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How do you describe Ronnie Teasdale? Figuring out how to capture him in conversation and in writing, that’s the problem I ran into after spending a few hours with him recording the podcast.
Ronnie grew up in Michigan playing hockey practically every day of his life until he was 23 years old. At the height of his hockey “career,” he was what I’d call an 
“enforcer” — the guy you’d put in to take out (by brute force) whatever player on the other team was scoring goals or causing problems. Sports, to him, were a zero-sum game. Someone wins, someone loses — and doing anything necessary to win was just part of the game.
When he moved west to California, he did so to pursue a more holistic calling. With degrees in psychology and exercise science from Oakland University, Ronnie opened a gym, started studying yoga, and left his hockey and win at all costs mindset behind.
Then he discovered CrossFit, the sport of fitness. Since he already knew how to win, this was a way to combine his prior-life mindset with his newfound passion for fitness. He opened a new gym called CrossFit Mean Streets, and became known in the world of CrossFit as a fierce competitor, bad boy, and also a super-fit human.
But there was a side to Ronnie that no one really knew — a side that he talks about a lot in our conversation. His quest has always been to optimize human performance, and he has been able to achieve that since leaving hockey with quite unorthodox methods involving recovery, rejuvenation, and optimization rather than super hard or aggressive training.
Ronnie now is finishing up his Kundalini Yoga teacher training, has just changed his name to his new spiritual name, Ravi Chander, and spends much of his time reading, studying, and developing expertise and personal experience in what he calls “humanology.”
This is the longest podcast I’ve ever recorded, and it’s a conversation I enjoyed thoroughly. We get into “weird” stuff right out of the gate, though Ronnie is about as un-weird as it gets. It opened my eyes to many new intriguing concepts such as optimizing performance without training, as well sound healing and sunlight. Enjoy!
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Episode Notes – #140: Ronnie Teasdale
- How Ronnie has recently ordered a spiritual name from the 3HO Foundation
- Ra – the ancient Egyptian sun god
- Ronnie’s and Andy’s connection through CrossFit and his affiliate, CrossFit Mean Streets
- How his 20 years of experience as a hockey player shaped his CrossFit persona
- Once Ronnie learned about CrossFit being “the sport of fitness”, his “hockey Ronnie” mentality came out, and he used that to compete (and win) multiple CrossFit competitions and qualify for Regionals six times.
- Injuries came often and early on after starting CrossFit (shoulders were a wreck after years of abuse from hockey).
- Injuries prevented him from training with the intensity and duration that other competitors did. So he looked elsewhere – diet, sleep, sun, water, music, breathing, recovery, movement technique, earthing – to make up for his lack of training.
- Ronnie’s intentional lack of intensity during training – how members of his gym would regularly beat him in normal everyday workouts.
- Ronnie’s experimentation with many different diets. Food quality became the most important factor.
- Question: Once you’re good at everything physically, what do you train to continue to improve?
- Changing your thinking and language – reframing obstacles as opportunities.
- Sound frequencies that are in harmony with your body and cells – solfeggio frequencies and binaural beats.
- The science of cymatics.
- Ronnie’s study of “humanology” – the human condition, psychology, sound, light, energy
- Sound healing
- Ronnie is finishing up his Kundalini Yoga teacher training – using your body as a piece of technology.
- Spartan Race – Joe DiStefano, head of training and development for Spartan Race
- Talking about yourself in 3rd person – Ricky Henderson
- Kundalini – the mother of all yogas – chanting, body positions, breathing, meditation – brought to the United States by Yogi Bhajan
- “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson
- Kundalini yoga studios in Los Angeles – Yoga West, RaMa Yoga Institute
- Yoga as a meditation practice.
- How our obsessive need for scientific proof gets in the way of our intuitive process and trusting ourselves to choose for ourselves (without proof).
- Peak Brain Institute – training for the brain through EGG brain mapping and neurofeedback to treat things like autism, migraines, post-traumatic stress, hyperactivity, seizures, concussions, etc.
- Unicycling, Slacklining – one way of learning the “old fashioned” way. Learning a new physical skill that challenges the mind to create new neural pathways.
- The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald H. Pollack. Here’s the Ted Talk.
- Getting raw, unfiltered, untreated spring water. Live Spring Water.
- Changing the structure of your water and DNA based on energetic focus, blessing, words.
- An exercise to feel the energy your hands create.
- Using Tai Chi, Qigong, to develop your energetic power.
- Josh Waitzkin – push hands champion, movie Searching for Bobby Fischer was based on his life.
- Using Himalayan or Celtic sea salt to bring life, silica, and minerals back to your purified water, shifting its energy.
- How food is more than just physical nutrients. When we eat, we are consuming life, energy, consciousness, and light.
- How to get very specific with your breath for maximal performance. Example: Wall ball exercise from CrossFit.
- Optimizing your breathing efficiency by developing your capacity to handle higher levels of CO2. For more info, listen to this podcast on Buteyko breathing with Patrick McKeown.
- The air we share. The quality of air in the cities we live in.
- Sunbathing for health – regular exposure to life-force and full-light spectrum.
- “Cancering” – a concept of cancer introduced to Andy by Eric Remensperger, on podcast #105
Connect with Ronnie
Have a question? Have feedback? Want to connect?
Email Andy at podcast@wholelifechallenge.com, or
Connect on social media with Andy directly at Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook
Leave a podcast review – bit.ly/andypetranekpodcast
If you enjoyed this podcast, here are some others to check out:
105: Eric Remensperger — Curing Cancer, Saving Yourself
122: Chris Kresser — NY Times Bestselling Author of “Unconventional Medicine”
Andy is a certified CHEK Practitioner and holistic lifestyle coach. He holds a spectrum of certifications from CrossFit and is also a Vivobarefoot certified running coach. He has trained as a Zen buddhist and graduated with a Master’s degree in spiritual psychology from the University of Santa Monica.
Andy founded CrossFit LA one of the first and most successful CrossFit training centers in the world and the first to be featured in national media. He is the co-founder of the Whole Life Challenge, Inc, currently its president, and is also a consultant and life/business coach. Andy lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Julia, and son, Dashel.
