New Guru

For the past ten years, I’ve been a yoga student of David and Satya Garrigues, founders of the now-defunct Seattle Ashtanga Yoga School. While during that time, I’ve taken workshops from Ashtanga’s founder, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, as well as from influential teachers including Manju Jois, Richard Freeman, Tim Miller, and David Williams, my main conduit for the lessons of Ashtanga have come to me through the co-founders of AYS, especially David, although certainly some of the more subtle teachings have come to me through Satya’s influence.

Now, though, they have embarked upon their own differing courses in life’s journey and I’ve been compelled to find someone new to be my teacher.

Of late, therefore, I’ve been going to the studio of Troy Lucero and after a week sampling a number of his different classes, I’m gonna stick around for a while.

What’s most interesting to me is having to do poses in new ways or being pushed to do poses that I usually don’t. I realize that over the past decade, I’ve gotten pretty set in my ways. On the one hand, this is a good thing, I think, because it allows me to move beyond the physical practice to something more introspective or spiritual (in Robert Solomon’s sense of spiritual as being “a thoughtful love for life.”) On the other hand, it’s made me somewhat lazy and dogmatic; since I don’t have to think too much about the poses, I don’t, and end up just repeating the same mistakes over and over.

For instance, in Parivritta Trikonasa, Troy has counseled me to try sinking my weight back as in Parsvottanasa; it makes the twist much more difficult for me, but it seems like I’m getting a better stretch in my pelvis and hamstrings.

Whenever I get advice, I find myself recoiling a bit at first, as my ego rises up; then I try to breathe and listen to what my new guru has to say.