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Leaving Mysore was a confusing affair – I wasn’t sure how I felt about the practice, or my experience in the main shala. My body was sore and my practice stalled entirely – deep, comfortable backbends had become a faint memory.

In the weeks following I had slowly started practicing again, being aware that the enjoyment and wonder of practice was no longer there. I was deeply in need of some wisdom and guidance.

Work determined that I was headed to Koh Samui and the Yoga Thailand retreat centre. I hadn’t planned on spending time with the visiting teachers but the advice of a friend led to me spending two overwhelming weeks with Ron Reid.

It’s worth mentioning again that my time with Ron was serendipitous – I was tired, lost, and in search of direction. I had desire and was completely open to learning (a new thing for me). With Ron, as with any teacher, being open is the first step because:

Practicing with Ron will change your beliefs, perceptions, and physical understanding of the practice.

In short, he will blow your mind.

If you let him.

For first few days it was back to basics. I had expected this to some extent. What I didn’t expect is that a week later it was still about the basics – with insight. Ron communicated the understanding that it’s all basics.

We all know that upward dog is a backbend but how many of us are encouraged to work as hard in upward dog as we would in a backbend? How many of us work as hard in downward dog as we would in a hand stand? How often do we switch off during practice, only to work at the end, with:

The pose that we’re working on.

Ron taught me that we are always working on the pose that we’re working on. Standing, sitting, lifting, floating – the basics lead to the integrated pose. If you work on the simple poses, you work on the “advanced” poses.

But this understanding comes at a price.

Ron is clear that you have to want to work in order to practice this way, because:

If your body doesn’t have to do the work, it probably won’t.

Initially I struggled with the effort required, it took me out of my “meditation” through the practice and I found the incessant effort to be, well, hard. But then I realised the poses I was “working on” were getting easier. I had more strength through the practice and my body felt more open, more able, and ultimately more willing to put in the effort.

I began to feel great – physically and mentally. The strength of the practice began to settle my mind.

In practicing with Ron one of the shortcomings of Ashtanga became more evident to me, for in Ashtanga sometimes:

The end is more important than the means.

This can lead to a machiavellian practice whereby the practitioner makes the bind/twist/catch the focus, the drishti, of the pose. With open hips in Marichyasana D, long hamstrings in Supta Kurmasana, a hinged back in Kapotasana… the practitioner need not focus on the means, the end has won.

Ron returns the focus to the process.

Ron’s mind has a unique ability to deconstruct poses into their component parts – he turns poses upside down or 90 degrees to figure out the movement and work required. Having figured out the individual parts, he then brings the sum of all the parts into the union of the pose.

Ron may even break your stride by suggesting that you don’t need to do a particular pose every day and instead offer you an alternative opener from another series, again leading you to focus on the basics.

Then there’s his insightful quote that I think of every time I take my hands back, lift my head, and open my chest:

You are high jumping, not back bending.

Ron is an instrumental and wonderfully generous teacher. I was fortunate to spend time with him when my practice was at a difficult place and I was open to fully appreciate the wisdom of his years of practice. To study with him is to realise what it means to practice with awareness.