Eddie Stern has spent decades at the centre of modern yoga and now finds himself quietly at odds with much of what it has become. A long-time student and teacher in the Ashtanga lineage and founder of the Broome Street Temple in New York City, he has now helped evolve a strand of practice that is deeply traditional yet unexpectedly progressive. In this conversation we talk about Yoga Sangraha, what it feels like as a well-known teacher to suddenly lose students, why strong asana is no longer central to his own practice, and whether he carries regrets about not speaking sooner about the Pattabhi Jois scandal.

It’s a candid, wide-ranging conversation about lineage, responsibility and the transitions happening inside modern yoga. Eddie reflects on authority, devotion, doubt and the slow shift some long-time practitioners are now making toward breath, nervous system regulation and longevity. If yoga is going to evolve rather than simply repeat itself, conversations like this are part of that process.