Expanding Our Community – John Schumacher

Expanding Our Community

FOCUS ON COMMON VALUES ACROSS YOGA TRADITIONS STRENGTHENS COMMUNITIES AND INCREASES AWARENESS OF THE IYENGAR METHOD. By John Schumacher

All photos taken by Daniel Guida at the 2013 IYNAUS Conference and Convention in San Diego.

Sarvabhauma, which Guruji translates as

“universal,” was the theme of our recent convention in San Diego. It was a wonderful gathering, in no small part because of the excellent teaching of Guruji’s emissary, Birjoo Mehta, who demonstrated in his presentation the open-hearted spirit and true universality of yoga, the essence of sarvabhauma.

During the convention, many facets of the Iyengar community were on display—not only asana and pranayama classes, but lectures on therapeutic yoga research, films about Guruji’s philanthropy and Geeta’s sadhana (practice, quest), Indian dance, and much more, all of which added to the richness of the experience. Included in this tapestry of teachings and presentations was a panel about the business of yoga, in which I was invited to participate. We discussed a broad spectrum of topics ranging from various business practices, such as scheduling and teacher payment systems to mission statements and values. A very important part of the discussion revolved around the value of reaching out to the at-large community as a way to build up a studio’s student population and spread the word about the benefits of Iyengar Yoga. The regional conference that took place over the weekend preceding the convention had a similar purpose: to reach out to the nonIyengar yoga community and spread the teachings.

With all this discussion of community, what do we actually mean by it? The word community comes from the Latin word communitas meaning community or fellowship, which in turn comes from the word communis, meaning common. A community, then, is a group whose members have something in common, something universal within the group.

Innumerable ways of describing and delineating community suggest themselves. For the purposes of this discussion, we can think about community geographically: local, regional, national, and international communities. We can divide each of these geographical communities into yoga and nonyoga communities. And we can further divide each of the geographical yoga communities into the Iyengar Yoga community and the non-Iyengar yoga community.

When I began to practice and later teach yoga some 40 years ago, part of the inspiration that guided me centered around the realization that we are all connected to one another in a profound and essential way. This truth is embedded in the word yoga itself—yuj, union, yoke. Sharing the discoveries, difficulties, and joys of practice and teaching with fellow practitioners and teachers made me feel I was part of a community of people with common values who practiced It seems like basic karma 101 to see that if we want respect and appreciation from others, we must be willing to offer the same to them.

methods that acknowledged and fostered this sense of connection. That our numbers were fairly small back in those days no doubt added to the bonds we felt.

To provide an avenue for exploring and strengthening those bonds, in the early ’70s, a number of us from different traditions created an eclectic organization, the Mid-Atlantic Yoga Association (MAYA). We deepened our understanding and promoted the practice of yoga by holding workshops with guest teachers and having meetings in which we discussed how we were teaching our classes and what we had learned most recently. MAYA was a community of people dedicated to propagating the study and practice of yoga across any boundaries of method or style.

Several of us who were active in MAYA also became involved in another eclectic organization, Unity In Yoga. Spearheaded by Rama Jyoti Vernon, Unity In Yoga had the same goal as MAYA: to create a vehicle for spreading the word about yoga. A major difference, however, lay in the scope of Unity In Yoga’s activities, which were national and international in nature. We put on what I think were the first national yoga conferences with such luminaries as Indra Devi, Vasant Lad, and Swami Satchidananda; sent a group to the Soviet Union to teach yoga; got involved with the United Nations; and more. Unity In Yoga eventually morphed, after a schism over the issue of national certification for yoga teachers, into Yoga Alliance.

My point in talking about these past events and groups is to provide an example of community on several different levels— local, national, and international as well as nondenominational, if you will. And because this article is a personal take on the issue of community, I wanted to give you a sense of where I’m coming from in my examination of that issue, especially as it relates to our own Iyengar Yoga community.

One of the reasons I was drawn to Iyengar Yoga early on was because of the strong sense of community I felt when I was with other Iyengar Yoga practitioners. The bonds of large eclectic organizations are rather like the bonds shared by members of a city or state: They are tangible, important, and because of size, a bit diffuse. The bonds shared by our Iyengar

Given this relative invisibility and misunderstanding, it seems clear that we need to find ways to get our name out there in accurate and favorable terms.

Yoga community are tighter than that—explicit, more like a tribe or even a large extended family, where everyone shares important and similar values: allegiance to Guruji and the Iyengars, adherence to the Iyengar method, a passion for practice, and an identification with the Iyengar Yoga community on some level. Of course, as with any tribe or family, differences, disagreements, and dissension exist, but we acknowledge and occasionally even celebrate our common purpose and practice, which I think most of us will agree supports us in our sadhana.

In some ways, the shared, explicit, strong sense of identity that forms the foundation of our community also sows the seeds of some of the problems we have in attracting new adherents. I think that at times we draw the line between ourselves and the rest of the yoga world a little too sharply. Certainly we feel that our method is the best. It is challenging, comprehensive, effective, and powerful. If we didn’t feel that way, then we’d be practicing some other method. But in extolling the virtues of our method, I think we should be careful to do so in a way that does not denigrate other approaches. It seems like basic karma 101 to see that if we want respect and appreciation from others, we must be willing to offer the same to them.

Guruji provides a great example of this. He has always been welcoming to yogis of other traditions and has shared platforms with religious leaders of all stripes in the name of spiritual awakening. Indeed, many of us are familiar with his response to the question “What is Iyengar Yoga?” “I myself do not know,” he replies. “I simply practice yoga and others have taken to calling my practices as ‘Iyengar Yoga.’”

In that vein, I think it would benefit our community to engage with yogis from other traditions and methods in an honest and open exchange of ideas and experiences. One way of doing this is for our more senior teachers to teach at conferences and centers that include a variety of styles. I know from my own experiences teaching at Yoga Journal Conferences and centers such as Kripalu and Omega that dialogues with teachers from other kinds of yoga can be rich and can open important avenues to explore. And this can be true not only in terms of yoga philosophy and practice but also in terms of community outreach and public relations. Because these organizations do extensive advertising nationally, appearing at centers and conferences such as these puts Iyengar Yoga in the national eye and draws attention to the valuable things we have to offer.

In my own local area, I began to engage with yogis from outside the Iyengar community many years ago by having lunch every three months or so with several of the owners of large established yoga centers in the area. We talk about myriad things, but more important to me, we maintain open lines of communication and create a sense of community on a local basis. When events come up that affect the yoga community, we find out about it quickly and are able to act having as much information on hand as possible.

The local yoga community plans events such as D.C. Yoga Week, offering discount classes to the community at large and staging a free yoga class on the Washington Mall between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. Because of my involvement with the community, I was invited to be one of four teachers on the Mall this year. It was a great opportunity to give people a taste of Iyengar Yoga and let them experience some of what we find so valuable and compelling. All of these sorts of events, national and local, are always advertised, so when people see the ads, the Iyengar name is imprinted in their minds. Since folks are going to create samskaras anyway, we might as well do what we can to have them be favorable Iyengar Yoga samskaras.

At Unity Woods, one way that we’re finding very helpful in attracting attention from the broader nonyoga community is to offer specialty classes. Classes such as Yoga for Athletes, Yoga for Scoliosis, Yoga in Spanish, Teen Yoga, Back Care, and Seniors’ Yoga appeal to folks who might otherwise not be interested in a general yoga class. Because Iyengar Yoga excels at working with special populations, this may be a rewarding road to explore to attract more attention to our name and skills.

In the panel discussion at the convention, participants offered a number of strategies for reaching beyond the boundaries of our own community: sending teachers into communities of people of color, who don’t usually participate in yoga classes; putting on events such as Yogathons; and hosting open studios. There were a lot of good ideas for working on the local and regional level. But we need to do more on the national level.

I received an email recently offering a $25 gift certificate to Lululemon in return for filling out a brief survey. Thinking that my wife might find a gift certificate useful, I began to fill out the survey. The first page asked my name, address, and if I practiced yoga. I answered yes and was asked what style.

A pull-down menu appeared listing Ashtanga, Flow, Vinyasa, Baptiste, Bikram, and Other. I was shocked not to see Iyengar listed. Granted, it’s a Lululemon survey, and we Iyengaris are not usually too big on expensive spandex, but it seemed a huge oversight not to be listed individually as I consider Iyengar Yoga one of the largest and best-known yoga styles.

In checking around, it turns out that lots of people, including people who practice yoga regularly, haven’t heard of Iyengar Yoga, and many who have heard of Iyengar Yoga really have no idea what it is. Props, good for old and injured people, slow, gentle, alignment-based, strict: These were the adjectives describing Iyengar Yoga that I encountered most often. They are, of course, accurate, but very incomplete and misleading as a way of describing what we do. Given this relative invisibility and misunderstanding, it seems clear that we need to find ways to get our name out there in accurate and favorable terms.

Another noteworthy event at the convention was Dr. Alyson Ross’s talk on the current state of research on the therapeutic applications of Iyengar Yoga. Her presentation illustrated how cutting-edge we are in terms of treating a variety of ailments and, I think, points toward one way to get our name out there. Disease and illness (obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, to name a few) are epidemic in our culture, so effective remedies—Iyengar Yoga being one of them—for the vast array of maladies from which we suffer are going to garner attention. At Unity Woods, we have found that listing on our website the positive results of studies that show the benefits of Iyengar Yoga for common conditions such as back pain and stress gets lots of favorable feedback. Perhaps there is a way that the national and regional associations can get this sort of information out to the public in more extensive and focused ways. A thornier issue is the use of the Iyengar name, which has proprietary restrictions that limit its use and thus its exposure. Many of us who teach know that there are teachers from other traditions who come to study with us and then take what they hear and use it in their own classes. They are not allowed to use the Iyengar name to describe what they do, so students in their classes are being exposed to Iyengar principles and information without it being attributed to Iyengar Yoga. I know that Guruji doesn’t want uncertified people who often are unseasoned, don’t really understand the method, and aren’t properly conveying it to run around claiming to teach Iyengar Yoga or Iyengar-influenced yoga. However, because our method of practice and teaching is so systematic and effective that people from other methods are borrowing from it more and more, we should try to find a way to get the credit due us without sullying the purity of the method and its application.

One way might be to really focus on the rigorousness of our certification process and the high quality of teachers it produces. I know that some attempts have been made to highlight certification and the excellence of our certified teachers, but I think the important distinction between what we do and what our imitators do could be clarified by focusing intensely and consistently on “certified” versus “uncertified” rather than focusing on the use of the Iyengar name. And with so much in the media about yoga injuries and dangerous teachers, emphasizing the thoroughness of our training and certification procedures is another opportunity to distinguish ourselves in a favorable manner.

These observations and suggestions are not meant to be conclusive or exhaustive, but rather to stimulate and add to the discussion of how to promote Iyengar Yoga and expand our community. No matter what policies we develop, what marketing strategies we devise, what public relations campaigns we undertake, in the end, we will spread an appreciation of the value and joy of Iyengar Yoga communities one person at a time, one class at a time, one workshop at a time. And we will be persuasive in inviting others into our community only to the extent that we do so from a celebration not only of our uniqueness but of our common humanity and universal spirituality.

John Schumacher is the founder/director of Unity Woods Yoga Center, which has served the Washington, D.C., area since 1979. He has been a student of Guruji’s since 1981. John is dedicated to sharing the joys and challenges of Iyengar Yoga with as broad an audience as possible in the U.S. and worldwide.