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| Master yoga teacher Tony Briggs |
Tony
Briggs decided to hold a 70 backbend workshop for his 70th birthday. He posted
an announcement on his website, and sent out an email.
The
response was terrible. A week before the workshop he was teaching his regular
Sunday morning class. He stopped the 22 students.
“Next
week is my 70th birthday and workshop, for which almost NONE OF YOU HAVE SIGNED
UP! Silly me. I thought, ‘I've been teaching for 25 years. I'm 70 years old.
Somebody's going to come!”
Then
he laughed.
“I
swore I wasn't going to say that, and I went and said it. Did you ever do
that?”
“He
has the ability to show up honestly,” said Barbara Murphy.
Even
advanced yoga students are afraid of backbends. There is no good reason for
this. Apparently, human beings just do not want to bend backwards. B.K.S.
Iyengar, Tony’s root teacher for 37 years, believed backbends are increasingly
important as we age. In his yoga tradition, the ideal is to do one backbend for
each year of your age on your birthday.
Tony
had reserved the training hall at Petaluma Orthopedic and Sports Therapy (POST)
near his home in Petaluma. Large windows at the end of the converted warehouse
overlook the Petaluma River and the theater district. That morning the sky was bright blue, and the
air had the fresh coolness of early autumn.
The
parking lot was empty when Mr. Briggs arrived a half-hour before class. He
parked, unlocked the red sliding barn doors and went inside.
Soon,
students began to arrive. The parking lot filled quickly. People parked next door.
Inside, laughing friends surrounded Mr. Briggs. They piled coats, sweaters,
scarves, shoes, yoga bags, birthday presents, cards, flowers, and a lopsided homemade
chocolate cake with a single candle on the benches near the door.
By
9:00, yoga mats filled the room. Mr. Briggs opened the class by thanking
everyone for showing up. He introduced his partner, a tall, graceful gray
haired woman with a gentle smile. He confessed that they honestly did not
expect so many people to show up. He said if there was not enough ice cream
after class, to blame his partner. “She was in charge of ice cream!”
Mr.
Briggs began by leading the class through a brisk half hour of standard poses.
Then he began a series of increasingly difficult backbends. Finally, it was
time for the most advanced backbend, dropback into bridge pose. In a bridge pose, your hands and feet are on
the floor and you push yourself up so your back arches like a bridge. It takes
strength, determination and flexibility to do this pose.
“If
you want to be dropped back, make two rows... and give me about three feet of
space in between. If you don't want to be dropped back, go do something else
and we'll catch up with you.”
About
half the class lined up in two facing rows in the middle of the room. Mr.
Briggs stepped close to the first student, placed one hand on her back, and the
other on her stomach.
“I
got you.”
She
leaned back until her hands touched the floor. He released her and immediately
stepped to the next student and repeated the process.
When
everyone had done three dropbacks, Mr. Briggs gave a speech.
“I
didn't rehearse except for one thing. I want to acknowledge Mr. Iyengar.” He
pointed to small table in front of the open glass doors facing the river. A small bouquet of flowers and a picture of
Mr. Iyengar sat on the table.
“His
teaching is everywhere. They'll be reading about this guy for hundreds of
years, and he was my teacher. He died on the afternoon—our time—of the 19th.
Today is the 13th day (after his death), the last day of the mourning period.
So I want you to do 13 back bends of some kind. Dedicate them to any person or situation,
which helped you to learn and grow, which has now passed out of your life. Do
13 and we will have done 69 backbends.”
When
everyone was finished, Mr. Briggs said,
“The
last one's for me. You are going to do your (70th) backbend and sing me happy
birthday before you get to come down. Up
you go!”
When
all 60 people were into a backbend, the room erupted into a cheerful happy
birthday song.
“That's
for you, as much as for me. Some of you guys thought you could never do 70, and
you can! You don't have to be afraid of
that anymore.”
After
leading the class through a 40 minute cool down, Mr. Briggs said,
“Now,
the fun stuff. The ice cream truck just pulled up outside. Just go out there
... tell him what you want he'll give it to you... you can even have seconds!”
I
was sitting with several students having ice cream when Annette shared her
backbend story. Several years earlier, she had just returned to class after
giving birth.
“I
gained forty or fifty pounds – with the pregnancy and the breast feeding. I was
struggling to get into a bridge pose when Tony walked by. He said, “Struggle
some more.”
“I
could have wrung his neck! Struggle some more!” she repeated indignantly.
“I
am very determined person, and after he said that…”
Within
a year, she lost forty pounds and was doing bridge poses.
Briggs
is the teacher that other yoga teachers send their students to. His classes are
extraordinarily demanding and effective. I finally decided that a combination
of things makes him unique.
He
is male and 70, in a field where most practitioners are women and younger.
There
is absolutely no sentimentality in his teaching. He once said ‘I teach reverence.
But not here. Class is a place to work hard and laugh a lot.’
He
knows all aspects of yoga intimately—physical, mental, psychological and
spiritual.
Like
his root teacher, Mr. Iyengar, he constantly tinkers, experiments and learns.
