John Stirk workshop at Triyoga.
Now this was interesting. I have been taking classes for a while at Triyoga that describe themselves (loosely) as Scaravelli influened yoga as inspired by John Stirk (or some similar relationship).
And what that means is a kind of slow-motion, exploratory yoga. Stirk’s workshop was titled ‘Deconstructing Yoga’. It was interesting and is certainly like no other yoga class. And its hard, on reflection, to know where the two hours went as we only did about six or seven poses. Maybe eight but it felt like six or seven.
Stirk talked about Iyengar and the possibility that the spirt can be found or perhaps reached through the body – or at least that is my crude paraphrase of John’s teaching. He also talked about the feet, about the ‘Oriental foot’ and the importance of being able to move all of our toes, even the little toes and to work the whole foot, stretching from the centre.
So there was some work in ‘mountain’ just working the foot. And typical of the class was the way John took us into supta padangusthasana and supta padangusthasana II which was…slowly, very very slowly.
So we entered the poses slowly and stayed for minutes…ages and ages…during which time he asked us to think about the areas or places in the body that we weren’t working…perhaps not sinking the shoulders back, straightening the leg, flexing a toe…whatever…
He talked about tension and adrenalin. He said that where you had fear or tension in a pose (which was probably also where you resisted working) this created adrenalin. He wasn’t saying this was a bad thing. He just said this happened.
He also told us that we should keep our minds calm and our faces calm and peaceful in the pose. No matter how much adrenalin/tension we were feeling. And no matter how hard we were working a knee or shoulder that didn’t want to be worked. The face and mind must be calm. I tried to make mine blissful. Which was very revealing/explosive/beautiful and interesting…its something I’m going to hang onto in all of my practice.
And what he finally said was that the adrenalin would resolve itself or turn into endorphins and the tension would resolve itself or become love…and we would all feel love.
And that is what I felt. An overwhelming bliss or love. I apologise if I haven’t transmitted John’s teachings as he teaches them…I guess I am giving you my experience of his teaching. And I hope I get to work with him again. I understand he teaches a regular weekly class in London (you can find details on his website) but I have also been told there is a waiting list to attend.
Monday, 7 May 2007
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3 comments:
Have recently attended a long weekend workshop with John. How dissapointing! Repeated long sessions sitting cross legged, virtually immobile, on a cold floor, no communication allowed (specifically told NOT to take notes, turn head to observe teacher etc.). I felt we were unwelcomed intruders on this mans own private practice.
With his lengthy teaching history of 'Scaravelli inspired yoga' I was not alone in expecting a whole lot more.
Several of us got the impression he had forgotten that he was there to teach, and like it or not, in the real world, thats what he was being paid to do.
Like the blogger, I’ve also attended workshops by John Stirk at Triyoga. In contrast to the above comment, I’ve found the sessions to be a delight, and judging by the number of people who return to these (roughly) monthly workshops I’m not alone. Encouraged at every step to envelop ourselves with blankets for warmth (and to use blocks for comfort), I’ve gained so much from John’s guidance re. sitting and its place in the yoga tradition. It’s been a real eye-opener in letting go and not trying to excel, strive, compete, or compare, but just simply ‘be’. In this sense, I’ve found sitting as ‘challenging’ (I use the term loosely) as any ‘athletic’ yoga pose people care to name... I think a really crucial part of John’s teaching is the emphasis that we are our own teachers, and the need to start paying much closer attention to our own intuition and experiences rather than relying on ‘teachers’ and ‘gurus’. That said, taking notes and asking questions has abounded at the sessions I’ve attended. I’m quite new to yoga, but Stirk’s classes have felt wholly rooted in the ‘real world’ in the widest sense of the term!
Good post.
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