Deeper Still

Deeper Still continues the investigation into yoga as lived experience that John Stirk began in The Original Body. Here he asks readers to go further into their practice and into the full range of their personal experience, with the aim of drawing on the teaching faculty each person already carries within.

The book works toward a sensory kind of understanding that leads to deep insight. Stirk describes how, as the body wakes up in new ways, teachers and their students may find greater clarity, more mental room, and a grounded wisdom. He notes that a teacher often senses being present with a group, and suggests that this presence is not fixed but rests on an unknown element at the root of all creativity.

Rather than stopping at familiar ground, the book encourages yoga teachers to write their own narratives, shape their own sequences, and approach yoga as a current that resists being pinned down, all while widening their creative reach.

Stirk presents the book as a guide for leading students into deeper territory. Its topics include experiences that go beyond the ordinary, reaching the deeper mind through a more intense physical practice, forming a closer connection with a class, and drawing out the core of yoga in students through deeper creativity. It also looks at emergent insight during group work, blends an old idea with contemporary Western yoga, and examines the link between sensitivity in the soft tissues and the quality of awareness. Finally, it considers the potential for shared resonance within groups and what is termed a 'universal experience'.