Your Hosts

Derek Vanderwarker is an experienced sales, marketing, and business development executive with over two decades working with world-leading brands in media, technology, and advertising.

A lifelong athlete, Derek grew up in New Canaan, CT, playing ice hockey and lacrosse since the early 1980s and participating on various county, state, and national championship teams at the high school, college, and club level.

After graduating Hobart College in the late 90s, and while working for a tech startup in Cambridge, MA, Derek was introduced to yoga by his sales colleagues who were heading out to a heated Bikram studio near Boston University — “Eat a light lunch” was the only advice they shared about what awaited him that afternoon. And while that first experience didn’t change him overnight — something clicked.

Years later, after making a move to New York and losing touch with his former Bikram routine, he found himself laid up with a series of random injuries and on a conveyor belt of physical therapy sessions and follow up appointments – an endless cycle of whack-a-mole health care. No single solution, exercise, or rehab approach really worked. And paying other people to solve his issues wasn't going to be a long-term strategy.

While Derek didn't exactly know the source his deep core, pelvis, hip, and leg issues he had a feeling that yoga might be the thing to help him heal his body — without surgery, painkillers, or recreating new injuries on top of old ones, so in 2017 Derek committed to making yoga his primary rehab program — and eventually completing his 200-hour and 300-hour teacher training with Alison West and Jason Crandell over the next four years.

Recognizing few men were doing or mentioning yoga, he launched the Guys Talking Yoga podcast in 2021 to help inspire other guys to consider the practice of yoga through the stories and paths of other men on journeys of their own.

Learn more about Derek, his story, and the origins of the podcast from this March 2024 episode.