Student of the Month - Thomas DeBoni
Thomas DeBoni: Student of the Month for August
Perhaps you were fortunate to met Thomas in person in yoga class last year when he and his wife, Micheline, spent a few weeks in Asheville on their way to their summer home in Windsor, Vermont. Or perhaps more recently you’ve shared Zoom class with him when Randy teaches asana or leads Sutra studies. Tall, rangy, with a long white beard and rumbling deep voice that casting directors might call “Old Testament,” Tom is a man of impressive professional accomplishment, wide interests, and a healthy dose of self-deprecating charm. He, with a laugh, describes himself as a bit “of a nerd and a long-time road dog.”
Tom grew up in Elkhart, Indiana, a “dedicated science and space kid,” and graduated from high school in 1967. The war in Viet Nam had not yet resulted in the draft lottery, but Tom was anxious about being called to serve without a choice of what his service might entail. His father had served in WW II and Korea in the U.S. Army Air Corp and U.S. Air Force, so Tom enlisted in the Air Force and served in this branch for four years, receiving his early technical training there, in aircraft radio electronics. After returning from Viet Nam and Thailand in 1972 when his term was up, he attended Purdue University to study science and engineering, taking advantage of his GI Bill educational benefits. His BS was in math, computer science, and electrical engineering. After a year in Texas, he took a job in California with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory (LLNL). The Livermore Lab is a U.S. nuclear weapons and energy research facility, but Tom worked in unclassified scientific computer modeling.
“I was part of the scientific programming effort,” he explained. “If, for example, you want to study fluid flow, or the behavior of a set of atoms or molecules, you model the system with sets of mathematical equations that describe it. Those equations can be translated into a computer program, which, when run, advances the equations in time, and simulates the system’s behavior.”
Tom continued his education U.C. Davis and the University of Texas, studying ways to program very large problems for solutions on ensembles of computers operating together to solve the problem. This was called parallel computing: a combination of mathematics, programming, and computer language. “Most people understand this work when I talk about choreographing a square dance or a ballet—that’s parallel computing.”
Consider the problem of weather modeling and prediction: there are many different sorts of mathematical models for predicting weather, varying in complexity and detail—whether they consider features such as mountains and bodies of water—and the size of the pieces the atmospheres is broken into for the simulation. Even a simple, coarse model can take so long to calculate that the predictions of tomorrow’s weather won’t be done before tomorrow, unless they’re modeled on a large, parallel computer.
Tom returned to Livermore after grad school, to work with a research group whose goal was to provide a general-purpose user interface for a wide range of parallel processing platforms. This work was intended to simplify the problem of programming an application to execute on a parallel supercomputer, a very complex undertaking.
Following the work at LLNL, which lasted 9 years, Tom worked for eight years at The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as Berkeley Lab, which conducts scientific research on behalf of the Department of Energy.
Having worked in this field for more than 30 years, Thomas retired at age 55, and turned his attention to pursuing his other interests, including travel and volunteer work for environmental causes. And Tom discovered Iyengar yoga. “I lived in the San Francisco-Bay area for 30 years and had never heard of ‘Iyengar’—which is amazing because there are so many excellent Iyengar teachers there. I had taken a few basic yoga classes in the 70s, but wasn’t really impressed. I’d long been a student of Eastern philosophy; in my 20s I read a lot of Buddhist and Zen teachings.”
But it wasn’t until he and his wife moved to Florida in 2012 that Iyengar yoga entered his life. He explained: “Micheline had fallen off her bike and broken her hip. We had been taking “core classes” for exercise in our local community, and the teacher casually mentioned having taught yoga. When I asked where one might study that, she advised me to look into a school that was a mile or so from our house and was an Iyengar studio. My wife urged me to leave her to recover in peace, and suggested I look into that school. It didn’t take more than a few classes there, before I was impressed by the methodology of this approach. The orderly and precise instruction suited the way I learn. At this time in life, my goals with yoga were modest: to stave off the ravages of old age, and stay balanced and flexible—body and mind. But over these past eight years I’ve gotten serious about my practice—coming late to the party as I did. I find the study of the sutras and the philosophy as it evolved from ancient times to be deeply satisfying, as well.”
During the pandemic, Tom has continued to study with Randy and Greta, but is also enjoying taking Zoom classes with several other Iyengar teachers all over the country. “Hearing the same details described differently by different teachers is very useful. A few years back I was in Paris and took an Iyengar class that was taught in English, but I think I would have understood the instructor—even if she only spoke French: the Iyengar methodology is so clear and consistent.”
When he was younger, Tom asserts he was a risk taker, if you consider sky diving to fall in that category. “One year, my wife and I drove our pick-up truck 11,000 miles in eight weeks to circumnavigate the lower 48. We also spent time in New Zealand. Travel is off the table for now, except for traveling inward. And that’s the ultimate journey—heading towards Samadi.”
Another of Tom’s interests is collecting vintage stereos on which to play his collection of tapes and vinyl albums. “I love all kinds of music, especially classic rock.”
Rock onwards, Thomas, and inwards, too. And thanks for joining our Iyengar community.