Remembering Mukunda Tom Stiles

I am, at this point, an "old school" yogi. I read yoga books,at the beginning of my teaching, and even before, that had no fancy covers, fabulous layouts or gorgeous photographs.
They were texts, thoughtful treatises with hand drawings of yogis demonstrating esoteric yoga practices that really, hardly anyone does today.
These texts, and the teachers who accompanied them, many of them still living at the time, described the hard/easy work of both practicing and living yoga. The layers of unreal drape themselves back around us so easily.
Spontaneous healing did occur now and again, but that healing was often the result of years and YEARS of plodding through the mud to finally feel light and free. Yoga awakening, the kind taught by these teachers, takes time, patience, commitment, enterprise.
I read Mukunda Tom Stiles writings with great enthusiasm. I downloaded his wonderful free offering of the Joint Freeing Series , practiced for myself and shared with my students so they too could  feel better and learn about this special teacher.
When I was wavering about whether to pursue a certification in Structural Yoga Therapy, it was not Mukunda's rep who wrote me back . It was Mukunda himself.
When I didn't understand an issue one of my students was having, it was Mukunda's books I went to first. I always found the answer.
At a large yoga therapy conference, I signed up for so many classes by so many "famous" teachers.
After the umpteenth famous teacher mentioning their new book or their interview with blah blah blah I was ready for someone and something real. A teacher whose agenda was YOGA. That class was with Mukunda, Not surprisingly, his class was the smallest, the most intimate , and the most sacred to me. He had nothing to plug, no upcoming trainings to push on us. He just wanted to help release someone's hip and hamstring. And he did, exquisitely.
 I am so glad I got to see him doing what he clearly loved to do- bring freedom from pain for those who were suffering.
Namaste, Mukunda Tom Stiles.