Director Kate Churchill and Nick Rosen talk about their collaboration in a grand yoga experiment captured in the documentary, “Enlighten Up!”
Q: How did the two of you come in contact with one another? Kate, where did you locate subjects for the film?
Director Kate Churchill: Nick and I met each other at a think tank conference. We were seated on the same panel and afterwards starting chatting about the work we were each doing. Nick was working as a journalist at the time and interested in documentary films so he sent me some of his articles to read for a possible future project. About 4 months later when the producers and I were debating how to tell this story, he became a potential subject for the film. I liked that he was a journalist, had a good sense of humor and that he was skeptical.
Nick Rosen: Yeah it was funny because it was a conference panel I was totally unprepared for and I didn’t even know I was on, and I totally faked and joked my way through it, trying to make people laugh to mask my total and utter cluelessness. And then Kate fell for it! I often wonder if I had prepared for that panel, and nobody much noticed me, whether Kate would have ever introduced herself, and later pick me for the movie. Lesson for the kids: always be unprepared.
Q: Did the making of this documentary help you to come to terms with some of the “contradictions of yoga” that you wished to explore?
KC: When I started making Enlighten Up! I was determined to find one teacher, or one practice that would have all of the “right answers” and help me overcome what I saw as the contradictions of yoga. Through the course of making the film, and especially during the three years editing Enlighten Up! I learned that there isn’t one teacher or a single practice that will have all the answers, and therefore everyone is going to have their own take on yoga based on what makes sense to them.
Q: Did the two of you ever discuss Nick’s relationship with rock-climbing and outdoor sports? Were there any parallels between Kate’s passion for yoga and anything in Nick’s life?
KC: It was always clear that Nick was a very physical person and rock climbing was one of his main passions. I had a sense that yoga would really help his climbing, which ultimately is really more of his own practice.
NR: Yeah, climbing is like yoga if you did yoga 100 feet off the ground and were always thinking about taking a big fall. Climbing = scary yoga.
Q: Kate, in trying to locate a practice of yoga that suited Nick, did you encounter forms that you yourself took issue with? (Yoga for Regular Guys, Laughter Yoga, etc.?)
KC: Throughout the film there is a back and forth between Nick and myself on who we will go see. It becomes a tug of war over control of the story at times. Inevitable we had our differences and Yoga for Regular Guys was certainly one of those moments. There were also a number of teachers who we went to see that we both were quite excited to spend time with, including: Norman Allen, Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S.Iyegnar.
Q: Nick, were there any moments that were not captured on camera that you wished had been? Conversely, were there any moments that you did not want to relive when you saw the finished product?
NR: I think Kate did a really good job of covering all the big important moments. But there were stretches of time that I was practicing yoga without the camera. There was one time when the whole yoga class was sitting cross legged in a circle listening to the teacher give some weighty lecture on Hinduism, and—oops—I farted. The whole class heard it and the teacher thought it was someone speaking up and said, “What was that, does anyone have a question?” That would have been a pretty funny scene in the movie.
Q: Kate, how were you yourself introduced to yoga seven years before embarking on the
project? Did you initially experience any of Nick’s skepticism?
KC: Very much like Nick, I came to yoga initially for physical reasons. I was doing mini-triathlons and my body was starting to fall apart. I went to a local power yoga studio and was almost instantly hooked on the practice and how good it made me feel. Over the next seven years before I started making this film, I explored a number of different practices including asana (physical practice), meditation and pranayama (breathing). During these years, I experienced some skepticism from the contradictions I discovered and it made me want to find a way to investigate deeper.
Q: Nick, were there any particularly ambitious poses that you were proud to be able to perform in the end?
NR: I did do some things with my body that I never thought possible. For instance, towards the end there I was doing a complex ashtanga pose called “Marichyasana B,” where my knees and elbows and feet are poking out all over the place like a bad car accident victim. My knee started to hurt at that point, so I eased off. I still am not sure whether that got me closer to any kind of higher spiritual truths. Corpse pose was my favorite.
Q: Would you consider practicing yoga again under less pressure? Have you applied any of the yogis’ teachings to other aspects of or activities in your life?
NR: Yes, I continued to practice after the project pretty intensively for a while. Yoga is like crack—it’s not easy to stop. Even today I do yoga (once a month) and I really enjoy it. And yes, the yogic lessons, even when I thought they sounded silly in the context of a glorified stretching class, did manage to trickle into my psyche. Some of the teachings we received from the wise men and women in India and America were simple but profound. Be true to yourself. Practice compassion. Go fuck yourself (that last one was my favorite).
Q: How did your parents react to your experiences and the insight you gained throughout the making of the film?
NR: True to form: my mom says she saw a really big transformation, my dad was more skeptical, perhaps. I think this is true for most people. The movie is a kind of reflecting pool for their own beliefs—sometimes it reinforces those beliefs, sometimes it challenges them, but those insights are always different depending on where the viewer is coming from. And the same goes for my very different parents.