Interview with James Higgins by Sharon Merriman

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We are more than what we think we are.

James Higgins Yoga?  It’s a visceral thing…

“Visceral”means to relate to deep inward feelings rather than the intellect, and that’s where James takes us on the October Bank Holiday 2017, on a deep inward journey.

As we settle, James sits in sunlight and with great care, fashions an altar from items he has collected on his travels. When I speak to him after the class he mentions Guatemala, Papua New Guinea, Bali. For me, the stand-outs are a hand-painted icon from Venezuela and a cute ceramic cat from Japan.

James Higgins begins with:  “You can’t do this right, you can’t do this wrong… You can’t do this good, you can’t do this bad…”

This is a safe, welcoming space. Lying prone, we start with the breath, fi nding it, feeling it, being it. “Let’s get straight into the belly, feel it spread on the ground beneath you.”  And I feel it, and each time the breath enters, my belly spreads a little wider from east to west, a little further from north to south.  “The breath is now”, he says, and “We will use it to interrupt our thinking mind.” He has a bell that intermittently pierces the silence with one pure note to bring us back to our presence, to keep us in our bodies, to keep us with the breath. In this relaxed environment, that bell highlights just how easily we miss our now.

In 1992, a younger James Higgins was searching for something; he tried other disciplines but it was yoga that struck a chord. It started with an Iyengar book, “Looking, reading, doing a pose and it was harder than I thought…” Perhaps it was the challenge that appealed. He went on to discover Ashtanga Yoga, practising it extensively for ten years, including going to India and practising with K. Pattabhi Jois.

For a long time, he tells me, in his early development he practised asana totally out of ego, but it only took him so far.

“Meditation was something that helped me crack open…” He assures me that without meditation, he wouldn’t have gone as far as he has. James calls himself a meditator and says that meditation forms the basis of his work now. And asana, I ask?  It’s so important he confirms, as a doorway, an entry point into a bigger conversation. In describing how his personal style developed he says, “I would do Ashtanga and then stop and meditate and do more Ashtanga and stop and meditate.” Later on, through experiencing other types of yoga, he became aware of holes in his practice, places he wasn’t able to access because the Ashtanga system didn’t go there. Through his explorations, he has come to teaching fl owing movement, Vinyasa, Higginsstyle.

On this sunny morning, James takes much time with the breath, deepening, lengthening, counting it; we gradually start to move, circling fl uidly, eyes closed, feeling the movement. Eyes open, movement is more dynamic, heat is generated, he takes us through Vinyasa, he asks us to hold in our poses, he asks if we can find relaxation in this place. He tells us to clean up the stream of breath, to take a step back … don’t push beyond. Here, in Higgins’ space, the integrity of the breath is everything. The practice peaks, windows are opened and he takes us down on to our bellies once more to integrate with the energy we’ve woken up in our bodies. We lie with foreheads resting on the pillow of our hands.

He asks us to stay with the breath, don’t lose it. He asks us to stay in the body, to feel the current of energy as it dances through muscle and organ and bone. I stay in my body, my breath is regulating, my heart is hammering and I’m curled up with it, suspended in the centre of my chest. I am the beat reverberating off the walls of my ribcage. I am present with the very heart of me.

James takes his time, there’s no rush; he offers space to regulate, then takes us up off the mat all over again. The  practice is fl uid, we are asked to muster strength and focus. The work is graded; stay with bridge or if your body and practice allow, move into wheel. When we move to the floor once more my forehead is damp as it rests on my hands. My breath whooshes in, lungs, ribs, belly all expand and press into the floor. A pattern develops, just as James practised and meditated and practised and meditated, he now takes his students from stillness into movement, stillness into movement.

He is cultivating our awareness and our concentration. He is integrating body, mind and breath and we are experiencing an interruption in our continuous show-reel of thoughts.  We roll over onto our right but before coming up he asks us to curl in tight and he whispers some very compelling questions… can we find a little kindness, a little gentleness, a little caring for ourselves? And I wonder when was the last time we took the time to ask ourselves those questions. Not lately and not often, if ever, I imagine. There and then I commit to answering yes, understanding that to provide myself with those gifts is to allow myself offer them to others. And I know that the quality of yoga in the room has deepened.

The themes of James workshops centre around higher qualities such as love, grace, strength; and I ask him later, is the physical practice a means of accessing a truer self, a better self, and his hope is that it is. He believes if you are maturing as a practitioner, the ultimate aim is to get in alignment with something that is all of those things. He says that what we learn in yoga and meditation is that we are more than what we think we are. He knows yoga and meditation have the power to interrupt the intellect, the ego’s tendencies and habits, and it is in the interruption of these patterns that something else reveals itself. He admits that it’s difficult to put into words and it is as a result of this, perhaps, that he is helping his students to experience it for themselves, to give them the time and space to allow the revelation occur.

Up we come once more. He moves us gracefully from one pose to the next. He asks us to find our strength, to engage our muscles, to squeeze them hard, make this your best plank of the day, make this your best dog of the day, he repeats the words  – pressing, squeezing, working, and we duly respond pressing, squeezing, working. James brings our attention inward to the muscles, the midline, the bones. In the room, concentration is palpable, limbs shake, breath is audible and synchronised; and he promises us that we’ve got this; we hold, we’re safe and a safe environment is something he wants to offer his students. Through his own experience he understands what a safe space looks and feels like. He tells me it’s a holding environment, and “a holding environment is one in which there is love…. And I work to provide that for myself and for other people.” We come back to the mat, lying on our bellies yet again he asks us to stay with the breath, stay in the body, stay with whatever we are feeling, don’t leave. And here, in my opinion, is the essence of what James Higgins is teaching, of what James Higgins knows – stay, don’t leave; stay, feel what you are feeling and still stay, be present. It is in the staying that we create space, it is in the staying that we discover ourselves.  We turn over, we’re lying on our backs; he asks us to feel the energy as it moves through us and around us. I oblige and I can feel that sparkling energy tingling in the palms of my hand just as he has described and I can feel it down my legs and it dances around my feet and I feel alive with energy; I feel it because I am present.

Eckart Tolle has said, “One conscious breath – in and out  – is a meditation.” This may or may not be your definition of meditation but if it’s true, we have been moving in and out of asana and meditation for three hours, James Higgins-style.

James practised Vipassana Meditation formally for ten years. He no longer attends retreats, but it is one of many elements that he uses in his practice and his teaching. I connect Vipassana to Buddhism and he corrects me. He assures me that Vipassana is a technique, a strong technique that has been adopted by Buddhism but it is a technique that would equally serve Catholicism or any other denomination and emphasises that it is a non-denominational technique. He tells me it’s not about “isms” for him. It’s just about the meditation. I sense that James Higgins isn’t flying banners for anyone or anything. Authenticity is where it’s at for him, how to live his most authentic self and how to give his students the tools to find their most authentic selves.

For 20 years now, James has been teaching yoga. In his company you know that he is living yoga; he has that harmonious vibe, no discord, just ease. He moves about the room, he talks us through some poses, he demonstrates others, he’s at the top of the room and at the bottom, he hunkers down and observes, he’s behind and he’s in front. James Higgins fills the room. He moves up and down the centre aisle with a glorious incense scent wafting in his wake every time we lie down, rewarding us for our efforts.

When I sit with him after the practice I ask him, with such fluidity in his physical practice, where does he find his challenge now? He likes to try new things; he surfs, he dances. But his greatest challenge comes back to the thinking mind and the limitations of misguided views, fears, uncertainties and anger. So, it would seem you don’t conquer the thinking mind, you continually practice interrupting it, carving out a little space to breathe, to be.  Finally, as our conversation draws to a close, I ask this man from San Francisco how he comes to be teaching in Europe, and it turns out it all began in 2003 with an invitation to teach in Ireland. When he came first, there were no yoga studios, so they hired a church to teach in. He was at the top of his game in the States, so how come he came to Ireland to teach in a church? He was curious – was his work translatable in  any culture? Turns out it was – cultures are different, the way people show up is different, but the human condition is the human condition, so in the end we’re all the same. And, he tells me, trying to get people to that common denominator is really how his work translates.

He loves Ireland, he loves different cultures, he loves to travel. He’s never drained by it, he makes sure to rest and take in some of the sights. “I like to take people on a journey, I like to go on journeys, and I like to discover things, and I like to wake up things, and I like to explore and learn and develop and enjoy and work through whatever needs to be worked through to make a little more freedom and space…”

Mission accomplished, Mr Higgins.