News From the Regions

IMIYA

IMIYA Develops One-, Three- and Five-Year Action Plans The Intermountain Iyengar Yoga Association (IMIYA) is committed to four distinct goals:

Helping members deepen their individual yoga practice

Teaching the Iyengar method to new and continuing students

Disseminating the values inherent in the art, science, and philosophy of yoga according to the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar

Promoting awareness of those teachings throughout our region (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming)

To address these goals, the IMIYA Board has been working with an outside consultant—Aaron Cohen of 3PG Consulting—to help us align our member services and other activities with these goals. We began with two half-day planning sessions in March. Here are some of the items on our agenda:

Create multiyear strategic goals with well-defined organizational alignment

Generate one- and three-year plans based on the multiyear goals

Develop a schedule for reviewing IMIYA’s progress and updating our plans as needed

Address board roles and responsibilities to ensure that our efforts have maximum impact

Develop goals and strategies for fundraising to make IMIYA’s budget reliable and sustainable

During the two half-day sessions, we put together one-, three-, and five-year goals for the board. Our primary aim is to make the promise of yoga—the union of body, mind, and spirit— easily accessible to all through a compassionate approach to allow the true self to shine into the world.

We set some fairly aggressive objectives, tasks, and actions; measures of success; and accountability and follow-up for each board member. Of course, we’ll be looking for volunteers to help us succeed with all of our long-term goals. We also look forward to putting together comprehensive operational guidelines for all board members as they commence with their board activities. Community Involvement IMIYA will sponsor its third annual Yoga Day on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014. Yoga Day is a community-building event and an opportunity for students to take classes with different certified Iyengar Yoga instructors in our region. Yoga Day is offered to IMIYA members at a discounted price, but everybody is welcome.

For the second year in a row, we’ll participate in Yoga Rocks the Park, a celebration of yoga, music, and community for the entire family in parks across the U.S. to spread the word about yoga. These monthly events begin Memorial Day weekend and go through September in Denver. Check the website (www.yogarocksthepark.com) for events in your city. There will be one or two IMIYA board members at each event in Denver, staffing a table to talk about the benefits of Iyengar Yoga.

IYAGNY

Since opening in July 2013, the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Brooklyn has enjoyed many successes. Nine Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York (IYAGNY) teachers have asked to join the faculty, benefit workshops run almost every Saturday, and classes continue to grow. The tree of Iyengar Yoga is flourishing in Brooklyn.

The flagship Institute in Manhattan held its 10th annual Yogathon and Mary Dunn Celebration. Its biggest yearly gettogether, the event celebrates Senior Teacher Mary Dunn’s ongoing contributions to the community, including the Spirit of Mary Dunn Class, in which teachers teach pose the way they remember Mary teaching it. Each year, participants present poses for duration, repetition, or artistic merit, asking sponsors to pledge them. This year’s fundraising goal was $50,000, and attendants were asked to “Take It to the Next Level” at the event. The Yogathon was the Institute’s last event held in its current home on the 11th floor of 150 West 22nd Street.

Later this summer, the New York Institute will move to the second floor of the building into a reconfigured space with more room for classrooms and a library of Iyengar Yoga resources that will be open to the community.

The community also enjoyed the return of inspiring guest teacher, Matthew Sanford, author of Waking. The four-day June workshop included a writing workshop and a conversation with neuroscientist Barbara Ganzel at The Rubin Museum of Art.

IYALA

The former Iyengar Yoga Association of Southern California (IYASC) attempted to coordinate activities over a very large geographic area. What was formerly the San Diego chapter and the Los Angeles chapter agreed to separate and form two distinct associations. The Iyengar Association of Los Angeles (IYALA) includes communities from Santa Barbara to Palm Desert, Valencia to Costa Mesa, and Hawaii. We are now coordinating resources and activities to network these areas. It is an exciting time!

In addition to this organizational change, we are proud to announce our new up-to-date association website, which is dedicated to association membership and also will serve as a marketing platform for teachers, enabling members to get to know them better. Articles about the teachers of IYALA and how they got into yoga, how it has changed them, and what special expertise they have gained—whether it be prenatal, therapeutic, or teaching the young or the old—will be featured. Starting off this new endeavor is a 12-part series by Jeff Perlman called “The Ayurvedic Chef.” Perlman will explain ayurvedic principles and include recipes based on the availability of fresh food at local farmers’ markets in the area. Perlman is a professional member of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association, certified Iyengar Yoga instructor, and a holistic chef.

The new website also lists names of Iyengar Yoga teachers, studios where they teach, and upcoming workshops and retreats. Please check it out at www.iyengarla.org.

We also are excited about expanding our quarterly newsletter to include articles and interviews to help members get to know B.K.S. Iyengar and his teachings through the eyes of the teachers in our association. We are fortunate that many of the teachers in our area have long-standing relationships with B.K.S. Iyengar and his family. The experiences they share will allow members to know our beloved teacher much better.

In birthday news, Beverly Graves, who is currently on the teaching staff at Ventura Yoga Studio, celebrated her 92nd birthday in March. Graves was the first Iyengar-certified teacher in Ventura County and is greatly beloved by the students there. She is a senior intermediate Iyengar Yoga instructor, was one of Mr. Iyengar’s first students in the United States, and is certified by him. She has been to India to study yoga nine times since 1975, most recently in February 1996. Beverly has taught all over the United States and in Ventura for over 25 years. Members from all over the IYALA region helped her celebrate by sending personal messages and posting comments on the Ventura Yoga Studio’s Facebook page. As always, many fabulous workshops and classes continue to be offered in our area. These include workshops by H.S. Arun, a close disciple of B.K.S. Iyengar, Prashant Iyengar, and Geeta S. Iyengar; Carrie Owerko’s “Divine Play” workshop; and a sevenweek workshop with Gloria Goldberg called “Sundays with Gloria.” Also, students of all levels can attend “A Lunch Date With Eric” on Fridays. This “date” includes a class with Intermediate Senior II teacher Eric Small and a light lunch that he serves immediately after class.

The IYALA Board would like to thank all of our teachers and members for a great start to 2014, and we look forward to the rest of the year.

IYAMN

On Dec.14, we gathered for an evening of celebration to honor the life and teachings of Guruji on the occasion of his 95th birthday. We shared a meal together at the Saint Paul Yoga Center and watched a short movie of his interview with Charlie Rose. The evening also served as the annual general membership meeting for the Iyengar Yoga Association of Minnesota (IYAMN), and we used the time to solicit ideas and suggestions from our members for future events. In 2014 the board has been focusing on outreach to our members, and Board Member Michael Moore is helping us design a more interactive website that, in conjunction with other social media sites such as Facebook, will further our goal of creating a vibrant community of practitioners in our region.

IYANC

The Iyengar Yoga Association of Northern California (IYANC) is excited to announce that we successfully moved the Institute to our new location in San Francisco. We kicked off our grand opening with a very special workshop taught by Stephanie Quirk and a dedication celebration that included special speaker Manouso Manos as well as guests from the Iyengar Yoga community old and new.

IYANC also celebrates 40 years of service. It is a landmark that we are using to honor all of those dedicated practitioners who came before us, our legacy of community members who helped bring the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar to us all. Our new studio space has a welcoming lobby, which is going a long way in attracting new practitioners! After 30 years without one, we are very grateful. We have nearly doubled the number of public classes on our schedule and added 10 new teachers to our staff. While it will take some time to adjust to our new space and schedule, we are seeing a steady influx of interest and new students in the first few weeks of being open.

We are also happy to announce that we are finally in a position to hire an executive director to drive our vision of expanded programming and increased visibility. John Hayden, who valiantly led this transformation as the president of the board of directors, was officially hired in April 2014. He will be working to expand our programming and increase access to Iyengar IYANC’s new location in San Francisco Yoga regionwide, particularly within the medical community and to underserved populations.

John Hayden, Manouso Manos, and Stephanie Quirk at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco’s grand opening celebration.

IYANW

Changes are in the air at Tree House Iyengar Yoga in Shoreline, Wash., a suburb of Seattle. In September, Shaw-Juin Wang (Intermediate Junior II) will take over ownership of the studio.

Pat Musburger, a friend and colleague of Wang’s from Houston, has owned the studio for the past decade. When Musburger (Intermediate Junior I) moved to Seattle in 2003, she purchased Tree House Yoga and received permission from Guruji to change the name to Tree House Iyengar Yoga. She then worked diligently to promote Iyengar Yoga in the community and to train and certify teachers. Over the years, she has helped mentor and recommend numerous teachers for certification and has held at least seven assessments at the studio. Tree House now provides teaching opportunities for nine certified teachers and has developed a lively and inviting community. Wang is relocating to Seattle from Cleveland, so the timing was perfect for Musburger, as she is ready to release the daily responsibility of being a studio owner. She says that Wang is the perfect fit to take over and feels blessed that Wang was interested in taking charge of the studio. Musburger says, “She’ll bring changes that will create new life and interest while at the same time continue the tradition of strong community and Iyengar Yoga teaching that make Tree House a very special place.”

Musburger will continue to teach but looks forward to having more time with her family, her yoga practice, and other interests.

IYASCUS

Iyengar Yoga in Austin is a blog created by Anne-Marie Schultz to provide information on yoga classes all over the Austin area—in stand-alone studios and, as she puts it, all the other “nooks and crannies” where Iyengar Yoga and Iyengar-inspired yoga is taught (iyengaryogainaustin.blogspot.com).

After earning her Introductory II certification in 2006 and relocating to Austin in 2007, Schultz faced a problem. She was new in town and had left an established student base in Waco. In Austin, she had places to teach but no home studio and no website devoted to her teachings or class schedule. It was difficult for her to develop a student following.

Schultz is a full-time, tenured professor of philosophy at Baylor University. She also manages to teach Iyengar Yoga in three places. After moving to Austin, she realized there were other certified Iyengar Yoga teachers in the same area with the same problem: How to let their students and the general public know what, when, and where they were teaching. So Schultz created Iyengar Yoga in Austin as a remedy.

If you live in or are visiting the Austin area and need to find an Iyengar Yoga class, Iyengar Yoga in Austin is the most efficient way to see the whole spectrum of teachers and venues. Or if you live in the area and you want to take more classes with your teacher but she only teaches at your gym once a week, you can check this website to see if she may be holding classes elsewhere.

Schultz writes primarily for an audience of devoted Iyengar practitioners and includes sequences that are usually taken from a recent workshop by a senior teacher, many from Patricia Walden. She posts sequences for practice, and then a group of advanced students and teachers get together every Friday to practice together. Teachers learn from each other and get feedback on their teaching. These practice sessions provide a

means to reinforce learning from workshops and share knowledge with those unable to attend. Schultz helps build community in a more general way by providing a forum for news and events in the area. So, if there’s a potluck, a fundraiser, workshop, or offering by a visiting teacher in Austin, it will definitely be on the blog.

Finally, Iyengar Yoga in Austin is a marketing tool that would be beneficial in any city where certified teachers are not all teaching in one location. By providing useful information about Iyengar Yoga in her local area, Schultz is effectively marketing for the method rather than any particular studio. In business terms, this is our “brand”—we all benefit when the brand is publicized. Further, Iyengar Yoga in Austin contains a blogroll on the side that lists other blogs related to Iyengar Yoga, including those of Devon Diederich, Peggy Kelley, Yves Oberlin, and Schultz’s other blog, Teaching Philosophy and Yoga. In this age of Google rankings, sites with useful information that have a wide-reaching audience and link back to one’s own website or blog are a boon. Inspired by Schultz’s creativity and common sense, I too started a blog: Iyengar Yoga in Houston. Schultz’s model is worthy of replication.

IYASE

The Iyengar Yoga Association of the Southeast (IYASE) held a number of successful events this past year. Our region initiated its first co-sponsored workshop uniting our regional support behind a community studio. IYASE teamed with the Iyengar Yoga Center of Nashville to host Joan White for a Junior Intermediate workshop that focused on observation and adjustment. The Iyengar Center of Nashville organized the workshop and shared profits with IYASE. The association in return helped promote and provide scholarship opportunities for the event. The gift of this relationship was that it allowed IYASE to help bring a senior teacher to our region and support a regional studio without having to take on the burden of hosting the workshop. The effort proved profitable for both IYASE and our regional studio. The turnout was excellent, and we hope this model will be one that regional studios and IYASE can benefit from in the future. We encourage any regional studios that are interested in co-sponsoring a workshop with IYASE to contact us!

We also hosted an introductory teacher training at Stillwater Yoga Studio in Atlanta with Kathleen Pringle. Thanks to Kathleen, this workshop has become a staple in our region and has provided a great opportunity for students curious about teaching and beginner teachers to hone their teaching skills. In addition to regional workshops, we hosted a membership drive this past year with volunteer teachers and studios from many states. Numerous studios volunteered to offer an extended two- or three-hour class for new and renewing students. The drive was a great success and seems to be key in keeping our membership base strong. We are planning to continue our membership drive this coming year.

In addition to hosting these events, we awarded two scholarships for continued study this past year and have implemented a number of improvements to our website and social media outreach. We awarded our annual scholarship for study at RIMYI to Maribeth Sartain, and we awarded a scholarship to Kquvien Deweese for the Intermediate workshop with Joan White in Nashville. We encourage students and teachers from our region to view our website (www.iyase.org) to learn about scholarship opportunities. We also encourage students and teachers in our region to check out our website and Facebook page.

IYASW

Community-Based Seva in Arizona: Patchwork Lives Giving Circle A giving circle is a group of people who share their time, talents and resources for the benefit of others. The Patchwork Lives Giving Circle was started in 2006 by Kathy Shimpock. The mission is to improve and enhance the lives of women and children living in Maricopa County, Arizona. Patchwork is incorporated as a nonprofit charitable corporation under the laws of the state of Arizona.

Shimpock, a long-time Iyengar Yoga student, lawyer, and spiritual counselor founded Patchwork as a seva. Her goal is to provide direct aid to women and children in need in the community without the high overhead and salaries of large charitable organizations.

Backpacks ready to distribute to Phoenix-area school children. Archana Yoga students contribute to this effort every July.

Archana Yoga, in Gilbert, Ariz., owned and operated by Josephine Lazarus, has been an active contributor to Patchwork Lives since its inception. Lazarus and Archana Yoga students along with a dozen other members have raised donations for school supplies for children, tote bags filled with personal necessities for homeless women, suitcases for women in transition living in shelters, and water distribution to the homeless in our blistering heat. Patchwork holds events for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and other holidays for shelter children and families.

Please contact Kathy Shimpock at kathy@patchworklives.org or take a look at the Patchwork Lives Giving Circle website (www.patchworklives.org) to learn more about the service opportunities.

Membership Workshop IYASW hosted its inaugural membership workshop on Jan. 25, 2014, taught by Intermediate Senior I teacher Ben Thomas. Thomas and his wife Tommi joined our SW community a few years ago from the Bay Area. Thomas taught a comprehensive, one-day workshop. Katherine Maltz donated the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Studio of Tucson for the event. Twenty-five students of all

Ben Thomas workshop, January 2014

levels had the opportunity to experience Thomas’ comprehensive approach to yoga.

Thomas teaches with clarity, an evenness of spirit and inner joy that naturally guides his students toward inner stillness. He emphasizes the sacredness of each moment of the practice so that we can explore, experience, become curious, and slow down enough to realize the true art and science of yoga.

“IN SLEEP, THE SENSES OF PERCEPTION REST IN THE MIND, THE MIND IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BEING. SLEEP IS OF THREE TYPES. IF ONE FEELS HEAVY AND DULL AFTER SLEEP, THAT SLEEP HAS BEEN TAMASIC. DISTURBED SLEEP IS RAJASIC. SLEEP THAT BRINGS LIGHTNESS, BRIGHTNESS, AND FRESHNESS IS SATTVIC.”