I have blogged several times before about Joe as “our teacher” on my yogablog.co site because of the influence that he’s had on me since meeting him as a student five years ago.
He says in the following interview that he aims to inspire and I would have to say that he does this well for me and for many others. His unique, upbeat, approach to life even when its been challenging, has been instrumental in helping me stay grounded and to keep the faith that life is good. At times I have looked around the yoga room and caught the look of endearment that he garners from both men and women during class. Knowing that his teachings not only touch me but others provides comfort as part of the collective.
I am glad that I was given this opportunity to talk to him in the following interview about his personal journey as a yogi /teacher.
Me: Tell me about yourself?
Joe: I’m 43 years old. I teach yoga for a living. I have a lot of passions. Yoga. Exercise and um..I am recovering from this head injury.
Me: Tell me about the head injury?
Joe: That is my world right now. I fell off my bike and hit my head.
Me: So what has been the ramification from the injury?
Joe: Head discomfort. When I get tired I get nauseous. Teaching at first was exhausting. I really couldn’t do any exercise. Now I’m a little fatigued at night but I am back on track. But (still) cannot hold downdog or do handstand.
Me: Did you have an MRI or any diagnostic test?
Joe: No because at first I was like what is going on? This is not too bad. I think I’ll be better in a couple of days. Then I thought I think I will be better next week. At the two-week mark I took a bike ride thinking this could be psychosomatic. I took a bike ride for like an hour. I rode pretty hard. I was like, man I feel great. But that night I was so nauseous and the next day I was trash. Like I had just run a marathon not being in shape. I was like this is a real thing. Then another two weeks later I did another bike ride (Same thing).
So finally after a month, I need to drop into my meditation practice.
Me: You mentioned the head injury has provided value to you in class. How so?
Joe: It’s deepened my meditation practice, and taught me about head injuries and injury in general. It taxes you. It makes you have doubts about who you are.
Me: Tell me more about that?
Joe: When your head is injured it is the core of who you are on some level. At first I thought it was psychosomatic. An illusion. Head injuries play games on you. You can see how someone could drop into a depression.
Me: And they do
Joe: And they do. Exactly. So that was educating. Playing the edge. I thought I could be stronger after this. Saying mantras, meditating more deeply.
Me: Tell me about your first yoga class?
Joe: I don’t know if I remember? Maybe I do. It was at a YMCA. I was living part time in Asheville. The class was decent. Then I went to another class, which was amazing. After the second class I went to the teacher and asked her all these questions and she said you should come to my teacher’s class Mary Kay. She wrote down her name and number and I started going to her often. It was really sweet of her referring me to her teacher. Yeah. That’s it.
Me: How has yoga changed you or not changed you?
Joe: Or not changed me? That is an interesting way to ask it…I think it’s changed me because I questioned everything I learned as a kid. Ya know? You grow up in the South you learn rituals/tradition and then yoga is quite a different practice from that although very similar really. More similar than people think.
Me: Yes, I agree. (more similar than people think).
Joe: As a certified student I had to study a lot of different traditions. It showed me that there are a lot of different ways out there and they are all so awesome. In the south sometimes we are taught this is the only way.
Me: I almost wonder if Anusara was somewhat like that too?
Joe: Yeah, Anusara was a little like that. That’s why I was drawn to it. I had that familiarity of rigidity. The leader was very charismatic. ‘This is the best way.’
Me: So it mimicked your upbringing?
Joe: We (did) have to learn the other directions to be certified. We had to study with certain philosophers/teachers and had to have a certain number of hours. It was great to get different interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita. I got Bill Mahoney and Douglas Brooks’ interpretations. That was really educational because growing up there wasn’t any agreeing with other interpretations.
Me: You had mentioned that your sister is a yoga teacher (too). So even though you grew up in the South in the ‘Bible Belt’ sounds like your family is eclectic?
Joe: Yeah my sisters are very different and they all are into yoga, which is great. One of them teaches as a hobby. My mom is a devout Christian with a one directional vision if you will, but I think by nature she is really umm…open to everything. She calls it faith. If she is pushed into a tight corner around something then she will see it from different directions. So I think I learned that from her. My dad is easygoing.
Me: It is interesting we got into yoga about the same time but our paths have been very different. You were more linear in terms of following one sect so to speak. If you could do it over again and go back 20 years would you do the same thing that you did?
Joe: That is a tough call. I don’t really have any regrets. But it’s a tough call, I studied with John Friend and I have habits that I learned that are bad habits.
Me: Like what?
Joe: Like presenting myself like I am very confident, and I know the answers. There are benefits to that. People listen to you when you speak to them with confidence especially in a training environment. So it’s a benefit. But it is a habit that I am trying to soften.
Me: So John Friend taught the people certified in Anusara to have a certain confidence that you are alluding to as a good thing but also …
Joe: I don’t think he said you have to be confident but he taught that way and I learned these things from him (and others who followed him). Sometimes it may seem like cockiness. I don’t think I am cocky. If anything on a deep level I need to be more confident.
Me: Tell me if this makes sense to you? I think that my interpretation would be that given the rigor of the Anusara certification there is a readiness (when it is finished) to be confident. Do you think this is true?
Joe: Right
Me: Comparative to other trainings. It seems very daunting to get certified. There was a lot of work entailed?
Me: Do you think that the yoga community was too harsh on John Friend?
Joe: No. I mean on some level I wasn’t as harsh as everyone else because that isn’t my nature. But on the same level he wasn’t taking accountability. I think they wouldn’t have been as harsh if he had taken accountability.
Me: Interesting…
Joe: If he had said hey look I did these bad things….
Me: (Laugh) ”Repent!”
Joe: Yeah what he did. His actions. People would have felt really connected to him if he stepped into his...
But he played his cards wrong. He denied. So people had to keep hammering into him. He asked for harshness. Because he wouldn’t step into his mistake.
Joe: He really did shift himself eventually. He really did.
Me: What do you mean he really did shift himself?
Joe: He really did change from the experience. But he never really said I am sorry like it is my fault. He never took responsibility. I don’t know maybe he has now. But, he didn’t up front.
Me: Do you think that the ending that happened with Anusara (that phase of its existence) was inevitable?
Joe: I think that the leader (John) is strong willed and smart. The Shakti lived through him and pushed through him. The nature of Shakti is expansion and she will use people like that to push the envelop of consciousness and I think on some level that happened with John Friend. I think the process got him and people to open up. She uses people radically like that.
Me: How has it been a reflection of your life? Your journey? Being pushed to a new level.
Joe: It is good. It is challenging. Whenever you live a life to expand as the universe is expanding it’s hard. But I am ok with that. You know. I have always been easily inspired. There is a strong part of me that wants to sit back and chill. I could just appreciate being alive. But for some reason I was being pushed. In my work I have had to be proactive in my journey of consciousness. There is a real joy with it.
Me: And a lot of responsibility.
Joe: Yeah. There is a lot of suffering with it too. Well when you push forward you are feeling a lot.
Me: How is it for you to hold space for student upset with the current political climate?
Joe: It is really good for me to hold that space. You have to have your stuff together though when you hold space for other people.
Me: What fortifies you?
Joe: My yoga practice, learning to keep my mind calm, exercise.
Me: Do you pray? Tell me about your spiritual practice?
Joe: Yeah. I think I do. I grew up with prayer. Right now I am in a phase of just clearing my mind. The more I study spirit the more I get into being on earth. The experience of spirit is manifested through all this stuff on the earth. For me spiritual practice doesn’t pull me out of being here but brings me here more. Does that make sense?
Me: Yeah, especially for an athlete. For someone who is an athlete then spirit is grounded in the physical. Is that what you mean?
Joe: Absolutely. This is it. Maybe there is this amazing heavenly realm. I just finished the book Proof of Heaven. The neurologist (Eblen Alexander) who had this near death experience and enters the heavenly realm. He was so sick and he let go of his body, ego. I grew up with that and believe that. And maybe that is real and I will be ready for it if that is the case. Sign me up. But for now it is here. If you get into being here more then you actually feel more connected to the heavenly realm whatever that might be.
Me: What is your biggest pet peeve?
Joe: Umm…when people don’t value the planet (and) take the planet for granted. That is a really bad thing. I thought everyone valued the planet. But I am learning that people don’t even have consciousness around it. That it is sustaining us and we are destroying it. That is my biggest one.
Me: Do you go to yoga classes?
Joe: I don’t. I have a goal each year to go and after the first few weeks it falls off. I do want to go. I want to experience yoga as a yoga student who goes to class. That is what people do. They come to my class. I don’t even know the world that they live in. So going to a yoga class would give me insight into how they feel when they come to my yoga class.
Me: What do you look for in a yoga teacher?
Joe: The first thing I look for is someone who is teaching yoga verses exercise. Like if I go to a yoga class and they are teaching like an exercise class. Then I am very disappointed. The exercise is secondary in there. I am looking for something to shift your consciousness. Luckily in Asheville most teachers here have that. So I should be going to more yoga classes. (laughs).
Me: You are surrounded by women. You are married, have a daughter, sister and most of the yoga community (at least 70 %) is women. How is it being around women?
Joe: I wish there were more men in yoga. I have pretty powerful women in my life and am comfortable around women. Maybe that is part of the reason that I am a yoga teacher.
Me: So you said that you are 43?
Joe: Um hmm
Me: So that is somewhat of a pivotal age of I am getting older. How is that for you?
Joe: It is like a real thing, you know? (Recently) my hair was long and right after I got it cut I went home and my wife and daughter were like oh, your hair! And my wife was like, oh she missed a hair here and she pulled this long hair out but it wasn’t the hair from my head, it was in my ear (laughter). Getting old is real. You know what I mean. I like the wisdom part. (laughter). Especially in my work. When I think back to when I first started teaching yoga. I was like what were people thinking (of what I said). I was spiritual teaching and I didn’t know sh--. I didn’t know anything.
Me: (The process of) yoga grew up with you.
Joe: Yeah. So for me it is nice to have the wisdom, but it is one of my goals to stay strong physically for long periods. I don’t mind if I die early but I want to stay in good health and be moving the whole time so…
Me: You are a very disciplined person. I respect that about you. Tell me about your relationship with discipline?
Joe: I think I need more of it. Discipline is a big subject matter. I feel like I should have written books.
Me: On Discipline?
Joe: No other things. I wish I didn’t procrastinate so much.
Me: I notice that adept yoga teachers—they have this common denominator that they are disciplined. Do you think that people can be too disciplined?
Joe: Look at Thich Nhat Hanh---something about that level of discipline and the military. They have a whole new level of discipline. I respect that and I think I could use that. I think if you take a lot of discipline (military and monk) and you have that in the common world. Man you could achieve so much. Especially if you had that mindfulness around it where you valued play
Me: Interesting…sometime discipline if it’s too dry can connote to rigidity?
Joe: Yes
Me: What would you like to do next?
Joe: I am still holding this book thing. It’s called In your body
Me: A how to?
Joe: Yes, it is already written in my head. I just have a hard time writing it down. There are these teachings AND they are in your body. I think people have these teachings and they are too heady. You need to bring things into the body. I can share yoga teachings as long as they can also be found in the body.
Me: Did you ever open a yoga studio?
Joe: No. Deirdre (another local, Anusara certified teacher) and I almost opened one nine years ago. I think we would have been great partners together. But she was pregnant and I had just had a baby and was like ‘I can’t deal with this right now.’ I didn’t have enough ‘big picture’ back then.
Me: Any regrets?
Joe: Every once in awhile I think it would be pretty neat to have a yoga studio but now I really like the situation I am in, so no regret.
Me: Is there anything you’d like to add (before we finish)?
Joe: I am grateful for the people in my life. I am appreciative to my daughter for her openness, my wife. I am grateful (to have) their support of family. The openness of community.
Me: What is one trait your daughter and wife both have that you admire?
Joe: Humor
Me: Oh that is great. So important.
(Thank you, Joe.)
http://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/
He says in the following interview that he aims to inspire and I would have to say that he does this well for me and for many others. His unique, upbeat, approach to life even when its been challenging, has been instrumental in helping me stay grounded and to keep the faith that life is good. At times I have looked around the yoga room and caught the look of endearment that he garners from both men and women during class. Knowing that his teachings not only touch me but others provides comfort as part of the collective.
I am glad that I was given this opportunity to talk to him in the following interview about his personal journey as a yogi /teacher.
Me: Tell me about yourself?
Joe: I’m 43 years old. I teach yoga for a living. I have a lot of passions. Yoga. Exercise and um..I am recovering from this head injury.
Me: Tell me about the head injury?
Joe: That is my world right now. I fell off my bike and hit my head.
Me: So what has been the ramification from the injury?
Joe: Head discomfort. When I get tired I get nauseous. Teaching at first was exhausting. I really couldn’t do any exercise. Now I’m a little fatigued at night but I am back on track. But (still) cannot hold downdog or do handstand.
Me: Did you have an MRI or any diagnostic test?
Joe: No because at first I was like what is going on? This is not too bad. I think I’ll be better in a couple of days. Then I thought I think I will be better next week. At the two-week mark I took a bike ride thinking this could be psychosomatic. I took a bike ride for like an hour. I rode pretty hard. I was like, man I feel great. But that night I was so nauseous and the next day I was trash. Like I had just run a marathon not being in shape. I was like this is a real thing. Then another two weeks later I did another bike ride (Same thing).
So finally after a month, I need to drop into my meditation practice.
Me: You mentioned the head injury has provided value to you in class. How so?
Joe: It’s deepened my meditation practice, and taught me about head injuries and injury in general. It taxes you. It makes you have doubts about who you are.
Me: Tell me more about that?
Joe: When your head is injured it is the core of who you are on some level. At first I thought it was psychosomatic. An illusion. Head injuries play games on you. You can see how someone could drop into a depression.
Me: And they do
Joe: And they do. Exactly. So that was educating. Playing the edge. I thought I could be stronger after this. Saying mantras, meditating more deeply.
Me: Tell me about your first yoga class?
Joe: I don’t know if I remember? Maybe I do. It was at a YMCA. I was living part time in Asheville. The class was decent. Then I went to another class, which was amazing. After the second class I went to the teacher and asked her all these questions and she said you should come to my teacher’s class Mary Kay. She wrote down her name and number and I started going to her often. It was really sweet of her referring me to her teacher. Yeah. That’s it.
Me: How has yoga changed you or not changed you?
Joe: Or not changed me? That is an interesting way to ask it…I think it’s changed me because I questioned everything I learned as a kid. Ya know? You grow up in the South you learn rituals/tradition and then yoga is quite a different practice from that although very similar really. More similar than people think.
Me: Yes, I agree. (more similar than people think).
Joe: As a certified student I had to study a lot of different traditions. It showed me that there are a lot of different ways out there and they are all so awesome. In the south sometimes we are taught this is the only way.
Me: I almost wonder if Anusara was somewhat like that too?
Joe: Yeah, Anusara was a little like that. That’s why I was drawn to it. I had that familiarity of rigidity. The leader was very charismatic. ‘This is the best way.’
Me: So it mimicked your upbringing?
Joe: We (did) have to learn the other directions to be certified. We had to study with certain philosophers/teachers and had to have a certain number of hours. It was great to get different interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita. I got Bill Mahoney and Douglas Brooks’ interpretations. That was really educational because growing up there wasn’t any agreeing with other interpretations.
Me: You had mentioned that your sister is a yoga teacher (too). So even though you grew up in the South in the ‘Bible Belt’ sounds like your family is eclectic?
Joe: Yeah my sisters are very different and they all are into yoga, which is great. One of them teaches as a hobby. My mom is a devout Christian with a one directional vision if you will, but I think by nature she is really umm…open to everything. She calls it faith. If she is pushed into a tight corner around something then she will see it from different directions. So I think I learned that from her. My dad is easygoing.
Me: It is interesting we got into yoga about the same time but our paths have been very different. You were more linear in terms of following one sect so to speak. If you could do it over again and go back 20 years would you do the same thing that you did?
Joe: That is a tough call. I don’t really have any regrets. But it’s a tough call, I studied with John Friend and I have habits that I learned that are bad habits.
Me: Like what?
Joe: Like presenting myself like I am very confident, and I know the answers. There are benefits to that. People listen to you when you speak to them with confidence especially in a training environment. So it’s a benefit. But it is a habit that I am trying to soften.
Me: So John Friend taught the people certified in Anusara to have a certain confidence that you are alluding to as a good thing but also …
Joe: I don’t think he said you have to be confident but he taught that way and I learned these things from him (and others who followed him). Sometimes it may seem like cockiness. I don’t think I am cocky. If anything on a deep level I need to be more confident.
Me: Tell me if this makes sense to you? I think that my interpretation would be that given the rigor of the Anusara certification there is a readiness (when it is finished) to be confident. Do you think this is true?
Joe: Right
Me: Comparative to other trainings. It seems very daunting to get certified. There was a lot of work entailed?
Me: Do you think that the yoga community was too harsh on John Friend?
Joe: No. I mean on some level I wasn’t as harsh as everyone else because that isn’t my nature. But on the same level he wasn’t taking accountability. I think they wouldn’t have been as harsh if he had taken accountability.
Me: Interesting…
Joe: If he had said hey look I did these bad things….
Me: (Laugh) ”Repent!”
Joe: Yeah what he did. His actions. People would have felt really connected to him if he stepped into his...
But he played his cards wrong. He denied. So people had to keep hammering into him. He asked for harshness. Because he wouldn’t step into his mistake.
Joe: He really did shift himself eventually. He really did.
Me: What do you mean he really did shift himself?
Joe: He really did change from the experience. But he never really said I am sorry like it is my fault. He never took responsibility. I don’t know maybe he has now. But, he didn’t up front.
Me: Do you think that the ending that happened with Anusara (that phase of its existence) was inevitable?
Joe: I think that the leader (John) is strong willed and smart. The Shakti lived through him and pushed through him. The nature of Shakti is expansion and she will use people like that to push the envelop of consciousness and I think on some level that happened with John Friend. I think the process got him and people to open up. She uses people radically like that.
Me: How has it been a reflection of your life? Your journey? Being pushed to a new level.
Joe: It is good. It is challenging. Whenever you live a life to expand as the universe is expanding it’s hard. But I am ok with that. You know. I have always been easily inspired. There is a strong part of me that wants to sit back and chill. I could just appreciate being alive. But for some reason I was being pushed. In my work I have had to be proactive in my journey of consciousness. There is a real joy with it.
Me: And a lot of responsibility.
Joe: Yeah. There is a lot of suffering with it too. Well when you push forward you are feeling a lot.
Me: How is it for you to hold space for student upset with the current political climate?
Joe: It is really good for me to hold that space. You have to have your stuff together though when you hold space for other people.
Me: What fortifies you?
Joe: My yoga practice, learning to keep my mind calm, exercise.
Me: Do you pray? Tell me about your spiritual practice?
Joe: Yeah. I think I do. I grew up with prayer. Right now I am in a phase of just clearing my mind. The more I study spirit the more I get into being on earth. The experience of spirit is manifested through all this stuff on the earth. For me spiritual practice doesn’t pull me out of being here but brings me here more. Does that make sense?
Me: Yeah, especially for an athlete. For someone who is an athlete then spirit is grounded in the physical. Is that what you mean?
Joe: Absolutely. This is it. Maybe there is this amazing heavenly realm. I just finished the book Proof of Heaven. The neurologist (Eblen Alexander) who had this near death experience and enters the heavenly realm. He was so sick and he let go of his body, ego. I grew up with that and believe that. And maybe that is real and I will be ready for it if that is the case. Sign me up. But for now it is here. If you get into being here more then you actually feel more connected to the heavenly realm whatever that might be.
Me: What is your biggest pet peeve?
Joe: Umm…when people don’t value the planet (and) take the planet for granted. That is a really bad thing. I thought everyone valued the planet. But I am learning that people don’t even have consciousness around it. That it is sustaining us and we are destroying it. That is my biggest one.
Me: Do you go to yoga classes?
Joe: I don’t. I have a goal each year to go and after the first few weeks it falls off. I do want to go. I want to experience yoga as a yoga student who goes to class. That is what people do. They come to my class. I don’t even know the world that they live in. So going to a yoga class would give me insight into how they feel when they come to my yoga class.
Me: What do you look for in a yoga teacher?
Joe: The first thing I look for is someone who is teaching yoga verses exercise. Like if I go to a yoga class and they are teaching like an exercise class. Then I am very disappointed. The exercise is secondary in there. I am looking for something to shift your consciousness. Luckily in Asheville most teachers here have that. So I should be going to more yoga classes. (laughs).
Me: You are surrounded by women. You are married, have a daughter, sister and most of the yoga community (at least 70 %) is women. How is it being around women?
Joe: I wish there were more men in yoga. I have pretty powerful women in my life and am comfortable around women. Maybe that is part of the reason that I am a yoga teacher.
Me: So you said that you are 43?
Joe: Um hmm
Me: So that is somewhat of a pivotal age of I am getting older. How is that for you?
Joe: It is like a real thing, you know? (Recently) my hair was long and right after I got it cut I went home and my wife and daughter were like oh, your hair! And my wife was like, oh she missed a hair here and she pulled this long hair out but it wasn’t the hair from my head, it was in my ear (laughter). Getting old is real. You know what I mean. I like the wisdom part. (laughter). Especially in my work. When I think back to when I first started teaching yoga. I was like what were people thinking (of what I said). I was spiritual teaching and I didn’t know sh--. I didn’t know anything.
Me: (The process of) yoga grew up with you.
Joe: Yeah. So for me it is nice to have the wisdom, but it is one of my goals to stay strong physically for long periods. I don’t mind if I die early but I want to stay in good health and be moving the whole time so…
Me: You are a very disciplined person. I respect that about you. Tell me about your relationship with discipline?
Joe: I think I need more of it. Discipline is a big subject matter. I feel like I should have written books.
Me: On Discipline?
Joe: No other things. I wish I didn’t procrastinate so much.
Me: I notice that adept yoga teachers—they have this common denominator that they are disciplined. Do you think that people can be too disciplined?
Joe: Look at Thich Nhat Hanh---something about that level of discipline and the military. They have a whole new level of discipline. I respect that and I think I could use that. I think if you take a lot of discipline (military and monk) and you have that in the common world. Man you could achieve so much. Especially if you had that mindfulness around it where you valued play
Me: Interesting…sometime discipline if it’s too dry can connote to rigidity?
Joe: Yes
Me: What would you like to do next?
Joe: I am still holding this book thing. It’s called In your body
Me: A how to?
Joe: Yes, it is already written in my head. I just have a hard time writing it down. There are these teachings AND they are in your body. I think people have these teachings and they are too heady. You need to bring things into the body. I can share yoga teachings as long as they can also be found in the body.
Me: Did you ever open a yoga studio?
Joe: No. Deirdre (another local, Anusara certified teacher) and I almost opened one nine years ago. I think we would have been great partners together. But she was pregnant and I had just had a baby and was like ‘I can’t deal with this right now.’ I didn’t have enough ‘big picture’ back then.
Me: Any regrets?
Joe: Every once in awhile I think it would be pretty neat to have a yoga studio but now I really like the situation I am in, so no regret.
Me: Is there anything you’d like to add (before we finish)?
Joe: I am grateful for the people in my life. I am appreciative to my daughter for her openness, my wife. I am grateful (to have) their support of family. The openness of community.
Me: What is one trait your daughter and wife both have that you admire?
Joe: Humor
Me: Oh that is great. So important.
(Thank you, Joe.)
http://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/
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