Photos: Adam Latham, angeladam.com
12 Step Spirituality
At Yoga Works on Main Streettreet in Santa Monica, CA, a didgeridoo dub-mix whumps in Vinnie Marino’s filled-to-maximum-capacity vinyasa flow class. You really gotta get here early to get a spot where the mats are squeezed close together and even the space on stage is packed. Among his students are David Duchovny, Robert Downey Jr., Heather Graham and other high-profile practitioners. But today it’s just me, Vinnie and a room full of obscure yogis who look like they’ve been at it for years. Some of them make this pilgrimage often, since Vinnie more than fills the room twice a day, six days a week.
Vinnie’s level 2-3 class pushes my limits, but just when I think wild horses couldn’t drag me into the next pose, a Rolling Stones track kicks in at big volume and the audio inertia draws me deeper. Not effortlessly…but with renewed commitment. Incorporating music in a yoga class isn’t new, but there’s something about posturing to the Stones that I can’t remember hearing about before.
As the playlist shuffles on, Vinnie walks the room, adjusting, encouraging. It’s intentional, how he chooses the soundtrack, feeling the daily vibe, checking out “a current event, holiday, something coming up and reminding me of a song, the elections, the weather, a hurricane, a hot day in the summer, whatever is prevalent.” His love for music shows up every time he scrolls through his collection.
Music is a driving force in his life along with yoga and 12-step recovery. He’s been open about his recovery and clean since 1985. Though now a pristine physical specimen, it wasn’t always the case. “We live in our physical form,” he says. “We’ve been given this vehicle… you can either trash it or begin to take care of it. That choice affects your mind and subsequently how you live your life. It’s like A New Pair of Glasses,” he says referencing the book by Chuck C. widely known to the recovery community.
Yoga as a means to take care of his physical form was part of his life even before entering recovery; he’s nurtured his practice since he was a kid. Vinnie grew up doing yoga as a teenager watching tele-yogi, Lilas Folan on Channel 9 in New York, and in high school gym class. He met his other love – music – then as well, through musicians such as one of the icons of the day, Grace Slick, the nefarious acid queen from the Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. “She was part of a movement and an ideology and a beautiful turbulent time that hit my heart really hard.” After Vinnie became sober he started a correspondence with Grace, and the two became close friends, first while he lived in New York, later continuing the connection after he relocated to L.A. She even influenced his decision to become a yoga teacher, after years of sober (yet playful) rededication to the practice.
Yoga was the vehicle Vinnie chose to take care of himself, “I did the whole thing, by jogging and going to the gym. None of it held my attention. Then I went to a class with flow and music and sun salutations and this felt true with who I am as a person. It combined everything, the physical and the spiritual and it felt right for my body to move that way, a right vehicle.” A conversation with Grace inspired him to embark on teaching yoga as a career. He relates, “We were just talking about what I want to do with my life. She said, ‘You love yoga, do what you love, of course it will work, because of your love for it.’ And coming from her, someone who did what she loved, I believed her.”
Shortly after he took his first training at White Lotus in Santa Barbara, “I was overwhelmed by how much more there was to learn,” he remembers. Returning to L.A., he leaned even deeper into his practice through vinyasa flow and Iyengar classes, took the Yoga Works teacher training program twice and then the advanced teacher-training program. His classes have snowballed into something.
And like his audio-inspired classes, his new workshop: yoga and 12-step recovery, incorporates a confluence of elements; simply put, it’s like an AA meeting and yoga class in one. It starts with an asana (posture) class, then discussion of the intersection between yoga and recovery and then a meeting. “There are parallels between the Yoga Sutra and 12 step recovery philosophies. Both yoga and recovery are about breaking unhealthy habits. Both require changing behavior whether that’s putting down a substance, going to meetings, making amends. With yoga practice, asana, meditation, studying the sutras…some definite action is needed to set in motion a more positive direction for our lives. In the [12 step] program we have a sponsor who guides us or with yoga we have a teacher – both require us to be open to someone else’s suggestions.”
Practice is an important part of the ongoing process of breaking habits. “A lot of addicts have abused their bodies…used them as a vehicle to get high to check out,” he says, “Getting clean and sober and recovery are about waking up, removing obstacles that numb us out. There is a strong parallel between the serenity prayer and kriya yoga (discussed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra). The courage to change the thing I can is tapas (discipline), the wisdom to know the difference is swadhyaya (self-study) and the serenity to accept what I cannot change is ishwara pranidhana (surrender to God).”
“Another parallel is the sangha (community) of the yoga class. With the 12-step fellowship, the meeting is a way of bringing people out of isolation to connect to other people, which is vital in recovery from addiction.” In any of Vinnie’s classes, workshops or retreats, there is a sangha. He wants to create a situation where it is crowded and fun and everyone feels good in their bodies.
“Good vibes are infectious. Being around somebody who is relaxed and positive is a whole lot more fun than being around depression. So we have these tools of recovery and yoga to uplift ourselves and others. Getting on the mat and practicing or sitting in meditation, our stuff will come up. The same way when we first put down our substance of choice everything we’ve tried to avoid surfaces,” he says. “Everybody’s trying to get happier. Feel better in their life. Yoga helps you get there now.”
Vinnie is teaching a yoga and 12-step recovery workshop on Friday, October 10, 7:30 – 9:30 P.M. at Yoga Works on Main Street in Santa Monica. Visit: vinniemarinoyoga.com oryogaworks.com for more information about Vinnie and his classes.
Sam Slovick is is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker: myspace.com/samslovick
The courage to change the thing I can is tapas (discipline), the wisdom to know the difference is swadhyaya (self-study) and the serenity to accept what I cannot change is ishwara pranidhana (surrender to God).
By Sam Slovick
Award-winning journalist, documentary director and long-term LA Yoga contributor Sam Slovick is the director, writer and producer of the Radicalized documentary, currently working on the Kirtan Road Dogs documentary.