time, well you don't but I created space and I let them please themselves. Potentially there's a lot of flack that goes with, if you're not doing the spiritual work, if you're not doing the philosophical work, if you're not doing the breath work, if you're not doing those other limbs of your yoga practice, but then you're not practicing yoga, you're just having a stretch.
Chris Magee:
And I'm like, "true, I agree that it is a multifaceted thing, but people are drawn to the practice for different reasons. The person that is there to stretch, their hamstrings is still there. They still pay their money. They still came to class. So why is it any less important that they get what they want as it is the person who wants the meditation gets what they want." Right. But it's hardly, I get that fine balance of, I give you what you want and I give you a little bit of what you need. It's the sprinkling, it's the side door. It's the thing that you didn't notice. Right? Because Hey, hands up, I was there to fix my body. I was there for nothing else. No other reason. That's why I started the practice. And well, if I wasn't getting the stretchy bit to make myself feel better, I just wouldn't have come back.
Chris Magee:
If it was all of this other stuff, I'd have been like, Nope, and it would been again a barrier to entry. It's like, well, I'm getting what I want. But all of the other things, the mental relief and the philosophy and the mindset and the impact that it has on the bigger picture of your life, all of this sneaky secondary benefit that was just feeding its way in, without me being super aware of it. That's the reason why I practice now. It's got nothing to do with the hips. The hips are a really nice expression and away from me to celebrate and challenge my body. For me that's not where I'm at, but that's again, that's Chris right now that you're speaking to in 2021 that might not be Chris in 2015, and that might not be Christian 2025. So it's an evolution. But at the same time, the framework of the practice will still be there to facilitate whatever it is that I need to get from it at that point in time.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I think it's really interesting how you've used that notion of holding space for someone else's practice to develop. So thank you for that. It's a really powerful sort of resonant term for me. You're reminding me of a teacher I had in New York as well. A guy called Brian Nygaard I want to say, who was teaching at yoga Vida who had a similar story of bad back injury, and who came to yoga and worked his bum off for years. Always I don't know why, cause I never knew him knew, but he always stayed in my mind as my teacher because he said I'm a much better person when I do yoga. And I think that I'm a much nicer woman. When I practice yoga every day or every other day. The effect that the Asana, the space gives me in my body obviously then affects the space in my head and in my mood.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And so having listened to everything you just said, I can reflect back or mirror, I guess some of your experiences. I also came to yoga for a body practice. I didn't come in for a meditation. Meditation was of no interest to me at that time at all. I was preparing a presentation for a workshop not long ago, and what I realized is that yoga got me into my mind. I don't know, 15 years of yoga got me into my mind. 15 years of yoga got me into meditation. Isn't that strange?
Chris Magee:
It's not strange. No. It sounds perfectly normal and logical to me. But again, I might not be the-
Anne Muhlethaler:
No I'm glad.
Chris Magee:
... average person to speak to about this.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But it's really interesting to realize that all of these years of physical practice were just getting me to settle more and more with myself to find myself so much more at home in my body. And that just gave me a place to settle from at least that's the way I imagine it. So tell me a little bit about where meditation and mindfulness exist for you as a person and what is the practice looking like either for you personally or in your classes.
Chris Magee:
Class wise again, will always depend on what the parameters happened to be for whatever we're doing. If I teach like a nice, well-rounded like a balanced class where I've got time for some breath work to kick us all off and time for a little meditation at the end, that is going to be somewhere in the region of 1h45 or 2h, somewhere in there.
And unfortunately, that is not a timeframe that is often offered to us both in terms of the studio or whatever's going on with the bigger picture of the timetable, but also just in terms of people being able to carve that out of their day. My own personal practice at the minute, I've just been doing a further thing of study for a course on yoga philosophy. And part of it is where performing a 40 day Kaivalya, which is a practice of devotion to create freedom and liberation. And it is every morning, 30 minutes of pranayama and 30 minutes of meditation.
Chris Magee:
So that's kind of where those elements are sitting with me at the moment. And in terms of my asana practice, to be completely honest with you I really don't like practicing at home. So most of the time it's force of habit, rule them out and do the essentials. I make sure that I practice some of the stronger work every day, because it can be a little overwhelming sometimes to try and fit it all into one session.
Chris Magee:
So if we're talking about a little bit more about the gymnastics sort of ships, for want of a better word. A lot of the arm balances and those transitions, or a lot of the kind of the handstands, the press work, the forearm balances, the inversions; I generally tend to put a little bit of something in everyday when I practice. Because more than anything else, it's a skill. So to stay on top of this skill is the repetition; and that sort of brings us back to the idea of a practice. The freedom that is created is because your body knows, so it doesn't require as much effort necessarily once your body knows what's happening. And that's not to say that there aren't other components that have to go into something hands-on training. You have to have flexibility in your shoulders and you have to have good strengths and awareness and whatever else, when you get upside down-
Anne Muhlethaler:
And wall space sometimes.
Chris Magee:
And wall space. Yes depending on where you happen to be within that journey, wall space is also very appropriate. But really once those things are there, it's much more about just the experience of balance, right? It's balancing. So learning to balance and just being able to go up and practice your balance and come back and go up and practice your balance and come back down. And rather than that, being an exhaustive thing of, "I'm going to do two hours on a Tuesday and nothing else for the rest of the week." I tend to just make that little sprinkle of five to 10 minutes every day, because that's much more digestible in my brand and in my body, in terms of what's going on. There's a sort of a myriad of forms that the physical practice takes at the moment. But for me it tends to kind of be expressed work from following someone else's class. I'll be there and I'll be fully present for it. But generally speaking, if I'm doing my own practice at home, it's kind of 20 minutes, 30 minutes. It's not anything excessive.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, that makes sense. I resonate with that. It's funny because you talk about balance and first of all, you were very generous in Instagram by the way. I had a great time discovering your posts and I loved you read the book, Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. Who you totally convinced me that I'm going to get the audible book by the way, because with his voice-
Chris Magee:
He's brilliant.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I'm sold.
Chris Magee:
Yeah, it's such a... It was a real joy. I love reading, but I often find myself where I'm, "I've got 12 books stacked up." And then the fact that there are 12 books stacked up, makes me go, "I'm not reading enough." And then you have this sort of... this horrible catch-22 of there's too many books: so I need to be reading more, but I'm not reading more because there's so many books and you feel a bit overwhelmed. So I started on audible stuff because at the minute I go out and I have a little walk for one hour every day and I'm, "Well, I can just pop that in my headphones and I still stroll." So that book was done in a week.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's great.
Chris Magee:
And it was effortless. It was very pleasurable to listen to. So yeah, I highly recommend listening to him if you're going to invest in an audio book.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So you were saying in and around that book... you said, "It made me reflect and think about my own patterns and decisions." And you said, "The idea is not to rest on my laurels, but instead be actively contributing to whatever I'm currently engaged with. It made me think about this platform and the fact that we often consume rather than contribute. I would like to bring that back into balance." And so I was wondering, how is that working for you?
Chris Magee:
It's a challenge. It is a blessing that we have a platform of this nature in a moment like this. It's also a curse in that way because if you happen to see the screen time report on your phone, that flashes up on a weekly basis and you're, "I spent how I long looking at the screen? Oh." And I think I was in a little bit of a technology overload, for want of a better word. And I then felt that my energy was drained and I didn't want to upload something, and I didn't want to share. Because I had done so much consumption. There was a lot of taking in other people's content, taking in posts. And like I said, I was, "I'm going to flip this on its head." And even something as simple as now for example if I need to open the app, I will share something.
Chris Magee:
The first thing that I will do is share something. Then I will consume whatever it is that I needed to consume. So let's say I was going to look up someone else's account or, "Oh, my friend such and such, I remember seeing a post yesterday that they were going to teach a class. I can't remember what time it was. I'm going to go and look at that." Well, if I have to go onto the app to look at it, something has to be shared. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a good post, but maybe there's a picture that I took or maybe there's a nice quote that I have that I've saved in my camera roll or something like that. Or maybe I saw something and I was, "This is great. I'm going to reshare this." So I'll just put up a story or I'll ask a question or just anything. Anything in order to be providing some service before just being a bystander.
Chris Magee:
That was the thing that I was feeling. All of a sudden I was, "If I'm not actively contributing to what is available on this platform at the moment in whatever capacity that is, then I'm simply a bystander." And the aim is not to be a bystander, as you said the aim is to be able to be with your community at all times. And I kind of... I was a bit, "Oh." And that's similarly at the moment because all my classes are on demand. And I only teach one live class a week at the minute of asana, and it's exclusively for teachers. So I don't have anything that is open to the public and to my regular students.
Chris Magee:
So this week actually, one of the things that I'm going to post up is I'm going to say, "Hey, I miss you all terribly and I'm going to do a free Zoom, just because I wanted to see everyone. I want you all to come and practice and let's find a time." And it's a great way to have them re-engage with me hopefully. Because I felt I was sort of drifting away from that and I really didn't want that to be my relationship with social media. And I didn't want that to negatively impact the relationship that I have with my students, my community, my kind of a greater circle of people.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But listen, I think it's super inspiring. It feels like such a strong and real connection. And I think that helps bring, for me, it brings back the balance of the best of our connections as human beings. And I love when I can see social media do this beautifully, so thank you for doing it because it's really inspiring to me.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So we've talked a bit about balance, we've talked about the shape about the body. Let's talk about this for people who may be listening to us or a friend of a friend is going to relay this conversation, because they'll be super inspired by what we've said. So for someone who can't step into a yoga class, probably because of the pandemic maybe. Or because they don't know where to go, and they want to try yoga online but they're a bit wary about not being in the same room as a teacher. Do you have any advice for them?
Chris Magee:
Yeah. First of all 99% of what is available online is actually really well labeled. So just kind of understanding where you're at or understanding what it is that you want to do, you'll probably be able to find it on multiple different resources. I teach on apps specifically, so if you wanted to practice with me you would get that app. But even within that app, it's here's stuff for all levels. Here's stuff for beginners. Here's stuff for intermediate. Here's stuff for advanced. Here's stuff that's focusing on your hips or here's stuff that's focusing on your shoulders, or here's stuff that's focusing on your back or whatever it is.
Chris Magee:
So you've got some kind of understanding of the history of you, sort of have a little checklist of, "Okay, here's, what's up with me. Here's where I feel a little stiff. Here's where I feel a little sore. Here's where I feel that I need some benefits or here's what I'm looking to get from the practice." And just having.... Not necessarily an expectation, but just a bigger picture sense of, "All right, I would like to try this out. And here's why. Here's why I would like to try this out." Not, "Here's what I need to get from it or else it's a failure, but here's where I'm currently at. And this is why I think yoga would be a good fit into whatever I'm doing at the minute."
Chris Magee:
And I'm say once you kind of has that checklist, then you're able to explore and be that through the Fiit app with me or through YouTube. Or if it's a friend of a friend that's recommended this podcast to you. Or this talking about this that's going to get you into it, then maybe that person has a yoga teacher. And maybe you're going to go with your friend and do that person's Zoom class. Or do that person's live session or on demand session or whatever it is. Give yourself the permission to start small.
Chris Magee:
It's not very common that you'll find a class in a studio that's less than about 45 minutes. And that's kind of a gym class, would probably be about 45 minutes. Most yoga studios are 60. 60, 75, 90 or longer and that can feel like a really intimidating length of time. If you've never done something before to then be, [inaudible 01:00:33] 90 minutes and I might be terrible at it." And you have that whole conversation in your mind. So there's a plethora of resources that are, "Hey, 10 minutes to stretch your lower back, 10 minutes of yoga to do this or something of that nature." Because that sort of bite-sized nature of what's being shared could be the perfect stepping stone to help you make it part of your daily rituals. And then the repetition of something 10 minutes every day over the course of a week or two weeks, might then have a huge impact on the way that your back feels or whatever it is you happen to be doing.
Chris Magee:
The other thing that I would say is have some props handy. Most of the time these beginner classes will talk about the use of props. And that's not necessarily to say that people have to go and buy yoga blocks and have to go and buy any of the fancy stuff. A small stack of books makes a great yoga block. So two or three books stacked up under each hand can be great yoga blocks. The belt of the dressing gown or a rolled up tea towel or something like that. For kind of a strap, to potentially use over your feet. Those things everybody will probably already have in their house. And then it's just repurposing stuff that you already have, rather than thinking that you got to invest stacks of money in order to be able to kind of do all of the things. You might be having a miserable time, suffering your way into a pose because you can't quite get your hand to the floor because you can't quite do something. And actually the use of those things takes all that pressure off and then you're, "Oh wow."
Chris Magee:
And instead of being a nine out of 10, it brings you to a seven out of 10. And a seven out of 10, you still feel stuff is going on but you can breathe and you can be there rather than being in sort of at an extreme edge. Because that's one of the things that I would say for beginners or for people who are picking up straight away, feel free to downgrade the time commitment. Have some props, and also no one's watching you.
Chris Magee:
So it's if you're in your living room and you want to stop and have a little rest, or you just want to push pause on the video and just, "I thought this one was the one." It's not the one, pause. Yeah you don't have to suffer it to the end. You can absolutely validly change your mind and just be, "I don't want to do this one anymore. I'm going to try and find a different one, because I don't like the side to this person's voice." Or, "I don't like the music that they chose" Or there's any number of other factors that go into a lot of these things. Oh, and you remember that it's a feeling practice.
Chris Magee:
So if you are watching a video of what someone is doing, yes they're giving you a reference of where about you should be. But it's much more important to listen to what they're saying and really try and feel what you're getting from the ship. Not, "Am I doing the ship right? Yes or no. What am I meant to be feeling? Am I meant do feeling a stretch here? Am I meant to be feeling that this is squeezing? Am I meant to be feeling that this is strong? What am I meant to be feeling in whatever sort of space I'm at, and can I find that sensation in my body?" That's the kind of the crux of it all, feel it out rather than get too caught up in the fact that yours doesn't look like theirs.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I really love that advice. And you're so right about the props. I think even if you can get into certain poses, when a teacher suggests that you try it with a block, with a belt, it's also good to actually just follow that advice and just feel the difference. And just explore the sensations in your body. I'm very flexible and I get completely different sensations or experience if I use a block in certain balancing poses versus when I don't and put my hand on the floor.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I was going to say to your point about switching. Also I think it's really important for beginners to realize that if you don't like your first experience, it may just be that you don't like the style of the teacher. Move on and try someone else. And at different times in the year or in your practice, you're going to want to move on to a different teacher than that. And that doesn't mean that you're that person that wasn't good is you're outgrowing or need to experience something else.
Chris Magee:
To come back to what we said earlier, different strokes for different folks, right? Different paths to the same destination and different people facilitating different styles of the same thing. Where do you buy your jeans? That's not the same places where I buy my jeans and you like yours to be stonewashed. And I like mine to be black. And you like yours with the turnoff. And I like mine straight leg or boot cut or whatever else, right? But they're all jeans and it's entirely down to personal preference of what my style is, what fits me best is to the company that I go for. Or the ship that I go for or the color that I go for or whatever else it is. And that's the same as the yoga practice. It's trial and error, right? In the same way as with a lot of things.
Chris Magee:
If you're starting the practice later in your twenties or your thirties or beyond. We get too set in our ways and you kind of think, "Well, no I'm an adult now. So I should know what I like and what I don't like. And I should just be able to make a decision and that be the right thing." Whereas how many times as a child where you, "I want to learn the saxophone." And then the next week you're, "I hate the saxophone, is terrible. I want to play the drums." And then is, "Don't want to play the drums, I want to be a ballerina." And then, "No I don't want to be a ballerina, I want to do TaeKwonDo."
Chris Magee:
And your poor parents are, "Oh, we have a drum set on the TaeKwonDo kit. And you know, now we have a fighting dummy and there's this and there's whatever else." And that's the kind of the beauty of us as children, is we just want to try everything. And we're much more open to the possibility that, "Hey, I want to try this thing. No, I don't like that thing." That doesn't deter me from trying something else. Whereas I think we're a little bit more stuck sometimes in a sense that we're, "Oh, well I did try it that one time, and I really just didn't... Yeah, I didn't like them. So that's obviously not for me." And it's well... It's like listening to a song and being, "I didn't like that song. So I'm never going to listen to music ever again." And yeah-
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yes exactly.
Chris Magee:
I think that that's the same way as it is with yoga. It's, "Hey, just because you didn't like the song doesn't mean that you don't like music. Just means you don't like that artist or you don't like that genre. Maybe at 11 o'clock at night, you didn't want to listen to heavy metal. And that might not be the thing for that moment. It's maybe you need some smooth jazz or you need kind of some nice chill ambient piano music or something at that moment in time. Because that fits with everything else is going on in your life." That's the way that I approach the practice. Your teachers won't be offended.
Chris Magee:
That's the other thing. If you do class with someone and then you don't go back and do class with them again, it's okay. It's fine. It happens all the time. I'm not offended because again, I'm not there to have you like me. I'm there to hold a space, and if it's not the right space for you, no problem. There's plenty of other spaces. But the practice is still there, and that's the thing. It's all the benefit is coming from the practice being facilitated by this person. So just because you don't like the person or the style or the circumstance, all those things are changeable. But the practice is still kind of the constant.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's awesome. And I'm absolutely going to steal your analogies with the denim and the music, really good ones. Do you think that yoga the way it's consumed nowadays, particularly around the visual side of it. Do you think it makes it size-ist? And obviously you were a personal trainer before, so I think that there's a whole thing around gyms and I don't mean this just for women, but for men as well. Do you think that it's seen as something that exclude people who are not yet in shape? I think it's the yoga body that is taunted so much on Instagram. That sometimes can make it feel that there's a size-ist element, and that there may not be room in a class for someone who doesn't already look very much like the teacher. Whether male or female. I hope that it doesn't make yoga inaccessible for people. Because I certainly did not have a yoga body when I started, that's for sure.
Chris Magee:
Neither did I. I also don't know what that is. I do know what you mean, but I'm playing devil's advocate. I'm going, "Do you have a body?" "Yes." "Can you go to yoga?" "Yes." "So therefore you have a yoga body, yeah. Let's... I'm just going to go bookend that."
Anne Muhlethaler:
Fantastic!
Chris Magee:
I also preface that by saying that there are multitudes upon the internet. And we are entirely in control of what we see and who we follow, and things of that nature.
Chris Magee:
And if you happen to be following someone that is putting those sort of potentially negative thoughts in your mind about undertaking yoga practice, just go ahead and unfollow them and just find someone else to follow. Or just don't follow any of it and just go to class and just have that experience instead, so.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, I think it was also thinking about task.
Chris Magee:
But again, that is a very valid point of the experience that you as an individual have when you arrive into the room. Because inevitably we see ourselves in comparison to those around us. And if all of a sudden, for example, I arrive into class and I'm the only man and I go, "Oh." And in the initial phases, depending on what your mindset is like or what your personality is like, those things can shake you greatly. But really the more you go, the more you realize that "Oh, I'm not looking at anyone else whilst I'm doing my thing." So the likelihood is that they're not looking at anyone else whilst they're doing their thing. Or there's a very mild moment where I might see what's going on there because they set a pose and I'm not a 100% sure, but what that is.
Chris Magee:
So I'm going to stay where I am, and I'm just going to have a little look over there. "Oh, okay. That's what they're talking about when they say that." And you can use it as a point of reference, or you can use it as a source of inspiration because rather than just thinking from a place of, "Am I good enough or is this a competition?" Sometimes I see people and the way that they move and I think, "Wow, that's amazing. Look at what the human body is capable of." And if you're capable of it, there's no reason why I can't be capable of it as well.
Chris Magee:
And that mindset of abundance then allows you to remove barriers of entry to the practice. But yeah, on that point of, "I'm going into a space and I don't look the same way that other people look," don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. And the other nice thing is, is the first time you go to class just go and talk to the teacher, "Hey, are you doing? I just want... I'm new. And I don't really know what's going on, and I'm absolutely terrified." And they'll be able to help. They'll be able to come and help you with your setup. "Hey, no problem at all. Listen, why don't you go here so that you don't feel you're sort of in the middle of it all." Or, "Hey, you're better to go right here because then you're going to get a better view." Or "Let me introduce you to Paula. Because Paula has been coming for such a long time. She's awesome. She'll keep you right. You'll be okay if you're right here with her and then you make a friend, and then once you make a friend then it's not as intimidating anymore."
Chris Magee:
That whole conversation about, "I don't look like anyone else," only happens in your mind. And that's the kind of the detrimental spiral of thought. If we have a strategy to be able to kind of break that spiral or break that kind of chain of thought. To put us into a more positive place, then ultimately means that we have a much more positive experience.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you. That's really cool. Okay. So music, with or without?
Chris Magee:
With, 90% of the time.
Anne Muhlethaler:
What kind?
Chris Magee:
If it's public class, it generally tends to be a reflection of whatever I'm hoping to be bopping along to at that period of time. I'm a big fan of hip pop and rap. So sometimes there are versions of those things, either traditional or remixed versions of those things that pop into class. A lot of the sort of higher energy classes. I will use a lot of almost kind of tribal, sort of jungle dance music. It's quite cool.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh cool.
Chris Magee:
Just kind of a nice heavy beat that sort of guides the rhythm of the breath really well. I love making playlists. So I have a... There's probably 100, 150 playlists on my Spotify. It's a little more laid back. Then it's kind of very low fire, it's very chill. If it's Yin, it's can have beautiful piano instrumentals and various different things. There's some really nice tracks from, you know Alan Watts?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh yeah.
Chris Magee:
So people have taken Alan Watts lectures and sort of put them with really cool, kind of slightly synthy, vibey music. There are lots of different tracks. I like things of that nature or are you familiar with, Burgs? Just another sort of meditation philosophy teacher. And he has a lot of those sorts of things where, people have taken famous kind of excerpts of things that he's done on put them to music.
Chris Magee:
So stuff like that works really well for Yin or for restorative, where you're going to be in a pose for a long time. The aim is to just be able to kind of relax and let go. So rather than feeling you have to constantly be listening to the teacher, to pop something that on can be a really nice way to-
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds great. I want to know about your favorite yoga mat.
Chris Magee:
Yeah. I think I've got four different brands that I use at the minute. It's got to be grippy. That's the top of the list. The ones that I buy when I normally fit out a studio, are the reversible lululemon ones.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's the one I use. It's so good.
Chris Magee:
Yeah, they're really good. They do the three mil and they do the five mil. So just personal preference, I like the three mil because I like it to be a little bit center. Because I like to be able to feel the grind a little more, but generally speaking most studios always go for the five mil options. Just because they've got a little bit more padding for people's knees and stuff like that.
Chris Magee:
There's another couple of wonderful brands. There's a brand called Yogi Bare, B-A-R-E. Which is a small independent female run business by a friend of mine called Kat, who is a wonderful, wonderful human.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Awesome.
Chris Magee:
And also make some really, really good yoga products. So, I have one of her mats at the minute, which every mat that was purchased, she planted a tree and created a forest in Wales. She does cool stuff like that as initiatives off the back of the yoga products that she has as a way to yoga in action, as it were.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Awesome.
Chris Magee:
Rather than just in shape making. What else am I using at the moment? There's quite a grippy one that I've got from a company called Fable. They just reached out and sent me one to try. So, I've been practicing a little bit on that and it's really nice. I suppose, the top of the tree, the big grippy one that's out there is Liforme and the mats are good. They're a little bit spend-y. You got to be willing to drop a 100 or 110 pounds on them.
Chris Magee:
For me, anything around the 50 to 70 pound mark is pretty good, because when you think about these mats as well, especially if it's for a home practice, that's probably going to last you for four or five years. Unless you're rolling it out and you're beating it up excessively for a couple of hours every day, really hard, it's going to be money well spent. I had to pop onto Instagram for something this morning. I was just by the canal and I took a picture of the river whilst I was out strolling. And, I put up a question box and I said, "Hey, ask me something." And, one of the questions that someone asked me was, "What do I do? My hands keep slipping when I'm in downward facing dog." And, my response was, "Buy a new yoga mat." Because-
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. That's the reason why I was asking the question. I want people to listen to you.
Chris Magee:
... And honestly, the difference between you getting 20 Great British pounds or somewhere around the region of 40 bucks, if you're spending that on a mat, the likelihood is, is that the rubber might start to dissolve a little bit. And, as soon as it gets wet or sweaty, you start to slide an awful lot. And then, it makes the experience not enjoyable, because you're so worried about sliding that you can't actually feel like you're getting anywhere in any of the poses. Versus, if you're buying a mat somewhere in the region of 50 to 70 pounds, which is, let's say 75 to a 100 dollars, it's going to have real longevity, that hopefully means that you're going to be able to get into the pose and not worry about your foundations sliding out from under you. So, that you can actually then start to embody what the pose is about rather than being too concerned with having your foot stay in the same place.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Even the nicer Jade yoga ones just did not live long for me.
Chris Magee:
The thing about Jade as a company though, is they tend to use a natural rubber.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
So, if you're getting a mat that's natural rubber, they do tend to wear a little bit faster. But then, you've got the benefit to the environment off of the back of something like that. So, that's a company like Jade, or Lulu for example, do one that I think they call it the Namaste mat, and it's very similar to a Jade, where it's almost identical to the reversible one in terms of its design, but it's a natural rubber. So again, doesn't quite have the stickiness and doesn't quite have the longevity.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. Well, thanks for that. That's really good to share with people. Do you have a favorite yoga wear for guys?
Chris Magee:
My top tip, again, I can only speak from my personal experience. I sweat an awful lot, when I practice. People around me are gently glistening and there's a small swimming pool for me around my mat. And because of that, ultimately it'll peel my shirt off or whatever as I go through the practice. But I know that practice in a vest and I normally always practice in longer pants. I don't practice in shorts very often, or if I practice in shorts, I don't really practice with some compression things underneath them, because when I'm unbelievably sweaty, and as soon as I try and do something like Crow pose, for example, my knee just slides straight off my arm.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
And, that's obviously a pose which is accessible to me and my body, but just the mechanics of it happening in that moment in time, it starts to get taken away from you.
Chris Magee:
Very similar to if you were sliding off your mat.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
You're sliding off yourself. So I wear longer pants. They tend to be light ones, Lulu do a great pair called In Mind, I think. I like to wear them because they're quite thin, they're very flexible, so you don't get too hot.
Anne Muhlethaler :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chris Magee:
But they also then allow you to grip, if you're putting your knee on your arm or whatever, a little bit more. And another couple of ones that are really good. Nike have brought out some really good yoga stuff, nothing crazy. They've got black and a couple of different colors of gray, long pants, and some vests. I've worn a lot of their stuff and it's really nice. Not too bad. They're very diverse in terms of their women's wear.
Anne Muhlethaler :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chris Magee:
They're not quite as diverse in terms of their men's range.
Anne Muhlethaler :
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Chris Magee:
But they still do nice stuff and it fits pretty true to size. And again, it doesn't have to be yoga specific.
Anne Muhlethaler:
No, no, no, of course.
Chris Magee:
We talk about yoga clothes. You can just go in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt and it'll be absolutely fine.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. But I appreciate you explaining why you wear the longer pants, rather than shorts, for the practice that you also teach, which totally makes sense.
Chris Magee:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Anne Muhlethaler:
So, upcoming workshops, teacher trainings, where can people find you?
Chris Magee:
At the minute, people can only find me on the internet, as I'm sure everywhere. If people want to get in touch, if they want to find me, my Instagram handle is Mageesy, M-A-G-E-E-S-Y. And, I endeavor to always answer everybody's comments, and all direct messages, and all of that stuff. Workshops and things of that nature, if and when we're allowed to come back and to travel the world a little bit more, all of that stuff gets posted on my website, which is Mageesy, same as the Instagram handle .com. And, the only thing that I actually tangibly have coming up is I have a retreat, and I have a teacher training happening at the end of this year. So, 200 hour foundation-level teacher training for anyone that wants to get a little deeper into their yoga practice, is October of this year. You can hit me up on Instagram or send me an email if you want to have information about that.
Chris Magee:
Or if you want to check out the school, the school is called Empowered, E-M-P-O-W-E-R-E-D, yogaschool.com. And, it's got all of the dates, and the rates, and stuff. I think there's still a couple of early bird spaces available. So if people are interested in that they can definitely pop on and send us a message there. And, the retreat is New Years of this year.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Nice.
Chris Magee:
And, yeah, it's going to be in Sri Lanka. So, we're going to fly in on the... I think it's the 27th or the 28th we arrive.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I can post the dates on the show links.
Chris Magee:
That aim is to catch everyone in that slightly weird time between, you've just finished Christmas, and then you go back to work whenever it is.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
So, it's that period of time. Plus, just to give everyone an offering to be able to get away. I think sometimes, I don't know about your experience, but from my experience New Years is normally always one of those evenings where it has a lot of pressure of, "Oh, we have to do something amazing." And then, potentially it falls flat as a bit of a day because of that.
Chris Magee:
So, this is an opportunity for people to just get away. It's going to be beautiful, we're in a resort beside the beach, there's going to be yoga, there's going to be beginners surf lessons, there's going to be little trips into time and stuff like that. And, we'll do two yoga classes a day, and it's all optional. But then, the nice thing is, is that we'll have an in-house New Year’s celebration. And then, we'll have a slightly gentler start to the new year. But then with that, we'll do a lot of intention setting, goals setting, and structuring, and thinking about the habit formation, and the tangibles of New Year’s resolutions, because everyone will set them. But it's how soon do you fall off from your new year's resolution if you don't have anything actionable, or tangible in terms of what you do? So, the nice takeaway from it will hopefully be that you've got a really firm confident action plan, in order to put into place with your resolutions, if you want to make any. As well as, having had an awesome time in a beautiful location with several other awesome people.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds really nice, I'm totally up for it.
Chris Magee:
Yeah, and that's through my friends, Dylan and Molly, and their website is Down to Flow, D-O-W-N, downtoflow.com.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Fantastic. Now, I just have a couple of more questions for you. So, what is your favorite word?
Chris Magee:
Favorite word is I actually used it in this already, plethora. I love the word plethora. It's very pleasing to say. And, it's one of those ones that's slightly obscure in terms of common vocabulary. So, it makes people go, "Ooh." It catches people's attention. So, I like to throw it in, plethora.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That would be a really hard word for French people to say, in English.
Chris Magee:
Oh, okay.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But I love it. I understand the inkling. What song best represents you?
Chris Magee:
Song best represents me. Oh, that's a hard one because again, we are multitudes, we are everything at once. So, I suppose it depends on what moment in time you happen to find me. I think, it would have to be some old school hip hop, something of that nature. I was a big fan of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre back in the day, I still am, still am a big fan of them. But something along the lines of that, there's not any one particular song that leaps out at me, but it's one of those weird things as well.
Chris Magee:
I suppose if people get a change to ever peek behind the curtain of what we do when we film content either in my flat or if I'm in the Fit Studio and I'm filming classes for the app, they'll mic us up and we have to do sign checks to make sure that everything's good. And I normally do spoken word versions of rap songs. So, it'd be like, "Oh, the hip hop, the hippie to the hippie, to the hip, hip-hop and you don't stop rockin' to the bang-bang, the boogie, say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat," and things like that. So, that keeps me entertained. Probably annoys the hell out of all of the other people that are working there. But, I have a real love of that music. It takes me back to when I was younger, and I think it all still sounds great today.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I totally agree with you. What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Chris Magee:
I used to think that I wanted to be a lawyer when I was really very young. And then, I went and I did some work experience at a law firm, and I realized just how terribly boring that was. So, what I actually discovered is that I just wanted to play a lawyer on TV. So, that's why I ended up going to drama school. That's why I wanted to be an actor.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Smooth. I mean, I liked the fact you managed to make that transition for yourself.
Chris Magee:
Yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Imagine if you'd gone to law school.
Chris Magee:
Yeah, I know, how different would life be?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. What would you say to your younger self, if you could send yourself a message?
Chris Magee:
Make more mistakes, probably. I don't think there's anything that I would change, necessarily. And again, it might just be my personality, but there's an innate pressure to perform in a sense that, you have to get things right. You have to be the best, or you have to be the fastest, or the strongest, or you have to do X, Y, Z in order to be successful. I think that, that robs us a little bit of our ability to play, and to be creative, and to try and learn and explore a little bit more. And I think if you have the permission to make mistakes and not see it as failure, then that maybe just opens up your boundaries so that you can take in more.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's really, really beautiful advice. What book is either next to your bed or on your desk? Do you have a desk?
Chris Magee:
I don't have a desk. Most of the time I sit on the floor, so-
Anne Muhlethaler:
You're used to tile.
Chris Magee:
Yes, exactly. And, I've got lots of meditation cushions, and things that sit around.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
So, there's plenty of room to roll around. But, I do have a very plush sofa, and I have a nice low coffee table, but it's also got this weird mechanical arms thing in it. So, it rises up, if I am sitting on the sofa, which is where I am right now, when we're doing this. So, I've got the table rises up to an appropriate height, so I can still use the laptop, and I can talk, and I can type, and I can write things at chest height. So, it doesn't have me hunched, but then it also goes back down. So, if I'm sitting on the floor, I can be done there, so.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I want to see a picture of that table. That sounds amazing.
Chris Magee:
Yeah. Books that are there though, at the minute beside the bed is Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race. I have about 50 pages left to read of that, so that's sitting on my bedside at the moment. And, the coffee table has a book called A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
Yeah. I had read it before, but then I was talking about him or about something that was in the book the other day and I can't quite remember what it was, and I got it out of the bookshelf to just have a little read, a little refresher. And the other, not so exciting book that is out here is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, because it was part of the philosophy training that I was taking part in. So, I was having a deep dive into that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And two more questions. One person you think we should all know about, it could be an artist, a journalist, an activist, a politician, a writer, a yoga teacher?
Chris Magee:
Oh, wow. That's such a good question. There are so many different people that spring to mind, with all of the examples that you give. If it's a musician, I'm going to try my best to merge categories as much as possible so this can come full circle to my love of hip-hop and rap music. J. Cole as a lyricist, and as someone who operates through that medium, but with real potency to what's being said, has a clear message and is doing impactful work. I don't think there's anyone quite like him at the moment. Someone who sold his cars, and got rid of his chains, and dropped all of the ego of that. And instead, built a community center and things of this nature. And lyrically, he speaks to that as well and to a place of activism and truce. I love to listen to his music, A, because it's really good music but, B, because it makes me think. And, great art provokes something in you, right? I think, that's one of the things that I love about that.
Chris Magee:
Someone else that sprung to mind when you said this, I'm sure people will have said it before, but Brené Brown.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Chris Magee:
Brené is magic. That woman is absolutely magic. To have listened to her podcasts, to have seen her TED Talk, to have watched her Netflix special, to have read excerpts of her books, she's just a powerful woman. I think I was introduced to her first through her Netflix special, or maybe special's not the right word.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. A Call to Courage, I think it's called.
Chris Magee:
Yes. It is what it's called. Yeah. And someone recommended it to me. They said, "Oh, have you seen this?" And I said, "No." And, I went and I watched it. And, I'm pretty sure it's about 70 minutes long. I think I paused it 25 times to write things down. It was so powerful. So relatable, so shareable. And it left me in tears. She was just such a captivating person, sharing in such a real way, in such a clear way. And I was like, "This is amazing." And, I felt really moved the first time I watched it. And subsequently, I think I've watched it maybe 10 or 12 times from that point on. As well as then going deeper into her work, and her offerings, and the things that she shared. I think she's an amazing woman. There's a diverse too if you like.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And do you know what? I don't know much about J.Cole. So, thank you so much. I selfishly like these questions because it's a prompt for me to go and discover other people's-
Chris Magee:
You get a new reading list and you always find new artists, and you find new documentaries, and things.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Totally.
Chris Magee:
Yeah. I mean, it's one of the reasons why I love listening to podcasts as well as because of that very thing, there's always an offshoot or someone mentions a reference of something X, Y, Z, and then if that peaks my interest, then I know that I can... "Ooh, that sounds good. Let me go and listen to that, or let me go and buy that book, or whatever it is."
Anne Muhlethaler:
Totally. And my last question, which is my favorite is, what brings you happiness?
Chris Magee:
My friends, my family, being able to get up and do something that I really enjoy every day, in all honesty. But I think it's important to quantify that happiness is not something that is ever sought outside of yourself. Happiness is an inside job, because if you're not happy in here, it doesn't matter what's going on out there. And, we see that magnified at every level of society, and every level of what would potentially quantify as fame or success. And the fact that these people still potentially end up with drug problems, or taking their own lives. And we think, "Oh, how on earth could someone who has all of those things end up in that space?" And I think that that's just a real crucial reminder that it's not about the stuff. It's not about those things. It's about knowing in yourself, in your heart, in your soul, what is it that I'm doing? "Does this bring me joy?"
Chris Magee:
There's a great concept called Ikigai. I don't know if you're familiar with it. And it's the cross section of I'm going to absolutely butcher this, I can't think of the reference now. It's like, "Am I good at it? Does it bring me joy? Is there a need for it in the world? And does it pay me, or is it something that I can tangibly make my livelihood from?" I'm very fortunate that I have a job in which I definitely feel like I have Ikigai, hence through the practice and the work that I've done with yoga. I'm able to get up every day, and even on the days where you don't necessarily feel so hot or that you don't feel so motivated, there's tools in my toolbox in order to be able to bring myself to a place of homeostasis, shall we say rather than necessarily happiness all the time. But there's absolutely contentment piece in the bigger picture of your life, and in those individual moments.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing so much of your time with me. That was a fantastic interview. I've enjoyed talking to you so much, Chris. I'm really glad that we got introduced by our friend, Anushka. I will post all of the links to everything we've talked about, and I'm going to wish you a really lovely evening on the Haggerston Riviera.
Chris Magee:
Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been a real pleasure. I've had a really, really great time. So, thank you for having me on.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thanks again to Chris for being my guest on the show today. You can find him online at mageesy.com and on Instagram at Mageesy, where you will also find details of the teacher training that he's hosting later this year, his retreat, and online classes. Of course, all of the links are also included in my show notes.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So, that's it for this episode. Thank you again for listening and being with me. I hope you'll join me again next time. The theme music is by Connor Heffernan, artwork by Brian Ponto, special thanks to Pete and to Joel for editing and sound. You can soon find all of my episodes and find out more about my projects at Annevmuhlethaler.com. If you don't know how to spell it, that's fine, it's also in the show notes. Sign up to receive updates on all the fun things I am doing. The site should be live any... I was going to see any week, but really any day now. Follow the show on Instagram at _outtotheclouds. If you can, I would love it. If you would rate and review the podcast on iTunes, it helps other people find it. So thanks so much. Until next time, be well, be safe, remember the hand washing, the mask, the social distancing, all of that good stuff.