Daniele Salvitto: From Cirque du Soleil Acrobat to Dharma Yoga Teacher

Daniele Salvitto is an accomplished performer, yoga teacher, and former professional dancer known for his work with prestigious organizations like Cirque du Soleil and Disney Cruise Line. Originally from Italy, Salvito began his dance career at the age of 18, quickly rising to perform worldwide. Today, he resides in France, where he teaches various styles of yoga, including Dharma and Ashtanga, alongside other disciplines like aerial acrobatics and flexibility. His unique approach blends his profound understanding of movement with yoga philosophy, nurtured under the guidance of renowned teachers such as Sri Dharma Mittra.

Visit Daniele: https://www.instagram.com/danielesalvitto/

Key Takeaways:

• Daniele's professional journey exemplifies the union of artistry and discipline, from dance to yoga.
• The pivotal role of Ashtanga yoga in Daniele's life, aiding recovery and enhancing his athletic abilities.
• Insights into Daniele's teaching philosophy, which integrates yoga with dance, acrobatics, and meditation.
• The significance of mentoring relationships, emphasizing his bond with Sri Dharma Mittra.
• Balancing Eastern yoga philosophies with Western scientific principles, Daniele bridges these worlds seamlessly.

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Transcript

Todd McLaughlin: 0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, bodywork, and beyond. Follow us at @NativeYoga and check us out nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Hello, welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. My name is Todd McLaughlin, and today my special guest is Daniele Salvitto. Please go visit Daniele at his website dharmadani.com and on Instagram at @DanieleSalvitto, and you can click in the link in description to make it easy for you to find him. Definitely go check out Daniele's ability level in the world of movement. Oh my gosh, super talented, amazing, and I love the way during this discussion he shows his deep level of practice and sincerity to study and learn, and his ability to weave passion, his passion for all these aspects of movement, whether it's yoga, acrobatics, dance in relation to the study of philosophy, the study of anatomy, the implementation of philosophy and anatomy into his movement practice, the way he explains the uniqueness of each style and tradition, and how they all work together, and basically creates a a vision for our ability to all respect one another and also grow and really focus on specific things that we want to learn about. So it was an amazing conversation. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for your support. If you would love to, if you are able to share this episode with any of your yoga body work friends. I greatly appreciate it. We both greatly appreciate it. And please send us a message or a comment on any of the platforms that you are picking up on this information from. And again, we we really love hearing that you what you learn from the episode. So on that note, all right, let's get started. Daniele Salvito, I'm so happy to have this opportunity to meet Daniele Salvito. Daniele, thank you so much for being here. I am grateful for you to be willing to speak with me. I know it's like 930 plus over there in France, and so and you've had a long day. You've taught a bunch of classes. You hurried home to make time for me and us. So we really appreciate we really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And how can you tell me a little bit about what your day has been like? What time did you wake up? And what sort of activities has gotten have you been up to today?

Daniele Salvitto: 3:43

It's been a very beautiful long day. I'm just trying to catch up a little bit of the energy. You probably seen through the channels. I we hosted with Pan Jones Yoga Retreat, a Dharma yoga treat this weekend. So it's been nothing short and amazing and beautiful. But the energy we're a bit low for the first few days, so today is like slowly back to the rhythm. Finally, has been started teaching one Dharma yoga class at lunchtime too. I've been contacted by a dentist

Unknown: 4:15

structures, and they all suffer by back pain. They all suffer by anxiety and stress, and one of the girls actually does yoga. It's like we want to do yoga at lunchtime, so just moved in today doing my first class. Which is so beautiful how they were focused, more centered, mighty at the end of the class. It's like, oh, this is this is what the reason why we teach yoga, right? Yes. And then I went to our my one of the other studio where I teach on Thursday and Monday, where I teach a flexibility class, a area loop, and an Ashtanga yoga class on Thursday night. So amazing! Here it is, amazing. Well, you know, I highly recommend everybody that's listening that has doesn't know you already. To go to your Instagram profile, which is Daniele Salvito at Daniele Salvito, and you know when I got a chance to look at what you're up to in relation to the fact that you said you just taught a flexibility class, I saw a picture where you had these like kettlebells on your feet. I think there are kettlebells, and you're like in a full straddle split on your back, and you had weights on your feet. And I was like, "Ooh, ah, holy cow! And then your your ability level is definitely next level. And then I noticed that you were involved with Cirque du Soleil, and then I went. Aha! Well, that makes sense. And then I saw that you worked for Disney Cruise Line, and I thought that makes sense. So I mean, how incredible you you are working. You've been able to work professionally with your physical art skill, talent, ability. That's pretty amazing. I I feel like you might be the first person that I've had a chance to interview that has worked for Cirque du Soleil. So I guess I'd like to start there. And can you tell me a little bit what is it like to work for Cirque du Soleil as a as a performer? It was a dream come true for me. I used to grow up watching, and since like I'm European, we didn't really have much chance to have Cirque du Soleil performing in Europe back in the days. So I grew up watching all the videos and all the shows that were online. We had cable TV. Luckily, my family had cable TV, so I was like recording all Cirque du Soleil videos at night, making sure that I was able to see them. And I always dreamt to be able to work one day with them. And back in 2014, they posted an audition in Italy because the year after we were hosting the World Expo, and they were looking for acrobats, dancers. And back in the days, I was mainly a dancer. I grew. I started dancing when I was 18, and I quickly escaped and started working a little bit around the world, and then I saw the edition. I was like, "I'm gonna go. Let's do it. I show up at the day of the edition. There were 500 people. Wow, 500 people show up for that. Wow. Yeah, and they were willing to hire maximum 10, 15 performers. So I was 22 years old, super in shape, legs up here, super flexible, and I got noticed right away on the first cut. The director, she looked at me, Krista Monsoon, which I'm still very in contact with. She saw me. She was she literally looked at me, put the number on. I was like, I got this, I got the job. And a few months after, was working with another company, and I received the emails like,"You got selected for Olavita show with Cirque du Soleil, and it's like, I think I cried for 35 minutes, probably. That is huge. Yeah, yeah, it was beautiful. It was amazing because I auditioned as dancers, but I actually got a job as an acrobat, they were looking for artists that were willing to try different things, and I got selected to do sway pole, which it's a super high pole, about six meter high, that can bend and sway. So if you happen to see on my page on Instagram, you see a little bit of those things. Wow! And I worked with them for eight months. Then I did that a side project. I worked in Turkey. I went to Japan working with them, and then soon after I auditioned. My agent sent me an audition for Disney Cruise Line, and I was like, "No, come on! I'm too short for Disney Cruise Line. Because usually they look for taller, dancer. Okay. And she sent my CV, my curriculum, and the day after they send me a contract, and they were like,"Yep, fly tomorrow to Toronto. You start rehearsal tomorrow. Wow! So two dreams coming true, coming together. Yeah, both of them very beautiful, high professional level. Everyone so respectable in job. There was, for me, as an European and Italian, heart sometimes put aside. Was beautiful to step into this kind of beautiful companies where you appreciate as a human being, as an artist, you are valued for what you bring in. Nobody's gonna ever question why the reason why you're there, but they always be like, "You're here for a reason. You're the best in what you're doing, so we respect and tell us what to do. I remember this day in Japan, the show director came to me and he was like, "Can you do the choreography? And I had 45 years old people around me, 20 years of experience of Turku Soleil. And I looked at him and I was like, "You're asking me to do that? And he was like, "Yeah, you're the one that has most knowledge about it. And I was like, "Start bowling. I was like, "This is surreal. That's the end. Truly a blessing working with them. It shaped the artist that I am right now. He gave me so much connection, had so many friends around the world. I got to travel, which is very very beautiful too, and get me to perform in front of audience of 1520. 1000 people are being very, very beautiful. Wow! How well I guess let me fast forward a little bit just to clue in all of us listener, all of the listeners. So then, but you're also a yoga teacher, and at some point you found yoga. Can you tell me where that first moment was? Was it maybe back a long time ago, and it took a little while to then want to pursue that further, or can you explain a little bit about how that evolved? It all happened that I always been kind of tired by yoga because back in my first dental schools we also had some yoga, and I took some couple of classes and like mainly out of yoga, which I was like in Europe is very is changing now, but back in the days was seen like gymnastics for old people. So I was like, oh, this is so boring. So I wasn't ready. Yeah, it was totally my fault. I wasn't ready back in the day, and then it happened that I was in London. I was supposed to audition for many dance companies, and I also did a dance competition. And during the dance competition, I broke one of my ligament TLC of my left knee, and I wasn't able to bend my knee anymore. But I went to London anyway, and I was like, "What can I do? I can't take any dance class. I can't do anything. Literally, my knee couldn't bend, and I found some Ashtanga yoga classes, and I was like, "Let's go do some gymnastics for old people. I didn't totally know what I was signing up for. I showed up in this beautiful yoga place in London. Trip dances. It's also a dance school. It's called Trip Dance. And is that with the brick walls? It's all brick walls. They do contemporary dance too. And it's not called trip trips accorde, or is that? It's called. I think it's still called trip dance, but okay, cool. My bad. It has changed after 20 years. Yeah, yeah, my bad. Okay, thank you, thank you. So I shut up, and yeah, after a week of ashtanga, don't know for which reason my left knee bent again completely, with no surgery, nothing. I was able to go back to my almost normal body. So I said, like, you know what? We should keep practicing. So from there, for the next few years, I was still showing up for work, making sure that my work hour was starting at nine a.m. At eight a.m. I was already in the studio doing my personal practice to center my body, and then I started finding out the benefits for the mind too. And then I was able to face all the day. And since that day, I never had an injury. My body's always been bomb, like a full structure, nothing moving. Wow! Knocking on wood, nothing ever happened since then. Yeah, but I notice also so much benefit for the mind. It's such an hard environment where you're always questioned about whether you're good or not, if you're good enough, if your body's perfect enough, if your point feet are totally pointed, if your knees are so many voices in your head telling you that you're not getting out, and the yoga practice always kept me to balance and knowing that I was there for a reason. I am perfect the way I am, and always allowed me just to bring joy, also energy for all the other people. So, yeah, like it's always been a beautiful tool next to my career, and I never picture myself becoming a yoga teacher. Yeah, yeah. You did not. Is that what you said? You at that point you just figured, let me use this for my own personal maintenance and health and well-being. And so, how did that evolve then? That you met Dharma and decided to become a certified yoga teacher. I actually met Dharma when I was already certified as a yoga teacher in 2018. I was, of course, again as a dancer, was following all the amazing yoga teacher from around the world. I was taking classes at Umbra. I was taking Ambra Vallo that you already interviewed. I was taking class with Jared McCann and Ruby Low. They were all coming to Italy very often, so I was taking class with them. And it happened that I was also following David Adame, which is an amazing Spanish yoga teacher teaching Ashtanga, that teaches all yoga training in Bali and Thailand. And we've always been chatting, and it's like he was like, "You have to come to do the trading. So we met in Japan when I was working with Sir Tusley, and I met the owner, the director of the yoga school. The month after, we were supposed to do work, but for certain reason, the work didn't happen. So I had a full month off, and I text them like, "Do you still have a place for the trading in Bali? And they come, and so I took a flight last minute. I went to Bali. I did my 200 hours in Ashtanga Vinyasa. Nice. And for a few years that was my my thing. And then I met Umbra. I studied a lot with her, only Dharma Yoga, and because I was inspired by all the. Beautiful poses, back bends, like behind the head, all the poster pictures from Dharma, and at that point I was very into the structure of having the 200 hours, 300 hour training, like yoga lion structures, and Amber was like, I was waiting for Ambroise to put out a 300 hour training, and Ambro was like, you know what, you need to go to New York. Like I have nothing to give you. Go to the source. Go to the source. So finally, took the decision 2023 to take the training with Dharma, and I think was my second test. First one was marrying my husband, and the second question, second testing I did in my life probably is the training with Dharma. Did you have a heart-opening experience with him? I get very blessed. I have a beautiful connection with Dharma. I a lot of people keep saying that he might see his younger self through my body, so every time I step in the class is amazing because even if I wasn't, I'm not there for seven or eight months. Every time I walk in, he just look at me, he bows the head, and like I'm happy to see you. And I'm very blessed every time I'm there. He asked me to come on the podium demoing the poses for him. It's just so beautiful that he can channel through my body, his teaching and the teaching of his guru and the lineage, and I'm just so honored to to be able to be a tube of energy and keep sharing the knowledge through his voice, his his energy. I'm very blessed to have yes to have these experiences. It's very beautiful. I agree. Well, that's so cool to hear about. I'm curious. Do you feel like that experience differs slightly from what you've experienced in practicing Ashtanga yoga? I'm I'm guessing based off of your ability level, your physical ability level, that you've probably worked pretty far through the Ishtanga series is like series one, series two, series three. I don't know series four as well. Have you have you gone all the way through all that? Like, where are you at with that? And then I guess I'm curious, like you know, having a connection with a teacher and the way you're explaining that it's almost as if you're a continuation of him in some way, like to have that kind of feeling, I just would love to hear how you navigate these multiple universes of yoga and and and and and what you're picking up on. Back in the days, and I think it's like still a huge thing here in France. Very few people in Europe knew about Dharma. It's getting awfully popular more and more, and that's also my duty when I try to expand the Dharma community. So the Ashtanga was the main thing, and I got tired again. All those beautiful chaturangas, all the vinyasa. It was just so mind blowing. But I always found that was there was a missing place for me, and when I started digging deeper into the sacred scriptures, and was always a reference of the idea that the students need to have a teacher, need to have a guru. Even if the word guru right now in the world of yoga, is like a little bit passion, and I always try to look for that person, and I wasn't able to find it because we're human beings, and a lot of teachers they get involved with the ego, and you know they maybe get a little bit lost into this path, and when I step into the Dharma Studio center already just the people welcoming you like you're part of a family and I was like I don't know anybody of you but everybody bugging me everybody's so kind everybody's so smiley just love coming from everywhere and then you see you there just warming up your body taking space around 60 people and you just see Dharma walking in the studio the most humble person you'll ever met is a living legend, and he's fucking like is almost disturbing the people in the room. I was just like I'm just sitting there, and I was like, "This is so beautiful. The energy Diora that was coming up for him, I was like, "I found it. I found what I was looking for. That's cool. And I found my teacher, and then I found a beautiful family. So many friends, so many beautiful people. Like every time you walk in, it's like it felt like I left yesterday. Everybody's like, everybody know your name, and I was like, I've been here five times. How's possible? It's just so beautiful. Very cool. But yeah, balancing the two words is like Ashtanga. It's still a thing that I teach right now because a lot of people here in France love Ashtanga, they know what it is. It's like, oh, Ashtanga, I know what it is. It's like a safe space. Yes, Dharma, they started loving it. It's been four years now that I'm sharing the practice here, and they're curious about it. They all follow Dharma on Instagram. They're like, look, he posted a video. He's doing a headstand like the one we did last week. So you know. Oh, that's cool! And Anne has been coming. Pan Jones is becoming one of the senior teachers from Dharma is becoming now two years here to help me grow in the the community little by little. And we just had this beautiful retreat, and it's just so beautiful to see those little seeds sprouting and the energy developing. Hope that maybe one day I'll take everybody to New York. I hear you. It's funny because the other day Andrew was saying, "I've been telling him I want to like to go up there, and he's like, "All right, well, let's just let's fly up Saturday morning. We'll go up. We'll take class. We'll get some lunch, and then we'll fly home Saturday afternoon. And I said, "Oh, I guess you're right. We could turn it into a one day trip. You know, a nice excursion. So why not? I agree with you. Can you tell me where in France you are? Are you in the city or are you more in the countryside? Lovely in the countryside, beautiful. I wish I could show you. It's nice, but living in a small village that looked like Beauty and the Beast village. Wow! All the houses on rocks. Living the closest city is called Valence, which is one hour south Lyon, between Lyon and Marseille. So it's province area. During summer, we have waterfalls, beautiful lavender fields, sunflowers everywhere. Like very beautiful, nice. And you grew up in Italy. I grew up in Italy in Turin since I was 19 years 20 years old. Then I moved to Florence to work with my first dance company. At 22 years old, I moved to Mexico City, and then I started traveling all around the world. Wow! For work. How many languages do you speak? I know English, obviously Italian. If you're living French, you probably are speaking French, and then if you're in Mexico City, Spanish. Spanish and English, Italian, Spanish, and French. And I understand a little bit of German. That's that always blows my mind. That's so cool, Daniela. That you, yeah, the the beauty of being a dancer. Maybe you don't think it's a big deal, but I think that's a pretty big deal to be able to like just go from one language to another, and that that's incredible. You know, when you said today that you already taught an ashtanga class, a flexibility class, and I feel like what was the third style? Did you adharma? Ariel loop. Aerial loop. So you know circus skill. Circus skill. I mean, sometimes in the yoga world, we'll hear. I remember at one point studying or practicing in Mysore, and the rhetoric around the Ashtanga yoga world was that, like, you know, there's acrobats, there's acrobatics, and there's like circus tricks and then there's yoga and so then you know people look at yoga postures and they say well that's just acrobatics or and then there's this like really hard line of like no you know this is yoga and that is that and then so okay well what's the difference well you know yoga there's the mind is involved, and you know we're using drishti, focal point, breath, and banda, and that's what will characterize yoga. So then, you know, I'm just curious from your angle because you're fluid through these different worlds. Thank you, worlds that are all sharing the use of the body. Now I can't imagine that you could be an acrobat doing a one-handed handstand on a stage with 20,000 people watching, and not be in some state of yoga, some state of concentration, some awareness of your breath and your body and precision. So I guess I would love to hear from your opinion. Is there a difference between what you're doing in an aerial loop, what you're doing in a flexibility class, what you're doing in the Ashtanga class? What I mean, and or if you are to try to differentiate these things, and how would you differentiate yoga from these Other disciplines. I am a Todd, so I always like rising Capricorns. Everything for me has to have a structure. So I was thinking back in the days always like that too. This is ballad. Coming as a dancer too, it was like only ballad, only contemporary. I'm not gonna do a pop because this is not dancing. Like always had this kind of boxing things, and literally the last time I was there in the Dharma Center, Dharma said something that made my mind click, and some people were very lazy in class. We just didn't understand how it's possible. People who spend $25 flying from around the world to get take class with them, and they're lazy. But Dharma just looked at them, very pissed, and he was like, "If you don't like to do asana, go do do the gym. The most important thing is that the body is healthy. So, whatever my personal, very humble point of view, after also what Dharma said, and also talking today with my students too, is like it's. All the same thing, as long as you put an intention in it. The intention that we put in yoga, according to sacred scripture, is meant to go towards God. However, you want to call it-universe, Brahman, any name you want to give it to you. For us, maybe performing all the tensions goes towards the audience, but who is the audience in the end. It's all us. It's the universe. It's myself too. It's just different faces of the same metal. The ability just to be able to see it, and it's very funny because in today's flexibility class we were working handstand, and people was like, "How can you hold the handstand for a minute? And I was like, "I honestly chant a mantra to keep my mind clear, not be distracted from anything around us, which is basically pratyahara, right? I just chant a mantra, something there. I'm focusing on my breath. I keep my tricks steady. At the end of the day, the form is the same, and it's the same exercise, whether it's higher loop or acrobatics or doing yoga. Yes, there's a beautiful phrase of the Sikashar, which I really, really, really love. The parts are many; the truth is one. So, whatever, to me, from a personal point of view, is like you have just to find whatever speaks and resonate to you and sticks to it without judging what everybody else is doing. Everybody comes from different things. We all different, but we all going towards the same home. Great answer. Good answer. Love that. That don't you think if we took or take that sort of view of the world, that the we could have peace on planet Earth? It's so hard because it's also like the identification of being a yoga teacher with a job. We take so much responsibility on us, and we we also try to discredit other things to make a job looking bad good, right? So we try we we try to tend to bring other things down so that yoga looks perfect, and the rest is not. But doing that, we kind of do the opposite. We push people away from us. So just, I think it's just everything has to just do. We just need to learn how to come back, be humble, just do what we love, just to make that happy, and that that ripples will resonate to everybody else. Sure. So we will find peace. We will be able to fight against each other. And like things happen with yoga teachers, like oh, don't go to his class because he does vinyasa. Vinyasa is not good. It's great. People are happy if they're doing inside flow. Great. They're happy. That's what they need to do. Maybe they will come to my class. I'm too strict. I'm too hardy. They won't be happy. So rather than go over there, it happened a lot of times. Like I actually kicked a couple of people out the room, and I was like, "This is not your place. Please leave. It's okay. Like you don't have to sit here. You don't have to force it because someone told you that yoga is perfect and it's good for you. Maybe not. Dharma always said that we have different age, right? The body might be the same, but our soul age is different. Some people is ready, some people has to do a little bit of more work. It's just understanding those fine little things. Yeah, you know, I'm curious because you have physical, like you, you have physical ability that lends itself toward being able to be really good at dance, acrobatics, yoga, and so I'm

wondering: 29:14

Do people ever come up to you and say, "Well, it's just easy for you, Daniela" So, like, you're asking me to work hard, but you make it look so easy, and you must have been born to be able to do it. And I don't have the kind of body you have, and I have all these other problems and challenges. Have you heard that a lot throughout your life? And if you have ever heard it before, how do you react to that? I I heard a lot now because I did a lot of work to get here. It's true that I was born very flexible by nature, but I also played for volleyball for 16 for until I was 17 years old. So I trust I put aside the best years of my life where I could get even more flexible if I started when I was three or four years old. For me, the big difference when I stepped into my first yoga classes, I was 19 years old and I was totally brand new to this, and I was like, "I'm a boy. I can do a split. I felt like amazing already. I stepped into this class, and I was surrounded by 30 years old people that had already working with amazing companies. The level was so high that I was like my students right now. I felt like I'm not good enough. I would never be good at them like them. So I worked hard. I really worked hard. I put all my effort in it. All my passion became reality because I really did the work, and that's what I keep repeating. Sometimes people just show up. It's like, oh, but never be able to do that. It's like, try, do your best, have fun. Maybe it's not gonna happen this lifetime, but you do. Work for the next one. So the more you do now, the less you have to do later on when you're coming back. And then they have a laugh about it. And sometimes they keep saying like, when I demo different poses, for example, like behind the head, we start this, we do do, we do this, we do that, and maybe next lifetime you bring the leg behind the head, and they have a laugh about it. So as long as you're, I found the ability of making it light and fun, so they were like, "Okay, I can relate. I can arrive until a certain point, and maybe if I keep working harder, I can get there. So I found that little little trick that makes everybody happy. That's cool. That's awesome. I hear you. Do you have dreams of continuing to work in the field that you're currently in for the rest of your life. Do you have other passions that are pulling you in different directions? That you're, you know, it's pretty amazing to me that you said you were 18 years old when you started dancing, and then it sounded like two years later you're a professional dancer, off and running, which is like amazing. I thought you were going to say I started dancing when I was three or four. So, do you ever have feelings of like, wow, now I want to be a guitarist, and maybe I'll be a professional musician at some point. You know, I mean, like, do you have anything else that's pulling you anywhere else, or do you have? Are you completely content within the world of teaching and facilitating movement through all these different modalities? I never pictured myself becoming a professional dancer or acrobat. I always been into mathematics and physics. Actually, had a degree in physics. Really, really? Yeah. Mathematics and physics. That was your that was your fourth in school. I was going very well in school in all the subjects, and I was going to be the only person the whole family was getting adorned, so my mom was like pushing me so hard, like, "No, you have to go because nobody in the family ever achieved that. So it's like, and then I was like, "But actually, got a dancing contract. I want to go there. I always followed what my heart was asking me, was pointing me towards too, and even becoming a teacher was not in a plan. And then it just happened to be here. People were like, "Teach us some classes. You're so flexible. You're so strong. And now I have a beautiful community that I share yoga with. So the only thing that I'm sure, and that I'm not gonna perform for the rest of my life, for me, I was already retired when cool, when the lockdown, everything happened. For me, it was a great sign that I had the chance to do amazing things. Again, I worked with Cirque du Soleil, Disney. I danced for the Pope back in the days. I danced for some amazing companies, and I was like, I did what I had to do. I don't want to arrive when I'm still 45 years old. That my leg is not going up anymore, and I did. I did what I had to do, so I'm ready to move on. That's part of my past life. Yeah. Now I'm teaching. I and whoever, whatever is gonna come forward, I will just put a lot of passion and keep going. I do love plants, as you can see from the background. This is like nothing. I have, I think, 200, 300 plants. I always keep laughing. It's like the day I'm retired, I'm just gonna start being a gardener. I just want to take care of that. Will be my meditation work. Yes, that sounds good. I could handle. I think you're right. Being on a little piece of land, having a garden or a food forest, and meditating, and that's amazing, Daniela. So peaceful, and I love cooking. Just being so blessed to spend the whole weekend with Pam when we had 15 people for the retreat and we we did a full-on gluten-free and vegan menu and turned out so beautiful, so tasty, so delicious. And and Pam was like, maybe this should be a job. Let's organize the retreat. I teach the yoga, you do the chef, and that is awesome. Yeah, when they first started teaching a class here, we did a class where we called it yoga and donuts class, and she brought these vegan donuts, and we were we were joking around that, you know, we'll we'll lure them in with the donuts, and then we'll you know we'll get them to do a little bit of yoga as well. But she's an amazing chef. She really she she brings it every time. Absolutely, it's like such an inspiration to me. We just connected so so naturally. It's like we always keep laughing. It's like we were brother or sister in a previous life, probably. That's awesome. Can you tell me a little bit about what you? I mean, having grown up in Italy, which is a very artistically orientated country. I love Italy. I've had a chance to go. I've never had a chance to go to France. Can you tell me what you notice having traveled around the world, and what does it feel like to be in Europe? And do you feel like Europe holds something special for you in relation to the relationship between art and culture, food, attention to detail, taking time to put detail into growing the food, cooking the food, appreciating everything, and then you know, I mean, I don't want to make fun of my own country, but America, we love attention. Detail too, but it's just a little bit different. Can you tell me what you feel being European and and your connection to your country and culture? I live it on my daily life. My husband is Canadian, grew up in Miami, so we're very very opposite, and it's a town where we go on vacation. It's like the biggest example for me, because as I grew up in Europe and my family took me traveling since I was a kid, our goal was like, okay, we're getting in obesity. We're gonna see museum, churches, art galleries, everything. When I go on vacation with my husband, like we go to the beach. I don't want to see a museum. I don't want to see an art gallery. I don't want to see anything. And I was like, this is not visiting a city. This is just going to the beach. Like it's a great vacation, great. But so yeah, I live that dualistic life every time. But I do feel that I come to U.S. very often. Part of the family is in between Canada and Florida, and then we I get to New York a lot. I think the biggest difference that we everything is much smaller renewable. Life is smaller, less fast paced as it's in US. So we take the time to appreciate a little bit more, the little things, rather than just writing and sprinting and consuming as much as we can. So I think this is the main difference for me, and it happens from the daily life, from the food to the heart and the thing and the rest. Luckily, we have a longer history, so of course, like even when my husband was studying now, forgetting the French nationality, and he was saying,"Oh my God, there's so much to go out about your history. It's so long. And I was like, "Yeah, we have 2000 year history. So there's there's way more to study than for you guys on the other side of the ocean. Yes, I think the beauty I will talk about here in France even more. Like even in our small village, we had a cave where they find bones of ancient from the middle from the ancient age, and they made out a beautiful museum. We had people visiting from all around France, stopping in. It's like there's nothing. It's like a small village where we had people visiting, and it's part of the culture. In Italy, we have so much culture too, and I think we don't even realize how much beauty we have. That's very upsetting. Even a lot of dancers have they obliged to go work abroad because there's not enough work, and the work is not recognized. Something very common to me when I was younger. It was like, "You're a dancer. Oh, cool. What's your real job? And I was like, ooh. Whether in U.S. this is the opposite. Every time, even when I was dancing with Disney, all my friends were coming from New York, and they were so respected. Everybody was working in Broadway, and then they had such an amazing career. And I was like, this is beautiful. So there's good things. Yeah. Both side. Yeah. Oh, that's cool, man. I appreciate pointing that out. That's a really good point. You're well, you're right. Yeah, I mean, right when I saw your profile that you had worked as a professional dancer and Cirque du Soleil, I was like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. So that's interesting to think, though, that maybe other folks would be like, what's your real job? You know, that's that's a good. What's your day job? Like, what's your your actual career that's fascinating. Well, I mean, in terms of physics and math, though, what sort of reading do you do that stimulates your mind now? Like, are you really big into quantum physics in relation to spirituality and where you are currently with your yoga? What do you do? I mean, do you still feel? Obviously, if you had the mind to pursue mathematics and physics at a higher level of study, if you had gone that route, what do you currently read and study to kind of keep your mind sharp? I remember like a beautiful discussion when I did my 200 hours back in Bali, we had teacher, this called Doctor Ganesh, of course, was our philosophy teacher coming directly from the Maestro Academy from India, and we got to talk a lot because he was sitting over on the island for the whole month with us, and I was like spending time at lunch, and and we talked about it's like I love physics, I love chemistry, just amazing because they combine so much well with yoga. And he told me like yoga is everything. When they come to university in our school, they study chemistry, they study mathematics, they study physics because it's all part of the system. And I was like the sankhya, the cosmology, right? And I was like, "Wow, this is so cool! Now I don't really read anymore much more about physics, about mathematics, or science-related articles. I did more the sacred books because this is what I'm drawn right now. Like it's part of my biggest practice now. And it's just so beautiful because again, Dharma always says like whatever the scientists they're finding out now. Yoga's been telling them for 2000 years. Now we're just energy, what the atoms made of, vibrating energy. It's just so so interesting that. And today I was doing teaching the class in the dentist studio, and I explained a little bit quickly was yours, what was yoga, because for certain people it's just not very clear what yoga is, and I digged into like becoming going back home, went back to the sword, and realizing that we're not our body, we're not nothing, we're just pure energy, and the science does that, and they were like, wow, so true, and I was like, it is. true. So I think now that I'm doing all the training, reaching in and 3,000 hours of training with Dharma, I'm just reading a lot of sacred books and yoga-related books because I wanna get as much as knowledge possible. Yes. And I have the ability. I think it's the scientific mind to read something, memorizing it, and having it fix it there. So that's what helped me from that side type of work. That again, it's part of my past life, but it still helped me out in this one. Very cool. What about in relation to anatomy? Do you feel like that's a walk in the park for you to memorize bony landmarks, muscle names, origins, and insertions, does that seem is that common fluid for you? It's very common, and I'm super lucky that my husband is also a kinesiologist, so we're really obsessed about anatomy, and it's because you get different body types in class, different people with different problems, and I'm very blessed that I have this knowledge because I'm able to address and adjust and modify according what people need. I do also have a training in Thai massage, which really gave me all the structure that I needed to be providing hands-on adjustment, which is very common here in France. That's we were laughing with Pam. It's like your adjustments are so great. It's like I can touch people here in France. It's way easier than than you. But I happen to teach a couple of classes in a in a French studio in New York, and it's my store style in a shtanga or a full primary series, and I was like, can I adjust and everybody? I was like that adjustment felt so good. Can you do it again? Like it's really something that I'm love and I'm passionate. Looking a body coming from ballet, if I'm a contemporary, looking at the harmony, I I really see the forces too, and it's all physics. That's what's interesting when I explain Bakasana, center of gravity, are the hands, and then you have a strength and a resistance. You have to balance these two lengths and the forces that apply. The sum of all the forces has to be zero to have a perfect balance. So all coming together, and that's the beauty of yoga. Yes, realizing that it's much bigger than just asana. Yes. Well said, and I can see how you're weaving all this together pretty effortlessly. I'm curious. I also practice Thai massage. Did you did you study in Thailand, or where did you learn Thai massage, and who from? I did the science side project for lockdown. I did my trainings online, but I did train a lot with one of our French friends, she's Edgy. She's an amazing masseur, and she did a few trainings. So I did my certification online to have, of course, the piece of paper. But I really would love to go to Thailand. That's been a long, long time in Thailand and like 20 days a month just to go deeper and learning the pulling technique, the hard techniques, which are super, super choreography, super, super fun. That she taught me a lot, a lot, lot. So I was able to implement all her teachings into the training that I did online. That is so cool, Daniela. I recently worked or had conversation with folks that are into jujitsu and grappling, so they were wanting me to come up with a yoga for grapplers class, and I was trying to explain to them that the way that I see similarity with doing hands-on assist in the Ashtanga Mysore room, in a way, is I mean, in in one respect, I feel like when we practice a yoga pose, it's almost like we're grappling with ourselves, which maybe isn't like the classic way that we'll see ourselves practicing. Because we would say, well, it's not like we're trying to be at war or grappling with ourselves. Like you're trying to get into some sort of harmonious flow where you're, you know, feeling balanced, but sometimes when we see people practicing, it's almost like we're they're grappling with themselves. Like maybe they want to push their leg behind their head, and their hip is inflexible enough, so they're like ah, and so like find that balance between like relaxing and effort and ease and letting it happen versus. Is pushing really hard. So today, somebody was in Pashasana, which you probably know what it is. But for the listener, it's like you're in a squat with your arms wrapped around your legs, and it's a difficult pose, and it's kind of a difficult one to adjust people in sometimes because you can push them over really easy. So I feel like sometimes doing adjustments is almost like, like if people are grappling, the force of energy would be pushed against somebody else, and maybe that person would be dominating the ability to hold that force, and then wrestling the person somehow figures out how to redirect energy to somehow flip that energy over back on them and then use it against them in some way. So totally different. But with doing an assist, it's like I feel like I'm coming in and we don't. I don't want to make them feel like I'm grappling with them. Like I don't want it to be like a a tug of war situation. You know, like, and so I don't know. I can't help but see the balance and the blend between assisting, doing massage, grappling, this whole balance of opposing force and trying to kind of get it to all be on some level harmonious. So I really appreciate how your mind works, and that you're pulling all of these things in: the anatomy, the dance, the acrobats, the yoga, the meditation, the the physics, the physics. It's very cool, man. I love, I love that where it all just comes together, and I really appreciate how you said Dr. Ganesh was basically saying a similar thing. Look, yoga is everything, so you're coming to yoga train. But let's talk about chemistry. Let's talk about physics. Let's talk about because it's all going to come into play. So I love having the chance to meet somebody that really sees that full picture. That's amazing. It's I think, the worst problem in any kind of things, in any kind of activity. It's creating a dogma out of it, right? There's no truth. I mean, there's one truth, right? But nothing is black, nothing is white. Everything is just everything. So everything is perfectly fine. And even the Ahmed cells is like sometimes it said like people asking where did you get this post? Did your guru told us? And he's like, no, I copied from the guy from the gym. So it's like, and even himself, like I was going to the gym, I don't know what to do. I copied the other guy and I learned it, and then I took that in. Yoga nidra saying things, right? He he saw it from someone else. It was like this exercise is great. We need to bring it in. So it's just giving credits and making sure that you're training what you're teaching, and you have a roots and tradition and respecting and bowing to what you're learning. That you feel legit to teach what you're teaching, and then sharing your knowledge a little bit, little, and as you said, sometimes you see teachers that it's like, no, this is the way they told me to adjust people, and they just push and crush people. It's like the Thai massage actually, you can use that hand push people's hand there, feeling the spine, looking at, and physics says that if I push it this way, you get more space on this side. So yeah, it all comes together. It requires an open mind, and it's just beautiful to see the example of Dharma. That is like sometimes even in the room, it's like someone is doing a different pose, right? Is is tending to do a twist, and someone has a different variation. And it's like, look at him. This variation is nice. Do the same. So if Dharma is not close to this. Why should we? Like a person that's been teaching the same thing for 60 years, almost now, is the first person who says like, "Oh, lookie, Sandstone is so cool. Let's try and do it like that. So why we should be closed mentally and not be able to see other sides, other things, and keep exploring again? Same thing, path or many. just pick one, have fun, and try jump on the other. Yes, I can't agree more, Daniela. Thank you so much for sharing your enthusiasm, passion, interest, insight. Wow, man, so cool! Thank you, thank you. Is there anything? And again, I appreciate you staying up so late. I don't know. Maybe it's not late for you in Europe. I know you're. I you know I don't I don't know. People go out late in Europe. You know, but maybe it's good. Yeah, it's got to go down. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything you would like to leave us with, or any kind of final thoughts, or words of encouragement, or anything that you'd like to send us off with, or anyone that you've been on a part of massaging, doing yoga, anything that you're doing. If you have the chance, especially for those who are living in US, for you guys, it's so. Take the plane, spend a couple of days in New York, be in the grace of Dharma because it's an amazing teacher, an inspiring leading legend, and it's someone that can really makes you understanding with so many simple words what yoga is. There's so much misconception about yoga because there's so much happening right now, and it's just so beautiful to sit in the room and hear him speaking and explaining yoga like it's a thing for a six years old, which what it's supposed to be. So we're all like trying to be putting this perfect image on Instagram, has dressing in white, amazing teachers from the best school in the world, but we have one laplain. We really have one person that embodies this all with a simplicity and a beauty that is super, super inspiring. So it really worked for me. And again, maybe it's not going to work for everybody. But if you have the chance, go pay him a visit. Try to craft that beautiful energy and whatever you you take it, just spreading into the word because it's with you guys, and what you will learn if you're gonna be with him around. It's just love. It's just compassion. Just nothing better than that, and and it's just so beautiful. That's the whole beauty of what we're trying to share to this world. Nice, Danielle. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's been an honor. Thank you, Todd. Thank you. Native Yoga Todd Cast is produced by myself. The theme music is "Dreamed Up" by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of, what I could improve, and if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native Yoga Center. You can find us at nativeyogacenter.com. And hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends, rate it, and review, and join us next time. Well, yeah, I know you.