“You can finish second series. You just need a guide.”
John Campbell’s words ricocheted throughout my head for months. Shortly before leaving the DC area I ventured to a special practice with him and like many of the great visiting teachers I’d been to see before, he managed to see right through my pretty backbends.
Busted.
Indeed I was stuck; stuck practicing a certain way, stuck practicing a lot of primary before my second, stuck where I was in second, and stuck in this feeling that there was no way in hell I’d ever move on. At the time I was coming on about two years of predominantly home practice, first under the guidance of the like-no-other teacher David Garrigues, and then under, well, no one, or the vestiges of what I’d learned from DG (which, in fairness go a long away). I’d possessed an “epic pass” of sorts to drop in at any of the five or so mysore programs in the DC area as a once a week supplement to my otherwise home practice. Which studio would I visit this Sunday? Well, it might depend on how late I wanted to sleep (some shalas began earlier than others) or if there was a friend somewhere I wanted to meet. I floated from room to room almost as much as I did on the mat. I had variety but lacked consistent instruction with anyone for a good period of time.
And boy did I ever get around.
Indeed, I became something of an ashtanga weekend workshop slut. DC and surrounding area was fortunate to receive visits from the creme de la creme: David Robson, Tim Miller, David Keil, John Campbell, David Garrigues—you name it, I was there; I was everywhere. Instead of doing a walk of shame, I just blogged about these weekends unabashedly; I made progress in words, but not on my mat.
Turns out to move on I’d need to move two time zones away to a ski town in Utah, where I hoped I’d find some company for my practice in nearby Salt Lake City. Or maybe I’d have to choose from among the above names of teachers and juggle a few trips to see them throughout the year with my regular family life. I never expected that here in SLC, in a small mysore room crammed into the corner of a climbing gym, one without its own bumper sticker-worthy logo, web address, Instagram account, hashtags, monthly newsletter, burnout t-shirt line, Facebook page or moonday magnets I’d find exactly what I’d been missing—
a guide.
Well, at first all I saw was a young guy still in his twenties with tattoos and piercings and a heroin addict past, someone no one has heard of (although in Charlottesville they’ll object to that, and he’s Authorized level 2, with five years’ worth of trips to Mysore and intensive time with Richard Freeman under this belt), no Facebook account, and possessing an Instagram account so barely used it grows weeds between posts (often involving cats).
It’s about a year since I began practicing with Sammy Brown (who co-leads the mysore program at the Front Climbing Club along with the wonderful Sara Jane Burkholz), though to be fair it’s only really been since last summer that I truly began listening to him; a year without any (ZERO!) special weekend workshops, visiting teachers or week long intensives; a year with once a week in a room with a group of people I love in the room (and am starting to love out of it too :)), a year with just one voice weighing in on my practice; a year without anything but a room for practice and the support of a great, committed teacher. The noise turned down, my practice turned up.
In this time I’ve finally moved, with Sammy’s help, from stuck to those final freaky looking headstands at the end of second, and now onto the craziness of third!
Before I moved my home practice was consistently sad, consistently aimless, consistently overanalyzed and contained at least one or two days where I threw in the towel way too early (scroll through old posts for my angsty blogs). Now I just do it. I just bring the kind of focused, happy energy to my regular home practice that I get from that lovable mysore room. So while you might say that the proof is in the pudding because I’ve progressed like no other in the past year; I think, more accurately, that the proof is in the regular positive relationship I now have with practice overall.
Sammy Brown is one of the best ashtanga teachers I have met. He doesn’t judge. He doesn’t push, not really, but he somehow tricks you into getting where he knows you can be—even if you have doubts and fears and stubborn stuckness. He knows a lot but I’ve no doubt he’d cop to not knowing what he doesn’t know; he’s endearingly humble with his stories of how when he first started practicing he didn’t know this and that. He brings a needed sense of humor to the mysore room. And he never seems in a rush to leave: indeed, he got me past karandavasana by spending overtime analyzing my movement each week and collaborating with me to figure it out. Oh, and you can just tell: he lives for this sh*t.
Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had with deservedly big-name teachers for anything. I’m still reaping benefits from them and I imagine I will continue to for the rest of my life. I’ve just learned that with practice and with teaching, what it looks like isn’t half as important as what it feels like. And nothing feels quite so good as what has happened over this past year: a practice full of balance, unpredictability resting alongside consistency, fun, and love — and that is a part of me.
There’s been a nonstop stream of drama over the past few months about authorization, certification, teacher lists, and blahbity blah blahs. It’s nice to remember that there are teachers quietly going about their business beautifully just like this. And perhaps all of you deserve a little more credit. Because both teaching and practice are the same, I think, in that it’s not the certifications, authorizations, bells, whistles, mountaintop hashtagged pics, Instagram followers, custom logo’d bumper stickers, name-drop-worthy names and workshop tours that matter. It’s not about being everywhere —
but being there.