#51: Wade Oakley on The Long Game of Yoga, Strength and Devotion

In this wide ranging conversation Scott Johnson talks to Wade Oakley, yoga teacher, strength coach and long-time Ashtanga practitioner, about what it means to sustain a practice across a whole life. Among many honest, personal and thoughtful exchanges, Wade shares how strength training, injury and repeated trips to Mysore have shaped not just his body but his understanding of what devotion to practice really means.

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00:00 Introduction 

01:03 When did you know yoga would be part of your life?

03:29 The fish and the hook — on being slowly caught by practice

05:41 What came before yoga — golf, back injury and the gym

09:14 Did yoga heal the shoulder? 

10:23 The early years at UVA — yoga, boxing gloves and John Bultman

13:09 Going to India for the first time

15:17 The spiritual side — temples, scepticism and what study does over time

16:26 Practicing with Saraswati — a supercharged window

20:07 How Mysore shifts your sense of what life can look like

22:00 The corporate years — management consulting, biotech and eight trips to Mysore

24:07 Finding your own way through the dogmatic wormhole

26:08 Thinking about longevity — why people stop and how to stay in

29:11 What curiosity in Mysore planted — watching practitioners who could float

31:00 The skiing accident, the knee surgery and what it unlocked

36:03 Learning to feel the body in a new way

38:38 How rehabilitation brought strength work back in

42:48 Building a stronger body and what it changed in backbending

46:18 Safety, surrender and what strength makes possible in practice

48:34 Is the practice still a sadhana?

52:49 Yoga, strength culture and keeping the yoga as the yoga

55:13 The sledgehammer — finding the right tool for the right nail

57:34 When practice becomes less physical and more spacious

01:03:56 What Wade would leave people with — turn towards the friction

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About Wade Oakley

Wade Oakley began practicing Ashtanga Yoga in 2012 at the University of Virginia under Certified teacher John Bultman. He went on to study directly with R. Sharath Jois in Mysore, India across many extended trips, receiving Level 2 Authorization in 2018 and learning Advanced B before Sharath's passing. In honour of his late teacher, Wade strives to practice and teach in the spirit and tradition Sharath conveyed in Mysore and around the world.

As a teacher, Wade seeks to instil curiosity and a sense of personal ownership in each student's yoga journey. His own path has led him into deep exploration beyond the mat, across strength training, injury prevention, nutrition and recovery, areas he sees not as departures from practice but as ways of expanding what practice can hold. He believes an Ashtanga yoga practice can be a boundlessly enriching part of anyone's life.

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"Wade is someone who I really connected to when we met last year after recording the Sharath podcasts. We really connected and I loved his approach to longevity in yoga. What I appreciate most is his honesty. He's not selling a system. He's sharing what he's actually found, in his body, over years of real practice and work. If longevity in practice matters to you, I think this conversation will resonate."

Scott Johnson, 2025