If you’re not a devotee of hot yoga, you might want to try it by the end of this one. Endorsing the many benefits is not hard for Nestor but let Yogini master Susan Selckman of Updog Yoga in Towson tell you about the flow of her studio and mat space just a block away from the CVP, where they convened on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to sweat out the small secrets of better health and a beautiful practice. Namaste.
Nestor Aparicio discusses his long-time interest in yoga, influenced by NFL legend Brian Baldinger, and his journey to becoming a dedicated yogi. He highlights the benefits of yoga, including improved flexibility, better sleep, and overall health. Susan Selckman, owner of Up Dog Yoga in Towson, explains her studio’s hot power yoga classes, inspired by Baptiste power yoga. She emphasizes the importance of proper form, breathing, and community. Nestor shares his personal experiences with yoga, including overcoming injuries and the positive impact on his life. They also discuss the accessibility of parking in Towson and the welcoming atmosphere of Up Dog Yoga.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Up Dog Yoga, hot power yoga, Towson, yoga benefits, breathing awareness, physical therapy, yoga community, yoga poses, yoga studio, yoga practice, yoga mat, yoga classes, yoga instructor, yoga sequence, yoga flexibility.
SPEAKERS
Speaker 1, Susan Selckman, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Taos in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are going to wrap things up here with one of my favorite segments with somebody that I’ve been wanting to have on. She does not know this yet. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Merrill of the lottery and the magic eight ball. Today’s my lucky magic eight ball day. We had Pat scary come by as well as Patrick MC qua he’s gonna be mad at me, Q, U, O, W, A, to start up, go see him around the corner and go start your business up over there, or use your business and and use it in Towson. Lot of things being done in Towson to improve Towson. I live in Towson. I love Towson. My buddy Chris has the Towson torch you can subscribe to, but I’ve known about Up Dog studios, because everyone who knows me knows I’m a yogi guy, right? And not everybody’s a yoga guy. Certainly, there are a lot of yoga more yoga girls than yoga guys, in general sense, but I am the original yoga guy because of Brian Baldinger, my life for Buddy, NFL legend, NFL network guy who goes on hot on NFL Network. It’ll just pull his foot up in the air like this, and he’s six foot five, and he’s 60 something years old. You look good, Baldy, trust me, because you’re only met so in 1999 Baldinger and I were doing this show up in New Jersey and NFL films. And baldy is this persuasive man, and he’s large man, and he’s got 10 brothers that played in the NFL. He went to Dookie, he’ll tell you how smart he is, and he said to me, nasty, I got this yoga thing. It’s just Bikram yoga. It’s greatest thing ever. Hot. It’s great. I’m a former athlete. I played on all these hard church it’s good for your body, it’s good for your George, you’re gonna love it. It’s gonna be serve you the rest of your life. And I said, barley, I can’t even reach my toes, bro, you know what I mean, I couldn’t reach my toes, right? And I was 31 at the time, 3031. Time. And he was so adamant about it, he was so persuasive that I came home and I I didn’t Google it. There was no Google. It was 19. I literally found this Yoga Studio in Timonium, in near a chocolatier back where, like the Chili’s was. It was a yoga studio, and I decided to go over and try a class with a man named Moses Brown. Moses, if you’re out there, I love you. I haven’t seen Moses in 25 years, and I went to his class, and it wasn’t hot, it was basic yoga. 1014, points, balance. And I tell everyone in my dear friend John, wants to take yoga. I tell them, It’s geometry and and it’s breathing, if you just, it’s just geometry and breathing with your body. But it took me 26 years to learn this, and 26 years later, I am honored and a pleasure to have a mutual friend with Gigi Papadopoulos. Causey. Susan silkman is the proprietor of Up Dog yo, which is a new thing, right? I mean, this is, this is not a lot of people have come to me and said, I should try your studio. I try Studio x in another location? Everybody knows I’m also Planet Fitness sponsored. So I love my planet fitness people, but you have this interesting thing here. I’ve been on your website. I’ve proved it all out. I figured a Saturday or Sunday, you teach the weekend classes. I know I want to get over to your place, but I’m already converted, but you’re trying to convert others here in Towson to something that has served me really well all my life. Yeah, yes, something like that. Nice to have you on. Tell me about up dog yoga.
Susan Selckman 03:32
Okay, so we’re hot power yoga studio. Hot Power Yoga. Yeah. So one powerful. Yes, you are. Your voice is powerful. I’m trying. So, yeah, so we’re hot power yoga studio and a Baptist inspired sequence, although all the classes are relevant. What that means? What’s Baptiste inspired? So, Baptiste, power yoga, Baron. Baptiste, power yoga. Have you ever heard of it? I
Nestor Aparicio 03:56
think I’ve done it, but I don’t know about Baron. I don’t know the ideology. I mean, bikra Choudhury is just a horrible human being. I’m friends with Andrea Kramer, so I’ve seen the HBO segment. I actually found a Bikram book in my my library. I’m like, I I don’t I like the Bikram series. I don’t love it. It’s never been my thing the 26 and two. If you’re a yoga person, it’s 26 poses done twice in extreme heat. It’s always the same. It’s very McDonald’s he where you can take that class in South Beach or in Berlin or in Sydney, Australia, and it’s the same exact class. I don’t love that repetition part of it, but I do like the sequence. If I’m on the road and I have to do a 26 and two, I’ll be, if I’m in Sarasota, Florida, I’ll go to a studio and sweat it out, and I’ll live through it. But I prefer varieties of spice of life. Susan, you know this, right? I mean, obviously, what would that class be? Is it sort of like a 26 and two or no? Nothing
Susan Selckman 04:53
like a 26 and two. Tell me about it. So it’s a very contemporary practice. Me. Meaning that, you know it’s modern you’re gonna hear modern music. You’re gonna flow in and out of movements. Your teachers going to guide you in through the entire practice. They don’t usually practice with the students, although some teachers do. But most of my teachers teach. They teach it would
Nestor Aparicio 05:19
be very hard from I mean, I’m qualified to be teacher. I could do training and learn how to do it. I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think I could practice and teach simultaneously. And I’m always turned on by teachers that can do it. And now, because I am very eyeball, especially if I don’t know the clay. I love mirrors. I like low lighting. I don’t want to be blinded. I like extreme heat, because I’m weird. I’m from Venezuela. My people are from the equator, and we like to sweat, but I like to be able to even see in a mirror or to my periphery, that I’m are your feet down? Are they up? I like looking at the teacher, and now I’ve become the person in the studio I go to where people look at me, because I have form. You know, they’re like, you don’t fall over as much. You know what you’re supposed to do, and the nuance of every pose is just different, you know? And yeah, and the way you want your neck, your body, your hands, your arms, in, out, every nuance I’ve learned over 25 years will change your workout. Yeah, it’ll change how you feel. It’ll
Susan Selckman 06:16
absolutely change how you feel. And your breath will change how you feel. Well, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 06:21
always breathing. And how instructional is your studio? Because I had a really, really dear friend of mine that I had lunch with last week who is something a little older than me, but he’s fit, and he goes to a gym every day that’s local, and he works out, you know, he pushes weights and he does things, and I think he he’s a candidate for it, because he brought it up to me. He said to me, Hey, you do that yo. His voice a little rap, hey, you do that yoga. Tell me about that yoga. So I’m actually, I sent him a picture, literally last night, and then he know you were coming by today. Susan, by the way, Susan supplements here. She’s an Up Dog studios. They are the yoga downtown Yoga Studio in Towson that I’ve never been to, that I’m ashamed. Should I be ashamed?
Susan Selckman 07:10
No, we don’t even I still time will be open three years in May,
Nestor Aparicio 07:13
three years, yeah, I’ve lived in Towson three years. I’m coming over. I told you I was coming over already. So I sent my dude this picture that I found on the internet, and I didn’t do it to make him like, it’s early morning yoga. I’m gonna hold this up for the camera here. So I found this, and I literally sent this to my buddy, and it’s early morning yoga. So I just want to show you what it is. It’s seven poses to sort of start your day. And I sent this to him, and it’s literally bend over, hold 30 seconds, three times, get into Child’s and just hold it. Child’s Pose was the hardest thing in the world for me to do because I had knee surgery my right knee. I just in the last year, been able to get it back after having surgery 19 years ago. Dog and Cat. Easy for me. Grab your leg in full. You can’t do that, but I can do that. Dog, what up? Dog were down, and then just the sun salutation, basic. Camels a little hard. Camels a little like crazy. So some of these are a little crazy. And I sent it over to him, and he wrote me back, painful to look at. So I mean, if I get a show of hands in the bar. And I say, how many dudes want to go across street, put the beer down and get a yoga right now? Chris might say, Yeah, but, but, like, in a general sense, people are intimidated by yoga. And I know I was too, and I have this big football player, you got to do this. You got to do and then I went over, and here’s Moses, who was this happy, joyful, beautiful man who sat happily and joyfully in front of us and said, we’re going to do this and it’s going to be fun. And when I see people struggling in class and they’re not being taught how to breathe fully breathe, because if you don’t get your breath right, you’re not doing yoga. But Moses said to me the first night, he says, If you can’t smile in the pose, you’re doing it wrong. And that was my first entree. So when I talk to neophytes in my class, they’ll see me at the end of class sweating, and maybe sometimes even recognize a couple couple guys in studio, like, okay, believe you’re here. You Nestor yesterday. Like, becoming here 25 years. Man, this is what I this is what I do. So they asked me for tips, and I always say, breathe. Man, yeah, just keep breathing. Concentrate. Focus, always on your breathing, not on the pose. The pose will come, but the breathing has to happen first. Okay,
Susan Selckman 09:30
nice. Oh,
Nestor Aparicio 09:31
see, I’ll hug you now. Hug you now. See, I’m not I’m almost a yoga instructor, but after 25 years of having it beaten into me, I really I love it, and it’s changed my life, and that’s why I wanted to invite you over to help invite other people to change their lives. Because I I couldn’t touch my toes either. I had a guy here earlier, and I was said, I’m having a yoga lady. Oh, yeah, I can’t even touch my toes. The first thing a guy would say is, I can’t touch my toes. If you go you will
Susan Selckman 09:56
people say that. They’ll say, I can’t do it because I’m not flexible. That’s what I hear all the time. But you’re really coming into yoga to gain strength and flexibility and really to work with your breath and use those skills off of your yoga mat.
Nestor Aparicio 10:13
What got you into yoga? I mean, you were a fitness person, right? I seen your background. You worked Matt, correct, right? And you also have a big background in marketing, right?
Susan Selckman 10:21
Yep, yeah, I am. So I was in North Carolina, and I had a club down there for 15 years, and have been in the fitness industry, a regular club, yeah, yeah. And was always a really super committed fitness person. I coached figure skating at the Naval Academy for 20 years. So my whole life revolved around fitness. And very long story short, I was in a car accident and broke my back, Oh, and did all the therapy, and, you know, yada yada. And finally, my back surgeon, he’s like, You need to take yoga. And I’m like, yoga. I need to do cardio. I need to lift weights. I don’t I don’t have time to do yoga, so
Nestor Aparicio 11:01
you really had to untrain, yeah, the way you thought about fitness, because I
Susan Selckman 11:05
like to pick up really heavy things. And yeah, that was like,
Nestor Aparicio 11:08
You’re, you look like you’re a power person, right? Yeah.
Susan Selckman 11:12
And so he’s like, Well, you know, just let me know how that goes for you if you’re not going to work on your flexibility. And so couple weeks went by and I went to my first yoga class. I hated the class. I hated the teacher. I hate it. I hated the whole thing.
Nestor Aparicio 11:26
And would you hate about it? Just too it’s not enough. It was not challenged. There was
Susan Selckman 11:31
too much talking. And I was just like, stop talking, like, let me try to do this. And so I feel
Nestor Aparicio 11:36
that way about aerobics, like it’s way too complex. I mean, I’ve tried, yeah, and there’s pretty girls, everybody’s I feel like a jerk because I don’t know the moves. And i i quacked out of that. I don’t like bikes and spin. I don’t like anything down there, you know, just in general, and I don’t like anything. It’s over and over and over again. This is not, I don’t like, you know, it’s not my thing,
Susan Selckman 11:56
yeah. And so I, you know, I took this class, and I was not loving it, and then the next day, I felt completely different, Oh, yeah. And so I went back, kept going back, going back, going back. And what do you mean different? Like I could bend over, I wasn’t in pain. I felt like I was starting to get range of motion back that I had done physical therapy, like I had done all of the work and so, so I just kept going. And then I really fell in love with my teacher, and then I wasn’t doing yoga that long, like maybe a year. And she said to me, have you ever thought about teaching because she knew I was like a personal trainer, and you weren’t doing hotter power, you were just doing basic, basic yoga, okay? And I’m like, Yeah, you know, I don’t know. And so, and then I started exploring other studios, and then I found hot power yoga, and for me, that really resonated, because of the figure skating background. Well, it’s athletic, yeah? And there’s just, like, the the movement, like the freedom of the movement. I really liked that
Nestor Aparicio 13:00
dancer. Yeah, little dancer. You got going, yeah, just skating.
Susan Selckman 13:04
But, no, I’m terrible dancer. But anyway, just,
Nestor Aparicio 13:07
I just work in a standing leg form, and I
Susan Selckman 13:11
fell in love with it. And then, you know, went to teacher training and taught all around the Baltimore area for many years. And then there’s, there’s a blog on my website. I won’t get into it here, but there’s a blog on my website. So I had a life changing thing happen in my life, and I decided that I was going to open the studio because I I truly felt and believe that yoga can change people’s lives, whether they’re good at it, whether they’re flexible, whether they’re not just do it because of the the way that you learn to manage your life, your emotions, your observations when you’re off your yoga mat. And so
Nestor Aparicio 13:53
my safe space, yeah, my yoga mat, yeah, your yoga
Susan Selckman 13:57
mat. Like people think that the yoga mats for yoga, but everyone kind of throws down all of their heaviness and a lot of things that are in their life. I
Nestor Aparicio 14:06
have five yoga mats in my life. You ready? So in my office, where I broadcast every day, I have a mat and a mirror in my office for form, and I have a yoga a dedicated yoga room in the back that we call the yoga room was a production room. That is that I don’t use enough, and I have a space heater to do my own thing. I have done that. I did that on my own when it was icy six weeks ago. I loved it. I like the class environment, but I can be self LED. I know what I’m doing at this point, and I can make the room hot. And there I can do that in a hotel room in Des Moines, if I in a courtyard on the if I want a lot of discipline with a towel on the floor, which I’ve done before too. I hurt my back during COVID, so I practiced with Kim Manfredi at at Midtown yoga and then Charm City yoga that became sold at Federal Hill. And when the and I was really my wife had cancer in 14 and 15. So my wife had cancer, it was very it was a destination for me to go away from her hospital and away from her battle. And in 1617, and 18, when I was put my life back together after her illness, I became very devoted, and it was very music centric. Packed my bag. I walked six blocks to the studio. I listened to music on the way down, swept my ass off, walked back at the Inner Harbor. Did that for five years, and then the plague happened. I was in great shape when the plague happened, and I got, I don’t say sedentary, but we all did, right? I mean, we all did. I got hurt sitting too much. I was sitting. I didn’t have a stand desk. Thank you to David Noll and everybody at Maryland, because he got me a desk and Bill Cole, they’re like, Dude, you need to stand at a sit desk. So then I stood, SAT, stood, set so I but my back was injured badly in September 2021, I went on a road trip and hurt my back on it with with luggage like so much, I was on the floor crying, needed an MRI. My wife had to come up for a vacation scrape me up. I couldn’t move for four months. I was incapacitated. October, November, December, January of 21 so we’re going back. So it took me about a year and a half was sitting on my ass during the plague to get completely screwed up, to get violently injured. The guy at GBMC said he was going to cut on me between the third and fourth in my back. L3 l4 wrenched, herniated disc and degenerative whatever the thing is, right, sends me to pt. And when I went to PT in my building downtown, could barely get up and down the elevators. Is january 22, three years and two months ago, every single thing I did in this PT class and this beautiful girl was my PT girl, I never saw her. She never saw me because we had a mask on the I don’t she walked in. I wouldn’t even know what she looked I only saw her face once when she once when she pulled her mask down to smile. I don’t even really know what she looked like, but I work with her every day for eight weeks to try to, like, get out of jail, yeah, to be able to work, to be able to get in and out of the shower, to be able to drive you want to sit on, to be able to fly for an hour on a plane just to sit still, hurt like hell. Everything hurt, and everything I did in PT was yoga. Yep, every single thing I was doing there was bird dog against the chair. It was just yoga poses without the heat. And I said to this young lady, I’m like, when I get my strength back, I’m getting on a hot mat. I’m never getting off it again. So I spent 20 years on a mat and got hurt and got downtime, and it got sent to the clink, and the current yoga studio I go to has a physical therapy thing in the parking lot. And every time I pull up, I’m like, I can either go there or go there. I’m gonna go there. So it is interesting. We’ve had the same journey of injury and pt. And PT is yoga, and yoga is pt. And I thought, Well, I’m gonna do this on my own, to walk in instead of getting crowd in, and I’m gonna go in out of joy. The thing that I’ve noticed the most, I’m 56 now, this was not the case in my 30s or even my 40s, but what the last three years my dedication to doing this. I’m never sore. I’m never a lactic acid because I never allow myself to get sore. I will be on the mat tonight, and I’ll be on the mat with you over the weekend. So the sleep part of it, the part where I get my life back, that friends of mine and business associates, they don’t understand that I go to bed every night sometime between nine and 10, and I wake up every night before four, usually between two and three. Really, I sleep four to five hours a day. Sometimes I get a little siesta in and when I’m tired, I’ll go to bed. Sometimes I’ll take a two hour nap, no the day, but that’s twice a month, maybe, but I am a four to five hour a day sleeper because yoga allows me to sleep better, Rem better, function, better, eat better, hydrate, better, prepare myself for class better, where I’m not eating crap.
Susan Selckman 19:19
So you’re super high energy. How do you do in Shavasana?
Nestor Aparicio 19:24
Pretty well, if the room’s hot enough and I get tired enough. If I’m not hot enough and not tired enough, I sit there and count the sheep on the ceiling and towel off. And you know, I always did better with Omi rooms and candlelit rooms and mantra rooms, like I do better with that, but I love me some Tom Petty, some rock and roll, some Pearl Jam, yoga. I mean, I can do all of that, but for me, it the sequence is key. It’s fundamental. For me, if it’s an hour class, it has to be 2020, you know, moving 20, standing 20, land. If it’s an hour and a half. Half even better, 3030, 30. I’m better with that. I like longer classes, but I love what you do. I love hot I can’t wait to come to your studio. What am I gonna find when I come to your studio?
Susan Selckman 20:10
The community is amazing. The people that come in there. There’s not a person that walks through the door that I’m not happy to see, like really friendly, great
Nestor Aparicio 20:19
that leaves me out. So they’re
Susan Selckman 20:22
super super friendly. It’s hot good. I always get worried when people come to class and they walk in and they’re like, it’s hot in here, and I’m like, it’s hot yoga. And they’ll go, oh, people
Nestor Aparicio 20:31
important, because I could tell them, but I want, I want them to hear it from you. You’re the, you’re the technician here.
Susan Selckman 20:38
Yeah. So, you know, from a physiological standpoint, if you took a hot yoga class and paired it next to a non hot the then it’s negligible, really the advantage of the heat, except that when people are already feeling a little bit out of sorts, whether they’re tight in their muscles or they actually have an injury, the heat
Nestor Aparicio 21:01
helps. You can go further. You can go deeper, further, longer,
Susan Selckman 21:06
and you have to be careful with that too, right? You don’t want people to have like, a false sense of flexibility because they’re super hot. So there’s, like, a good fine line. That’s why all the teachers my staff is really good, really great. Teachers, super friendly, super knowledgeable, their forms,
Nestor Aparicio 21:23
everything it is, and getting out over your leg, making sure that you square. And that’s what geometry. I’m terrible at math, terrible geometry. But it literally is about angles. It’s about triangles and squares, yeah, if you and circles to some degree, but triangles and squares and the straightness of your back and the angle of your eyes and your and your breath,
Susan Selckman 21:44
breathing awareness, like a lot of people, takes a long time for that. It does. It takes a long time. I’m glad you have. None of
Nestor Aparicio 21:51
us know our bodies as well as like, I’m learning it every day, every day, every day,
Susan Selckman 21:56
people think that they’re doing a certain thing and, you cue them, and they’re like, and they have that, like, smile on their face. They’re like, Oh, that’s what you mean. But, yeah, I mean, there’s just a lot to it. But this studio, you’re just gonna find really good people, really good teachers. It’s hot. It’s not Inferno hot, but it’s hot. There’s no fans, so you’re gonna be warm, yeah. And then we have other stuff that’s unheated. Some Like It Hot flow. I like hot yoga. I have a lot of ladies that’ll come in that are my age, maybe a little bit younger, and they’re like, I can’t do hot yoga. And I’m like, just try. And they fall in love with it, like you have to. It’s a release.
Nestor Aparicio 22:34
It is. It’s an unbelievable it’s a place you go. It literally, it’s, it can be a little bit like a carnival ride once you get good at it. Yeah, you look forward to it. You look forward to doing it. You I’m on the mat, and a lot of times I’m thinking about the Chinese food I’m gonna have when I’m done to celebrate. And I’m not a water drinker in class. I’m a hydrator ahead of class. But I think the other part of it, it helps my sleep, unbelievable for my diet, because you just cannot eat crappy. You just cannot drink crappy and go. You just can’t No And can I tell you her story? Sure, first Bikram class ever took in my life. Oh, no. Honest to God, Baldi had told me about Bikram and the Bikram Timonium had an open yet a guy named Reggie opened that in about 2001 and between that 99 and oh one period Bikram was only in a DC studio, and I had never driven down there. And I was on a trip to Atlanta. It was a weekend that the Terps won the national championship. How about that? It was, I was in Atlanta that weekend, and there was a Bikram studio there in like a suburb, and had a car, and I looked it up, and I drove over to the studio in a strip mall. I had never done a hot a Bikram class. I’d done hot, but I’d never done Bikram, the Bikram flow. Right? Parked my car and I went in. There was a beautiful woman in there, gonna teach us mirrors, then my little space. And there were maybe six or eight people in the classes a Saturday, 10am morning class. I was there for basketball. Was the Final Four weekend, so I was there at 10 o’clock that morning. And there was an older gentleman on the mat to my right. Welcome to pick them yoga. How many of you first time yoga? Man, I shook myself, I’m yoga, but I’ve been here before, and it guys, yeah, I’m here. Does this thing. We’re up, we’re down, doing all the stuff we’re doing. Dude, turn green. Oh no. Passed out on the mat. They called the paramedics. Oh, no, that’s vertical. No, it’s the first time I was in the victim. I and the guy was, like, palpitating a little bit. He was like, it was too hot. It was too much. He shed. No, he had no business being in there. He just really did. But the woman that was trying cold compresses on his like, just trying to cool him off, right? And she’s talking to him in the. Glasses stopped, and we’re all like, it was like a football injury. We’re all like, around and we’re like, are you okay? And he’s kind of happy he wasn’t dying, but he would we called the paramedics. We were worried about him, right? And she said to him, What did you eat before you came to know? He said, Well, I had three cups of coffee. Oh, no, he had three cups of coffee. And I’m like, All right, I mean, you didn’t read the you didn’t read anything about this class before you came, right? But that happens a lot. That happened the first class ever went into that’s true. It’s never happened since. It’s not, it’s not, it’s never happened Suza studio, no, but it’s, it’s a, it’s a cautionary tale of you are what you eat.
Susan Selckman 25:38
Yeah? And, you know, the great thing about yogas is just brings your awareness forward. So even people that like to have whatever they like to eat, their awareness through yoga is not three
Nestor Aparicio 25:49
hours before class. If you’re taking a seven o’clock class, you are done eating at 330 you’re not eating onions, you’re not eating things are gonna make you flatulent. There’s no black beans, there’s no onions, there’s no mushrooms on game day. You know, we gotta play. You gotta, you gotta do it the right way. But Susan self is here. Her studio is called up dog studios. It’s behind something, but in front of something, and there’s a where is
Susan Selckman 26:13
it? It’s super easy to find. So we’re in the third floor of the Bandidos building. So okay, yeah, Bandidos, like has the beautiful painting and the mural on the side. So we’re on the third floor of that. You just come in the lobby and you can has an elevator. You can take three flights of stairs to warm up. And studio is beautiful.
Nestor Aparicio 26:29
It’s really, I am going to give you the honest to God truth as to why, because I’ve known you. Of you for a year. Gigi has been trying to put this cheese. Is my childhood friend, and she’s a veteran of the show. She’s Zumba, Zoom bazoo, yes, she’s trying to get me Zumba. And I’m like, I do hot yoga. Oh, I’ve been trying to take her to hot yoga. She’s been trying to get me to Zumba. Yeah. So somewhere in there, we’re gonna get our old, 56 year old bodies over there and do this. But the reason I haven’t been to your studio, in addition to just being involved elsewhere in Planet Fitness. The reason I didn’t come is I’m like, wait, nowhere to park over there. Italson, ain’t no parking in Towson. And literally, you need to move this so many advice to you for your website, your parking thing is shaded. Chris, listen, is from business shaded all the way at the bottom. And I clicked on it, and it turns out there’s, like, a lot of free parking in Towson, a ton and I, and I got to get with Nancy over here at the at the chamber commerce, and I’ll get with Melody Melanie here. Everybody free parking in Towson, I didn’t realize, like, even after six o’clock at night, if I’m I’m gonna take primarily nighttime classes. Yeah, right. So it’s always going to be free. It’s always free. And then on Saturday and Sunday morning, at 930 in the morning, I’m like, I’m not gonna have any problem parking, being a student at your at your side. And that was the thing that really was a, yeah, a bias that I had that was fake news. It
Susan Selckman 27:55
was definitely a bias that I had when I when I was renovating the studio and building the studio. You’re worried somebody like me would be around that wouldn’t want to call I was, I was definitely worried that, you know, people like to kind of pull up, and you can pull right up and play it pay on a parking lot. And I was worried about that being a deterrent. It hasn’t been. Our classes are full, and there’s a lot of really great parking in Towson, you just have to kind of look I think it’s a confusing place, because some lots say one thing and the street says another. And people get they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 28:26
I think everybody’s come out here for a court case in some case, or jury or this or that, and been, like, a little freaked out at 10 o’clock in the morning. Yeah, I’m going back 30 years where I’ve thought, like, I’ve had this and I’ve owned the business in Towson for 28 years. I’m not in the business district, but there was always, there’s a thought that parking is more difficult here than it is by a lot. And I lived in downtown Baltimore for 20 years too, you know. So parking is the where am I going to park? Is a thought. I don’t think I have that problem with you anymore, and I’ll park right in front of CVP here, not your mama’s. I mean, I don’t think about it like that, but you’re 20 feet away, and I’ve never thought, well, look what another moment was your CVP, because it can’t park. Why would I think that way about you?
Susan Selckman 29:07
Yeah, it’s it. It definitely was a hurdle to get over. But we have, like, zero parking issues at all. This is a ton of free parking. What’s
Nestor Aparicio 29:15
your favorite? Favorite, favorite party, yoga, and I’ll tell you mine. Go ahead,
Susan Selckman 29:20
I really like the balance series, and I like to do my favorite posture would be half moon. And I also like to do binds, like bird of paradise and bound half moon and those kinds of things.
Nestor Aparicio 29:30
People think I like falling star. I like falling star because it gets my back to crack, oh yeah. And I got to get my back to crack, like, right now I’m locked. And if I do this really freaky deaky thing with my leg, you’ll hear it crack there. So it just my hip cracked. So my hip is my problem with my back, I would say my that’s my favorite pose, probably. But my favorite thing about hot yoga is that I’m 56 I’m young, I’m sexy, I’m fit. You know? Oh, you are I look good. I fit in my clothes. Things work, all my male parts, and things work, and things are normal. There you go. Normalize me. It’s good for I feel healthy when I do yoga. And when I don’t do yoga, I feel sluggish. I sleep. More
Susan Selckman 30:20
people say all the time, they say, it’s life changing. I teach a class makes
Nestor Aparicio 30:25
me feel freaking good. People say, What do you I sleep four hours a night, and I get on a yoga mat four or five days a week, and I sweat my nuts off and and I find my Creator, and then I have a shavasta that you think I don’t enjoy sometimes I don’t. But something, you know, I
Susan Selckman 30:42
think my I might have to simmer you down. You think I’m anti Shavasana? Do you know I don’t think you’re anti shavasana, but I don’t know. We’ll work
Nestor Aparicio 30:49
on your thing. It settles me down. Probably the most would be like acupuncture or reflexology. You know, Dana gets a hold of my feet and puts the death lock on me absolutely. That’ll calm me down a little bit.
Susan Selckman 31:00
Yeah, I love it. I am a big acupuncture believer. I have the best acupuncture you’re
Nestor Aparicio 31:05
gonna turn me into a yoga teacher that teaches heavy metal yoga. So we have a yoga school. We’ll do like a Metallica class. I don’t like Metallica that much, but we’ll do one of those. You’ll
Susan Selckman 31:15
love my playlist. I have the most dope playlist out there. What’s on it promise, everything from Red Hot Chili Peppers to heart to Led Zeppelin to instrument. See
Nestor Aparicio 31:27
if you’re doing a zeppelin class. One of my all time favorite teachers. I’m not going to name her. She has left me. She’s not my teacher anymore. Years ago, but the first time I ever walked into her class, first thought she was just this beautiful woman who had a beautiful voice. She was one of my favorite teachers, but the first time I came into class with her, I’ll never forget I put my math in. I’m like, Oh my God, that woman’s beautiful. And look at all these, these students in yours. It was a new studio, and the first song she played was Leonard Skinner Tuesdays gone. And it just had this vibe and this work into and I’m like, I’m gonna like it here, you know? So the first song you hear is usually the thing that keeps you in the bar. I
Susan Selckman 32:08
think, yeah, right. It’s how you start and how you end. I love it, all right. Weekend,
Nestor Aparicio 32:11
Susan seckman is here up dog yoga. Tell me how to find you online. Join your classes. You have, like, a $49 What is your introductory Yep, there’s
Susan Selckman 32:20
a $49.02 weeks of unlimited classes to try out all of them. Or you can just do a drop in. You can find us on Up Dog studios.com, and we’re on Allegheny Avenue in the Bandidos building on the third floor.
Nestor Aparicio 32:34
I took a visitor yoga class last year in Sarasota. The Orioles don’t give me a credential, so I am Mr. Daisy for Luke Jones, our reporter. So I would drop Luke off at the front door of the stadium. It was a year ago this week in Sarasota, and I Googled a hot yoga studio about a mile away. And I’m, I’m a perv online when it comes to food or whether I’m gonna go somewhere where, you know, like, I look at everything, I look everything up, and I looked at the studio, and I looked at the pictures, and I’m like, I’m gonna go to this place. And it was 20 bucks, 25 bucks, and you like, you pay for the first class, and you got the second one free. I still haven’t taken the second one, but I went there that night, and I dropped Luke off, and it had this atrium glass in the front, and the studio was black. It was like a goth club. It was dark, all black. And when I went in, the floor had day glow lines, yeah, that were that were triangles. It looked like little coffins, you know. So I went in, and I picked the one in the front, in front of the mirror, because I like to look at my I like to see my form. I like to see the mirror, you know. And it was so dark in there that I couldn’t even see myself. And I got in early because I’m, you know, new to clay. They didn’t have showers. And this place was a very basic place, and was in a strip mall, a very popular eatery in a strip mall too. So it’s, like, kind of hard to park and get in. I got in there, and I got on to the mat, and I didn’t meet anybody or say anything. And when I got onto the mat, every one of those squares filled up. It was packed. So it was like 48 bodies. It was like 12 by four inch to inch. And I’m telling you, they were like coffins. It was like, I felt like, if I if I went out, I was gonna hit people. And I went into that class, and it was only chanty. Everybody in the class was there and knew it. And I did an hour and a half, and I baked out on that mat, and I was the last one to get up, because I’m old. I’m I am this the last person to leave the mat. So you think I’m, like, not calm, if it’s hot enough, I’ll be the I’ll be the oldest guy in the last guy to get it. It’s the last guy to leave. And I went back, and I tout off, and it was pouring rain outside, so the game got canceled in Sarasota, and I heard the pitter patter of the rain. I’m soaking wet, and I’m on vacation. I’m in a hotel, and I walked I was the last guy there, and the woman was at the front with a. You stand or whatever, and I’m like, Hey, were you the teacher? Because I couldn’t, you couldn’t see anything. She’s like, Yes, I was. I’m like, I don’t even know what you look like, I said. But that was just one great class. So the best class I’ve had in years was this class I took in Sarasota last year as a traveling student. I
Speaker 1 35:21
bet you were at a Baptist studio. I bet you it was hot yoga. It was it was hot they’re
Susan Selckman 35:26
really popular in Sarasota.
Nestor Aparicio 35:28
It was just nasty. It was awesome. Perfect. Susan self was here. I hope she can sweat me down. Over to up dog studios. Come on to Towson. I guess the moral story today is to conclude, Pat scary was here today. We have Patrick mcquan here today from startup, Susan southman here. We’re here at CVP. The reason Melanie couldn’t be with us, she got the flu day before yesterday. But come on out to CVP support downtown Towson. There’s plenty of free parking, right, as you would point out, right? Tons. And this is a place where you open your Why did you open your business in Towson? I like the
Susan Selckman 36:02
town. I didn’t go to Towson, but I just love the town, and I felt like it had, like a friendly vibe, and central to really central. I like that people are walking and I wasn’t ready to be in the city and and it was just an opportunity and good timing. Three
Nestor Aparicio 36:20
years she’s been out here. Come see her, keep her here. 30 years more, maybe you’ll live 30 years longer. I don’t know that you’re ever gonna meet anybody that’s gonna endorse hot yoga quite the way I just did, because I, I It’s changed my life in such a great way. And I don’t get to talk about it much, because when I bring it up, people like you yoga. You do yoga thing or whatever. I’m like, yeah, if you know, people like to come up and say, you don’t look 56 you look at, you know, they don’t want to really compliment me and dudes and all that. But it is because of yoga. It’s not and maybe it’s jeans, maybe it’s dot, you know, habits and whatever. But without yoga, I was broken. Literally. I got I got broken after stopping after 20 years. Yeah, I believe you. So it’s um Nils Lofgren, my buddy from the E Street Band has had he was a gymnast, so he had both of his hips replaced. And I remember when he got his hips replaced 20 years ago, he said to me on a radio interview, he’s like Ness, it’s a life sentence, is what he told me the rehab, the rehab process, he said it’s a life sentence that if you get it away from you, your hips will start to hurt. You know, whatever that thing is, feed it. And yoga has been a thing. It’s fed my soul. So I appreciate you. Appreciate you. All right, let’s get over to Wild Dog. Let’s, let’s get to Towson and get this thing going. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. It’s our friends at the magic eight ball. By the way, you’re lucky. 58 Peter bolware, number there for you. We had some winners over here, table number two earlier. My thanks to everybody at the Maryland lottery. We’re going to be at Essex at Pizza John’s next Friday. I’m going to eat my pizza earlier, so when I get on the mat at six o’clock, I’m done. We’re going to be pizza John’s next we’ve got great guests. Dave shine is going to be out with us. Luke Jones is going to be out with us next Friday. If you want to talk baseball, we’re doing that two weeks from today. I ain’t going to be here no more. I’m gonna show my passport to the nice Royal Canadian mounting man at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo. We’re gonna be at Toronto for opening day two weeks from now. I’m going to Toronto to jam Getty, hopefully, and and Anthony Santander, who the Orioles lowballed apparently. I am Nestor. We are wnst am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Signing off from CVP. We are W, N, S, T, AM, 1570 Towson, Baltimore, we never stop talking. Baltimore, positive. You.
