Still processing, a workshop with John Stirk
Two weeks on from participating in John Stirk’s profound ‘The Source’ workshop at Mission I feel inclined to write some words about the experience and the subtle ways it has influenced my self practice and teaching since. Thank you John for sharing this slow, inquiry led practice with us and creating such beautiful space for stillness and insight. It felt like a precious resource as a facilitator and I look forward to the next one.
I had some expectations before this workshop, having read John’s two books, ‘The Original Body’ and ‘Deeper Still’. I expected the session to follow a slow methodology around embodiment. I also expected the audience of the room to be mostly fellow yoga teachers, given lots of his work is written towards the experience of teaching.
However, having never practised with him before I was unsure what the 5 hours together would actually entail - how much movement or stillness to expect or how much the session might be guided by voice, assists or self inquiry. It turns out that our time together was almost entirely spent in ‘stillness’. Back body supported by the mat and a blanket beneath the bony space of the pelvis, legs forming a box shape with the soles of two feet spreading against a wall. This shape became a container to explore my relationship to ground, as well as a shape of emerging discomfort at times through the session. When describing the practice to a friend they commented on how relaxing it sounded. While there definitely were moments of clarity and beauty, there were also moments of frustration and distraction. This feels like an important point to remind myself of. As anyone who practises meditation knows, it is not easy and not always comfortable.
The day consisted of two halves, with moments for discussion and sharing after long periods spent in a meditative space. I stepped outside during our break halfway through the workshop. My feet felt light on the ground and my awareness swam to the colour and detail of EVERYTHING. Within the busy-ness of a Sunday in Shoreditch there was lightness, ease and a feeling of all life weaving through, around and amongst itself. This feels like an immediate effect of presencing. I am reminded of the colour play movie trope as Dorothy leaves sepia Kansas for multicolor in The Wizard of Oz or the technicolour world of Lisbon in Yorgos Lanthimos’ recent Poor Things. The time spent turning more acutely inward makes a return to the outward gaze all the more vibrant.
I took some notes through the session that I’m returning back to now, noting how the practice and the themes we explored have landed in the days that followed.
Meeting the ground
Much of the cues through our session focussed on the relationship of body to ground. Reminders to sense the hug of the earth through the bones and fabric of the body have resonated in the days that followed. I have felt more grounded, especially in the moments before and after teaching where I can often feel flighty or anxious. John described this as a constant - the pull of gravity as a universal experience we all share, through our whole lives. There is something so reassuring about this feeling and it’s been a source of felt, earthy groundedness in the practice for me lately.
As much as there is a hug to ground and a pull of the earth, there is a rebounding force that responds. We explored this feeling through a seated shape in the practice. I was taken with imagery of the vayus, or winds, of the body. The downward and upwards flows of the body took a tidal, oceanic quality, blending in centre so as to become two sides of the same force. I have continued to work with this watery image in my own practice - visualising two great seas meeting or a dam being opened to allow for the passing of water. There have been moments where I’ve sensed a greater priority towards the downward flow and in contrast, moments where the upward flow feels stronger.
Throughout the week I returned back to a legs up the wall shape and closed several of my public classes in this shape. In one class in particular I felt a collective ‘dropping in’ to this shape and cueing felt naturally inspired by John’s teachings.
Peeling back the layers of conditioning
We spoke around a level of societal and bodily conditioning during the workshop. This conditioning seems to me like multiple fine, thin layers, each layer formed as a way of existing in the world. The practice can feel like a peeling back of these layers, sometimes uncovering glimmers of clarity and depth that lies beneath. I consider these layers multiple and of a patchwork quality, layering and overlapping with one another. This process of peeling feels two dimensional - with the need to re-layer certain conditionings in order to live within and fully amongst the world.
The word bliss was mentioned at times through our workshop and I was reminded of the kosas of the body described in Iyengar’s ‘Light on Life’. In this multi-layered map of the body we can experience form from the outermost physical layer of the body (annamaya kosa) descending deeper to the innermost, or bliss body (anandamaya kosa). Again, there is a reassurance in the universal potential to experience this depth and bliss.
“There are two realities: the reality of daily existence with its attendant consciousness and the reality that transcends it. We suspend familiar experience for short periods and discover there is more going on beneath the surface.”
Deeper Still, John Stirk.
The pure expansiveness of breath
The deepening of our experience was felt through a deepening of breath. I particularly loved a beautiful and unforced expansive quality of the space preceding the inhale felt through this practice. I felt the experience of the body moving for the breath, the body's multiple systems opening, sequential like dominoes in order for the breath to move through a space spontaneously created fleeting moments before.
In the days after the workshop I have been working in the space just between the breaths, exploring a rich pause from which the inhale spontaneously emerges. I’ve been observing the relationship between breath and quiet movement of the spine. I’ve been questioning what it means to breathe deeply. I’ve been in awe of the soft building power of an effortless in breath, that sometimes feels as if it will expand and expand forever.
“The breath is mechanically and rhythmically connected to the entire body through connective tissue, soft tissue, bone and fluid. Breathing touches and activates spinal articulations, the girdles and the limbs. Deeper breathing creates deeper feeling because it creates movement from within, and movement enables feeling. A deep breath is not a matter of volume of air inspired. A deep breath touches and moves the spinal discs and facet joints, the small intersegmental muscles, and moves out into the long bones and extremities. The breath and the spine move each other.”
The Original Body, John Stirk.
-
This workshop has felt like a wonderful way to begin a new calendar year. Having spent 2023 studying a second year-long teacher training there’s been a large amount of new information to take on. This year feels like one to process and reflect on what I’ve already learnt - rather than add new information to the mix. John’s teaching style and writings feel like a way to begin this intention towards a simple and reflective self practice. I’ve loved coming back to his books after the workshop, the teachings of which ring so closely to the methodologies and philosophies explored on the Daoist Flow teacher training.
I feel inspired to teach more towards a subtle anatomical experience. John’s rich understanding of the physical space of the body was felt, with the smallest nod of the head creating a completely different experience through the back body. His breadth of knowledge and experience, paired with the ability to articulate the philosophical underpinnings of the practice in a way that was felt through the body in real-time made for an experience that has, as suggested, continued to land in the weeks that have followed. What a valuable gift.