Countdown time: Reintroduction to Tim Miller
As the clock to the right says, we are less than a week from the Ashtanga Yoga Confluence.
To help prepare and excite, we’re going to delve into our “archives” — more than 500 posts, to be fair — and highlight the “Introduction” pieces we’ve run (mostly written by others) on the teachers.
Here’s one of our first posts, by Bobbie, on Tim Miller:
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This Friday, The Confluence Countdown team will be heading up to Northern California for Tim Miller’s annual Mt. Shasta retreat. In honor of this, we thought we’d do a little introduction to Tim for those of you who will be meeting him for the first time at the Confluence.
Tim at a recent teacher training.
My first time practicing with Tim was in his morning Mysore class about five years ago. It was also my first Mysore-style class, and I was terrified. I felt ill-prepared and stiff; at the same time I was in awe at the energy in the room. I got to Marichyasana D, and saw Tim’s long-time buddy Rich McGowan standing over me. There was a pause, and Rich waved Tim over. “Oh no,” I thought, “I require team effort.”
Tim looked down, and said, “Marichy D is happening.” You’re kidding me, I thought to myself, Marichy D is never going to happen, and you and I both know that. Tim sat down, and using one foot, both hands, and eventually the top of his head, got me bound in Marichyasana D. Both sides. We were together sweating the sweat that only comes from the fire of tapas.
Steve has described Tim’s teaching style as “fierce love.” Tim has a way of showing you the possible in the impossible. He calls Ashtanga “a heroic practice,” and I’ve met lots of heroes at his trainings and workshops. There’s deep learning and humor in his demeanor. He’s a master pose diagnostician with a keen eye: He seems to be able to spot both the internal and external issues that need correcting. “Some stickiness is there,” he said once to me, tapping my chest after a difficult round of backbends. That set me on a year-long internal journey to unstick what was stuck.
So there’s no better person to do the pranayama workshop for the Confluence, “Working In.” Tim’s at his shala every morning, practicing pranayama before he begins a day of teaching. He understands the manifold complexities and connections in the practice, and can show you a way to see them, too. Don’t miss it.
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If anyone out there has studied with Richard Freeman, feel free to email us something, and we’ll be glad to post it. He seems to be the one teacher we don’t have two degrees of separation from, student-wise.
Posted by Steve
