Drillers in the Mist — Exploring Yoga in the Mining Industry (or a Love Letter?)

photo - Sarah Jessop

Popey was having a hard time. Things were desperate, dull and dissolute in the lead up to Christmas. The bulls had been kicking up dust in the city office, and the team, including the Drillers and Fieldies, were bored, tired and overworked — a sure-fire recipe for trouble. I was leaving that day for Christmas break despite Popey’s conviction that I had been permanently transferred to his team. Later that day there would be tears, but not from me, for once.

In the blackness of predawn we manage to wake up, get to our cars and on our way to Prestart Meeting. Low dark clouds above are trapping in the hot air; a heavy misty rain is falling. It is the start of Nina and what will turn out to be a wetter, stormier monsoon than most in recent climatic change history. We drive separately and silently through what appears a dystopian nightmare — some have called it ‘construction phase’.

Popey had asked me the day before if I could do the Prestart stretches. I had felt slightly guilty about leaving, so despite my protestations I had agreed. He knew it would be yoga, and from previous experiments by me he knew it would be somewhat interesting for all.

The sun is just rising as we finish Prestart. We have been standing outside in the mist and drizzle for a while now, dank. I look around at the dirty shirts, clean faces and tired bodies.

Namaste Fuckers.

“Right, let’s get our feet on the ground, feet slightly apart, loose knees. Really get solid with the ground.”

The choc-mint milk drinks and quadruple-coffee-shot sugar milks are cast aside. Soggy roll-your-own cigarettes out of fingers and balanced on, well, just about anything. Yes, times are bad. The mud, the filth, the industrial noises and the total tiredness of young faces making the best of it make me think of the ANZACS in the First World War. I question myself — yes, I am tired, and with that does come a tendency for drama. War has the death, but around here that is never far away.

“Hips tipped slightly forward; remember when we sucked our guts in to our spine and up? That’s really good for ‘Driller’s Back’. “

Smiles and nods. Respect? Maybe.

Drillers stand for 12 hours a day ‘On the Levers’ of a drill rig and get lower back pain from standing so long not moving. The Rig drills soil samples for geological analysis. The Rig, which is either a track or truck rig (with tracks like a tank or with wheels like a truck) usually has three crew — a Driller and two Offsiders. There are two additional support trucks, driven by the Offsiders. Like a ship with a captain, they are completely self-sufficient, and much like boats, no two Rigs are the same.

“OK, remember the breath? In through the nose and out through the nose — Darth Vader breath.”

Nah, blank faces.

“Seashell noise?”

Yeah right, right.

“Listen to my breath. Arms up breathe in. Arms down breathe out. Remember suck your guts in and up on the out.“

Right, right.

Giggles from the Offsiders.

There is something in this thing. Forty or fifty guys focussing on the breath in the early dawn, mist surrounding us. These men were the naughty ones in high school. The constant questioners, the highly charismatic and intelligent, the teenage criminals and drug dealers, the juvey or sometimes prison old hands. The ones that were either going to run their own cult or a very successful drug-dealing business. Their ability for lateral thinking and hard but intelligent work never fails to impress me. Always someone studying for a PhD, a degree in English Literature or Fine Arts. Speakers of five languages. Lovers. Sporting heroes. The outliers and misfits.

“OK, this time on the out breath hands to your knees, ankles or toes. Guts in and up.”

“Now, breath in. Reach for the sky.”

Five times.

“Reach for the sky one more time. Breath out and down. Heads down, left leg back.”

I wonder, how do they just know it?

“Stretch your arms up to the sky… and breath out and down.”

“Now use your breath to pull you up.”

Five times.

After swapping sides Popey looks worried, so I wrap it up. Giggles and shiny faces; energy and connection. Popey says, appearing slightly stunned, “That was 20 minutes long. I thought they were going to lose it.” Nah, they loved it. Happy faces in the rain.

Energised?

A small respite?

There are questions later and never-ending. Can I teach them? When? Can we do it one on one? Don’t tell anyone. Why does it make me feel something? What is something? Critique from those startled by the ease in which magic can happen.

It is Christmas soon. Always a new last-minute plan by the young bulls just before Christmas — meaning a last big push by us to achieve the impossible. In a few days there will be floods and people will be confined to their rooms for days. Social media leaks on living conditions — things will change radically later later but not just yet. Now COVID — How do we get to our families? It is hard every year but this year extra hard. The questions — do I even have a family waiting for me? Decisions to be made about work. Is it too much? Do I leave the job or the family? Some have not seen their families for almost a year, having made the decision to stay in WA to work. Men crying in the shadows after dark. The glow of ZOOM screens. No eye contact with strangers. Long eye contact with mates and a quiet, “You right?”

Mind on the job. Don’t fuck up.

Namaste fuckers: I love you all.

GLOSSARY

bulls: Young up and coming stars of the mining industry with their eyes on the top spot (whatever that is). Mostly male.

fieldies: Field technician. Someone who does all the practical field work for a Geologist. Field is the Australian desert, bush, or scrub; anywhere outside an office.

guts: stomach/abdominal area — Mula/Uddiyana bandha

ANZACs: Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, a WWI battalion, many of whom died in Turkey.

juvey: juvenile prison

WA: Western Australia

mates: friends

workmates: friends at work that you would die for but as soon as you leave work you forget them — it’s an Australian thing.