Born a twelve-pound baby with clubfeet, Max Strom spent the first 3 years of his life with his legs confined in plaster casts and braces. After several painful corrective surgeries, he was able to walk fairly well but would always have abnormally shaped feet. This would create a physical and emotional challenge for him in many ways. Because he had to learn to endure partial confinement or nearly complete immobility at a very young age, he developed patience, determination and a high tolerance to pain in order to cope with his condition.
A personal mystical experience around this time caused a sudden and ardent desire in him to understand the human condition. Finding little support and guidance in his atheist household, Max's own drive and intellect guided him and he took it upon himself to read with spiritual voracity any sacred text he could find. By the time he was nineteen, Max had studied Taoism, esoteric Christianity, Sufism and was practicing meditation and Chi Gong diligently.
Over the next twelve years, his spiritual searching was gradually eclipsed by a passion for music, writing and worldly endeavors. He became immersed in two subsequent careers, first in music as a singer/songwriter for a successful West Coast rock band, and then in film, as a working screenwriter in Los Angeles. Eventually, his spiritual quest was re-ignited when he was introduced to Hatha Yoga. The practice affected him so deeply that he left his screenwriting career to immerse himself in yoga. Ultimately, yoga became for him a “system of embodiment” that integrated all of his previous physio-theological studies. Max has now been devoted to yoga since 1991 and has experienced a profound life-change through his practice.
Today, Max Strom is known for inspiring and impacting the lives of his students, teaching with the aim of personal transformation and has become one of the most revered and respected Yoga Teachers in the US. He built and directed Sacred Movement, Center for Yoga and Healing in Los Angeles, and now travels extensively teaching and lecturing on yoga, spirituality, and personal transformation. He is recognized by the Yoga Alliance at their Advanced Teacher Level (ERYT), and is renowned for his teacher trainings. You can see more of his work on his DVDs, Max Strom Yoga – Strength, Grace, and Healing, and Learn to Breathe, to heal yourself and your relationships. www.maxstrom.inticketing.com
Max is grateful for his in-depth studies with Dena Kingsberg (Ashtanga yoga), Gabrielle Giubilaro (Iyengar yoga), Master Hong Lu (Chi Gong), Sherry Brourman, PT (movement therapy), and John Hogan (moral precepts). He also acknowledges the influential teachings of Steven Freedman, Eddie Modestini, and Jim Keenan.
Interview
YM: How did your path with yoga begin?
MS: At about age fifteen I began spending much time hiking in the beautiful countryside where I grew up. I enjoyed going camping alone for several days at a time, relishing the extended periods of non-speaking. This led to the spontaneous discovery of seated meditation on the hillsides. No one taught me to meditate; it just seemed like the most wonderful thing to do in the circumstance of Mother Nature’s sunsets.
My first taste of Hatha Yoga was in the living room of a friend in 1978, I was introduced to some postures and I had a hard time with it being strong and stiff. My first yoga experience with impact was at Yoga Works in Santa Monica, California. It was my birthday and a friend took me to class as a gift, an intermediate/advanced class. My assumption was I would not like it and that was almost correct. I struggled, sweated a lot, almost vomited from exhaustion, and fell sound asleep at the end. It was unlike anything I would have imagined and it was fascinating. What began to happen afterward was the truly extraordinary part, I found myself in a state of mild euphoria that lasted nearly two days. At my birthday party that night my friends, not knowing about the class, commented that my energy was different. My dreams that night were vivid, and I awoke the next morning in a position I hadn’t slept in since I was a child. Physically, I felt better than I had in many years. Something important had happened. and most importantly, it had happened to more than just my body. Three days later I went back for more. The essence of Yoga was familiar to me because it was similar in many ways to Chi Gung yet it was very different as well. When I first went to yoga classes it was a great relief to my body as it began to open and heal. Inspired, I soon started practicing six days a week.
YM: What was it like to be so interested in world culture and spirituality while growing up in an atheist household?
MS: Finding no support or guidance from my atheist parents who were quite certain (incorrectly) that I was dabbling with hallucinogens, I began a passionate search for understanding. There was no wise, kind teacher to lead me, but my own spirit and intellect guided me to read, with spiritual voracity, any philosophical book or sacred text I could find. By the time I was nineteen, I had studied Taoism, both modern and esoteric Christianity, Sufism, some Buddhism, Greek philosophy, and was practicing meditation and Chi Gung diligently. I began to see and understand the world differently, and the possibilities of what it meant to be a human being. What I lacked in my search was a role model, a spiritual mentor who could offer me practical guidance along the way. I didn’t encounter anyone who seemed to authentically embody these kinds of teachings that I was studying. I sought out and listened to many teachers and spiritual leaders, but in my heart I felt that they were proselytizers, not teachers. I had found great teachings in books, but was looking for people who embodied such teachings. The lack of a mentor, or guide, eventually left me in a very lonely and isolated place. My eyes and heart had been opened, but my heart was sad. Like a penniless, hungry man standing outside of a bakery shop, I could see the bread through the glass and I could smell it, but I couldn’t eat it.
YM: Before becoming a full time yoga teacher you were a musician and a screenwriter, how did you know teaching yoga was the right path? Do you still integrate aspects of former careers into teaching?
MS: As my vision burst open through yoga, I lost completely the desire to continue writing movies. Although I really loved writing, I had had enough of action movies and the business side of the film world. Finally, I wrote one last script reaping just enough money to scrape by for the rest of the year. I was trying to figure out what to do to create an income when a close friend suggested that I teach yoga. I thought he was very funny for suggesting that, but I didn’t believe it was a possibility for me. I talked to another friend about it and he not only agreed, but also actually set up a class in his living room for me to teach.
After teaching a few classes, I realized that I loved teaching as much as I loved practicing. I also learned that I had an ability to communicate ideas in a way that was unique. My new students not only came back to class, but they also brought their friends.
Soon, two other friends started setting up classes in their homes. So, I was teaching in living rooms for the first six months for donations. These classes grew organically and soon I had to move the classes into a larger space, a gym-type setting. I experienced in my first year of teaching what every teacher experiences; joy, chronic self-doubt, despair, wonder, and small classes, sometimes with no one showing up at all. The first time that no one showed up for class, I thought about going home, and then I reminded myself that I wasn’t there to make money or for any other reason than to share yoga. So, I decided to practice alone. This became my code from then on: yoga was going to happen even if it was only me that was present, and that was more than enough. I incorporated music into my classes back when it was “not done.” At that time the only other teacher I knew of that utilized music through their entire class was Steve Ross, who was a professional musician. I think he was the first. Having been a professional musician and composer for 12 years myself, it was an organic choice to incorporate music in class to help evoke a state of grace. Ultimately, yoga affected me so deeply; it became a system of embodiment for all of my studies and experiences, both spiritually and philosophically.
YM: What do you teach? How do you teach?
MS: I think yoga teachers can get so bogged down in teaching how to practice yoga that often why we practice is forgotten. “Why are we doing this? Not just as an esoteric or intellectual exercise, but really, why are we doing this and if we’re doing it for these reasons why don’t we do it this way?” I find that the mind is tremendously powerful. If you invite people to focus on their highest intention while they are in their asanas, they’ll focus on that. And, they may then have a profound result from that that doesn’t have anything to do with me. So, I try to constantly remind people, without hitting them over the head with it, why are you here, not just in this class, but in life? What is your purpose? Channel that purpose through your practice.
For me yoga is not based on intellectual ideas, its based on direct personal experience. The deepest level of that is actually called mysticism, where we actually have a spiritual connection. I love to see people when they discover their breath for the first time. You can see sometimes people in savasana involuntarily breathing very deeply and slowly with the look of ecstasy on their face because their breath has awakened, the prana has awakened in their body and they have a new heightened sense of being. I love it when people find they are able to open their hearts a little more, they are able to leave the class kinder than they were when they walked in, or more forgiving. That’s what is really going to change their life. If they can put their foot behind their head and do some complicated postures, they are going to impress their friends for five minutes, but if they can go home and if their wife of their husband or boyfriend or girlfriend notice that they are becoming happier and kinder in the past 6 or 9 months since they’ve been doing yoga, then I feel they are getting something out of their yoga practice that is meaningful and lasting. So, I offer the three pillars of yoga: intention, breath, and then postures – in that order. I attempt to lead people into themselves by suggesting that they forgive those they resent, or that they mediate on someone they feel immense gratitude for teaching them what love is. By asking certain questions, or focusing on these things at the end of class after we have removed our armor, our hearts open wider and so do our eyes. We then see differently and make new choices based on this new vision.
YM: How can yoga be useful for dealing with physical and mental pain?
MS: I am no stranger to pain. I believe that practicing yoga with particular emphasis on breathing practices we can regulate pain, physical and emotional. That same conclusion is how the Lamas technique was born. Steady, slow deep breathing proved to be helpful to women as they gave birth, an emotional and physically cathartic, frightening, and painful experience. That principle doesn’t only apply to childbirth.
YM: How do you teach and develop teachers so well?
MS: That is kind of you to say, I hope it is true as it is one of my aims to help guide new teachers to be teachers of the soul, not just 21st century fitness coaches. I think the first step is be crystal clear on what is important and tell them. If they agree with your purpose, then you have the right students to work with. If a student doesn’t seem ready, I will not take them into training. Sometimes I ask them to wait a year or two. Students entering my training sign a code of ethics before they begin and I think that sets a tone that is uncommon in the American yoga world where ethics have almost at times been forgotten. I emphasize kindness and patience. I emphasize vocal skills - how to communicate. I teach breathing as a priority over postures because of the emotional healing that can occur from this. And then I teach the postures as a way of embodying all of this.
YM: What is the hardest part of being a yoga teacher in 2008?
MS: I don’t find it harder now than before, except that many of the world’s most famous teachers are experiencing the drug known as fame for the first time in their life, and many are really struggling with it. They forget that teaching yoga is for the students; we are servants and not stars. We need to teach by example first and foremost.
YM: There are a lot of yoga teachers and styles out there, any advice for a beginner to get started?
MS: Yes, if the teacher isn’t kind, move on. If they are not moral, move on. If a teacher misses these 2 precepts, they are misunderstanding the purpose of yoga.
YM: Are you happy with the direction you have seen yoga go over the past 15 years?
MS: Mostly, yes, very much. I think yoga is a gift for the world and one of the hopes for our future. Any yoga teacher in the world today can attest that yoga is visibly de-stressing and healing so many people each day, that this new wave of peace and tolerance can be felt rising, and not just in America. The wave has now stretched across the seas to Europe, the Far East, and even the Middle East. International power-cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, Berlin, London, Istanbul, and Tel Aviv all offer yoga classes in impressive yoga centers. Lives are being changed, relationships healed, and souls re-inspired to reach beyond themselves and into the possibility of a greater world through peace, non-dogmatic spirituality, and a joyous, conscious life.
YM: What do you love?
MS: I love my wife. I love God, and all of the ways this energy expresses itself. Beauty, forgiveness, kindness, courage, healing.
YM: What do you want to be when you grow up?=)
MS: I love what I do now; but I am trying to be a better teacher, a better student, and a better person each day. I keep trying.
YM: Where can we find out more about you?
MS: I have finished my book and am working now on getting it published. I hope it is out before the end of the year. www.maxstrom.com is my website. Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts.
YM: How did your path with yoga begin?
MS: At about age fifteen I began spending much time hiking in the beautiful countryside where I grew up. I enjoyed going camping alone for several days at a time, relishing the extended periods of non-speaking. This led to the spontaneous discovery of seated meditation on the hillsides. No one taught me to meditate; it just seemed like the most wonderful thing to do in the circumstance of Mother Nature’s sunsets.
My first taste of Hatha Yoga was in the living room of a friend in 1978, I was introduced to some postures and I had a hard time with it being strong and stiff. My first yoga experience with impact was at Yoga Works in Santa Monica, California. It was my birthday and a friend took me to class as a gift, an intermediate/advanced class. My assumption was I would not like it and that was almost correct. I struggled, sweated a lot, almost vomited from exhaustion, and fell sound asleep at the end. It was unlike anything I would have imagined and it was fascinating. What began to happen afterward was the truly extraordinary part, I found myself in a state of mild euphoria that lasted nearly two days. At my birthday party that night my friends, not knowing about the class, commented that my energy was different. My dreams that night were vivid, and I awoke the next morning in a position I hadn’t slept in since I was a child. Physically, I felt better than I had in many years. Something important had happened. and most importantly, it had happened to more than just my body. Three days later I went back for more. The essence of Yoga was familiar to me because it was similar in many ways to Chi Gung yet it was very different as well. When I first went to yoga classes it was a great relief to my body as it began to open and heal. Inspired, I soon started practicing six days a week.
YM: What was it like to be so interested in world culture and spirituality while growing up in an atheist household?
MS: Finding no support or guidance from my atheist parents who were quite certain (incorrectly) that I was dabbling with hallucinogens, I began a passionate search for understanding. There was no wise, kind teacher to lead me, but my own spirit and intellect guided me to read, with spiritual voracity, any philosophical book or sacred text I could find. By the time I was nineteen, I had studied Taoism, both modern and esoteric Christianity, Sufism, some Buddhism, Greek philosophy, and was practicing meditation and Chi Gung diligently. I began to see and understand the world differently, and the possibilities of what it meant to be a human being. What I lacked in my search was a role model, a spiritual mentor who could offer me practical guidance along the way. I didn’t encounter anyone who seemed to authentically embody these kinds of teachings that I was studying. I sought out and listened to many teachers and spiritual leaders, but in my heart I felt that they were proselytizers, not teachers. I had found great teachings in books, but was looking for people who embodied such teachings. The lack of a mentor, or guide, eventually left me in a very lonely and isolated place. My eyes and heart had been opened, but my heart was sad. Like a penniless, hungry man standing outside of a bakery shop, I could see the bread through the glass and I could smell it, but I couldn’t eat it.
YM: Before becoming a full time yoga teacher you were a musician and a screenwriter, how did you know teaching yoga was the right path? Do you still integrate aspects of former careers into teaching?
MS: As my vision burst open through yoga, I lost completely the desire to continue writing movies. Although I really loved writing, I had had enough of action movies and the business side of the film world. Finally, I wrote one last script reaping just enough money to scrape by for the rest of the year. I was trying to figure out what to do to create an income when a close friend suggested that I teach yoga. I thought he was very funny for suggesting that, but I didn’t believe it was a possibility for me. I talked to another friend about it and he not only agreed, but also actually set up a class in his living room for me to teach.
After teaching a few classes, I realized that I loved teaching as much as I loved practicing. I also learned that I had an ability to communicate ideas in a way that was unique. My new students not only came back to class, but they also brought their friends.
Soon, two other friends started setting up classes in their homes. So, I was teaching in living rooms for the first six months for donations. These classes grew organically and soon I had to move the classes into a larger space, a gym-type setting. I experienced in my first year of teaching what every teacher experiences; joy, chronic self-doubt, despair, wonder, and small classes, sometimes with no one showing up at all. The first time that no one showed up for class, I thought about going home, and then I reminded myself that I wasn’t there to make money or for any other reason than to share yoga. So, I decided to practice alone. This became my code from then on: yoga was going to happen even if it was only me that was present, and that was more than enough. I incorporated music into my classes back when it was “not done.” At that time the only other teacher I knew of that utilized music through their entire class was Steve Ross, who was a professional musician. I think he was the first. Having been a professional musician and composer for 12 years myself, it was an organic choice to incorporate music in class to help evoke a state of grace. Ultimately, yoga affected me so deeply; it became a system of embodiment for all of my studies and experiences, both spiritually and philosophically.
YM: What do you teach? How do you teach?
MS: I think yoga teachers can get so bogged down in teaching how to practice yoga that often why we practice is forgotten. “Why are we doing this? Not just as an esoteric or intellectual exercise, but really, why are we doing this and if we’re doing it for these reasons why don’t we do it this way?” I find that the mind is tremendously powerful. If you invite people to focus on their highest intention while they are in their asanas, they’ll focus on that. And, they may then have a profound result from that that doesn’t have anything to do with me. So, I try to constantly remind people, without hitting them over the head with it, why are you here, not just in this class, but in life? What is your purpose? Channel that purpose through your practice.
For me yoga is not based on intellectual ideas, its based on direct personal experience. The deepest level of that is actually called mysticism, where we actually have a spiritual connection. I love to see people when they discover their breath for the first time. You can see sometimes people in savasana involuntarily breathing very deeply and slowly with the look of ecstasy on their face because their breath has awakened, the prana has awakened in their body and they have a new heightened sense of being. I love it when people find they are able to open their hearts a little more, they are able to leave the class kinder than they were when they walked in, or more forgiving. That’s what is really going to change their life. If they can put their foot behind their head and do some complicated postures, they are going to impress their friends for five minutes, but if they can go home and if their wife of their husband or boyfriend or girlfriend notice that they are becoming happier and kinder in the past 6 or 9 months since they’ve been doing yoga, then I feel they are getting something out of their yoga practice that is meaningful and lasting. So, I offer the three pillars of yoga: intention, breath, and then postures – in that order. I attempt to lead people into themselves by suggesting that they forgive those they resent, or that they mediate on someone they feel immense gratitude for teaching them what love is. By asking certain questions, or focusing on these things at the end of class after we have removed our armor, our hearts open wider and so do our eyes. We then see differently and make new choices based on this new vision.
YM: How can yoga be useful for dealing with physical and mental pain?
MS: I am no stranger to pain. I believe that practicing yoga with particular emphasis on breathing practices we can regulate pain, physical and emotional. That same conclusion is how the Lamas technique was born. Steady, slow deep breathing proved to be helpful to women as they gave birth, an emotional and physically cathartic, frightening, and painful experience. That principle doesn’t only apply to childbirth.
YM: How do you teach and develop teachers so well?
MS: That is kind of you to say, I hope it is true as it is one of my aims to help guide new teachers to be teachers of the soul, not just 21st century fitness coaches. I think the first step is be crystal clear on what is important and tell them. If they agree with your purpose, then you have the right students to work with. If a student doesn’t seem ready, I will not take them into training. Sometimes I ask them to wait a year or two. Students entering my training sign a code of ethics before they begin and I think that sets a tone that is uncommon in the American yoga world where ethics have almost at times been forgotten. I emphasize kindness and patience. I emphasize vocal skills - how to communicate. I teach breathing as a priority over postures because of the emotional healing that can occur from this. And then I teach the postures as a way of embodying all of this.
YM: What is the hardest part of being a yoga teacher in 2008?
MS: I don’t find it harder now than before, except that many of the world’s most famous teachers are experiencing the drug known as fame for the first time in their life, and many are really struggling with it. They forget that teaching yoga is for the students; we are servants and not stars. We need to teach by example first and foremost.
YM: There are a lot of yoga teachers and styles out there, any advice for a beginner to get started?
MS: Yes, if the teacher isn’t kind, move on. If they are not moral, move on. If a teacher misses these 2 precepts, they are misunderstanding the purpose of yoga.
YM: Are you happy with the direction you have seen yoga go over the past 15 years?
MS: Mostly, yes, very much. I think yoga is a gift for the world and one of the hopes for our future. Any yoga teacher in the world today can attest that yoga is visibly de-stressing and healing so many people each day, that this new wave of peace and tolerance can be felt rising, and not just in America. The wave has now stretched across the seas to Europe, the Far East, and even the Middle East. International power-cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, Berlin, London, Istanbul, and Tel Aviv all offer yoga classes in impressive yoga centers. Lives are being changed, relationships healed, and souls re-inspired to reach beyond themselves and into the possibility of a greater world through peace, non-dogmatic spirituality, and a joyous, conscious life.
YM: What do you love?
MS: I love my wife. I love God, and all of the ways this energy expresses itself. Beauty, forgiveness, kindness, courage, healing.
YM: What do you want to be when you grow up?=)
MS: I love what I do now; but I am trying to be a better teacher, a better student, and a better person each day. I keep trying.
YM: Where can we find out more about you?
MS: I have finished my book and am working now on getting it published. I hope it is out before the end of the year. www.maxstrom.com is my website. Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts.
Thank you Yogamates for your interview with Max! I am very grateful to consider him one of my teachers. He is a human being of great compassion and his classes are always a heartfelt journey.
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