Yoga Nation: What benefit did you think you would get from Nick’s journey?
Kate Churchill: I believed I was going to be exposed to encounters with these enlightened masters. In yoga, there’s a lot of talk of coming to a sense of peace and transformation—jivan mukti, liberation of the soul—I was caught up in the promise of yoga: if I could find the right practice I could get all these great benefits. At the same time I wasn’t on the line—the camera was pointed at someone else.
YN: At some point, it seemed you felt you had to push Nick to get him to say meaningful things. For example, later in the film, in India. What happened?
KC: In the beginning, I really thought this is going to be amazing to have this guy who is a challenge to yoga—he’s a really good writer and researcher—who would press hard and investigate. He’d bring his investigative skills to it—dig into and find great stuff. It began as a journey of mutual inquiry.
But through the journey, my expectations made me more and more antagonistic to Nick. I became more wound up and agitated about what was happening. Nick became more determined to cling to his own identity.
The relationship became more conflicted. I was not getting what I wanted.
At the time, we were learning really great lessons from yogis about letting go, about how no one else can tell you what to do, you go on your own trip. Yet there we were muddling along ignoring them.
YN: How does Nick think yoga affected his life? He doesn’t say much about it at the end.
KC: What we tried to do with documenting this story is to ask, well, how do you think he changed? It’s open to debate. We like to let the audience decide.
YN: But the possibility of change runs throughout the film. I was wondering what Nick himself thinks of how he changed.
KC: Nick has said at other screenings that it’s inevitable when you step out of life and take a journey that it impacts you in many different ways, even in ways you can’t even recognize. I think the biggest was in starting to accept his mom….
He had a knee-jerk rejection of any spirituality. He associated it with his mom— she’s a healer. He moved more towards accepting his mom’s work instead of automatically dismissing it. He became more accepting of various practices that others are doing.
YN: How did making this film affect your yoga practice?
KC: When I started this film, I was bound and determined to find the one yoga practice that would work for me. What I realized is that no one practice that would work for me. No one had the ability to tell me what to practice, and I couldn’t tell anyone else what to practice either.
I had to go with whatever practice or teacher worked for me—and I couldn’t tell anyone else what would work for them either.