Name: Angela Jamison Age: 37 Hometown: rural Yellowstone County, Montana # of trips to India: 5 Current Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan Your yoga shala: Ashtanga Yoga: Ann Arbor Established: 2010
Last time I blew off a day of practice: April 2003
What was your first impression of Mysore practice? Wow, these people are focused.
What inspired you to get started? A near death experience in 2002 made me get serious about daily practice.
What did you like about it? It brought out a side of my personality I didn’t know was there: this new person who was intense, devoted, and oddly free from the needs to feel knowledgeable or in control.
What was hard about it? It made me see that I was spiritually repressed. As a preacher’s kid who had rejected religion in favor of academia, I had settled into a materialist, scientific world view. But the whole reason I loved practice was that it put me in a state of mind in which I felt that i didn’t know anything. It was disorienting to spend two hours every day in intense mind-body awareness, where rational and scientific explanations of my experience were meaningless.
How did you move past those challenges? I guess I just practiced more. Once I had tools and space to look directly at my mind, I was both fascinated and terrified by it. The clear, but unstated, lesson from the ashtanga practice was that moving toward my fear was a good idea. So I started doing sitting practice also.
What keeps you inspired? Students 200%. I am introverted, very sensitive to others’ energy, bookish, and tend to prioritize depth over breadth, so there has always been a tendency toward self-seclusion. But as a teacher I feel it’s important to me to just be a normal, approachable, non-pretentious person in the world. Nevertheless, there is a series of filters that students need to pass through before I’ll accept them in the shala, and I only take one new person at a time. Our Mysore program here is capped, and I refuse to let it get too crowded, even though I don’t like making people wait or turning them away. I just love the method so much that I want to do it justice: that means making sure that every new student gets good foundational instructions.
Weirdly, this arrangement (which I made for pedagogical reasons) has led to a yoga school where there is a huge amount of creative inspiration al over the place. I mean, there is kind of TOO MUCH inspiration - sometimes there is such a desire to practice and study with this group, at such a depth, that I feel my heart will burst. And sometimes I realize that I’m so excited about teaching that I’m forgetting to tend to normal, everyday human things. I’ve also stopped writing (not counting my private journal), which I do regret. So there are some problems with being inspired by students, although I consider these good problems to have. Since I was a kid, creative inspiration has been one of the only things I really cared about in this life. I never would have expected it to be such a strong theme in the business of running a yoga school where the physical method is somewhat rote, and the meditation technique - tristhana - is (in a sense) very straightforward. But it turns out there is a lot of evolution happening in this practice, and that is pure creative energy.
What do you keep with you from your time with Guruji? Guruji was not my teacher - he never knew my name or taught me a posture. The strong feeling I have for him comes through my teacher Dominic Corigliano, who shares his constant awareness of Pattabhi Jois through stories and just through his way of being. Noah Williams has also shared some of that transmission with me, simply because Guruji is so often on his mind. But even from a distance, Guruji did seem to grace me with one of his far-out pranks, which is discussed here: http://www.insideowl.com/2014/
What do you keep with you from your studies with Sharath? I will try not to say to much here, because I feel that talking a lot about relationships with teachers can dissipate the energy of the transmission. So to speak generally, I’ll say that Sharath’s first set of teachings for me seemed to be about contacting the humor and absurdity of just being a human. I had come to take my concentration and my pratyhara so seriously - and so personally - by the time I first landed in Mysore. Sharath would crack jokes to me when I was in hard posture or catch my eye (altering my drishti) and say something hilarious. I’m sure the first smiles I EVER cracked during practice were with him. My time with Sharath has given rise to a quality of light-heartedness which was not there before.
What is your daily schedule like?
3:00 get up, do some kriyas and sitting practice, get ready for the day
3:45 -4:00 walk to the shala
4:00 - 4:30 chant, burn sage and incense, clean the shala energetically and physically
4:30 - 6:15 practice
6:15 - 8:30 teach
8:30 - 9:00 meditate at the shala
9:00-9:45 walk home, swing by co-op grocery, check on the garden, roll in the grass, shower and change
9:45-1:00 work - either teaching privates or doing shala business, take 30 minutes of quiet time for a small breakfast between 10-11.
1:00 - 3:00 big lunch, rest
3:00 - 4:00 household chores, shala related errands, etc
4:00 - 6:30 work again. Teach small classes or privates at home, meet with students, answer email, receive energetic bodywork. If all that is cared for, this is reading time. If my husband is coming home from work early that night, I’ll make him dinner and sit with him while he eats.
6:30 Evening alarm sounds. That means it’s time to get away from screens, stop talking with people, and go to my yoga room to do sitting and restorative practice. This is some combination of meditation, self-massage, yin style and restorative practice, yoga nidra, binaural beats, or lucid dreaming until bed at about 9:00. This is 2-3 hours of self-care and deep relaxation every evening.
How do you balance family, practice, and running your own business?
Practice is first. It gets my best, clearest energy daily. Regarding family, my husband is the boss of my schedule on the weekends - otherwise I’d never see him.
Regarding children, the amount of work I do for the shala would not be possible with young ones. The Mysore teachers who are also *primary* caregivers are demi-gods to me - they have achieved a level of selfless service that is beyond me. In almost every case, these amazing people are women. If I were to have children, everything would have to change, and I’d have far less to give to students. But I’m not sure that will ever happen. I know most people have children because they feel a primal, and evolutionary, drive to do so. I haven’t experienced that. Rather, what I have experienced is extreme social pressure to reproduce - so much of it, from so early in life, that I developed an immunity to it. Much to my parents’ and inlaws’ displeasure. But I slowly came to understand that the meaning of my life is in no way dependent on having children, and that I can fill my own primal and evolutionary need to serve others in a creative variety of ways. I’m not afraid of being unfulfilled in this life, no matter how it unfolds. For centuries, many men have concluded that their spiritual path, and their ability to serve others, is best fulfilled by refraining from having children. But it has been unacceptable for women - who traditionally do far more of the work for a child’s rearing - to reach this same conclusion. I feel we are entering an age when women also will have space to choose such a path. I have not always been allowed that space, so I have simply (and up until this exact moment, quietly) taken it. I hope you won’t judge me too harshly for sharing from my heart on this matter; and I pray that I have chosen the right time to share this information.
One more comment on balance: For me, developing an ability to do self-care and restoration has been as important for my spiritual and emotional health as developing a highly conscious relationship with food. Relaxation and sleep are skills! I would submit that ashtanga teachers are entitled to a lot of time for self-care and spiritual development. A traditional ashtanga teacher who lives the life and walks the walk is a rare creature. We don’t want such creatures to go extinct. Their care and feeding is crucial! Shala fees need to reflect the importance of this work in their schedules. And if possible, students should become sensitive to the importance of respecting their teachers’ time and energy so they don’t burn out.
What advice do you have for beginners?
1. Filter heavily. The essence of ashtanga is direct transmission, in person, from one person to another. You can’t learn the technical practice on the internet. That’s fake. Keep your own learning process pure by cultivating real human relationships with teachers, and by taking the best from ALL the teachers and communities you encounter. We are one, and it is only maya that divides up the world in to us and them and other dualities - please remember that if you take this advice of filtering heavily. Comfort with paradox is part of spiritual maturity, and all ashtangis can access that sort of maturity from day one if they want it.
2. Use critical thinking, and trust your gut, when choosing teachers. But once you know you trust someone, don't focus too much on teachers’ limitations or their confusing aspects. Also don’t pretend teachers are god, projecting all your own inner goodness and wisdom on to them. All humans have flaws and it’s important to see each other honestly and give each other grace. What seems to give the most sustainable strength in relationships with teachers is focusing on their most inspiring qualities, being grateful for them, staying wary of any tendencies for ethical trouble in the base realms (money, sex, power, attention), and cultivating a sense of humor waaaaay earlier in the practice than I did.
3. Be skeptical about workshops and anything like asana tricks and tips. I say this because I LOVE the physical practice and despair to see people slowing down their own physical progress by looking for tricks and tips. The only trick is consistent practice. Casting about for more analysis or more instruction just dissipates practitioners’ energy and thus makes it harder to learn the physical skills they seek. Their main purpose is to generate cash for yoga studios - thus the hype. Maybe choose one or two per year at most, with teachers you adore and with whom you want to develop a true relationship. Unless you really have no support from a true teacher relationship, don’t take random postures or “asana tips” at workshops - keep the physical practice stable, with a regular teacher who really knows you, without too many cooks in the kitchen. Your physical practice will definitely progress more quickly this way, if you don’t dissipate your energy by taking too much instruction. If they have any use at all, the main benefit of workshops is to connect with the greater tradition and the broader community.
4. If you teach too early, you will ruin your own practice. You’ll also, in a small way, ruin THE practice. You will put definitions on things from an immature place, and you are likely to remain stuck in the immature framework teaching forces you to articulate. Stay in the space of not knowing what it’s all about. That’s where you learn most and evolve fastest. If you teach before you’ve mastered the material, you’re just doing it selfishly to try to understand the material. But if you wait until you’re really in a place of selfless service (rather than fascination with your own limitations in the practice and projection of your own limited experience on to others), then what you offer will be of genuine, evolutionary value and your students will go farther, faster.
Ashtanga is an extremely powerful method, and if you try to teach it without full and compassionate understanding of a huge variety of body-minds, or without a senior teacher who has actively transmitted the teaching method to you while you are under her wing, you will hurt people. If you presume to teach, you are responsible for knowing the whole method, for offering it in a healing manner, and for being able to serve anyone with a sincere desire to practice.
If someone tries to push you in to teaching before you are ready to transition from sadhana to seva, they are probably exploiting you. Use your filter. Never teach with the motive of making money. It’s no way to make a living. In the big picture, for some time people lose money teaching. That’s helpful. It’s a great ego-check on whether one’s teaching practice is really about selfless service.
When I first started practicing, I heard a legend that Guruji said you needed 10 years of practice before you could think about teaching. That legend saved my practice from many possible energy drains. Maybe it’ll help you stay focused too.
What is your favorite thing about this practice? I don’t know. I’m just in love, and have been for a long time - long enough to turn my life upside down over and over again. Long enough to hold and release dozens of mindsets like the one articulated in this interview. I finally got it through my head that ashtanga yoga is not the ONLY practice in this world, even though it’s still my main squeeze. I’ve accepted that, somehow, other people can love other methods. Still there is nothing about this practice, this community and our teachers, that I do not find precious. At the moment, I’m especially overwhelmed by its dramatic, sometimes terrifying, capacity to open my heart. Probably when my heart is done opening, I’ll think all the opinions expressed here are worthless. But I share them anyway in case they can get you across some uncertainties here at the start of your practice. Not acting, and instead remaining introverted, is not always an option.
What books do you recommend people read? Start with Guruji, edited by Stern and Donahaye. The Heart of Yoga by Desikachar is worth reading annually for the first decade. There is one legitimate internet swami - swamij.com - read that guy over and over again instead of garbage on FB or EJ. Tap in to ayurveda early - a guided ayurvedic cleanse is a good way in, seasoned with anything and everything by Svoboda and Frawley. Eventually find a way to get interested in the Hathayogapradipika, the Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras. It makes sense if they feel dry at first, but there is SO much there. Finally, read several good cultural-political histories of India if you’re headed to Mysore - people who take pilgrimage to KPJAYI without some knowledge of the context miss out on many fascinating layers of reality there.
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