Laruga Wakes Up at 2:45 AM For Yoga!

06/22/15 • 61 min

Laruga Glaser couldn't help but being a yoga teacher... It kept calling her, even when she was kicked out of a yoga teacher training!

What is Special About Laruga

Even though she experienced hardships growing up, meaning abuse, which I can relate to, she learned through yoga to transcend and heal.

I was taken by her presence and her pace. She exudes stillness, and she is very friendly.

As a teacher she has a heavy international traveling schedule as well as a Mysore program she runs daily in Stockholm.

I also appreciated how she helps us all give ourselves a break when she says (talking about the brutal winters in the Northern hemisphere)...

I do feel it is important to be sensitive to the seasonal shifts and adjust the rhythm of one’s practice during these times of external extremes, instead of trying to force the same pacing month after month

What we talked about

How she grew up in the United States and stepped into yoga by "chance"
How Ashtanga picked her curiosity at a very young age
The role abuse played in her life as she developed into her own
How teaching came to her
How she met her boyfriend in Mysore exactly four months before I met James!
Her daily routine (she wakes up at 2:45 AM people!)
How she teaches and what her schedule is like
How she manages her energy
The one thing that took Laruga a LONG time to understand...

About Laruga:

Website

Upcoming Traveling Workshops

TRANSCRIPT:

Claudia A. Altucher: Let me ask you something. It’s 4:00 PM in Stockholm, so I’m wondering: what did you do today?

Laruga Glaser: Oh, okay. Well –

[Laughter]

Yeah, my usual schedule is – I’ll – first thing in the morning, I practice – I’ll do my practice, which is quite early.

Claudia A. Altucher: What is “quite early”?

Laruga Glaser: My alarm come – goes off at around 2:45 AM.

Claudia A. Altucher: Oh, my goodness.

Laruga Glaser: So – but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily get up right away. It depends on – sometimes I hit “snooze” a few times to be perfectly honest.

Claudia A. Altucher: Well, you’re very allowed. Anyone who puts the clock at 2:45 AM is allowed to “snooze it” in my world.

Laruga Glaser: Yeah, sometimes I need a little bit of a buffer. Sometimes I do pop out of bed right away, but sometimes I’ll – you know, it’s a good way for me to kind of segue myself out of bed.

Claudia A. Altucher: So what time do you go to bed then?

Laruga Glaser: In a perfect world: 8:00 PM. That doesn’t always happen. Usually, I really start winding down between 8:00 PM or 9:00 PM, but the best time for me to be in bed is before 8:30 PM, really.

Claudia A. Altucher: Yeah, you need that. For me, too, only I don’t wake up that early. That’s very impressive to me.

Laruga Glaser: Yeah, yeah, that’s important.

[Laughter]

So –

Claudia A. Altucher: And then what did you do?

Laruga Glaser: Then – so I’ll do my practice, then it’s like I have to, very quickly, kind of shower and get ready to head to the studio to teach. So my commute isn’t too bad – it’s about, from door-to-door, it’s maybe about 20 minutes?

Claudia A. Altucher: Do you go by train, I guess? Or –

Laruga Glaser: Yeah. Twenty – twenty-five minutes, really, actually. So, yeah, I catch a train into the city center and make my way to Yogayama to teach. So I start around – a little after 6:30AM is when I start teaching. So my boyfriend leaves, actually, earlier to open the doors; he opens the doors at the studio at 6:00 AM. So some students lik...

Laruga Glaser couldn't help but being a yoga teacher... It kept calling her, even when she was kicked out of a yoga teacher training!

What is Special About Laruga

Even though she experienced hardships growing up, meaning abuse, which I can relate to, she learned through yoga to transcend and heal.

I was taken by her presence and her pace. She exudes stillness, and she is very friendly.

As a teacher she has a heavy international traveling schedule as well as a Mysore program she runs daily in Stockholm.

I also appreciated how she helps us all give ourselves a break when she says (talking about the brutal winters in the Northern hemisphere)...

What we talked about

How she grew up in the United States and stepped into yoga by "chance"
How Ashtanga picked her curiosity at a very young age
The role abuse played in her life as she developed into her own
How teaching came to her
How she met her boyfriend in Mysore exactly four months before I met James!
Her daily routine (she wakes up at 2:45 AM people!)
How she teaches and what her schedule is like
How she manages her energy
The one thing that took Laruga a LONG time to understand...

About Laruga:

Website

Upcoming Traveling Workshops

TRANSCRIPT:

Claudia A. Altucher: Let me ask you something. It’s 4:00 PM in Stockholm, so I’m wondering: what did you do today?

Laruga Glaser: Oh, okay. Well –

[Laughter]

Yeah, my usual schedule is – I’ll – first thing in the morning, I practice – I’ll do my practice, which is quite early.

Claudia A. Altucher: What is “quite early”?

Laruga Glaser: My alarm come – goes off at around 2:45 AM.

Claudia A. Altucher: Oh, my goodness.

Laruga Glaser: So – but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily get up right away. It depends on – sometimes I hit “snooze” a few times to be perfectly honest.

Claudia A. Altucher: Well, you’re very allowed. Anyone who puts the clock at 2:45 AM is allowed to “snooze it” in my world.

Claudia A. Altucher: So what time do you go to bed then?

Claudia A. Altucher: Yeah, you need that. For me, too, only I don’t wake up that early. That’s very impressive to me.

Laruga Glaser: Yeah, yeah, that’s important.

[Laughter]

So –

Claudia A. Altucher: And then what did you do?

Claudia A. Altucher: Do you go by train, I guess? Or –

Previous Episode

Yoga Podcast Episode #11 - I Had To Go!

I had to go. Badly. But one of my three roommates was taking a luxury long shower in the only bathroom. What to do?! No oh no! The thought crossed my mind...

Use the Indian bathroom? Me?

None of the four of us sub-leasing that house in Mysore, South India circa 2008 had yet opened THAT door.

None of us had dared step into the vortex of how two thirds of the world do their business.

But I had to. What was the alternative?

So I did.

I opened the door.... Slowly. Would the walls be splashed? Would there be water in the pot next to it? Would it even be clean? Would I fall into an infinite tunnel of shit?

No. Phew! Very clean.

I went outside to refill the pot with clean water, grabbed some extra toilette paper, closed the door, and did what I had to do.

Wait. What is this?

Fascinating!

Even though it was uncomfortable, everything was easy... It almost felt... Hm, what is the word? NATURAL, human, normal. DIFFERENT.

Imagine my delight when I saw the episode of Shark Tank in which Bobby and Judy presented what they have come to call "Squatty-Potty" a company that created a stool so we can, IN THE WEST, squat easily...

Here is the episode which is fun to watch

Because I have this habit of calling anyone who helps me evacuate my intestines better I picked up the phone and gave Bobby and Judy a call and they agreed to go on the podcast that I do with lovely husband, "Ask Altucher".

The four of us had a lot to talk about. Almost every illness out there starts in the intestines.

Bobby shipped me two Squatty-Potties ahead of the podcast recording so I could try it myself, and I have to tell you, I noticed a few things right away...

If you get put off by talk of how the body works, maybe skip these points...

As a yogi, I am fascinated by this type of things

1) It works JUST like the Indian toilette, only it is EASIER because my muscles don't have to hold me in position, my legs simply raise to the occasion

2) It works. It is the right position in which to do "our business"

3) This is only for women... I know... But I noticed that I was able to empty my bladder to an extent I had never done before... I mean, it kept going and going... Like the pink bunny

I will let you hear the episode and I hope you try it...

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Paul Dallaghan And The Paradise In His Thailand Center

Paul Dallaghan has a yoga retreat that I can only describe as the Richard Branson's Isand for yoga...

Any yoga "real thing" you'd like is there at his place in Ko Samui, Thailand (I've been to the place twice). For example: ayurvedic treatments, infrared saunas, pool, steaming showers, excellent food, exceptional yoga and pranayama instruction and amazingly beautiful accommodations by the ocean...

And he is one of the most humble people I know.

What We Talked About

He drops a bomb on me. I get news about his life right off the start which I did not know.
Paul does NOT get jet lag... and he gives tips on how to avoid it as much as possible
His start in yoga in New York after business school
Since he got clear that yoga was his thing, doubts melted away and he felt a surrendering come over him.
Paul is one of ONLY two students of pranayama and yoga master Tiwariji (of the Kayvalyadhama Institute in India) we talk about it and Paul says it all happened very naturally...
We talk about how he met him

One thing to notice is that every time he started building the beautiful retreat centers, he had NO money.
How the amazing yoga retreat he maintains in Ko Samui Thailand came to be in a very organic way
The daily contemplation practice that Paul does in 4 steps, to prepare for the day and practice
And how this practice continues to be very useful and helpful for him after more than decade of practice
Paul says: This practice comes from a place where we acknowledge that: "I need help because I don't know anything... And then there is life... And dealing with it... And that is why we ask for help"
The Gayatri Mantra and how it helps on clarity
He proposes we could all meet together in 20 years and see how the practices helped each of us
Paul notices as he sees students around the world a lot of tension in the upper part of the belly and why this is
What took Paul a long time to understand...

The beautiful yoga room at Samahita Retreat in Ko Samui Thailand About Paul

About

Paul's International Teaching Schedule

Transcript

Claudia A. Altucher: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Yoga Podcast. I am over the moon to have this guest with me because I've been looking for him for over, I'm gonna say, seven to eight months, and he's just so busy, but I have Paul Dallaghan. He is the co-founder with his wife, Jutima, of Yoga Thailand and Samahita Wellness –

Paul Dallaghan: Ex-wife.

Claudia A. Altucher: Excuse me?

Paul Dallaghan: That's ex-wife.

Claudia A. Altucher: Oh, I didn't know. I'm sorry to hear.

Paul Dallaghan: [Laughs] Nothing to be sorry about, but yeah, go ahead.

Claudia A. Altucher: Oh, okay. So that's news, I guess. Last December, CNN named them as one of the top ten wellness resorts in Asia. He has been trained personally in a one-on-one capacity with Sri O.P. Tiwari, a true yogi master, master of pranayama, and head of the Yoga Institute Kaivalyadhama in India. And amazingly enough, Paul was also trained in advanced asana practice with the great Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, who's the man himself, the founder of the Ashtanga Yoga Vinyasa system as we know it. Both centers – I had the opportunity to visit it twice in the beautiful island of Koh Samui, and he is also, at the moment, on top of all of this and having two children, he has been taken by the Emory University in Atlanta in the USA in the field of biological anthropology, and he's following a Ph.D. program, bringing the yogic practices and philosophy to the scientific field. Paul, welcome. So grateful to have you on the podcast.

Paul Dallaghan: Yeah, thank you, Claudia.