Sandra Jersby is known as the Elite Stretch Therapist of Los Angeles. Sandra’s unique approach to recovery is widely popularized amongst many, from professional athletes to novice exercisers. Her extensive knowledge, in several different recovery methods, has allowed her to adapt to each client with an individualized program geared to their specific needs.
If somebody listening has never had Thai massage. How would you describe Thai massage to them?
Sandra Jersby
The first thing that pops into my mind is it is a meditation, in flow, a meditation in movement. And through that meditation, your body is taken through difference stretches. They’re receiving palm pressing. It’s not a massage with oils although it could be in certain modalities. But it’s more palming and pressing to move the energy around your body to help remove blockages. Also switching up the rhythm and tempo at the same time relaxing your nervous system. When your nervous system is relaxed, usually your muscles and joints will let go. It kind of takes you into a theta brainwave stage. So that’s why I call it meditation and flow, because your mind really relaxes. When that happens, then everything else let’s go. So a lot of the tension that we may be holding on to we may not need. It doesn’t require much force and we may just need to relax. The Thai massage moves help your body to let go and relax. We are relaxing also while we are moving you into these stretches. It’s more of a welcoming from the body like I am willing to let go and receive. And then also with the Osteo Thai, we do a lot of mobilization of the joints as well. So it’s a lot of circumduction basically moving in circles, that helps to open. We bring in this fluid movement , like we know from yoga. And we also do a lot of traction movement, like pulling to help create that space. So the combination of all these different palming the pulling, the stretching, helps to open up the body. And a lot of times people have never experienced in being in a lot of these positions. So even that is an experience like, oh my gosh, I didn’t know my body can go in all these positions. It feels invigorating and recharging at the same time being taken on this journey. The experience of all these different flows and directions and upside down. And so that in itself can be just a huge energy boost after receiving Thai Massage.
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Check out this discussion with Jeremy Strickland titled Jin Shin Jyutsu in Rishikesh. Jeremy practices and teaches Yin Yoga and Jin Shin Jyutsu bodywork in Rishikesh, India. Enjoy stories from the heartland of yoga as Jeremy speaks about the power and efficacy of Jin Shin Jyutsu therapy.
During this conversation Jeremy speaks about:
How he decided to live in Rishikesh?
Cranial sacral therapy and massage.
The convergence of traditional Chinese medicine and astrology.
Feeling the pulse of the heart.
Living in the yoga capital of the world.
The wildest thing he’s seen in India.
Jeremy’s bio: Jeremy Strickland is a yoga instructor with a 500 hr RYT certificate from World Peace Yoga School, Rishikesh, India. He brings a light-hearted approach to asana practice, lifting spirits and making the complicated simple. His background is over 20 years as a Certified Massage Therapist in the USA, with a focus on Craniosacral Therapy and the esoteric art of Jin Shin Jyutsu physio-philosophy.
Well, welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. I’m so happy that you are here. Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Jeremy Strickland. Jeremy is a Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner, which is a form of manual therapy utilizing contact points or points of awareness of the pulse in the body. And he is also a yin yoga instructor. He resides in Rishikesh, India, originally from USA, he has a website, check them out at yinyoga1.com. And you can also find him on the IG the Instagram with the handle @yinyoga_jinshinjyutsu. And of course, those links are in the description. Wherever you’re listening, just give a little click and I’ll take you right over. So happy to have this chance to introduce you to people that are experts in the field of yoga, and bodywork from all over the world. Remember that if you would like to practice with us here at native yoga center, in the description and links below, there’s a link for you to join to try two weeks of unlimited live stream yoga with us for free, you can join us for the classes that we offer to the public on a daily basis. And also every Thursday on YouTube Live, I do a free webinar where you can ask questions and so I have a different topic each week. And you can join in and ask questions via the chat box. So there’s a link there as well. You can click on that, check it out. And remember to go look for Jeremy on his website. yinyoga1.com. I hope you enjoy this discussion. Enjoy some cool stories from the other side of the world. Alright, let’s begin. I’m super excited to have the chance to speak with Jeremy Strickland. He’s a Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner, also a yin yoga instructor. And he’s joining me today from Rishikesh, India. Jeremy, how are you doing today?
Jeremy Strickland
I am fabulous. It’s really exciting to be here.
Todd Mclaughlin
Oh, thanks, man. I’m really excited to have a chance to talk with you. First of all, I’m really curious, how did you land in Rishikesh India and managed to not leave?
Jeremy Strickland
Well, all by happenstance, just before India, I was actually living in Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City, and I had been there for eight months, I was my first time living outside of the US had had a big life change just before then. And was kind of not doing much of anything, just experiencing life in a new culture, studying language and what have you. And I thought I would get a yoga teacher certificate. I practiced vinyasa and bodywork for 20 years and I have dabbled in and out of yoga classes and had a pretty decent Ashtanga experience at one point. And as I was just out traveling, I thought I should get a yoga teacher certificate so I can see if I can make something happen, you know, and I was going out with a yoga instructor at the time in Vietnam. And she told me to go to Rishikesh. Yeah. And so I just did some research and it was cheaper to fly here and do a 500 hour program than it was to do anything in Vietnam or anything around there. So two weeks later, I’m in Rishikesh, first time in India. I had signed up to do a 500 hour program and ended up staying because I’m familiar with the meridian system that they’re using in yoga. And so the manager of the school that I was out when she found out that I knew the theory fairly well. She said you should stay and teach Meridian theory and the yoga teacher training which is very cool. And so I took off after my program for a couple of months and worked in Nepal and Thailand and traveled around a bit, and was about to start looking for something and she messaged me again. She was like, hey, what are you doing? She said, “You should come back here and do the 100 hour and yoga teacher training and start teaching meridian theory.” And I thought, it sounds like a good opportunity and came back and did exactly that at the beginning of 2019. I was teaching three, four or five classes a day couple of drop in classes, some Meridian theory in the 10 day teacher training program, up until COVID. And then when COVID happened, locked down was pretty intense here. But I didn’t want to go back to the US. And so I just ended up staying nice.
Todd Mclaughlin
How does it work in relation to your work visa? And then with COVID? I know a lot of folks that move to Indo and usually have to do a visa run after either a six month or one year period. Did that enable you to not have to do visa runs?
Jeremy Strickland
Yeah, well before I was just on one year tourist visas. And on the US you have to leave every six months. Yeah. And then we’re just do like a border run to Nepal. But when COVID happened, you they stopped making you leave the country and you did everything online for a while. Yeah. And then eventually, when they started kicking everything back in again. They gave everybody exit visa and told people to leave and so I left and got them. I was the first time and then I went back to the US for five months. That was the first time I’ve been back to the US and like four years.
Todd Mclaughlin
Are you around visiting family and came back like eight months ago? Are you originally a San Franciscan?
Jeremy Strickland
No. Well, originally I was born in Ohio, just for a couple of years. And then I was pretty much raised in small town in Texas. Henrietta, Texas.
Todd Mclaughlin
Yeah, very cool.
And you have a 20 year bodywork history?
Jeremy Strickland
Yeah, I stumbled into massage school when I was about 19 or 20 years old or something.
Todd Mclaughlin
That’s cool. And what is that story?
Jeremy Strickland
So I actually I had when I was a teenager, I was detailing automobiles. My dad was in the car business. My whole life was a child. And so I wound up at 19 years old, I was like detailing cars, grungy, dirty work, didn’t know what I was going to do with my life or anything. And my dad had started managing a bunch of PT schools at this time, and I came home one day and he had a female friend. And I was complaining about being dirty and sweaty and grungy and not liking my work. She said, almost verbatim. She said in six months from now, you could have a manicures license and be working in an air conditioned salon wearing nice clothes and holding hands with girls all day long. And sure enough, six months later, I’m in a salon polishing fingernails and giving manicures and pedicures. And at one point I see a reflexology chart by the pedicure stage. And that was the first time I’d ever seen that or that concept. Yeah. And so I thought, well, I should maybe learn how to do some reflexology, if I’m giving people foot massages for pedicures or whatever. So I called the local school and asked if there was a class. And I say, Well, we talked about it in our massage training program. But we don’t offer it as an individual class. And so soon thereafter, I’m signed up for the massage therapy program. And I went to that was in 1995.
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I’m really delighted to bring to the podcast today, Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn. She is an experienced acupuncturist. She’s a yoga teacher, she specializes in myofascial trigger point therapy and the practice of science of meridians. She has over 20 years of practice in the field. And she’s got an incredible Instagram page, I really highly recommend you go check it out. It’s at @erin_bodyaware. And then please go look her up on her website, which is scienceofself.com.
I recently bought her book The Science of Self, Yoga, Pathways, Organs and Emotions off of Amazon. I’ll put a link in the description below for all these different sites. It’s really interesting. I have to admit, I’ve been reading it and applying some of the ideas during my own yoga practice. I love the way that she’s been able to bring attention to the use of visualization of the meridians while practicing the yoga poses. I really appreciate how she encourages feeling the energy pathways in the body based on our experience. Then having a little bit of guidance from her to know what the tradition of it all is, has been really fascinating. So for me, this is a huge honor to bring Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn on. Let’s go ahead and start.
I’m so excited to have Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn here today. Dr. Rose Erin, how are you doing today?
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
I’m doing great. I’m sitting by my wood stove up in upstate New York.
Todd McLaughlin
Oh wow. It’s obviously a little bit colder up there than here in Florida. I am in my flip flops and in the air conditioning.
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
Oh, wow. Right?
No, it’s very cold here. Yeah.
Todd McLaughlin
Oh, man. I’m really excited to have this chance to speak with you because I have your book, The Science of Self – Yoga Pathways, Organs and Emotions, and I’m enamored with it. I think what you’ve done with blending your acupuncture career with the yoga together and the visuals of the way that you use the meridian lines from the acupuncture and Chinese medicine system in relation to the yoga poses has been so interesting. I really love your book. I think it’s incredible.
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
Well, thank you.
Todd McLaughlin
You’re welcome. And so so that all of our listeners are aware, you’re an experienced acupuncturist, you’re a yoga teacher, you specialize in myofascial trigger point therapy, and practice science of meridians. And you’ve had an opportunity to learn from your 20 years of practice in the field. And I’m curious, was there a lightbulb moment for you that your study and career path would unfold to where you are now?
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
There was a few but I think as far as combining the energy pathways, which we call meridians, in Chinese medicine, with yoga, those are two different systems. That happened for me, I think that was something that was sort of a seed for a long time, you know, seed and sprout. Where roads and I think when I was studying originally just trigger point manual therapy and yoga before I went to acupuncture school and learned the meridian system. I sensed there is some deeper connection that I needed to find with combining the myofascial pathways that I was learning with the asana. With yoga asana, with an understanding, sort of the emotional connection to it. Like why are these patterns in the body? And why does yoga asana work, to not only heal the body, but to release emotions? Anyone that practices yoga knows that it there is this relationship? Yes. Because you start crying in class sometimes, and then you feel better. Yeah. So I really just had asked my teacher who is Dharma Mitra, my yoga teacher. He’s a master. I mean he’s 83 years old now, and I was pretty close to him. I said I want to learn the energy pathways. And he’s a funny guy. I mean, he will say things like, really short, you know, and then later, you’ll figure out what it meant. But he just said, what you need to do, you need to get a book. He was like, I don’t know that stuff. But you should get a book. He told me to get the Sivananda book that has description of the nadis. And I was like, Oh well, I guess that was a stupid question. But I think he mysteriously put me on the path to go to acupuncture school and learn those pathways. Now every time I see him, he’s always like, are you still doing the needles? You know, acupuncture. And he asked me while I was in school, and yeah, he asked me just last week, are you still doing? And anyway, I think, as I studied the meridian system, which is really overwhelming, in the beginning, yes, it’s a massive amount of very detailed information about the energy pathways in the body. And so it was overwhelming. So I made up these meditations, which I could do during yoga and afterward that worked like body scans. Where you just follow them around the body.
Todd McLaughlin
I don’t want to say it. I guess I was gonna say the word imagination, but you use your power of visualization to body scan and follow the meridian around while you’re in the yoga pose?
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
Exactly. That’s crazy imagination. Yeah. Because whether, I mean, my acupuncture teacher is also a master. And he’s like, it doesn’t matter if these pathways are real or not. You know what I mean? Like, people argue over these things. Like, are they useful? And so they are useful. And anyway, yes, it’s totally imagination, visualization. And as I was doing the asana that I’d been doing for years anyway, I was like, wow, I can feel these pathways. Wow. They’re on some level. They’re really real. Doorways unfolded and it opened a whole new world when I did that.
Todd McLaughlin
Did that light bulb go off more when you started to apply what you’re learning from the Chinese meridian system more so than what you had learned and applied from the myofascial release pressure point work?
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
Well, the thing about the myofascial release, which is brilliant, and that’s what I had studied, the Travell and Simons’ text. That is what I studied when I went to massage school first.
Todd McLaughlin
Yeah, that’s a very dense text isn’t it? I have those books and they are amazing. For those listening that are unfamiliar with those texts I would like to mention that it is a big undertaking to study these. So that’s pretty amazing that you combed through those volumes and went deep into study of them.
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
You really do have to comb through them and I still have the original books that I had bought and they’re you know, heavily underlined. I was just like, wow, what is this? Crazy like that? Any I tell everyone to buy those and just spend the rest of their life reading them.
Todd McLaughlin
They’re absolutely incredible in relation to trigger point and referral points, don’t you think?
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
Yes. Learning about things that it could do to mimic, or that could mimic those pain patterns. Like, you know, you may think you’re having a heart attack, but you actually have a trigger point in your rhomboids or something like that, or your pec major. Yes. And so that was just fascinating to me, but it has left out one component, mostly which, which was emotions. Like stress and anxiety or anger. Like, how did those things relate and what patterns do they specifically create? And that is what the Chinese system is masterful for. Because they understand the connection of those myofascial pathways to the specific internal organs. When you first hear that the liver is has anger, you know, or is associated with anger, people don’t buy it right away. But I explain it to people like, you know, the heart is related to love. Right?
Todd McLaughlin
Yeah. Everyone just sort of intuitively knows that. Because they feel it. Yeah. And that’s one that we accept that. Yet the thought of the connection between anger and my liver, that’s a tough one at first.
Dr. Rose Erin Vaughn
It is, you know, but then if you start to study it and think about it. Then you notice, like, when you get really angry, or there’s something that’s really irritating you that’s not usually there, you notice certain patterns in your body. Like tension around the right side of the ribcage radiating down the right side, or down the IT band or something or up into your jaw. And that’s the liver and gallbladder. The gallbladder pathway, but it’s related to the liver. And then it changes your life, you can’t go back once you see the connection.
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