Tiffany Hamilton Atkins - translator of feelings

Her yoga is like a dance and her voice is the song commanding the rhythm.

Just like about everything nowadays, yoga too is filled with people teaching a practice they don’t embody. And I have always been particular about the teachers I choose, because again: not everyone is a teacher only because they call themselves so.
Finding Tiffany in a studio in Hackney has been profound. I later took a couple workshops with her on Body Temple Dance - basically a very freeing practice where she guides us to get in touch with and feel fully the emotions in our bodies, and dance/move them out. It’s a whole witnessing oneself and being witnessed kind of situation.
She exudes a strength of spirit that is rare to find, like you could crumble in her presence and she’ll cradle you back on your feet without losing it.

I know you write, too… I cannot wait to read a book of your poems.

I do write yes. I try. That’s definitely on the vision board but it took a lot to be able to say, and I still have trouble saying, that I’m a writer. Because I found that in my head I conflated all these different things about what being a writer means: that you have to have a big publisher and loads of people have to see your work… All of that kind of stuff and it’s just that you’re a writer if you write. And that’s it.

But yes a poetry anthology, do people still call them poetry anthologies anymore?

Mmmm what a beautiful way to describe a poetry collection, an anthology feels even better. I’ll remember to use this word…

I just remember from doing my GCSE at school “read this poetry anthology”...

While modern poetry and the modern way of sharing information is really powerful because it gets to a lot of people really quickly… I sometimes wanna go back to something kind of slower; this is why I don’t read digital books or listen to audio books. I like the feeling of the book in my hand; I like having to read the words; and I like to read in between the lines. When you hear someone, you’re hearing someone’s take on it so it can take on a different meaning - their meaning, their worldview. 

I like to actually have the time to read and sit in silence. Books are important. 

The same with poetry and the internet. I love that people get to share their work and get it seen, and… I wonder how many poets are there that have slightly a different form of writing their soul on the paper. If that form doesn’t translate on Instagram, how are they being seen? 

So for me I’m trying to find a balance, because I don’t share all that much on Instagram. I overthink it but in a way I prefer to share a work that is authentic, not just this clickbait thing.

Slower the better.

And also, does everyone need a large audience?
I’ve sat with this question myself for a while. And I feel as an artist, there is a huge element of wanting to be seen… and that if we’re not seen by a large public, then our work doesn't matter or it isn’t as valuable or important. At the same time, having 50k followers doesn’t translate into having a bigger impact either.

Yeah, it’s the paradigm of success. We live in a kind of white, capitalist, patriarchal matrix - in the simplest terms, which defines success as ‘more is better’. Well is more better or is more just more? 

And so I don’t think worthiness comes from a million people seeing your work.

It can’t do.
It can’t do, because I’ve heard people speak and I’ve read people’s writing just the things that they have written for themselves AND it’s potent beyond belief!

I think I had to redefine success, what success looks like in a lot of ways because of my experience as a black woman … I cannot define success by what the social construct of success is. I can’t do that. 

So then I had to do the work of like, Ok rather than what does success look like for me, which is a very arbitrary thing, how do I want success to feel?
And that was really how I pivoted the question. How do I want success to feel? How do I wanna wake up every day?
What does success really feel like in my life - which is spaciousness.
Which is ease
Which is contentment.
Which is more access to bliss.

Which is more access to time.

And so when I redefined that, I ask myself,
how does my work fit into that idea of success?

Which is not overworking myself.

And then, success is also tied to my purpose.
My teacher Leila Sadeghee, when we were doing the teacher training, gave us this exercise to find our Swadharma - this great purpose in life. At the time I didn’t realise how true it would be and I’ve refined it somewhat but my purpose is to serve - and more specifically to serve in love and truth. What that means is, when I’m writing specifically, if I’m speaking the truth, if I’m writing in deep love, if that can be received and shared and be a message for other people… Or one person that resonates and they see a line and they see themselves within that line or they see and recognise their own divinity in the writing, then I’ve done my job.  
Then that’s successful.
Having one person saying ‘I felt that’ it’s the most overwhelming thing. Cuz people can share and be like ‘O that was really good’ ,‘I really liked it’. Great, thanks! And it’s not that I’m not grateful for those people that say they like my work, but also for people to actually be like ‘I felt differently’ or ‘I felt seen’ that’s special.

One of my favourite books in the whole world, that I read at least once a year, is The Alchemist. And every time I read that book I feel seen… in a multitude of ways. Those are the moments where my life, the author’s life and God meet in the middle. Those are really special moments, so if my writing can give even 1/100 of that feeling then I’m ecstatic.

This makes so much sense to also the work that you do with embodiment and conscious movement. In order for you to convey through words certain feelings and experiences you need to feel them first, and the body is the instrument of feeling. When I was in your classes, I felt like every pose you were naming was being born from somewhere other than the mind, from somewhere deeper like a specific feeling. And I always felt in a sort of mystical experience, where one pose overflowed into the next like a wave - rather than a mechanical act. 

How did you come to yoga? And why did you choose movement to be your life’s work?

Thank you for saying that, first of all.

When I was growing up, I was always doing something. I started when I was young, I did gymnastics and then martial arts, then I was a football player for a little bit - I was terrible at it! I was scared of the ball… They were saying ‘Tiffany you need to take the ball’, I kept refusing and my coaches didn’t love that. 

When I went to secondary school, one of my friends at the time invited me to go to her performance. We were 11 or 12 years old. Suddenly I was like, OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS?

I always used to make up dances - me and my cousins for our parents. I started to go to musical theatre school and dance school when I was 12 or 13 and it was something I didn’t have to work too hard to be good at. Most people start ballet when they’re 5 or 6, and I came into class thinking Oh this feels really good. So it was this exploration of movement through dance that started the journey.

I was single-pointed in my focus. - 'I wanna be a dancer and I wanna be the best" .

And although there was this competitiveness I was inherent to it,, to express myself on stage was bliss and ecstasy- still to this day I haven’t met a feeling like it - in a way that is completely separate from any other kind of ecstatic experience I’ve ever had. It was like, there was just my body on stage and in that moment I wasn’t in control. 

I can now define it after doing years of work as a spiritual experience but at the time I didn’t recognise it as that. My body was doing the things and then there was something moving through that allowed me to express something that was beyond the choreography. It was the outlet that really fulfilled me until I started moving into it as a career, then I felt the aspect of the performance shrinking away hardened under the technique, competition and conformity. 

That just reminded me, a teacher had the other day said ‘we move to be free and yet we place ourselves into small shapes and techniques that restrict that freedom and confine it within something that is so small’ - I thought Oh My God that’s a metaphor for fucking life. 

So it became really restrictive for me, and after a series of personal events I gave up dancing. Years later, I was living in London, thinking I need to move my body in some way, and I walked into a studio just around the corner from my house and I sat there in my first yoga class… and in that moment my teacher Leila spoke directly to my soul, in a way that no one else has ever done before. I can’t even remember what she said, but she had just come back from taking a plant Medicine, and she looked at me in a very specific way and it was as if someone had put a little hook into my heart center and pulled me and called me forwards and inwards. 

I was very resistant to becoming a yoga teacher for a really long time. I really enjoyed the personal practice and I really enjoyed what was unfolding for me but there was a real lack of worthiness around being able to teach. She kept inviting me to teacher training and I kept refusing.
Eventually I did it. And it was honestly the best thing I’ve ever done.

Although I didn’t call myself a yoga teacher - for a very long time I said I was teaching yoga, which has a slight nuance - I felt like I was at home. 

I wanted to share the impact of how the practice had helped me, or continues to help me, because that’s really important. It’s really important to use the practice I learned and share it… To share this practice of awakening and liberation. 

The embodiment piece, the movement piece, it’s a way to access something greater. 

If I can be a window or a portal to someone having a little bit more access to that thing on the other side then that’s my goal. 

I never see it (the physical practice) as an end goal achievement like once you do a handstand that’s it. 

It’s actually … 

How do we access movement as a movement of prayer?

And in a deeper sense, our awakening. And our own liberation. And our own freedom.

Because movement to me is freedom. Embodiment to me is freedom. Even when the feelings are not good, because we can’t say that freedom and liberation come easily - we know in the wider world that it doesn’t - but being able to create the capacity to be with every single part of the experience, and allow the body to hold you in that experience, that’s freedom and that’s liberation.

So it became my work because I feel like I want people to experience their own liberation. Truly.  

You know… before we sat down to have this conversation, I jotted down a few thoughts. I wrote ‘she doesn’t perform, she lives’. 

Who do you embody? What do you embody? And what is embodiment?

I don’t want to give the Webster's dictionary of what embodiment is. 

Embodiment to me is … the capacity to be fully present to the emotional, sensational landscape of our being. And to have that awareness of a connection to source. 

That is what I would call an embodiment. 

In Tantra they say that awakening is not outside of the body. That the body is the vehicle to understand our connection to everything, but also we are allowed to and it is important to delight in the pleasures of the body. So embodiment is going in to experience it all. To experience it all, yeah.

And so who do I embody? I could say I embody Tiffany, but it’s an interesting question, then I have to ask ‘who is Tiffany?’ And so…

When I’m teaching, particularly, I just let Tiffany get out of the way. The conditioning, the story of Tiffany, the story of who she is or who I am, kind of moves to the side because in that moment it’s not about me. I’m creating a space. My embodiment is, in that moment, creating a space to allow source to come through, to meet the other bodies in that space I’m teaching, to be a reflection for them, to be a mirror for them, to hold space for them and also to transmit to them. So in that moment who do I embody? Everything? Her? Them? Consciousness, Universe, Source?

To say also, when you said very kindly ‘she doesn’t perform, she just lives’, there is a part of that that is inherent to who I am as a person. There’s also a part of that that had to be cultivated by practice. And that’s not the practice of showing up the way that it might be perceived but the action of the dedicated practice of sitting in meditation, of praying, of mantra, of self-study, of physical asana movement, of an embodied movement practice, studying with mentors, the unraveling of my own conditioning through self reflection, through shadow work, through experiencing sexuality and sensuality … To be able to move into that place where there is no doubt and there’s no question of why I’m there and what I’m doing and who I am.

It takes work.

And I think it can be felt. I’ve been with teachers and I’ve been with people and you can feel a certain weight to their being which permeates the room that they are in. That’s an important distinction for me. When you’re in the presence of someone who is so utterly connected it can be, for me, something like a holy or sacred experience. Therefore it’s important for me to keep doing the work to allow that to happen. To allow me to consistently hold and create a bigger and bigger container so that more light can pour through and come in. 

How does it feel to be a black woman in the modern yoga space?
I can’t help but ask you because yoga became this white and polished practice where the goal is primarily an aesthetic one. I can’t know how it feels for you, but I wonder if your doubts in regard to calling yourself a yoga teacher came from not seeing many like you in that position.

It’s a big discussion, if we’re talking about yoga - it’s a South Asian practice and as a black woman I need to respect its origins first of all. Yet, I think that it is important for black people to have access to this practice, especially as a practice of freedom and liberation in a world that is often trying to repress and oppress us.

If we talk about yoga specifically, there aren’t that many black yoga teachers comparatively and often they aren’t visible or well known and don’t have the same opportunities as white folks. I’ve seen it happen time and time again that the same type of people are getting the prime slots generally white men and women that fit a certain body type or look. And this is not to negate their level of training or capability and skill as teachers, it’s just that it’s not representative. Even now in London, in a city as big as London, I'm often the only black person in the room or or maybe one of two or three, in the studios that I go to practice at and that is mirrored as a teacher in spaces too

It’s been very challenging because I started by having to get over the barrier of coming into a practice and not seeing people like you. It makes it difficult not just in yoga spaces but also in the wellness spaces in general.

II guess then how do I allow myself to recognise that there is an unfair system at work in all places? This isn’t only in the yoga space but globally in society across the world. How do I recognise that? How do I keep stepping up and stepping in? Using my voice to share what that means, what that feels like and how to create access for that but also not allow myself to become a victim of it. When I say become a victim of it, I mean allow that to define where I practice and how I practice, how I show up for my students and how I show up for myself. In the past I’ve allowed outside forces and ideas to define who I am and while it is an important part of who I am, it needn’t be the crutch that stops me from doing things.

So it’s challenging, the landscape is changing very very very slowly. 

There’s a community of teachers of color that are doing amazing things and supporting within the community. I think that’s really useful but how do we then make that mainstream? If they want to. But then, do I want to invest in an industry that is clearly not wanting me necessarily to eat at the same table? Is it a question of divesting from the wellness industry in a way that again “defines success as how many people come to your class / how much money you’re making / whether you got an online presence” all of that kind of stuff… Do I divest from that and just make sure that I’m serving the communities that need to be served? I know they are out there. And I know they will find me because we always find our teachers. 

There’s a part of me that doesn’t want me to buy into it, and there’s also a part of me that if I can leverage that little bit more space… could I invite more people into my community, into this realm of existence that takes it beyond a really good asana practice.

Perhaps you’re here to create something that’s not there yet, instead of finding ways to fit into what’s already got its own shape.

And that’s also scary to me to think that I could have that impact. Like a fear of really succeeding, you know. That’s one thing that I deal with, we can allow ourselves to be happy to have an impact on one or two people or that community we have that we’ve built, but then what would it mean for that to be much more than anything I’ve ever expected or experienced?
I’m holding space for that.

I think it’s going to be much more beautiful than what you imagine. 

I hope so. I have some pretty wild dreams. I can envision it. I just need to allow myself to get there. 

To know more about Tiffany’s work, visit her website