Yoga Samachar FW2017

VOL. 20, NO. 2

Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

REACHING OUT TO THE PERIPHERY— FROM OUR CORE PLUS: ABHIJATA INTERVIEW YOGA AND SOCIAL JUSTICE TEACHING VIETNAM VETS

FALL 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS

YOGA SAMACHAR’S MISSION

Letter from the President – Michael Lucey . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Yoga Samachar, the magazine of the Iyengar Yoga community in the U.S. and beyond, is published twice a year by the Communications Committee of the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the U.S. (IYNAUS). The word samachar means “news” in Sanskrit. Along with the website, www.iynaus.org, Yoga Samachar is designed to provide interesting and useful information to IYNAUS members to:

News from the Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 An Interview with Abhijata Sridhar – Heather Haxo Phillips . . 8 From Habit to Liberation – Tori Milner and Denise Weeks

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Blue Collar Yoga – Molly Gallagher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Teaching Yoga to Vietnam Veterans – Anne-Marie Schultz . 16 The Oscillating Kite and the Kite Holder – Susan Turis . . . 21 Burning the Seeds of Bondage: Iyengar Yoga And Social Justice – Peggy Gwi-Seok Hong . . . . . . . . . 23 The Force Behind the Convention: Volunteers!

– Ann McDermott-Kave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Musings: Thoughts on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra I.1 – Julie Tamarkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Lois Steinberg Receives Lighting the Way Award – Richard Jonas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Book Review: Prashant Iyengar’s Ashtanga Yoga Of Patanjali – Siegfried Bleher. . . . . . . . 33 Classifieds/Corrections

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Promote the dissemination of the art, science, and philosophy of yoga as taught by B.K.S. Iyengar, Geeta Iyengar, and Prashant Iyengar

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Communicate information regarding the standards and training of certified teachers

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Report on studies regarding the practice of Iyengar Yoga

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Provide information on products that IYNAUS imports from India

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Review and present recent articles and books written by the Iyengars

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Report on recent events regarding Iyengar Yoga in Pune and worldwide

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Be a platform for the expression of experiences and thoughts from members, both students and teachers, about how the practice of yoga affects their lives

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Present ideas to stimulate every aspect of the reader’s practice

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Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Treasurer’s Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

IYNAUS BOARD MEMBER CONTACT LIST Fall 2016/Winter 2017 Laurie Blakeney laurie.blakeney@gmail.com

Paige Noon paige.noon@gmail.com

Leslie Bradley certification@iynaus.org

Anne-Marie Schultz Anne_Marie_Schultz@baylor.edu

David Carpenter dcarpenter@sidley.com

Carlyn Sikes carlyneileen@hotmail.com

Alex Cleveland clevelandalex@yahoo.com

Kathy Simon kathyraesimon@gmail.com

Matt Dreyfus mattdreyfusyoga@gmail.com

Christine Stein shamani108@mac.com

Gloria Goldberg yogagold2@gmail.com

Manju Vachher dr.manju.vachher@gmail.com

Scott Hobbs sh@scotthobbs.com

Nancy Watson nancyatiynaus@aol.com

Shaaron Honeycutt shaaron.honeycutt@gmail.com

Denise Weeks denise.iynaus@gmail.com

Michael Lucey 1michael.lucey@gmail.com

Stephen Weiss stphweiss@gmail.com

Patty Martin pattimartinyoga@gmail.com

Sharon Cowdery (Director of Operations) generalmanager@iynaus.org

Diana Martinez dianamartinezyoga@gmail.com

Contact IYNAUS:

Ann McDermott-Kave amkave1@optonline.net

P.O. Box 538 Seattle WA 98111 206.623.3562 www.iynaus.org

YOGA SAMACHAR IS PRODUCED BY THE IYNAUS PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE Committee Chair: Tori Milner Editor: Michelle D. Williams Copy Editor: Denise Weeks Design: Don Gura Advertising: Rachel Frazee Members can submit an article query or a practice sequence idea for consideration to be included in future issues. Articles should be well-written and submitted electronically. The Yoga Samachar staff reserves the right to edit accepted submissions to conform to the rules of spelling and grammar, as well as to the Yoga Samachar house style guidelines.

Queries must include the author’s full name and biographical information related to Iyengar Yoga, along with email contact and phone number.

Please send all queries to Michelle Williams, Editor, yogasamachar@iynaus.org, and we will respond as quickly as possible.

ADVERTISING Full-page, half-page and quarter-page ads are available for placement throughout the magazine, and a classified advertising section is available for smaller ads. All advertising is subject to IYNAUS board approval. Find the ad rates at www.iynaus.org/ yoga-samachar. For more information, including artwork specifications and deadlines, please contact Rachel Frazee at rachel@yogalacrosse.com or 608.269.1441.

Cover Photo: Abhijata Sridhar at the 2016 IYNAUS Convention in Boca Raton, Florida Photo: James Greene

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

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IYNAUS OFFICERS AND STANDING COMMITTEES President: Michael Lucey Vice President: Matt Dreyfus Secretary: Patti Martin Treasurer: David Carpenter Archives Committee Scott Hobbs, Chair

Lindsey Clennell, Elaine Hall, Linda Nishio, Deborah Wallach

Certification Committee

Leslie Bradley, Chair through January Laurie Blakeney, Chair starting in February, 2017 Marla Apt, James Murphy, Garth McLean, Lois Steinberg

Continuing Education Committee Alex Cleveland, Chair Laurie Blakeney Peggy Gwi-Seok Hong Julie Lawrence Octavia Morgan

Leanne Cusumano Roque Carlyn Sikes Shaw-Jiun Wang

Elections Committee

Michael Lucey, Chair

Diana Martinez, Anne-Marie Schultz

Ethics Committee

Manju Vachher, Chair Robyn Harrison, Randy Just, Lisa Jo Landsberg, Jito Yumibe. Contact Ethics at ethics@iynaus.org

Events Committee

Nancy Watson, Chair Colleen Gallagher, Carol Fridolph, Suzie Muchnick, Gloria Goldberg

Finance Committee

David Carpenter, Chair Gloria Goldberg, Stephen Weiss

Governance Committee Michael Lucey, Chair

David Carpenter, David Larsen

Membership Committee Diana Martinez, Chair

IMIYA – Jessica Miller IYACSR –Suneel Sundar IYAGNY – Ed McKeaney IYALA – Becky Patel IYAMN – Joy Laine IYAMW – Donna Furmek IYANC – Brian Hogencamp

IYANE – Kim Peralta IYANW – Margrit von Braun IYASCUS – Karen Dempster IYASE – Howison Hollenberg & Tay Strauss IYASW – Carrie Abts

Letter

FROM THE PRESIDENT

D E A R F E L LOW I Y N AU S M E M B E R S, Lately, I’ve been reflecting on what seems like a deceptively simple sutra from the fourth chapter of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 4.17: taduparaga apeksitvat cittasya vastu jnata ajnatam. Edwin F. Bryant’s translation reads, “A thing is either known or not known by the mind depending on whether it is noticed by the mind.” You have to notice something before you can get to know it. Barbara Stoler Miller’s translation of the same sutra is “A thing is known or not known to thought depending on whether thought is colored by it.”

Bryant informs us that it was the commentator Vijnanabhiksu who suggested that a mind noticing an object more and more fully was like a cloth absorbing color when it is immersed in dye. I remember Prashant Iyengar, in his classes, asking us to become pelvic-minded or shoulder-blade-minded or to “spine-acize” the mind. And I recall Abhijata Sridhar, in Boca Raton, Florida, last May, reminding us that it’s not just the body itself that has a periphery and a core, but each part, each individual layer that requires work to penetrate. Our mind, our thoughts, need to stay intent and focused so that they can soak in more and more of the object we are noticing.

B.K.S. Iyengar translates Sutra 4.17 as “An object remains known or unknown according to the conditioning or expectation of the consciousness.” Part of what this means, he says, is that “if the mind fails to come in contact with the object, it does not perceive it and the object remains unknown.” This experience must be familiar to many of us from our yoga classes at that moment when our teacher asks us to notice something that has heretofore been unnoticed by us, unknown. But Guruji’s commentary takes another turn here, and he points out that “If consciousness is conditioned or coloured, knowledge of the object also becomes coloured.” The dye, we could say, flows in both directions. On the one hand, we have to let our mind soak in the object, take on its colors. On the other hand, we have to learn to notice that our own thoughts already have a certain color to them, which means we shade the objects we perceive in a certain way. “A conditioned mind can never perceive an object correctly,” Guruji writes. Whereas, “If the mind sees the object without expectation, it remains free.”

Publications Committee Tori Milner, Chair

Don Gura, Rachel Frazee, Denise Weeks, Michelle D. Williams

Public Relations and Marketing Committee Shaaron Honeycutt, Chair

Social Media volunteers: Rachel Mathenia, Shaw-Jiun Wang, Zain Syed

Regional Support Committee Anne-Marie Schultz, Chair

IYANW – Janet Langley IYAMW – David Larsen IYAGNY – Caren Rabbino IYASE – Lisa Waas IYASCUS – Randy Just IYASW – Marivic Wrobel

IMIYA – Cathy Wright IYAC-SR – Suneel Sundar IYALA – Jennifer Diener IYANE – Jarvis Chen IYAMN – Katy Olson IYANC – Athena Pappas

Scholarship and Awards Committee Carlyn Sikes, Chair

Lesley Freyberg, Richard Jonas, Lisa Jo Landsberg, Pat Musburger, Nina Pileggi, John Schumacher

Service Mark & Certification Mark Committee

Gloria Goldberg , Attorney in Fact for B.K.S. Iyengar

Systems & Technology Committee

These are, of course, lessons for life as well as for our practice. What aren’t we noticing in the world around us? When we do notice something, what kind of slant is there, what kind of bias, to the way we are noticing it? Ideally, our practice would be making us less judgmental, more open-minded, more aware of the slants that affect our judgment and more committed to avoiding them. “If the consciousness reflects on the essence of the seer without conditioning, bias, or prejudice,” Guruji reminds us, “the mind becomes enlightened.” A wonderful aspiration in these troubled times.

IYNAUS is evolving these days. We are working hard to find new ways of helping you enrich your own practice, the practice that we all share. We are doing our best to notice new things that we could do to help both our general members and our teaching members soak more deeply in the discipline B.K.S. Iyengar has offered us. Look for more news in our monthly e-mails and in the spring 2017 Yoga Samachar on some of the ways we have reorganized to serve you better.

Stephen Weiss, Chair

Ed Horneij, William McKee, David Weiner

Volunteer Coordinator Ann McDermott-Kave

Yoga Research Committee Kathy Simon, Chair

Yours in yoga, Michael Lucey, President IYNAUS Board of Directors

Jerry Chiprin, Renee Royal, Kimberly Williams

IYNAUS Senior Council Kristin Chirhart, Manouso Manos, Patricia Walden, Joan White

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Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

News

FROM THE REGIONS

IYAGNY

IYALA

The Iyengar Yoga Institutes of New York and Brooklyn hold over 100 classes per week, but one of those classes is quite unique.

Meeting every Thursday, for over a decade, the Specific Needs class is led by James Murphy, with the assistance of as many as eight Institute faculty members. Students with a wide variety of situations attend, and they must submit an application describing their specific conditions before being admitted to the class.

Our membership continues to grow—we welcomed 32 new members into the Iyengar Yoga Association of Los Angeles (IYALA), and our current membership now well exceeds 500. We also welcomed four new IYALA board members this year: Laura Baker, Amy Brown, Holly Hoffman, and Mary Ann Kellogg. We are grateful for the other board members who continue to serve, including Mike Montgomery, Don Vangeloff (the new treasurer), and Jennifer Diener, who continues in her role as president.

Sometimes a regular student of the Institute will attend for a while because of an injury or a situation. It could be purely physical, such as learning how to work with a pulled hamstring, or it could be a more complex organic issue, such as dealing with the effects of cancer and chemotherapy.

Some of our students are amputees; some have had accidents that have limited their ability to perform certain movements.

Many have multiple issues to address. One of the functions of the class is to offer space to move along with focused instruction and hands-on guidance. We teach them how to use supports and props available to help them participate in general classes if that is appropriate.

Some of the students have serious disabilities and require assistance to get into and execute the asanas that are helpful to them. In these cases, James and the other teachers in the class assist and guide them throughout the class. One of these students is Zachary, pictured here hanging in Sirsasana. He is a young man with cerebral palsy who recently graduated from college and aspires to be an accountant. In his first class, he stretched his arms over his head. He says that he felt like he could breath as never before, and the following days when he woke up, it didn’t take as long.

“When I opened my eyes, it was an ‘instant awakening!’”

We are grateful for the opportunity this class provides to share B.K.S. Iyengar’s teachings and to see the profound impact on members of our community.

Zachary, a student with cerebral palsy, hangs in Sirsasana during the Specfic Needs class at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

In May 2016, many Iyengar Yoga practitioners from the LA area attended the 2016 tri-annual Iyengar Yoga Convention in Boca Raton, Florida. Abhijata—granddaughter of B.K.S. Iyengar— charismatically guided all of us through four days of asana and pranayama with the focus of “practice.” Through her teaching, it was evident that she paid close attention to her many years of studying with her grandfather. She delighted attendees with story after story of her grandfather’s teaching, yet at the same time taking us deeper into the postures—many of us catching glimpses of the core, allowing us to dwell in our own true splendor (Sutra 1.2 Tada drastuh svarupe avasthanam).

Abhijata showed us all that she is the next generation of Iyengar Yoga, and with it she carries the legacy and splendor of B.K.S. Iyengar. We are in good hands!

Returning home after the convention, Keri Lee taught a delightful class that served as an overview of the convention for those unable to attend. Keri reviewed Abhijata’s golden nuggets of wisdom through practice and recollection of many of the stories. It was wonderful to see such a large group of yogis turn out for Keri’s class, including many of our teachers, board members, and the wider community of students.

Also at our Institute, the three-year teacher training program continues to thrive. We have 12 students currently studying in LA with teachers Gloria Goldberg, Marla Apt, and Diane Gysbers. Our teachers in training and the wider community of students benefit from our senior teachers through Sundays with Gloria and weekend workshops with Manouso Manos.

The Institute and other local studios hosted several Iyengar Yoga assessments in September 2016, including the Intermediate Junior III, in which over 90 students participated. Of the nine teachers going up for assessment, seven were from our region. We are grateful to have so many gifted teachers in our midst. Our students are excited to support the teachers and IYNAUS during these important assessments.

Outside of the Institute, we are fortunate to have many wonderful yoga studios where Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers (CIYTs) offer classes and workshops. Our website lists over 50 studios where Iyengar Yoga classes can be found in and around Los Angeles (www.iyala.org).

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Los Angeles is also fortunate to have many CIYTs across a wide range of levels. Among these, we recently welcomed back to our midst one of our long-standing teachers, Nancy Sandercock, who returned to Los Angeles after completing her master’s degree in performance studies at the University of Alberta in her Canadian home. Many of Nancy’s students have been delighted to have the opportunity to study with her again in classes and workshops.

The Yoga Center Palm Desert also has ongoing IYNAUSapproved teacher education courses with Cathy Rogers Evans.

Groups are limited to 15 so each attendee has an opportunity to teach and receive personal attention, as well as to develop a clear understanding of teaching with ample time for feedback.

We have many exciting workshops planned for the upcoming season with visiting senior teachers as well as quarterly five-day intensives. See www.yogacenterpalmdesert.com for details.

Iyengar Yoga students in and around Los Angeles always have access to a plethora of excellent classes and workshops, including Ayurveda workshops for each of the three seasons by Jeff Perlman (see www.threeseasonsayurveda.com) as well as teacher training intensives by Marla Apt (see www.Yoganda. com) and Carolyn Belko. Jim Benvenuto’s Twist Workshop at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles (IYILA) last spring was a rare opportunity to experience Jim’s teaching. Jim has been teaching for over 20 years and he provided insight into the Iyengar method of practicing twists, layered with yogic philosophy, detailed explanations of Sanskrit language, and unique ways of exploring the twists. So many yogis attended this rich afternoon of practice, and much gratitude is expressed to Jim and IYILA for their commitment to offering excellent opportunities to study the art and science of Iyengar Yoga.

Earlier this year, the Institute also hosted guest teacher workshops including H.S. Arun’s creative use of chairs and other props, Carrie Owerko’s playful practice and many others. Koren Paalman continues to offer her Conscious Grieving workshops at various Los Angeles locations, as well as Iyengar Yoga

IYALA members at the Florida convention Photo: Nancy Baldon

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retreats in Los Angeles, Ojai, California, and South Africa. She also has an upcoming retreat in Hawaii in early 2017—see www.inventiveascent.com for details. We are delighted to share the wisdom from our talented teachers with fellow Iyengar Yoga students both at home in Los Angeles and around the globe.

IYAMN The Iyengar Yoga Association of Minnesota (IYAMN) has a new website, thanks to the initiative of one of our board members: Shannyn Joy Potter. We believe this website will better serve our members by allowing for online payments for workshops and yoga days. More importantly, the new website provides excellent resources, including links to research projects associated with the practice of Iyengar Yoga. We’re excited to finally have a website that will truly serve the needs of our community and that lends itself to further development.

In recent months, IYAMN has hosted two successful events.

Michael Moore, one of our local teachers, taught the summer yoga day in celebration of Guru Purnima Day. The event was held at The Marsh in Minnetonka, and about 50 students gathered to learn and practice yoga together. After Michael’s class, there was time for socializing and viewing the movie “Ultimate Freedom” as a way to celebrate the teachings of Guruji.

Immediately after Labor Day, we hosted Eddy Marks and Mary Obendorfer for a third consecutive year. Mary and Eddy, as was the case last year, were able to spend a week in the Twin Cities teaching two classes each day. Practitioners in our area enjoy this opportunity to have an ongoing relationship with two senior teachers. Mary and Eddy have been focusing on Geetaji’s teachings from the 2015 Yoganusasanam Convention, a real boon for those of us unable to travel to Pune.

We look forward to hosting another yoga day in December and are planning an event to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Guruji B.K.S. Iyengar’s birth.

Mary Obendorfer instructs students in Adho Mukha Svanasana.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

IYAMW In the heart of the Midwest encircling the Great Lakes, Iyengar Yoga continues to have a lively presence, preserving the legacy of our tradition, while expanding its boundaries.

A huge contingent showed up from our region for the IYNAUS Convention in Florida and left inspired and invigorated by Abhijata Sridhar’s stellar teachings. We renewed friendships, shared notes and meals, and engaged in important discussions about the role of Iyengar Yoga in our lives and in our communities.

The Iyengar Yoga Association of the Midwest (IYAMW) Annual Fall Retreat was held at the Palmer House in Chicago, Sept.

23–25. Chris Saudek and Patrina Dobish provided several in-depth asana and pranayama workshops for both continuing beginners and seasoned students, as well as philosophy discussion. Six need-based scholarships were given out to members and nonmembers as an effort to broaden the community. It was fun to be in the middle of downtown sharing time together as a community and taking in experiences beyond the mat. Stay tuned to www.iyamw.org for details about our 2017 retreat.

Lois Steinberg’s Iyengar Yoga of Champaign/Urbana (IYCU) began providing a “Modest Women’s Class” where Muslim woman are free to practice in a safe and supportive environment. Since this is a women-only class where the windows are covered, the hijab can be removed. Gwendolyn Derk started teaching this class at IYCU after her volunteer service at the Central Illinois Islamic Center Mosque. Muslim women who gather there requested an all-women’s yoga class, and IYCU was quick to jump on board. In the fall, Jeanine Berlocher will teach these classes to build community and share culture.

Iyengar Yoga Detroit hosts 2nd and 4th Friday Community Gift Restorative Yoga classes, to provide a much-needed oasis for rest and recuperation, on a sliding-scale payment basis. The 2nd Fridays’ “Resilience and Resistance” with Peggy Gwi-Seok Hong is specifically geared for social justice activists and artists, to build inner resilience and cultivate camaraderie as we advocate for human rights and healing in our community.

IYAMW launched its Community Engagement Fund, to support projects such as the above, and more. We invite Midwestern Iyengar Yoga teachers to apply for $500 mini-grants to build partnerships and collaborations to bring Iyengar Yoga to communities that may not otherwise have access, and also to support teachers who come from these communities. The funds can be used to provide props, pay teachers, cover space rental, and as seed money to raise more funds. For more information, visit www.iyamw.org.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

IYANC In June, the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco (IYISF) and the Iyengar Yoga Association of Northern California (IYANC) held its most successful Yogathon event ever, “The Great 108.”

Teachers and practitioners throughout Northern California used an online fundraising platform, as well as word of mouth, to raise funds leading up to the Yogathon event, where IYISF teachers led a three-hour, 108-asana class. A reception and silent auction followed. The event energized our community, bolstering our spirits and energy levels as well as our institution’s budget.

In March, IYANC held its Annual Membership Meeting at IYISF. We updated members on finances, membership, and programming. Valuable member feedback was collected using targeted questions around our strategic goals of organizational stability, the growth of our association and institute through expansion of regional activity while attracting and retaining students, and continued commitment with integrity to the Iyengar Yoga tradition. Member feedback included ideas for marketing Iyengar Yoga as unique among the many yoga choices in Northern California, expanding community events, and further exploring opportunities to align ourselves with the San Francisco Bay Area medical community.

Outgoing Board President Randy Loftis has taken the opportunity to relocate to North Carolina. IYANC and IYISF both extend a huge and heartfelt thank you to Randy for his three years of excellent service to the board, with his last nine months as IYANC president. Current board leadership includes Athena Pappas, president; Karen Woods, vice president; Chuck Han, treasurer; and Karen Tercho, secretary. In addition, Patti Martin now serves on the IYNAUS board as our Northern California regional representative.

IYISF programming continues to be robust and unique, including a successful four-part series taught by Victoria Austin, “Asana for Practitioners with Health Conditions,” and a five-day training on “Yoga for Scoliosis” from Elise Miller. These healthrelated workshops have attracted students and teachers who are keen to discover more about healing the body and mind through Iyengar Yoga.

IYANW Our IYANW teachers continue to reach beyond their studios and into the community to share Iyengar Yoga. Here is news from three of our studios.

This fall, the Julie Lawrence Yoga Center in Portland, Oregon, changed its name to Jewel Yoga. The studio has a new website, www.jewelyogapdx.com, and logo, but otherwise it remains the same in every way, with Julie Lawrence as the senior instructor. Jewel Yoga announced its new name at its

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annual picnic on Aug. 20, honoring the second anniversary of Guruji’s death. The studio also announced a significant contribution to Living Yoga, a nonprofit organization with the mission of bringing yoga to vulnerable and marginalized communities.

Julie Lawrence and well-known author Kim Stafford offered a workshop at Jewel Yoga called “Writing with Yoga” in November, in which authenticity on the page and on the mat were explored together.

The Moscow Yoga Center, located in downtown Moscow, Idaho, offers level 1–4, gentle yoga and restoritive classes. Several students have been studying there since it opened in 1991. The studio recently added a middle-school yoga class. Instructor Rebekka Boysen Taylor reports that the students’ favorite pose is Savasana, and they want it to last longer! This is a good reminder of how important relaxation is. Moscow Yoga Center also began teaching two-week mini-courses that meet three times a week for one hour and 15 minutes. Jessica Ting, the instructor, noticed rapid progress with the three times a week structure.

Tree House Iyengar Yoga in Shoreline, Washington, works to be a part of the overall Seattle community. This summer the studio raised $200 to support NPR station KPLU, and in June it held a Surya Namaskar class to celebrate International Day of Yoga.

Instructor Angela Dawn donated all proceeds to Treehouse for Kids, a local foster care facility.

Tulafest was held on the banks of Lake Union in Seattle in July.

Tree House instructors Anne Geil and Fred Dowd taught public classes for beginners with no Iyengar Yoga experience. The festival promoted and benefited local nonprofits including Yoga Behind Bars, Street Yoga, Earth Citizens, and Yogafaith.

Students practicing at Tulafest on the banks of Lake Union in Seattle

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IYASCR The Iyengar Yoga Association of the Southern California Region (IYASCR) has had a jam-packed summer and fall. Starting on May 1, we had a vigorous membership drive workshop at Full Circle Yoga as Suneel Sundar, our association president, taught “Surya Namaskar for Everyone.”

Of course, we enjoyed the 2016 IYNAUS Convention in Boca Raton. Abhijata was exceptional. Her anecdotal presence and sense of humor as she shared stories of Guruji were so heartwarming. The way she engaged all of us was a testament to her lineage. We look forward to her next visit—we hope it’s soon!

On June 19, Aman Keays taught “Iyengar Yoga for Stability and Balance” at the International Yoga Day celebration in Balboa Park. It was a celebration of all modalities of yoga in the San Diego area. Aman was the ideal ambassador for Iyengar Yoga, and his teaching was a welcoming introduction to practitioners who had not practiced our method. We look forward to similar future events.

Our Aug. 21 Membership Drive was held at San Marcos Iyengar Yoga Center. We began with the 2014 commemorative sequence in honor and memory of Guruji. Then Kathleen Quinn, our vice president and the studio owner, lead us in our quest to understand “Paksa Pratipaksa Bhavanam” and how these opposing actions become complementary in practice.

Our Nov. 2016 Membership Drive workshop with Kimberly Zanger-Mackesy was as dynamic as Kim, with a verve and joie de vivre that we all enjoyed.

In association business news—we have become FB’ers, again to expand our reach of Iyengar Yoga in our area. And, we received great news from India—Birjoo Mehta has graciously agreed to return for a weekend of yoga and study! We will host him over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 1-4, 2017. More details will be announced later, but the date is firm, so make your plans.

IYNAUS members from Southern California in Boca Raton Photo: Nancy Baldon

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

IYASE We are proud and fortunate that IYNAUS chose to hold the hugely successful convention within our Southeast region.

Florida teachers, as well as IYASE members throughout the region, worked tirelessly to provide a stellar experience for everyone. From the location at the lovely Boca Raton Resort to a well-organized program, beautiful banquet with memorable entertainment, scholarships for many of our members, and the commemorative magazine, we thank everyone who made this convention special. One outcome of the convention was a surge of membership in the IYASE region. We went from 370 members to over 500. Now we face the challenge of retaining and providing services to those members, to make a membership with IYNAUS and IYASE a worthwhile commitment.

Looking forward, we are developing an Iyengar Membership Outreach and Education program, also known as Iyengar MORE. We recognize that many areas of our large region are not served by Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers (CIYT). IYASE is composed of 70 percent general membership and 30 percent teachers, and on a recent query of the membership distribution, we learned that many members have no teacher within 60 miles. In addition, like the rest of the country, many major cities have no CIYT. We aim to reach out to these areas to find studios willing to host reasonably priced one-day workshops.

If you are interested in hosting, finding a teacher, or know of a studio that will host a workshop, please contact president@iyase.org.

Our newly redesigned website is a thing of beauty and functionality. Go to www.iyase.org and browse our resources area. From press release templates for newly certified teachers to a new blog by Rhonda Geraci, the site has increased our ability to offer more information and resources.

Soon, we will be adding practice plans for our members to download to use in their home practice. We also have plans to launch a YouTube channel with videos of our regional teachers teaching poses. Watch the website for these exciting member benefits.

In 2017, we will sponsor two teacher training opportunities. Our annual Introductory I/II teacher training and a “How to Handle Common Conditions” workshop. Watch the IYASE website for further information. Participants in either event will be eligible for scholarships through IYASE. In addition, we offer scholarships to help defer the cost of certification and trips to RIMYI for eligible IYASE members. Check the website to find applications for our scholarships.

rains fell and the smell of creosote filled the air, we connected with local members on Aug. 20 for a “Summer Restorative.”

The purpose was to bond with current members and grow our numbers. We gained several new members and were able to showcase the new rope wall, which is finally complete. Several dedicated members donated money, and Scottsdale Community College (SCC) students purchased t-shirts to help raise the funds necessary to make the rope wall a reality at the Iyengar Yoga Center of Scottsdale. Come practice with us when you are in town!

Some of us attended the Yoga Rocks Festival on Sept. 23 and again on Oct. 16. Our booth was buzzing with activity, and people wanted to learn more about classes taught by Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers. It was also a great time to promote the awesome teacher training program at SCC, where most of our CIYTs started their training. We currently have six students doing teacher training with mentor Carlyn Sikes, Intermediate Junior I, to prepare for future assessment. This assessment preparation is not possible without our advising senior teacher, Carolyn Belko. Look for stories about these teachers’ path to becoming certified in future IYASW updates.

On Oct. 23, for the first time in Arizona, IYNAUS hosted one of its continuing education sessions for certified teachers. Held at Scottsdale Community College where the Iyengar Yoga Center of Scottsdale is housed, regional teachers had the opportunity to study with senior teacher Laurie Blakeney. We were thrilled to see so many Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers in one room and look forward to hosting future events.

Our region is growing! Barbara Gitlin, newly certified in 2015, opened The Yoga Room in Prescott, Arizona, to share her love for Iyengar Yoga. Katherine Maltz, Intermediate Junior I, was Arizona’s very first CIYT. We want to thank Katherine for paving the way for all of us in the southwest and congratulate her on teaching for 20 successful years at the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Studio of Tucson.

The B.K.S. Iyengar Center of Las Vegas is having a silver anniversary, celebrating 25 years teaching the legacy of Iyengar Yoga to students. Congratulations and thank you for the commitment to your students.

We are looking forward to the Sedona Yoga Festival on March 9–12, 2017, where we will spread our wings with a more regional focus. The festival will be a chance to meet and introduce future students to the benefits of studying Iyengar Yoga.

IYASW The spirit of B.K.S. Iyengar is flowing through the Southwest. Our new board was successful in promoting the benefits of Iyengar Yoga at local events this summer and fall. As the monsoon

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Spring news deadline: Feb. 15, 2017

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AN INTERVIEW WITH ABHIJATA SRIDHAR

ON THE EVOLUTION OF HER PRACTICE, LEARNING FROM GURUJI, AND THE FUTURE OF IYENGAR YOGA

BY HEATHER HAXO PHILLIPS

“ We have a habit to form a shell, to say that this is all we can do. If things get difficult, we want to avoid it. But once it’s over, you realize it’s not that bad.”

Heather Haxo Phillips: During the Florida convention, you told us about your master’s program and how you came to RIMYI. How did you decide that you wanted to teach? That didn’t seem to be your intention when you came to Pune.

Abhijata Sridhar: After my graduation in 2005, I wanted to pursue academics, as well as come in to myself through yoga. I spoke to the head of my department, saying that I want to do a Ph.D., but that I wanted to do it by coming to the department only for half a day because I wanted the other half for yoga. She said that I’d have to give a full-day commitment. I think for five years, she said. I thought that’d be too much, so then she told me to go to the U.S. and work on my Ph.D. for a shorter time, if possible. I didn’t want to do that, either.

So I decided to take a break from academics for a year to study yoga, to learn yoga. Just learn, do some more classes, do some practice. I planned to see how it went and then get back to my Ph.D. after a year’s break. And that year—it never stopped!

Practice went on, and then Guruji told me to start coming to the children’s classes.

HHP: To start teaching the children’s classes?

AS: Just to come to the children’s classes! To see what was happening and to speak for five or 10 minutes in those classes.

Then I started helping in the therapy class, where Guruji was going. Because he was going, I started attending those classes and seeing what they do. I was interested in how they were healing people so miraculously. One day, Guruji asked me to start teaching the children’s classes. I was not confident at first, but he said, “Just start.”

HHP: So what was your teacher training experience like?

AS: There was no separate teacher training session. None. It 8

was just attending the classes with my aunt and uncle. I would attend classes every day, six days a week when I was in my post-graduation phase. After my post-graduation, I think I cut down on the classes a little and focused on my own practice a little more. There was no teacher training, as such.

HHP: How did your relationship with Guruji change as you began studying with him, going from being his granddaughter to being his student?

AS: In the beginning, he was just my grandfather. I knew he was a famous man. Then, I started knowing he was a great man, but when I came to Pune, he was just my grandfather. We would write each other letters. When he went abroad, he would buy gifts for when he came back to India, so it was just that.

When I started learning from him, during the first five years, I did not practice much. It was mostly attending classes. When I attended the women’s classes, Guruji also told me what to do when Geetaji was teaching—so I had two simultaneous teachers in the class.

I don’t know when the relationship of the grandfathergranddaughter faded and the guru-sisya relationship came about. It was not a very clear demarcation. I think it was a fuzzy boundary, and it would just fade in and fade out till the very end.

HHP: The sheer physical pain and fear involved in practicing under Guruji’s eyes—how did you make it through that?

How did that change you?

AS: Once I went through that, once that was over, I realized it was not so bad. We have a habit to form a shell, to say that this is all we can do. If things get difficult, we want to avoid it. But once it’s over, you realize it’s not that bad. Nothing happened. I didn’t die. I didn’t break a bone. I didn’t break a muscle. It’s just Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Abhijata Sridhar at the 2016 IYNAUS Convention in Boca Raton, Florida Photo: James Greene

getting through that, and it just needs courage from inside.

Unfortunately, few of us are able to bring that up on our own.

Thankfully, I had Guruji to show me. Everybody has the potential to face it. But it’s not on the surface; it’s well-hidden and dormant.

HHP: How has your personal practice changed since Guruji passed? Since he left his body?

AS: For the first few weeks, I didn’t feel like practicing at all. I missed him. I mean everybody missed him. But I didn’t have the guts to even go into the institute hall because in our tradition, we have a 13-day mourning period. The institute was closed. In those 13 days, I did not have the courage to go to the hall at all, because I didn’t know how I would face that—knowing Guruji would never come back there again.

But then, I became afraid. I was afraid that Guruji would get angry if I didn’t practice, and that’s what made me start my practice again. The fear that he would revoke his blessings or be upset at me.

I had episodes where I would go into a certain asana and I would recollect what would happen [when Guruji had been there]; then I would get emotional. The place where he Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

always practiced—seeing that, sometimes I would get emotional. But then his teachings would come back; I would hear his words again.

I don’t think you ever forget that. When they say time heals, I don’t think it heals in the sense that it takes off the magnitude of the loss. But time takes your mind to so many other things that you’ll stop thinking about it.

HHP: The memories of your grandfather will always be there, but your practice has become your own now, in some way, or it’s becoming your own.

AS: In the beginning, I would feel lost. The feeling of being orphaned was so strong, but then I also realized that I was just being selfish. I realized I was being selfish because I wanted him to be there because I wanted to learn from him. I wanted him to be there because I wanted him to teach me, and I realized that’s a very selfish thought that I had for such a selfless man, who all his life was so selfless. The reason I wanted him to be alive is that I wanted to continue learning from him. When that realization came, I think my practice got independent. It just happens now.

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“ Yoga is the only thing that makes you objective and subjective at the same time.”

HHP: The way so many of us practice is goal-oriented. Whether we are trying to explore our forward bends in a deeper way or set some other goal for our practice. But Guruji never seemed to set goals for himself. Or at least I never saw him as being goal-oriented. I’m curious about whether you think that’s true— that he didn’t set goals. And also, do you set goals? How do you approach your practice when you are thinking about what you are going to do that day or at night, when you’re planning what you want to do the next day?

AS: Did Guruji set goals? I don’t know; it would be speculation.

If he made up his mind that he wanted to do something, he would do it. There were instances like that, but I don’t think they were of the nature that we know of, for example, to say “I will do 108 Sirsasana drop backs today.” Or “I will do 108 Rope 1 today.” Or “I will improve my Marichyasan twistings today.” I don’t think his goals were ever like that. I think he passed that years and years ago. Decades ago.

HHP: You think at one point he did set goals?

AS: He must have. In his early days, he said, he would practice in front of his Guru’s photograph. He must have. He was not a born genius, he says. He says he was not born with this. He had to practice hard to get where he got.

HHP: Do you think that we need goals? Maybe that’s what we all need at the beginning?

Altar at the front of the practice room at the 2016 IYNAUS Convention Photo: James Greene

needs your experience. Maybe. I’m guessing.

Because all of this is from his own experience. There is something about the subjective nature of yoga.

HHP: Do you have that in you, too? Do you think you have books in you, or do you not think that far ahead? Like, the desire to write books.

AS: I don’t have a desire like that. No. There’s so much more that’s to be done in the practice that I’m thinking about. There’s still far more to experience.

AS: I don’t know. He has said in class, “You have with you 80 years of my experience.” [At first] he didn’t know that [practicing] mechanically was not the answer. His practice after many years might have told him that was not the way, but now we already know that, so we should probably take off from a higher place.

It’s like in the days before aircrafts were invented, you had to travel the long distance, but now you have the aircraft, so you can take a shortcut.

HHP: Clearly, you’re very well steeped in yoga philosophy. How did that come to be? Of course, you were born into certain traditions, but that’s completely different than understanding Sanskrit words.

HHP: In Western psychology, there are many theories about what makes somebody great. One theory is the human ability to learn from our forbearers. That’s why people can run twice as fast today in a marathon as they could 80 years ago. It’s because they’ve learned the techniques. However, there’s nobody who has even begun to achieve the greatness of Guruji.

If you just think about the categories of his greatness—his writings, his teaching, his practice—nobody has achieved such greatness in any category much less all of them. What is that?

AS: I did my formal study of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras with my uncle Prashant. I did that for over a year, sutra by sutra. He would explain to me what it means, what’s the context.

AS: I think it’s because yoga is the only thing that makes you objective and subjective at the same time. That’s something he said. If it’s an objective and a subjective science or art, then it

I think it is the teachings. I started my interest in philosophy from the practical point of view. Guruji, Geetaji, and Prashantji would describe the philosophy in the classes. And it really

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AS: I don’t think I’m so steeped in yoga philosophy.

HHP: Okay. Can you tell me about your study of it?

We met maybe thrice a week for over a year until we went through all the chapters of the Yoga Sutras. Then I sat with him again for Vyasa’s basham [commentary] of the Yoga Sutras. I haven’t read philosophical books by anybody other than my grandfather, uncle, and aunt.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

“ I have a wish for myself. That I should be truthful and honest in what I’m doing, so I guess that applies to all students—being honest and truthful.” attracted me. I got interested in knowing what it meant. Then, I went to them and asked them what it meant. It just grew.

HHP: Can you talk about your process of incorporating philosophy into your asana class?

AS: I have been seeing this for so many years. If you spent 16 years in Pune, attending all the classes with Guruji, you would have gotten the same thing, felt the same thing. It just comes.

HHP: From experience?

AS: Yes. They just kept giving and giving and giving. They just keep giving and giving and giving.

Guruji often said that if you look at yoga philosophy as philosophy and try to understand it from that angle, confusion may arise and you may not know how to put the two together.

From a practical point of view, once the interest seeps in and you approach the theory, it starts to make sense. Instead of starting right away from the theory, start with the practical first.

Once you get interested, you’ll naturally want to know what the theory means.

HHP: Do you have advice for teachers who are just beginning to explore bringing yoga philosophy into their classes?

AS: I think I had the world’s best teachers, so I never had to face that problem.

HHP: Going to the source, to Pune, is certainly inspiring. How has being a mother effected your practice and your teaching?

AS: Apart from the logistics?

HHP: Yes. AS: Well, we live in a joint family—my husband, my parents-inlaw, and sister-in-law who is still not married. Then on my mom’s side, my dad—I meet them so often. They came to the institute when Guruji was there. They were taking care of him.

There’s somebody always there to take care of my daughter because it’s family. I don’t have to worry about whether she’s being fed on time. That comfort, that security is there. I am thankful because my family and in-laws, my husband, they’re all supportive of what I’m doing.

Apart from the logistics, has it emotionally affected my teaching? I think it might have. It should have. It makes sense. I don’t know. I’m not able to pick what has changed, but I think an evolution happens. People tell me it’s changed, but I don’t Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

know what’s changed.

HHP: I have some questions about the future of Iyengar Yoga.

As we think about groups of potential students who might be on the periphery, how can Iyengar Yoga instructors bring them into our community? Do you have ideas?

I’m thinking about what Manouso said in his keynote speech at the convention—that we should continue to work hard to bring groups of people who don’t have access to yoga into yoga, to reach out to communities who aren’t doing yoga.

AS: I think you guys are doing a great job already—all the teachers of our system, wherever they are. It’s because of them that the student base is growing. So many people are interested. Of course, Guruji [has been part of that, as well as] Geetaji and Prashant-ji’s touch, undoubtedly. But it’s the work of the local community that builds up the system. Undoubtedly, you are already doing a wonderful job, for which the family is thankful.

HHP: What is the role of Iyengar Yoga for society?

AS: I think it has a great role because it makes one better. It makes one better physically; it makes one better mentally. That is going to contribute to a healthy society. Once the individual starts getting better, society is going to get better.

HHP: During this convention, you’ve given us many clues about how we should practice. In the days and months to come, we must observe more and we must practice from our heart, so we must not fear pain. Do you have any other wishes for us?

AS: I have a wish for myself. That I should be truthful and honest in what I’m doing, so I guess that applies to all students—being honest and truthful.

Honest and truthful in our practice, honest and truthful in our learning, honest and truthful in our teaching. If we are courageous enough to look at ourselves, to know whether we are doing the right thing for the right purpose, then there’s no problem.

HHP: I really thank you for your time.

AS: Thank you.

Heather Haxo Phillips (Intermediate Junior III) is the director of Adeline Yoga Studio and former president of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco/Iyengar Yoga Association of Northern California. Please send any thoughts or suggestions to heather@adelineyoga.com.

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FROM HABIT TO LIBERATION: ABHIJATA’S TEACHING AT THE 2016 FLORIDA CONVENTION

BY TORI MILNER AND DENISE WEEKS

I

n May, many in the Iyengar Yoga community gathered in beautiful Boca Raton, Florida, to usher in a new era in Iyengar Yoga. It was our first U.S. convention since Guruji passed away. Geetaji had been planning to come but was not well enough to do so, so Abhijata Sridhar, Mr. Iyengar’s granddaughter, came to guide us. The convention was tribute and celebration both, with insightful teaching, poignant memories, and a lot of laughter. This reflection on the Florida convention, using many of Abhijata’s words and stories from just one incredible session, will allow those of you who couldn’t attend the convention to get a flavor of the wonderful event— and will allow those of you who were there to recall some of her fabulous teaching.

The Saturday morning session was especially memorable for me because of how skillfully Abhijata was able to both teach and tell stories at the same time. With personal photos that were projected onto the large screens around the hall, Abhijata told us what it was like to be Guruji’s pupil. At the same time, to recreate for us the experience she had with him, she asked us to do certain poses during the presentation. She gave us a small taste of what it must have been like to sit at the feet of master teacher B.K.S. Iyengar for so many years.

Simulating an experience she had one day in the practice hall, she led us through a short sequence that she remembered doing: Adho Mukha Svanasana, Uttanasana, Tadasana, Paschima Namaskarasana, Tadasana, Ardha Chandrasana, Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana, Tadasana, Ardha Chandrasana, and Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana on other side, Tadasana, Vrksasana, Tadasana, Vrksasana, and then she told us to sit down. Abhijata said, “So I was doing something like this, and then I was practicing Marichyasana III as he had taught me the previous day. And in my mind I was going through all of the points he had given me to a ‘t.’ Guruji came into the hall and asked me, ‘When will you learn?’ I didn’t know what to answer, what the correct answer should be, so I just smiled.”

At that, there was an audible chuckle in the audience, as many had either been in that same situation with Guruji or had at least witnessed it happening to someone else. “‘What are you doing?’ he asked me,” Abhijata continued. “‘I am practicing the Marichyasana III you taught me yesterday.’ ‘What you did yesterday? You are doing the same thing today?’ Again I was stumped; I didn’t know what to say. Then he said, ‘Why doesn’t yoga go into your head?’ And he was angry. Then he walked

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away, and that is a rare thing.

Whenever he would teach, he would teach completely. He wouldn’t just leave you like that, so I knew it was serious. And then he retraced his steps and came back and said in a voice with so much concern and with so much intensity, ‘Habit is a disease.’ And then he walked away. I was stumped. How can habit be a disease?”

Abhijata Sridhar in the convention hall.

Photo: James Greene

Abhijata then began to answer her own question with insights she gathered from a variety of sources, having us take different poses to illustrate the discoveries she made as she struggled to understand her grandfather’s words.

At one point she had us roll two blankets for Virasana, one to go under the knees and one to go under the toes, and then told us to sit down on the floor between the feet. She explained that one time her grandfather had her do this with wooden bricks under her knees and metal rods under her toes. “‘Sit!’ he commanded me,” Abhijata said. “I tried, but couldn’t sit. ‘Sit!’ he said again. There was no choice; I just sat. ‘Now, how is it?’ he asked. ‘It’s painful,’ I said. ‘Who is asking you about the pain?’ he asked.” Then she told us to come out of our much softer version of Virasana. “It hit me hard. There in that fierce situation, all I could think about was the pain. And here he was asking me, ‘Who is asking you about the pain?’” Abhijata went on, “How do we look at pain? We want to avoid the pain and eradicate the pain. But for Guruji, pain was an altogether different concept. He wanted us to look beyond that.”

Later she showed us a slide of herself in Padmasana over a Setu Bandha bench and asked us to sit in Dandasana on a narrow wooden brick and to go forward into Paschimottanasana. “Come to the edge so it pricks the buttock bones,” she said, and then noticed that some students had foam blocks instead of wooden ones. “Those with soft foam bricks will be missing the point! When something becomes painful, you don’t want to stay in that position.” Referring back to the slide, she said, “He was pressing my knees. It was painful!

‘Don’t resist!’ he said. I wish now that I could have done that, and even then I wished that. I was thinking, ‘I wish I could obey you.’

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

“ Abhijata gave us a small taste of what it must have been like to sit at the feet of master teacher B.K.S. Iyengar for so many years.”

“I don’t know whether it was actual pain or the fear of the pain.

He said, ‘You are resisting so much. You have barriers everywhere.’ Once I was out of the pose I realized it is an intensely difficult phenomenon to break a barrier. The problem is… we fail to see a barrier as a barrier. System, safety, security… are we getting imprisoned by what we see as our safeguards?

We never perceive a barrier as a barrier. When something is easy, we like doing it, but the moment it takes a turn toward inconvenience, we want to stop. Habit is indeed a barrier, which stops us from seeing what truly is. My Marichyasana of yesterday stopped me from seeing the Marichyasana of today.”

Throughout this combined class, presentation, lecture, story, Abhijata wove her understanding of Yoga Sutras, instructions for the poses, and even corrections. She maintained incredible poise and focus, keeping us all engaged in how she interpreted and worked with Guruji’s words and teachings.

She said, “From this whole story… what I am coming to is: Do we learn? Do we really learn? Guruji one day told me, ‘You

should learn to use memory properly. Owing to memory, you stop your progress. You remain stagnant.’ He once told me to do Paschimottanasana, and I was doing it to the best of my ability. ‘Let go of your memory.’ He said, ‘[You are] limited because you only work from memory.’ He said, ‘You work from memory; I do not use memory.’ ‘You don’t use memory?’ I asked him. ‘What do you use?’ He said, ‘I use my intuition. Memory is limited. Yoga is infinite. You cannot reach an infinite subject with a limited resource.’”

Abhijata bridged the gap between the incredible wisdom of her grandfather’s teaching and the average student’s experience in any given pose. Another of the many points that struck me for its profound truth and simplicity was what she said about our “checklist mentality.” She showed a slide with five empty checklist boxes and then had us take Adho Mukha Svanasana.

Right after, she challenged us on our approach to the pose, saying she was sure that we all had a checklist in our head of what we needed to do in the pose. She said, “If we perform in this checklist manner, how are we going to go beyond the

More than 1,100 Iyengar Yoga students practicing Adho Mukha Svanasana at the IYNAUS Convention Photo: James Greene

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

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“ Throughout the combined class, presentation, lecture, story, Abhijata wove her understanding of Yoga Sutras, instructions for the poses, and even corrections.” alignment,” she continued confidently. “Our whole principle is based on the concept of alignment. … For us, it has become a dogma, a rigid structure. This man, who created our system of alignment, was open to exploration. We are not open to exploration; we have a boundaried system.”

Abhijata instructs students in Sirsasana. Photo: James Greene

known? How will we go from known to unknown? We are only going from known to known to known. Do we really learn?” She paused and looked into the 1,100-plus person audience, filled with both beginners and some of our system’s most senior teachers. She continued, “What I feel is that we borrow Guruji’s language and experience. We term this transaction as learning and this system we call studentship. There is a barrier. There is no thought process on our end. So how are we learning?”

In a final, dramatic example of how her own habit and memory got in the way of learning, she shared with us the story of how one day she was practicing backbends when Guruji came into the hall. “‘Come here!’ he said. He made me stand like Charlie Chaplin between the wall and the horse with my sacrum on the horse. I was trying to arch and it didn’t happen. He came over and pushed the horse into me and pushed on my diaphragm and my whole back went down onto the horse. Because he was there, it happened. The pose came beautifully, and I stood up and my back was fine. But I was not fine.”

At this point, Abhijata expressed what I’m sure many of us in the hall were thinking. “I had been taught all my life that the thighs should roll in,” she said. “I was perplexed by a backbend that turned the feet in this manner since he himself had taught me to roll my outer thighs up and inner thighs down. I said, ‘What is this, Tata, how can this be correct with the feet turned out?’ And he said, simply, ‘It works on your sacrum better.’”

She then told the story of how, in China, Guruji held up a chumbal, a small, doughnut-shaped prop, saying that it was better to sit on the round props because the buttocks are a round structure. I was not fine at all! I wondered why my grandfather, Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar, had to go to China and go up on stage and admit that he was wrong for so many years! He could have said it was an improvisation, that it works better. No, he had no qualms about admitting he was wrong.

That was the man who gave us this system. A man who was open to experiment, always open to new thoughts, new ideas, and in the moment. It was not from memory, not from habits, not from attachments. How many of us would be able to go up on stage and admit we were wrong? That honesty could come because he was open to what was in the moment.”

As we neared the end of this one incredible session with Abhijata, she circled back to the question of habit. She had already shared so much and had touched so precisely on the convention’s theme of moving from the periphery to the core and back again. But here she was, ready and able to give us the final gift of her experience. “What is the answer to come out of this disease of habit?” she asked. “The answer is to be open and to be sensitive. Sensitivity can come in where there is intelligence and vice versa. The answer is to open our minds and eyes to practice, to allow the intelligence to come forward… and to practice with the same openness that Guruji did for all his life. That way we will understand what yoga is; that way, we will understand what asanas truly are; and that way, we will change our way of living.”

She beamed, and we gave her a wholehearted standing ovation. We were proud of her. We were inspired and humbled by her honesty, and we knew that the future of Iyengar Yoga was indeed in capable, poised, calm hands.

Tori Milner (Intermediate Junior III) lives in Brooklyn, NY. Denise Weeks (Intermediate Junior II) lives in Bellingham, WA.

In telling us these stories, Abhijata opened up the whole system of Iyengar Yoga—the yoga that her grandfather B.K.S. Iyengar lived, breathed, and taught—for our exploration, reflection, and growth. Her words were both challenging and liberating, a gentle rebuke as well as an invitation. “Take the system of 14

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

BLUE COLLAR YOGA

BY MOLLY GALLAGHER

Y

oga came to me from a New Yorker who disliked my small Iowa town from the get go. She was beautiful, exotic, glamorous, opinionated, and more or less perfect. And she could do things with her body none of us had ever seen. She taught us how to do those things.

My exposure to Iyengar Yoga came through her experience. She told stories of going to India, of studying at the Institute in San Francisco. We, her students, were entranced.

But as a beginning practitioner, I thought Illustration: Curtis Settino that only the lucky ones were able to afford the cost of trips halfway around the world, as well as all the conferences, workshops, conventions, trainings, and regular weekly classes. Then I began to feel like one of the lucky ones when I committed to a weekly class. I just made it a priority.

I knew that putting money toward learning this practice was an important part of the discipline.

But it was certainly not something I could outright afford. I had three young kids at the time, and my spouse was on staff at the college in our town. I stayed home with the kids. I would have to find a way to make a little extra money to put toward the cost of classes. But more than anything, that was what I wanted.

Putting hard earned money toward something extra was something I’d never really seen my parents do while I was growing up. It seemed extravagant, and a little irresponsible.

My father was a carpenter. When I was five years old and my big brothers were in elementary school, my dad’s first of many complications with diabetes landed him completely blind in one eye, which meant he couldn’t do carpentry work anymore. He stayed home and took care of me instead. My mom went to work as a cashier at Target. I mention this because it was my parents’ blue collar lifestyle, having never gone to college themselves, that has had a significant impact on how I view my own work and lifestyle. My parents worked hard. They showed up. They had no built-in sick days and no vacation. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t get paid.

My very first experience teaching yoga was in a rural town of about 300. The people there had sought a yoga teacher, so of course I wanted to do it. I received a phone call from one of the students before class, asking if her 89-year-old neighbor could come. A brand new teacher, I expressed that I didn’t yet feel qualified to teach her because I had very few props and no wall space. A few days later, on the first night of class, that 89-year-

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

old woman showed up anyway. She wasn’t going to let me tell her she couldn’t do yoga!

That same night a woman in jeans showed up. A married couple who took the night off from farming showed up, brought their own yoga mats, and proceeded to blow them up—they were actually their inflatable camping pads! I fell in love with these people. They had grit. Somehow I felt like I could relate. I wanted to bring this practice to them right there in the middle of America.

Sometimes I think of myself as a carpenter.

Being in a marriage, raising three children, having a yoga practice, I’m building something from the ground up—and it takes time. And practice. And patience. I work at it. I make mistakes. But I am dedicated and hopeful of the outcome.

A carpenter doesn’t wake up and say, “I don’t really feel like building this house today.” She wakes up and starts working. I call it blue collar yoga. It’s a lifestyle. I choose not to be halfhearted with my practice. I work. I show up every day, like my parents taught me. I know and believe that these things—yoga and family—take a lifetime to build. Which is why I’ll spend my years as a yoga instructor, and a parent to my children, building a solid foundation. Something that’ll last. Blue collar yoga is an act of simplicity. Paring down the stuff that is not essential, and focusing on only a few things that really matter.

Once I asked a yoga teacher I admire about her yoga practice and raising kids on a modest income. She stated simply—in her cool British accent—that her yoga practice and her kids were the two biggest joys in her life, and that without either one of them she wouldn’t have learned how to love. She never mentioned anything about money.

As I wrote out that first check to my yoga teacher back in the beginning, I knew that if I spent $88 for two months of yoga, I wouldn’t miss a single class, that I would be diligently invested.

Eight years, hundreds of classes taken and taught, and two assessments later, I’m still with it. I’m committed. But now, it’s not just me who’s committed to the practice, teaching the classes, and to the community—my own students come to my studio where they also invest their time and money into something we’ve built together.

Molly Gallagher (Introductory II) lives on a small farm in northeast Iowa. She’s the owner of the Yoga Room in Decorah, IA.

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LEARNING TO SEE: AN INTERVIEW WITH DEVON DEDERICH ABOUT TEACHING YOGA TO VIETNAM VETERANS

BY ANNE-MARIE SCHULTZ

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evon Dederich (Intermediate Junior II) teaches an ongoing class for Vietnam veterans in Austin, Texas. AnneMarie Schultz recently talked with her about her experience, how the Yoga Sutras inform her teaching of veterans, and how these classes differ from other Iyengar Yoga classes.

Anne-Marie Schultz: Good morning Devon. Thanks for taking the time to talk. Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Devon Dederich: I began practicing Iyengar Yoga in 1977 and have been teaching since 1980. Clear Spring Studio opened in Austin in 1990, and I’ve been a full-time Iyengar Yoga teacher since then.

AMS: How did you first get involved with teaching the vets?

DD: With my personal history nowhere near military service, it might seem an odd choice of jobs. But that is exactly why I chose it. After that enormous Gujarat earthquake in 2001, I became interested in the topic of trauma. Mr. Iyengar offered what we came to call “The Earthquake Sequence” to help survivors. Our own national catastrophe struck here on Sept. 11 in the same year, and I learned that the New York yogis were using the same or an adapted sequence in their regular public and special classes for survivors.

Like a lot of us, I tried the sequence out, and I understood it after a fashion. I did not start using it right away, though. It was the first time I had seen any Iyengar Yoga teacher put Savasana at the beginning of a sequence. It seemed like a big departure from the norm, and it took until Geeta’s presentation at the 2010 convention in Portland for me to fully grasp what that sequence represents.

After the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began and then continued, many journalists started interviewing returned soldiers, telling their stories and raising in the public consciousness the matter of traumatic brain injuries, war trauma in general, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the difficulties of readjustment to noncombat life. War trauma in all its forms was, and remains, large in the news. I thought Iyengar Yoga could be of use on many levels from the physical to the psychological to the spiritual. This idea percolated for years before I became convinced I should try to begin a class for soldiers with PTSD in Austin.

I read several books on the topic. I experimented with my practice. I had conversations with students, one psychiatrist and 16

two psychologists, about trauma and PTSD—what happens to the mind and body, and what treatment methods they found useful. I asked if they thought the yoga they were experiencing in class might be useful. I experimented with my practice some more, and I talked to other Iyengar Yoga teachers who had experience teaching trauma survivors of various sorts. I talked to several long-time students who are survivors of physical or psychological trauma, and I experimented with my practice some more. I also read the writings of yoga and meditation teachers from different (non-Iyengar) traditions who work entirely with trauma survivors. Despite all of this reading and discussion and background work, I’m still not an expert on the topic. But it was a beginning.

AMS: Are there any written sources you recommend?

DD: Yes! With respect to war and battle trauma, I’d read War and the Soul by Edward Tick and Achilles in Vietnam by Jonathan Shay. Regarding healing trauma in general, I think the most famous source is The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. Achilles in Vietnam is so well-written, it should be on everyone’s reading list anyway.

Regarding Iyengar Yoga for trauma, I recommend looking over the series of DVDs from the Portland therapeutics convention.

Everything presented there was meant to raise in our minds the importance of observation and of working with all the layers of an individual—from body to mind to the subtlest self. Here was the second place I learned about using Savasana as the starting pose in a therapeutic sequence. Geeta presented it as a means to observe the student physically and psychologically; to provide a customized, supportive “cocoon” to create physical and psychological stability where there isn’t enough of it on hand, to settle anxiety, and to bring in new energy to a depleted body before beginning the practice of asana.

There are also DVDs of the Estes Park Light on Life Convention, where in several places Mr. Iyengar outlined ways of working with anxiety and depression—a large part of the PTSD picture.

There has also been much written about yoga and pranayama for anxiety and depression in past issues of Yoga Rahasya and Astadala Yogamala.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

EARTHQUAKE SEQUENCE And then, there is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. I am very fond of Patanjali; his understanding and exposition of yoga awes me.

The following sutras are the ones that most directly inform the way I think about working with these vets [using B.K.S. Iyengar’s translations]:

A few notes from B.K.S. Iyengar: • The emotional strength in these students needs to be built up and that is what we need to work at.

• No standing poses. No backbends.

1.2: Yoga is the cessation of the movements of the consciousness.

1.3: then, the seer dwells in his own true splendor.

• All poses should be done with eyes open (including Savasana). Students can focus their eyes at any point in front or on the ceiling.

This is the basic premise of yoga. You must get the mind quiet in order to do anything else with it.

• Ask the students to imagine that their eyes are located at the temples and ask them to “open” these eyes.

1.5: The movements of mind are fivefold. They may be cognizable or noncognizable, painful or nonpainful.

• Do not insist on a perfect pose in the current situation.

For the veterans, we can say that the painful—Prashant Iyengar says “kleshotic”—movements are strong enough that they are getting in the way of pretty much everything.

• While breathing in any asana (especially supine), ask them to breathe in such a manner that the breath touches the lateral side of the chest during inhalation.

SEQUENCE OF POSES:

1.13: Practice is the steadfast effort to still these fluctuations.

1.15: Renunciation is the practice of detachment from desires.

• • • •

Patanjali is giving us the overall strategy here. To achieve that stillness of the movements of consciousness, we have to try to become steady and quiet and to give up anything that makes us unsteady and unquiet.

• •

Then we go from overall strategy to particular methods—tactics, since I’m working with military people. These are practices aimed directly at attaining quietness and steadiness.

• • • •

1.24: …the citta may be restrained by profound meditation upon God [Purusa] and total surrender to Him.

•

Savasana Supta Baddhakonasana Supta Virasana Prasaritta Padottanasana (with head support) Uttanasana (with head support and legs spread apart).

Adho Mukha Svanasana (with head support) Viparita Dandasana with the support of a chair (with head support) Sirsasana – Viparita karani Setubandha Sarvangasana Sarvangasana – Viparita karani Pranayama – Antara kumbhaka with a very short kumbaka on the inhalation

1.32: Adherence to single-minded effort prevents the impediments to practice.

1.35: Or, by contemplating an object that helps to maintain steadiness of mind and consciousness.

1.33: Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice, respectively, the consciousness becomes favorably disposed, serene, and benevolent.

1.36: Or, inner stability is gained by contemplating a luminous, sorrowless, effulgent light.

1.34: Or, by maintaining the pensive state felt at the time of soft and steady exhalation and during passive retention after exhalation.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

1.37: Or, by recollecting and contemplating the experiences of dream-filled or dreamless sleep during a watchful, waking state.

1.39: Or, by meditating on any desired object conducive to steadiness of consciousness.

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“ After that enormous Gujarat earthquake in 2001, I became interested in the topic of trauma.”

I use the instruction given here according to my understanding of the Iyengar Yoga method. For example, to quiet the mind, Patanjali calls for a soft, pensive exhalation followed by bahya kumbhaka, a pause with the lung empty, whereas Mr. Iyengar has called for what looks like the opposite work, asking for a laterally expanding inhalation, followed by antara kumbhaka, a pause with the lungs full. How to account for this discrepancy and translate it into useful practice and teaching? First, Patanjali does not mention sequencing at all here (not until the third pada), whereas Mr. Iyengar’s Antara Kumbhaka was placed as the final element of the sequence, meaning it is not a “standalone” suggestion, as with Patanjali.

Second, Patanjali is by all accounts addressing knowledgeable practitioners, whereas Mr. Iyengar is addressing children and adults who are neither knowledgeable nor practiced. Third, Patanjali is addressing students who might be healthy and well adjusted, whereas Mr. Iyengar’s sequence addresses children and adults who have been physically bruised and psychologically shaken.

And fourth, because of those literally crushing events like the Gujarat earthquake or 9/11, I’m imagining that Mr. Iyengar’s choice of pranayama was an effort to have people leave the practice buoyed, brightened, and opened again, to give energy to continue in the face of devastating obstacles. First comes stability, then comes activity.

I made a decision not to explain much about Yama and Niyama, the ethical and moral components of Astanga Yoga. Specifically, I do not try to explain to soldiers how, when one perfects nonharming, all violence ceases in one’s presence. Not even Krishna tried to tell Arjuna that. I want to keep the work and the goals simple and not begin a politically or morally challenging discussion. I just remind people regularly, “Don’t harm yourself.”

I tell them to tell themselves the truth. Pay attention, work to understand and learn, don’t be greedy, do be happy.

Let me say that no one in that room has perfect firmness or steadiness of anything. There is no aim for perfection; instead, there is the aim to be stable and comfortable. We are entirely disturbed by dualities, and there is no perfection of asana. But when we can get comfortable, the breath begins to flow naturally: full, wide, and deep.

AMS: Did you set out to work with just Vietnam vets or those from Afghanistan and Iraq as well?

Setting out, I had no particular aim except to offer Iyengar Yoga

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to the Austin area Veterans Administration. They would decide how best to make use of my services. The local phone number I found on the vast national VA website led me by chance to a small clinic, among the smallest of several in the Austin area, which deals exclusively with trauma counseling for surviving soldiers from all wars, including the Korean War. It’s a small center, small setting. My kind of place.

The first to appear in class were Iraq and Afghanistan vets.

Generally speaking, these vets are young (25 to 35 years old) and often look and act like off-duty soldiers: They are fit, even with the universal standard military complement of low back, shoulder, and knee troubles. Many continue to work out with martial arts, lifting weights, and running. These vets could do Mr. Iyengar’s “Earthquake Sequence,” but with modifications for low backs, knees, shoulders, and more than average stiffness.

Vietnam vets began showing up a few months later, after I took time to meet with several therapy groups to make presentations about the benefits of yoga and how it might help. Vietnam vets are different in that they are not just dealing with war trauma, but they have lived with it for almost 50 years. Thus, Vietnam vets have problems related to aging as well as war, and it is usually impossible to properly judge the primary source. I don’t know if anyone knows if there even is a primary source. These men have had (or still have) cancers, obesity, blood pressure issues, fatigue, anxiety, insomnia, joint problems, arthritis, and neuropathies—any of which could be related to ordinary life or to wartime events, including being around lots of Agent Orange.

They all—really, all—walk in with knee pain, pelvis or lumbar pain, and shoulder pain. These students look like ordinary American men in their sixties, but with more walking canes and limps per capita, and one or two service dogs.

It seems that the basic age and health differences between Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan vets is large enough that they sorted themselves out in class. I wound up with the ones who needed the most physical help.

Another reason for the sorting may be that the vets from each war generation (Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq and Afghanistan) form their own separate close-knit groups. These soldiers know the geography and culture where their cohort served. They know where and when their service overlapped. They make the time to listen and relate to each other’s stories of the places and things they have seen. They wear hats and jackets bearing insignia of their battalions, divisions, service type, and years of active duty. They keep in touch with each other in and outside of the center and participate in local and national veterans

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

“ Vietnam vets are different in that they are not just dealing with war trauma, but they have lived with it for almost 50 years.” associations. The enormous work of integrating experience and memory, of understanding and healing, is going on all the time in this community, including a little bit in yoga class.

AMS: What do you teach them?

DD: I am formally not allowed to ask questions or inquire into much of anything besides the usual do-you-have-injuries-ormedical-conditions questions we yoga teachers always ask.

HIPPA regulations forbid the center’s staff from telling me the health histories of these people. Perhaps soldiers in particular have learned not to dwell on difficulty, and for some, this means not to speak of it, either—not aches and pains. What I can see is what I get to work with. All yoga teachers have experienced this before, but it seems particularly prevalent in this context. It is clear that many injuries are multilayered, and I have to teach knowing there are more than the usual compliment of things that I am not seeing.

During the Portland convention, Geeta spoke eloquently and forcefully on the way of working with injury and illness. The teacher needs first and foremost the ability to observe, and then the skill to respond properly to what is seen. Before specific treatment is undertaken, the first step is to provide a particular asana for the person to begin stabilizing mind and body, and reduce anxiety and discomfort. This is the stable ground that permits the student to relax the mind and body and reduce the duhkha, daurmanasya, angameijayatva, svasaprasvasa (suffering, unhappiness, unsteady limbs, and irregular breathing) discussed in Sutra I.31. Prana must be allowed to circulate and help bring nourishment and energy throughout, so that clear, focused, and full movement will be possible.

We begin with a customized Savasana to provide low-back relief, knee support, or shoulder girdle/neck support, and where possible, elevating the chest. I follow this with a guided physical, sensory, and mental relaxation, aiming for the quiet place on the interior of the self, with no active memory of the past or anticipation of the future. The ongoing experience of the present moment precludes reflection, judgment, or anticipation.

And the point is not so much to learn to make perfectly still everything that is problematic—the point is first to learn to stay.

(Sutra I.14: Practice becomes firmly established when it has been cultivated uninterruptedly and with devotion over a prolonged period of time.)

Nowadays, as this small group has persisted and has stayed intact over time, we have expanded on the original strategy of stabilization before mobilization and do what amounts to a

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

perpetual gentle, introductory-level class, emphasizing the cultivation and maintenance of physical and mental stability, and always beginning with a guided Savasana. I have gradually introduced supported standing poses, forward bends, supported backbends, chair twists (the open sort, like Bharadvajasana and Utthita Marichyasana)—almost a normal range of asanas. Most poses get lots of support, though, and there is the usual customization or substitution of alternative poses around injuries or conditions.

Even though inversions are key to all aspects of stabilization, Sirsasana has been virtually impossible because of all the spinal, shoulder, and brain concerns these students walk in with. I do spend time with preparation for Sirsasana and getting them as upside down as I can for part of every class. Apart from Sirsasana, there are no other problems we have not found different ways to manage. We have made a primitive rope wall by running belts over or around our strong doors, which allows for nice traction and for Adho Mukha Svanasana hanging from straps.

AMS: What changes have you noticed in the people you’ve worked with over this time period?

DD: Physically, in the long run, we have been able to gain ground with basic mobility and strength. However, we are limited in the leg work by knee problems. The majority of students have torn ligaments or cartilage, and one even prepared for and recovered from a knee replacement while attending this class throughout. We are limited in shoulder work by rotator cuff tears that were not reported or repaired.

Nevertheless, with support, we manage a good standard range of movement in an introductory range of asana.

But there is of course the psychological element I am looking for, interwoven with the physical. I have one gentleman who could not—or would not—lift his rib cage at all, nor could he tolerate a backbend shape of any sort, including lying supine with a single “headstand” shape and thickness of blanket laid out under his entire back trunk and a folded blanket under his head. A year and a half in, he now drapes himself over a chair in Urdhva Dhanurasana and Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana, chest open, feet supported, and legs nearly straight (knee replacement), neck relaxed, breathing easily, head hanging down, and face smiling. He says he can arch his back now because he trusts me. I’m not going to outright deny what he says, but my take is a little different. This work expressly involves providing students with an experience of stability within and without. If I can set up the circumstances with position and props and words, they still have to do the work and then

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“ In terms of my own teaching, this work has pushed me to be more creative in my use of space and props and to learn to develop poses in increments.” recognize that stability themselves, to see that safe, grounded, movement in the world is possible, even in difficult situations. I admire them for it. It’s a long haul.

For the average student, almost every pose requires some form of support, and for a variety of reasons, some of these folks may never be entirely free of those supports. In spite of that, most of the students look like regular students. Even our burly psychologist who must be present in all our classes—formally on duty in case someone needs him—has developed a rather good-looking Trikonasana. An accidental yogi.

AMS: What is the biggest thing you’ve learned from teaching this class in terms of your own practice and regular teaching?

DD: More often than not, people with trauma, maybe especially old trauma, often don’t like to talk about it; they don’t want to think of themselves or be thought of by others as someone with a problem. They might come to class because of it, but that is not the same as discussing it, maybe especially with me.

Patanjali (especially explained by Vyasa) tells us in his explanation of karma in the second pada that every interaction registers on the consciousness, and what registers can be either helpful or not helpful. With some, the impact leaves wounds and scars that distort the sense of self. Some of us can see nothing but the scars; others refuse to look at them, ever.

The vets at my center tell me they come to this yoga class because it helps them stretch, relax, feel, and sleep better. If they are coming for any more profound reason, they do not speak of it.

We just do yoga according to their capacity, week by week, constructing a grounded, present-moment experience of stability, from which extension, expansion, and strength may arise.

I do this because I believe that repeated doses of stability, safety, relaxation, and correct movement—that is, steady practice of nonkleshotic experience—will help to dissolve the old imprints of suffering and pain. No effort is wasted.

In terms of my own teaching, this work has pushed me to be more creative in my use of space and props and to learn to develop poses in increments.

In terms of my own practice, it has caused me to think long and hard about the practical meaning of Yama and Niyama, Dharma, and karma, and how any person threads his or her way through the little and big troubles of ordinary life.

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AMS: Is there anything else you would like our community to know?

DD: In Sutra I.33, Patanjali says, maitri, karuna mudita upekshanam punya apunya: “Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue, and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favorably disposed, serene, and benevolent.”

Please take the opportunities that present themselves to acknowledge veterans for their service. My view is that this gratitude is a reflection of the reverence that yogis have for all life and also of the respect and understanding we hold for Arjuna, “scorcher of the Foe” of the Pandava Clan,” not because these veterans have the same wisdom, insight, and skill as Arjuna, but because they have had the courage and intelligence to face the painful reality of their dharma, which is about the most difficult one can have. We must also remember that not everyone chose it, either. Many yogis, including myself, are antiwar, antiharm of any sort. However, the meaning of being a yogi is far bigger, broader, and deeper than letting yourself be upset at a soldier for the choice he or she made.

Also, in this highly polarized political and social climate that characterizes our country lately, it is important for our yoga community to make an effort toward evenness by finding points of intersection between ourselves and those with different lives, politics, and worldviews. Teaching yoga to veterans is one of many ways of integrating our selves as yogis into our own larger society.

Last, never imagine that you, with your long and deep education and experience in yoga and life, “understand” what anybody else has lived through. I am not sure it is even important to try, for this reason: Tsogyal Rimpoche, in a lecture on skillfully living and dying, related a quotation from Milarepa, the great Tibetan Buddhist monk. He said, “If you want to understand a man’s past lives, look at his present condition. If you want to understand a man’s future lives, look at his present actions.”

Everyone—teachers and students alike—needs to see themselves and others in this present moment.

AMS: Thank you, Devon, for this interview, and for your service to the Vietnam veterans you teach on behalf of all of us.

Anne-Marie Schultz (Intermediate Junior II) teaches philosophy at Baylor University and yoga at several locations in Austin, TX. Read her blog at www.teachingphilosophyandyoga. blogspot.com .

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

THE OSCILLATING KITE AND THE KITE HOLDER

BY SUSAN TURIS

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hen I started on the path of teaching yoga, I had no idea that my life was going to change—that I was going to change. As a student in New York, I was awakened and excited. I felt grateful, curious, and hungry for more. But more than teaching and practicing asana , the study of Patanjali’s philosophy has brought a psychological self-awareness that has been truly transformational.

On several occasions, I’d heard various teachers quote Guruji and share his description of the “kite holder and the oscillating kite”—a metaphor for the seer and the seer’s mind. When I finally experienced my own inner silence and stillness as the kite holder, in contrast to my oscillating and conflicting thoughts as the kite, it entirely changed the way I see the world and myself.

My future is still unknown, but I now move in the world with a knowledge and perspective grounded by my experiences in yoga study and practice.

The first group of students I taught was at a senior center, and everyone Susan Turis teaches a group of impaired adults at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Brooklyn. there needed to sit in a chair. They were not physically active, but they were there, and I was eager. and often child-like expressions of gratitude for the movement, I remember trying to fit my experience of contentment from attention, and connections that occurred during class—and of doing asana onto these willing but inflexible bodies. Confusion the light and delight that was visible in their transformation and conflict arose. What is possible, harmful, helpful? Teacher after class. That is what kept me coming back to them week training offered strict rules and guidelines to shape my after week. teaching, but I found it both demanding and challenging to stick to those guidelines in this context.

Today, I draw proudly from those early experiences as one of the IYAGNY faculty who teach a group of impaired adults at the Gradually, through the guidance of Mary Dunn, I learned to Brooklyn Institute. approach teaching with compassion. Now, 16 years later, many of those students still attend class with me and have become To the Brooklyn classes, I bring an open mind and heart, and active. They have transformed their relationship to their bodies strength of nerve. At first, the classes were unpredictable as I have transformed my skills. I continue to learn from them, because any number of students could be medicated and and I am grateful to see them return weekly. sleepy, have oscillating attention spans, or be impulsive and overactive. When I start a class, I have to ask myself, each time, Later I began to work with a range of impaired adults, called “Is the temperament of the group charged, heavy, erratic, or “patients,” at a private medical day center. These folks were even? All of the above?” Now, through time and experience, I physically challenged in various ways—some experienced can create a comfortable level of predictability so the yoga can mental illness, abuse, strokes, dementia, or a low IQ. After my come more quickly. first class, what stood out was the lift of their chests and their faces after having taken so many deep breaths instead Before class begins, we set up the room for 10 students and an remaining in their more habitual sinking and slouching aide, with mats in place for each person. Everyone gets a name postures. This excited and inspired me to look forward to the tag, and I greet each student with a nod, “hello,” high-five, or a short but connected visits. I was humbled by their open spirits hug because a few people will come right into my space and Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

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to me before. Her eyes were like round saucers, and she kept her attention wholly on me for the rest of the class.

My aim is to move their limbs, to raise their chests, to fill them with breath, and to catch and maintain their steady attention. I teach the standing asanas for more than half the class, followed by seated chair twists, then onto the floor for rest and recovery. I think Savasana is quite revealing. After I adjust their head position, they begin to settle down. The stillness, the quiet, and the peace is remarkable to witness when so much of their time is spent with movement inside and out.

Students rest in a supported, seated forward bend.

want to be touched. For others, eye contact is brief—if at all.

As a teacher, I learn a lot as the students assemble and enter into the class. The transition and adjustment to the space brings many of them a newfound freedom and delight, which I can see in their excitement and smiles. The more “seasoned” students often lead the less capable and put them into position, explaining where and how to stand: “No, not on the floor but on the mat ... No, turn around—not that way.” I think of them as my helpers. When I step onto the platform, I bring authority, attention, and a new order to the room.

Gradually they let go from the periphery to the core as their breath steadies and slows, and then a peaceful and quiet lull fills the room. On coming out of Savasana, I sometimes teach them to recite Namaste before ending class. As they pile their mats and blankets on the platform in assembly-line fashion, the wakeful activity returns and so does the oscillating kite—or chatter. But for a few moments, their eyes look clear and alert with a settled calm. A fullness is clearly visible where they remain connected to that kite holder inside.

Susan Turis (Intermediate Junior II) teaches at the Iyengar Yoga Institutes of Brooklyn and New York. Because of her love of philosophy, she now leads the weekly Sutra Study group in New York.

All at once, with sharpness and quickness, I catch their attention for the repetition of jumping into standing poses. An observer outside class once told me that my teaching voice was very different from what she usually heard from me. It is louder, more firm, friendly, elevated, quick. This is my tool to help my students pay attention and stay with me.

I use simple terms for the limbs and room landmarks. “Jump up and spread your arms and legs!” I command and direct them with less emphasis on perfection and more emphasis on attention and direction. I watch their eyes, their breath, their energy. Are they with me? I use verbal acknowledgment and call out their names. “Charles! Are you stretching your fingers?

Are you stretching your toes? Are you all stretching your fingers and your toes?”

A student named Ketsia caught my attention because she always seemed to lag behind, to not be in sync with the rest of the class. She would step instead of jump or her elbows would be bent when I repeated over and over for everyone to straighten them. Then one day, I touched my elbow and said, “Here is my elbow. When it looks like this, my arm is bent. Now, I squeeze my elbow, and that straightens my arm.” And that was it! Ketsia hadn’t known where her elbow was. It hadn’t occurred 22

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Harper Nelson, Michele Pearson, Linda Simmons, Meiko Krishok, Crystal Teng, and Makeeba Ellington

BURNING THE SEEDS OF BONDAGE: IYENGAR YOGA AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

BY PEGGY GWI-SEOK HONG

A

s avid practitioners of Iyengar Yoga, we proudly describe our method as welcoming to all, regardless of age, body size, and physical capabilities. We know in our hearts that it can meet people where they are on any given day and help them feel better in multiple ways. But is this spiritual truth manifesting on a practical level in our classes?

The matter of race is still considered a taboo topic in the U.S., a nation that would not exist without the genocide of Native Americans and dependence on centuries of slavery. This tragic legacy of systemic racism continues through this day and intersects with class issues, perpetuating growing disparities of wealth. I spoke Kris Manjapra, a black CIYT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she pointed out that “We live in a society that refuses to acknowledge these origins and in which ongoing forms of racial and settler violence are veiled, hidden, and ignored.”

Here in Detroit, Michigan, America’s largest black city, I recognize the ravages daily, through disinvestment of black neighborhoods, the dismantling of the public school system, and water shut-offs to impoverished neighbors—all while corporate debts are allowed to rack up, homes are foreclosed on, and more. In such a climate, who’s thinking of yoga?

Since moving here in 2013, I have been learning anew what makes Iyengar Yoga both incredibly useful and totally inaccessible to so many. Iyengar Yoga Detroit is smack dab in Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

the center of the city, in the neighborhood of Hamtramck, a racially diverse working-class community.

Cost and location are the most obvious logistical barriers. Most Iyengar Yoga studios are in well-to-do, gentrified, majority-white neighborhoods. But a host of more subtle conditions can also be discouraging and more difficult to dismantle. Someone who is truly committed can take a work-study position, apply for a scholarship, or request a discount. Realistically, however, only a person with a fair amount of social and cultural capital will go this far. They have to be experienced in navigating such systems, filling out forms, and have enough experience and confidence to even ask.

I’m thrilled to see that many Iyengar Yoga studios these days offer weekly or monthly free or donation-based classes.

Dabblers will try it out, and a certain percentage will return. But most will not try, and most will not return. Why not?

Money, of course, is only a manifestation of larger, more systemic issues. Someone who finds themselves short on cash 23

All too often, people of color feel they have little choice but to attempt assimilation, to fit in. Instead, what would it look like to center people of color and other marginalized bodies, through the practice of Iyengar Yoga, both on and off the mat? Kris notes that B.K.S. Iyengar himself defied the existing high-caste, family-based, patriarchal system of the yoga parampara (tradition). Perhaps we can be inspired to take Iyengar Yoga to the next level, as a practice of liberation for all.

Graciela Lopez of Albuquerque, NM, in Supta Baddha Konasana Photo: Avery Janeczek Kalapa

is most likely also short on time, perhaps spread thin in several part-time or unpaid jobs, while juggling responsibilities at home and beyond. The activists and artists in my circle may be teaching as underpaid university adjunct professors, engaged in the fight for water rights, growing their own food, and raising children. Many working-class folks, people of color, and queers are also survivors of trauma, which may go back generations.

These people experience housing insecurity, lack of family support, and chronic health issues.

Kris notes that “People of color carry in their very bodies long histories of dispossession, racialization, and devaluation. They experience aggression and violence every day that remains hidden or unacknowledged.” Under these conditions, getting out of bed in the morning, with some measure of joy, dignity, and confidence that they are safe in the world, is itself a testament of courage and hope.

So what can we do, as compassionate citizens who want to share the healing art of Iyengar Yoga with truly everyone who could use it? I spoke with several colleague-friends about these issues. I asked, if you are not a person who fits the typical Iyengar Yoga demographic of white, middle class, and cisgender (someone who’s gender identity matches their assigned sex), what draws you to Iyengar Yoga? If you teach students outside of that demographic, how would you describe the needs of your students, and how do you meet those needs?

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra II.4 points out that avidya, lack of knowledge, is the source of all suffering. Kris suggests that “Iyengar Yoga, as a method, cannot focus only on the personal ego, but also needs to pierce through the illusion of a collective social ego,” which is based on injustice. “We need to ask important questions about how our practice of yoga can pull back the veil of ignorance” regarding personal and collective participation in oppression.

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Angela Abiodun, a black Iyengar Yoga practitioner in Detroit, appreciates the conversations that are able to exist in the space of yoga classrooms when teachers and communities are willing to interrogate the ways Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and the world merge or are in conflict. At Iyengar Yoga Detroit, we explicitly discuss how the practice of yoga relates to society and the issues of the day. Angela emphasizes how important it is to be trauma-informed. “We’ve got to have an awareness of blockages and the way students interact with their bodies on a social-political level.” How does the body respond to generations of oppression and colonization?

Erin Shawgo, a white CIYT in Detroit, comments that in teaching at a substance abuse clinic to mostly black women, she observed a hesitancy, almost a resistance from their own bodies, like an unconscious way of protecting themselves. She noted fear, distrust, dislike, or frustration with their bodies, and how Iyengar Yoga became a practice of body-positivity— accepting, treasuring, and loving their bodies, while practicing communicating with and trusting their bodies.

Erin contrasts this with her white, middle-class, cisgender students, who seem more trusting of their bodies and less concerned with her instructions. “They often do poses for the sensation and even put themselves into poses that could cause harm,” Erin says. She attributes this to “a dissociation from how their body looks and feels in space. Having a strong sensation in the pose is more important than developing a sense of proprioception [inner spatial awareness].”

Jacqueline Shea Murphy, a white CIYT who teaches mostly students of color at University of California-Riverside, notes that Iyengar Yoga is particularly well-suited for diverse body types, because there is not one kind of body or one way of approaching a pose, but many. She adds, “The specific focus on detail helps students foster a relationship with their bodies that brings attention to THEIR OWN body and what it is doing that moment.”

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

WHAT CAN YOU DO? So what can we all do as CIYTs in our classrooms to help destroy the seeds of bondage and make Iyengar Yoga more inclusive? Here are just a few ideas:

condescending. Let students know they are seen and valued, and give positive feedback when you see they are understanding the correct actions in learning a pose.

• Take an extra step. Don’t expect people who’ve been marginalized to be able to meet you halfway. Their “cultural commute” may already be huge! Taking an extra step may mean that you move the class off-site into another neighborhood. It may mean you teach with minimal or no props. It could mean students come late and in blue jeans. They may hesitate to take their socks off. Be flexible, not dogmatic.

• Set aside time for music, poetry, and sharing or processing. Kris has used Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” at the beginning of class to set the tone and theme, as well as other music from the “black prophetic tradition.” Erin feels that infusing her classes with a social justice rhetoric for her fellow white students helps them see the practice as a tool to work on themselves, to practice being uncomfortable and humble, and to see themselves objectively. A short poem or sutra reading during or after Savasana may be effective in bringing awareness and intentionality to the class.

• Recognize that the playing field is not level and never has been. Don’t assume that everyone has the same capacities, feels the same level of safety, or is willing to take the same risks. Even Adho Mukha Svanasana can feel uncomfortably vulnerable. Give options, variations, and listen, listen, listen.

• Check in with students. Ask them how they’re feeling.

Look at their faces—especially their eyes. Are they agitated? distracted? zoned out? Adjust the class accordingly. Maybe you need to pick up the pace, or maybe you need to switch to seated or supine poses.

• Practice consent. “Shall I adjust your hips?” or “How about some traction here?” can be more inviting and less jarring than an unannounced manual adjustment.

If someone has experienced body trauma, touch can be triggering.

• Affirm correct understanding and effort. Students need encouragement, especially if they have had to go though extra challenges just to make it through the door.

But don’t over-attend to them, which will feel

“The Iyengar Yoga community can and should be a leader,” Jacqueline says, “in cultivating diversity in the classroom.” She also suggests that awareness of race, class, gender, and ability should be part of teacher training.

Jessica Vega Gonzalez, a queer Latina CIYT in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, teaches a Women of Color class. “Most of the students want a chill, informal class with a little bit of structure but mostly a place to rest,” she says. This is understandable for people carrying a heavy allostatic load: wear and tear on the body from chronic stress. She feels it’s important to create a social context in which students feel supported and affirmed.

“They come back if they feel connected to others in class.”

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

• Give students something to take home. It’s important that people walk away from every class with simple asanas and techniques that can be completed at home and that aren’t intimidating. If students can’t afford money or time for consistent classes, give them confidence to practice at home.

• Connect and collaborate. Start conversations in your own Iyengar Yoga community about racism, classism, gender normativity, fat-phobia, and ableism. If you are a person of color, genderqueer, or otherwise marginalized, create solidarity with other Iyengar Yoga practitioners like you and explore ways to expand visibility and accessibility. Don’t be a yoga missionary. Center the voices and bodies of those who’ve been pushed to the margins. Share resources, space, and information.

Partner with the communities you are already in. Build relationships to build trust. Liberation must be collective, after all.

In Jessica’s case, the class is sustained by a teacher with whom the students can identify. When classes are a top-down, charity gesture, it can create a setting that invites microaggressions, and the students may feel patronized or tokenized. But if the teacher experiences the same risks and vulnerabilities as their students, they will build trust and connection, and the class will be sustainable. Lilla Watson, the Australian aboriginal activist famously advises, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

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All the teachers I spoke with emphasized the importance of maitri and karuna—friendliness and compassion—in teaching students who have experienced trauma, marginalization, and oppression. Iyengar Yoga’s reputation of strictness, firmness, and rigor may be off-putting, intimidating, or overwhelming in some settings.

Jacqueline says it’s critical to make sure everyone is attended to, welcomed, and included. She neither emphasizes nor ignores what students bring to class, including heavier students, hairstyles, or headscarves that may need asana modifications.

Avery Janeczek Kalapa, a genderqueer white practitioner in Albuquerque, New Mexico, strives to understand where her students are coming from when they enter the classroom.

“When I inwardly acknowledge differences in privilege, I can meet others where they are and connect more genuinely, rather than having a ‘colorblind’ attitude, which can be divisive and allow for unchecked inner prejudice or awkward assumptions to play out.” Avery advises using genderneutral language, such as “they” or “them,” and asking all students, “What pronoun do you use?” especially so nonbinary transgender folks feel seen and safe. It can be tricky to give space for everyone to practice without special attention being drawn to them because of race, gender, body size, and so on while also acknowledging who is in the room and what they may be needing. Teachers need to

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get over being perfect, says Avery. Ask questions, and be okay with making mistakes.

Avery cites Yoga Sutra III.51, about destroying the seeds of bondage. “The beliefs we’ve inherited from past generations are samskaras: the racism that lives in me, homophobia, transphobia, etc. Through yoga, we can articulate where the habitual path is in the body, the nervous system, in the mind, and choose a different way.” As each of us practices this within ourselves and in our communities, we create a more just society. Sutras II.33–34 may give some insights into ways to develop a more discerning mind, and thus change our behavior.

“Our practice of Iyengar Yoga stretches the mind to reach the furthest extent of our body,” Kris says, “and the mind and breath find their home in the body’s fullest measure. We counteract the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of racialization and devaluation. For people of color, this is a practice of redemption.”

Peggy Gwi-Seok Hong (Intermediate Junior III) teaches at Iyengar Yoga Detroit (www.iyengaryogadetroit.com) and at community centers in Detroit, MI. She extends heartfelt thanks to Angela Abiodun, Avery Janeszek Kalapa, Kris Manjapra, Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Erin Shawgo, and Jessica Vega Gonzalez for their insights.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

THE FORCE BEHIND THE CONVENTION: VOLUNTEERS!

BY ANN MCDERMOTT-KAVE

W

hen Colleen Gallagher agreed to be co-chair of the Boca Raton IYNAUS 2016 Convention, she was anticipating a maximum attendance of 500 people. Little did she (or anyone else) expect that with the announcement of Geetaji coming, registration would instantly grow from 300 to 1,200 people within 24 hours. At that moment, Colleen realized she had an essential skill she was not previously aware of: delegating.

Recruiting and managing volunteers is not an easy task. One needs to first select the appropriate people—people who not only have the right talents and skills but who will also give freely of themselves. Thankfully, Colleen created the perfect committee of leaders who did not have to be micromanaged to accomplish the necessary tasks.

Asking Carol Fridolph to be her co-chair was the first and best volunteer choice Colleen made. Carol’s skills perfectly complimented Colleen’s. While Colleen can easily see the big picture, Carol’s strength of implementation and attention to detail was essential.

Colleen also reached out to people (many of whom she has mentored to become certified teachers) to become volunteer committee chairs. Fortunately, she knew these potential volunteers on a personal level and the talents they could provide. Three years before the convention, Colleen brought the steering committee together to meet and get acquainted.

They met monthly for the first year and weekly for the following two years before the convention. Colleen said the steering committee and chairs were key to planning and executing the convention.

From time to time, Colleen reached out individually to the committee chairs to check in on how they were doing and troubleshoot any obstacles or problems. Sometimes the solution was simply connecting one chairperson with another, as some aspects of volunteer jobs overlapped. At other times it was brainstorming solutions or redirecting someone’s efforts.

Regular and honest communication was an important part of the planning process. “All of the committee chairs worked together as an awesome team,” Colleen said. “But they could never have run the convention alone.”

Working right alongside the chairs were 300 amazing volunteers who were also extremely giving of themselves.

For example, Katrin Loveland was closely assisted by Richard Richter and Sandi Pimentel. These individuals doubled their efforts to recruit 300 volunteers when the convention attendance numbers increased so dramatically. The team quickly created and maintained an extremely detailed spreadsheet of volunteers and managed the clear communication of volunteer task assignments both before and during the convention. A vital volunteer job, very well done!

THANKS TO ALL OF THE COMMITTEE CHAIRS! STEERING COMMITTEE • Carol Fridolph and Colleen Gallagher (co-chairs) • Suzie Muchnick (curriculum and liaison to RIMYI) • Nancy Watson (liaison to IYNAUS Board) SENIOR ADVISORS • Gloria Goldberg • Manouso Manos • Joan White VOLUNTEER COMMITTEE CHAIRS • Elisa Aueron (flowers/puja) • Jo Boccassini (goodie bags)

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Ruth Bradley (advertising) Pom Cayeiro (signs) Julia DeHoff (banquet programs) Stephanie Dodge (scholarships) Bobbi Goldin (banners) Katrin Loveland (volunteers) Susan Marcus (magazine and sponsorship) Marti Parker Krauss (convention store) Judy Rosenzwieg (hospitality) Susana Schuster (prop bags) Diana Shannon (webmaster) Javiar Wilensky (convention props)

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And so it is with one’s experience of volunteering. The giving of your time can also present challenges, obstacles, and benefits. Through volunteering, we stretch, give, and learn about ourselves, while igniting something on the inside through our service that helps a cause bigger than our individual selves. Like yoga, that deep inner feeling of joy is sometimes hard to articulate.

Although this 2016 national convention is over, the need for short-term and long-term volunteers at IYNAUS is ongoing.

Volunteers at the 2016 IYNAUS Convention: El Grabar, Diane Beverley, Nina Pileggi, Diana Shannon, Karen Allgire, Karen Chandler, Ruth Fisk If you have time to share your A second more “behind the scenes” volunteer effort was talents and skills, please check the IYNAUS website for current managing scholarship applications and awards. Stephanie volunteer opportunities or reach out to me. Your commitment to Dodge received hundreds of applications, and while Stephanie volunteering is valuable both on the individual level and for how wanted to award a scholarship to each applicant, she knew she it helps our local and national Iyengar Yoga communities. had to narrow it down. Sorting through the applications and speaking with so many people was a large and difficult task.

Ann McDermott-Kave (Intermediate Junior II) is the volunteer Thankfully Suzie Muchnick (the previous convention’s coordinator for IYNAUS. Please send any thoughts or scholarship chair), along with other volunteers, pitched in to suggestions to amkave1@optonline.net. help read through stories and speak with applicants on the phone. In the end, 100 scholarships were awarded, with special thanks to the many donors who made that possible.

Another group of volunteers deserve special acknowledgement: those who performed at the Sunday evening banquet. Their preparations and progress were tracked (via periodic videos) as they practiced for months, investing an enormous amount of time and effort. Kudos to the volunteers in the performing groups Ageless Warriors and Miami Heat, as well as to individuals Jarvis Chen, Leslie Freyberg, Rose Goldblatt, Carrie Owerko, and Patricia Walden for creating such an inspiring evening of vibrant and impressive entertainment!

“The volunteers worked in the true spirit of yoga,” Colleen said.

“For such a large group working together, there was friendliness, joy at being a part of this event, and a willingness to step in and assist where needed. I think all around everyone had a good experience.”

One final volunteer who deserves accolades was Susan Marcus for her outstanding efforts as the magazine editor and sponsorship chair. She raised funds and created the beautiful Sadhana IYNAUS 2016 Convention Magazine. Susan said, “Yoga is essentially a solo practice: a path of self-examination leading inward (and back again). Yet, as I experienced working on the convention magazine, it also connects us all and reveals that we are all connected.”

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Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Musings

THOUGHTS ON PATANJALI’S YOGA SUTRA I.1

BY JULIE TAMARKIN There is an old New Yorker cartoon that depicts a holy man at a crossroads looking at a sign. In one direction, the sign points to the meaning of life; in the opposite direction, the sign points to cheese and crackers. The man is not moving. He is scratching his chin, trying to decide which way to go. I recognize this hesitation. I want to evolve as a human being, and I cling to my old habits and comforts.

The Yoga Sutras inspire, guide, motivate, and delight me.

They also challenge me, and they can make me feel ignorant, weak, inadequate, and ashamed. At times, I read the sutras and am fueled to steer straight toward uplifting transformation.

At other times, when the sutras make clear how far I have to go, I want to turn back and run for a snack, a distraction, a way to dull my discomfort.

But there is one sutra that always stirs my soul and makes me feel that anything is possible. It’s the very first one: atha yoganusasanum: “Now we turn to Yoga.”

press and extend? Where do I tense up instead of allowing energy to flow through the pose? And where am I disconnected from myself instead of integrated?

When I look inside and replace a harmful habit with a healthy action, I connect to my own aliveness, an idea that Geeta focused on during the 2014 Yoganusasanum intensive in Pune.

When I wake up to my present moment aliveness, I come home to my body and my potential. I can initiate a constructive change, let go of feeling overwhelmed by my distance from the goal, shed old prejudices and patterns, shine a light into my blind spots, and take a step along the path toward oneness.

This practice nourishes me in ways that cheese and crackers never will.

Julie Tamarkin (Introductory II) teaches in Cleveland, OH.

Just like Arjuna in The Bhagavad Gita, I am on the front lines of my own confusion, ignorance, fear, and despair. And like Arjuna, I am armed. I have a body, senses, a mind, an intellect, and consciousness. And, thanks to Patanjali, Guruji, Geetaji, and many wonderful Iyengar Yoga teachers, I have the methods of yoga.

Sutra I.1 is my wake up call. It tells me that no matter how far I am from the ideal, no matter how discouraged I feel, and no matter how strongly I want to take a break and nibble a snack, this very moment is full of possibilities for my evolution.

I can wake up to what I’m doing and be truly alive in my body. I can work where I am; I can use whatever props I’ve got on hand. In this moment, in every moment, I can lift myself up, clean myself off, and move toward the original state of oneness.

Practice guides me to search inside for the right action, to discover where I am clenching too tightly, where I am collapsing, and where I can’t figure out what I am doing.

I am not trying to nail the pose like a gymnast trying to stick the landing. And I am not trying to race toward the goal. I am trying to discover the state of my present condition and realize what I am actually doing. Where do I dump my weight rather than

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

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Lighting

the Way

LOIS STEINBERG RECEIVES LIGHTING THE WAY AWARD

BY RICHARD JONAS Lois Steinberg, Ph. D., received the Lighting the Way award for distinguished volunteer service to the U.S. Iyengar Yoga community during the May convention in Boca Raton, Florida.

“I am truly touched,” Lois said. “It is a lifetime achievement that I feel so honored by. I thank you from the depths of my soul.”

“Lois’ unbroken devotion and determination to her practice is already well-known. I have known Lois over the past 20-plus years, and in that time, it is something else that I have come to cherish: her friendship—constant, pure, and warm.”

—Stephanie Quirk

Advanced Junior II teacher, author on therapeutics, and tireless volunteer, Lois coordinated the International Women’s Intensive with Geeta Iyengar in 1997 and produced the notes. She is the author of Iyengar Yoga Asana Alternatives: The Knees (2015), Iyengar Yoga Cancer Book (2013), Iyengar Yoga Asana Alternatives: Neck and Shoulders (2010), Geeta S. Iyengar’s Guide to a Woman’s Yoga Practice (2006), and other manuals.

She was co-investigator on research projects about the efficacy of Iyengar Yoga in treating chronic low back pain and high blood pressure. She produced the Sadhana magazine for the Odyssey Convention in 2001 and Yatra in 2007 and was curriculum chair for the 2010 certified teachers’ convention in Portland, Oregon.

Director of Iyengar Yoga Champaign-Urbana, teacher of workshops around the world, and teacher of teachers, Lois is also an assessor and member of the Certification Committee, and she is a past IYNAUS board member as well as previous chair of the Certification and Yoga Research committees.

Here’s what members of the Iyengar family, colleagues, and students had to say about Lois: “Lois is a very keen student and a hard worker. I can see that she is devoted. She normally doesn’t deny any student who goes to her with problems. It gives me great joy that she is receiving this award.”

—Dr. Geeta S. Iyengar ***

*** “I made a list of Lois’ qualities. She’s indefatigable. No one gets more done! She has tenacity. Discipline. If an element represents Lois, it’s earth. She’s steadfast and unflappable with a wicked sense of humor and a wonderful laugh—both hearty and ‘heart-y.’ I wish I had her hair: wild, curly, beautiful!

“She’s devoted her life to Guruji’s teaching. She’s compassionate in the truest sense of the word. How one-pointed she is in Medical Class—so totally present, she can work with two or three patients simultaneously. With her therapeutic books, Lois made an invaluable contribution to our community.

“Over 10 or 12 years in India, she and I practiced together next to Guruji, along with Abhijata, Stephanie Quirk, and Dr. Manoj Naik. Lois and I would arrive at the Institute, go upstairs, and put ourselves right near the horse where Guruji practiced. Every morning, we were there receiving his teaching. Sometimes he’d work with her, and I’d listen; sometimes he’d work with me and she would watch. Then we’d talk to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. That’s how we bonded. Sometimes Guruji was wonderful, full of humor, quoting the sutras. Sometimes he’d be really hard on us—though usually if he was hard on me, he’d go easy on her, and vice versa.

“After practice, we’d sit in the library with Guruji. Suddenly he’d say, ‘Patricia, do Urdhva Dhanurasana’ or ‘Lois, do Paschimottansana.’ We’d do our best although we were wearing our Indian clothes. We never knew what was going to happen!”

“My congratulations to Lois!”

—Sunita Iyengar Parthasarathy

—Patricia Walden, Senior Teacher ***

***

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Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

LIGHTING THE WAY CONTINUED

individual healing quests. Lois has helped me live with ankylosing spondylitis and chronic migraines. As my mentor, she never gives up on my dream to progress as a teacher, guiding me to acceptance, growth, and strength.

“At Iyengar Yoga of ChampaignUrbana, dynamic classes embody movement and exciting challenges. Lois encourages inner exploration by inviting students to use the studio for personal practice. Her teacher gatherings open us to innovation.

Patricia Walden presents the Lighting the Way award to Lois Steinberg at the 2016 IYNAUS Convention. Photo: James Greene Her graceful asana “Lois’ contributions to our community include her many therapy demonstrations leave piercing imprints of direct actions. books. This practical information has been incredibly helpful for my personal use and to help me therapeutically guide students.

“As Lois navigates through an adventurous trail, she leaves footprints of dedication marking her journey with imprints of “One year I had the good fortune to be in Pune the same time vitality, inspiration, and devotion.” as Lois. She would arrive early to the hall and practice intensively. Her approach was very inspirational and pivotal to —Kelly Gordon Sobanski, Intermediate Junior I, Bloomington, IN enhancing my own practice. Lois is very generous with her time in helping others in the practice hall and has a lightning-fast *** ability to skillfully minister to students in the medical classes.

“What’s unique about Lois is her commitment to the next “I have been the recipient of her scrutiny and instruction. All generation of Iyengar yoginis. She is parampara embodied. advice, suggestions, and hands-on assistance were given in a I vividly remember my first conversation with Lois—I was in no-nonsense, straightforward way. I was practicing arm Pune for the first time and completely lost. I had burning variations in Sirsasana near a wall when Lois insisted I go to questions about Parivrtta Trikonasana and many other poses. the middle of the room, saying I would never progress until I got I screwed up my courage, introduced myself, and asked for a over the fear of leaving the wall. Her words gave me a huge few minutes of her time. With her now-familiar withering look, boost of confidence and insight to improve my practice. She is she said yes. We sat in the foyer, and I marched through my able to help so many of us due to her experiential knowledge long list of questions. She answered every one with, ‘It depends,’ and understanding gained from her personal in-depth practice then gave me the detail I was looking for. and exploration.

“For more than 10 years, I have been a devoted student of Lois.

She has been that living link to parampara for me and many “Guruji spoke one year about anubhavika jnana, knowledge others. Subsequent trips to Pune have included daily mat-nextgained from experience. Lois is a highly skilled teacher and to-mat coaching. Telling me to ‘pep up my practice,’ she has practitioner who embodies this ability.” allowed me to follow her around the hall with my mat in tow.

With a word here, a prop there, Lois has shaped and inspired —Rebecca Lerner, Senior Teacher my daily practice and has never told me to stop asking questions. Somehow she carves out the time to answer emails *** and calls from all her students—what to do for high blood pressure, what to do about a prolapsed uterus. Lois is always “Lois’ light shines brightly through unwavering dedication, there for us.” energetic practice, and love for teaching. She thrives on infinite learning. Lois composes therapy classes as a conductor directs —Heather Haxo Phillips, Intermediate Junior III, Berkeley, CA an orchestra, keeping everyone organized and directed, refining

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

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LIGHTING THE WAY CONTINUED

“Later, when I had a life-threatening ailment, Lois was my therapist who helped me heal, recover, and eventually resume a normal yoga practice. When I retired as a lawyer and had the audacious idea of trying to become a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher, I experienced Lois as a mentor, the author of invaluable books, and a consummate teacher of teachers.

“Finally, after I became the IYNAUS treasurer, I saw the Lois who tirelessly worked on the certification committee and who is an astute strategist for the growth of Iyengar Yoga.”

—David Carpenter, Introductory II, Chicago ***

Lois Steinberg receiving the Lighting the Way award Photo: James Greene

*** “My wife Kimberly and I met Lois in Pune in 1998. Kimberly was taking a medical class at the Institute for back pain. Lois helped her get into more medical classes, and this was the beginning of Kimberly’s path to healing. We have since had the good fortune of being mentored as teachers and helped as students at her studio in Urbana and in Morgantown, West Virginia, when she taught at our studio.

“I have benefitted every step of the way from Lois’ knowledge of the asanas, her generosity, and her guidance. Lois’ weeklong summer intensives give us much of the inspiration for our practice for the year. Her instructions are clear, and their delivery is at just the right pace to bypass the discursive mind and go straight to the action and the reflective mind. Lois expects your best and is also willing to help you attain it, while seeing and compassionately accommodating your limitations. I also appreciate the sense of community she has cultivated at her studio and her inspiring devotion to Guruji and his teachings.”

—Siegfried Bleher, Intermediate Junior III, Morgantown, WV *** “Lois Steinberg has been many things for me. I first knew her as a teacher who allowed a stiff and battered yoga neophyte to attend her weeklong intensives for serious students, requiring only that I try hard and keep an open mind. Then she was the teacher who always inspired me, and through the sheer force of her will, allowed me to ‘wash’ my hyperactive mind and do more than I had ever thought possible.

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“In our Invocation to Patanjali, we thank the sage for his work on yoga, medicine, and grammar. The lifework of Lois Steinberg is an embodiment of these teachings. As a teacher she has put thousands of students all around the world on the path of yoga.

As a healer, she helps us to deepen and adapt our practice for health and therapy. As an author and communicator, she demonstrates her command of the language, concepts, and principles of yoga, bringing clarity and precision. Most of all, as a dedicated and disciplined practitioner, she is—for all of us— lighting the way.”

—François and Marie St-Laurent, www.roadstobliss.com *** “For 15 years, I have seen Lois’ commitment to Iyengar Yoga, from her daily practice filled with intent, direction, and integrity to her returning home from an international workshop and going straight to teach; developing thoughtful sequences for each therapy student; writing books to spread the teachings of Guruji and the Iyengar family; serving on IYNAUS committees; and her annual trips to RIMYI. “Lois is always ready to help her students. And that help comes in all forms. Sometimes it’s instruction to deepen an asana, sometimes it’s a therapeutic application, sometimes teaching a teacher to teach better, sometimes sharing home-grown vegetables from her vast organic garden, or just being a friend.

Lois exemplifies the power of Iyengar Yoga and teaches us all to live life with intent, direction, and integrity.”

—Jerry Chiprin, Intermediate Junior I, Chicago, IL Richard Jonas (Introductory II) is a faculty member at the Iyengar Yoga Institutes of New York and Brooklyn. Richard developed the idea for the Lighting the Way award in 2007, when he was on the IYNAUS board.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Book

REVIEW

ASHTANGA YOGA OF PATANJALI (PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION CULTURE, ETHOS AND PRACTICES)

BY PRASHANT IYENGAR

BY SIEGFRIED BLEHER, PH.D. This 888-page work by Prashant Iyengar achieves many aims. Among them, a scholar’s clear analysis of a portion of an ancient text enjoying a modern resurgence, a teacher’s instructional manual to help bring the light of knowledge to a range of sadhakas, from beginner to accomplished, and an insightful practical guide for practitioners who inevitably encounter numerous questions along the yogic path. This work may also be considered a science manual for the science of yoga that maps out the procedure required to attain the aim of yoga, Samadhi.

In 24 chapters, Prashant translates and expands upon the portion of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras that is Ashtanga Yoga (Eight Limbs of Yoga), or Sutras II.28 to III.3.

Prashant analyzes each sutra into its component parts and brings the parts together to give a deeper understanding than is possible in a cursory reading. Each analysis is enhanced by examples to make the principles he elucidates accessible to beginners. Those who wish to go further are provided with progressive refinements.

Prashant begins with a sober assessment that in the present day we are collectively not suited to the original intention of Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga—we are more inclined toward materialistic pursuits than to spiritual practice or depth. Even so, he encourages us to begin. Prashant exhorts us to develop gratitude (Yajna), generosity and gifting (Daana), and austerity and restraint (Tapas) before taking up yogic practices proper.

The careful teasing apart of each sutra and the elaboration of its meaning through comparative study with other texts makes this an important complement to widely read works in the field, such as Guruji’s Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanajali, and Edwin Bryant’s The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The pace and rhythm and spiraling nature of the presentation progressively unfolds the subject for student-practitioners, from simple interpretations they can easily access to subtler meanings that are not commonly recognized. Prashant holds a conversation with the reader over the course of several sittings, reminding them where they had arrived in the last sitting before continuing on.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

It is possible to read this work in two ways. One is to become informed about Ashtanga Yoga, to clarify one’s understanding before beginning and throughout one’s practice, to glean insights about this path that are not found elsewhere. The other is to read this work as a spiritual practice of discernment. For example, Prashant describes seven channels of pursuit, all of them with the prefix “Yog,” the first four of which I mention here: “Viyog,” the channel of disjunction, in which we experience bliss when we mitigate and disassociate ourselves from the causes of the sorrows of life; “Samyog,” the channel of inclusions and associations in which we cultivate conjunctions with noble qualities such as mental restraint, sensory restraint, wisdom, peace, and contentment; “Yog,” in which our efforts are to maintain and augment one’s existing noble qualities and attributes; and “Viniyog,” which, in Prashant’s words, means “using—applying the yogic components that we possess innately, intrinsically, inherently, and indigenously.” Now why did Prashant not stop with only one of these terms, say “intrinsically”? Some reflection shows that each of these terms points to a slightly different meaning. And, according to Prashant, we possess yogic components that are all of these things and that must be applied and developed through Viniyog. Consider the capacity for absence of greed— Aparigraha, which is treated in Chapter 9.

All who are familiar with Ashtanga yoga and Sutra II.30 recognize the meaning of Aparigraha as absence of greed. And the fruit of Aparigraha, as stated in Sutra II.39, is knowledge of one’s past and future births. Prashant helps the reader understand how this fruit can arise. He begins by pointing out that Aparigraha is not merely nonacceptance of instruments of pleasure for one can reject pleasure out of frustration and dejection. Instead, Aparigraha is “nonacceptance by discerning certain defects or drawbacks to indulgence.” Being aware of these defects helps lead us to Aparigraha.

By appreciating the wide-ranging implications of Parigraha, we may also see that “Aparigraha is not only noncoveting or nonhoarding. It is a great qualifier of spiritual wisdom. It is deep inwardliness, which reveals roots of our psyche and consciousness.” Prashant explains that our intellectual resources, which he calls Janashakti, are externalized and depleted by the mental effort required when seeking objects of

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BOOK REVIEW CONTINUED

pleasure. Through Aparigraha “the pleasurewardliness diminishes, the outwardliness ebbs, and he gets the soulwardliness… he gets the scanning visions of all the manifestations that the soul has gone [through] so far.”

Prashant also offers reinterpretations of certain sutras he feels have been misinterpreted in other texts. For example, the four kinds of samprajnata listed in Sutra I.17 as vitarka, vicara, ananda, and asmita are often associated with the common meanings of these terms. However, Prashant explains that vitarka does not refer to the apprehension of sensory objects in Samadhi, nor even of supersensory apprehension of common sensory objects as, for instance, might take place in clairvoyance. Rather the term “vitarka” in Sutra I.17 refers to apprehension of one of the panchamahbhutas, the five great elemental principles, which are not objects of sensory perception but principles that form the supports (alambana) for consciousness. Consciousness comes to be “one with” and completely absorbed in one of these principles or supports in vitarka Samadhi.

An example of “ethos” in the subtitle of this work is the case Prashant makes for the relevance and importance of yoga, of

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the science of yoga for our times: “Evil is never overcome by evil, but it ceases only through goodness, self-purity. Selfpurification comes through observing vows and forgetting wrongs” (55). Yoga provides such a path toward self-purification: “Yoga not only describes the practice of truth, it tries to teach us how to practice the truth by developing the infrastructure for its practice. The unique feature of the Ashtanga-yoga is that it helps one to develop the psychodynamics for practicing cherished qualities such as satya.”

In this work of Prashant’s, we are invited to bring the same discernment into our study of the Sutras and our daily lives that we bring to our practice of asana. Whereas other works on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras may share the fruit of the authors’ sadhana, Prashant also offers us in the reading of his work a sadhana in its own right to complement and fulfill one’s practice of asana and pranayama.

Siegfried Bleher, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in physics at Fairmont State University and a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher (Intermediate Junior III). He and his wife Kimberly Williams run Inner Life Yoga Studio in Morgantown, WV.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Classifieds 2015 Iyengar Yoga Assessments CALL FOR MUSINGS Yoga Samachar seeks submissions for our “Musings” column, which features a range of short thought pieces from members.

These can be philosophical in nature or might focus on more practical topics—for example, a great idea for managing your studio or for creating community in your home town. Please send your own Musings to yogasamachar@iynaus.org by Feb. 1.

The following names were inadvertently missed when we published our list of 2015 passed assessments.

Please accept our apologies—and congratulations on your hard work!

Introductory I and II Stephanie Fredericks Peter Gaughran Laifong Ng

JOIN IYNAUS To join IYNAUS or renew your current membership, please visit our website and apply online: https://secure.iynaus.org/join. php. Membership fees begin at $60, with $30 of each membership going to support teacher certification and continuing education.

Intermediate Junior I Jeaneen Bell Tehseen Chettri Becky Estes Carol Faulkner Rebecca Hooper Martha Krauss Leslie Lekos Graham Williams

YOUR AD HERE Yoga Samachar accepts short, text-only ads to announce workshops, offer props for sale, list teacher openings at your studio, or provide other yoga-related information. Ads cost $50 for up to 50 words and $1 per word over 50 words, including phone numbers, USPS addresses, and websites. Please contact Rachel Frazee at rachel@yogalacrosse.com or 608.269.1441 for more information or to submit an ad.

IYNAUS ARCHIVES EXPAND The IYNAUS Archives has received a wonderful new donation: the Dr. Marian S. Garfinkel Collection. A senior teacher and devoted student of B.K.S. Iyengar, Marian taught for many years in Philadelphia. Among other notable achievements, Marian was the lead author of a study on the benefits of Iyengar Yoga for people with carpal tunnel syndrome, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1995.

Thanks to the generosity of Marian and her family, and to the hard work of our Archives Chair, Scott Hobbs, we have recently added more than 25 boxes of materials to the IYNAUS Archives, including correspondence, audio and video recordings, and a wide range of printed materials related to B.K.S. Iyengar’s teachings, his visits to the United States and other countries.

One small, moving example of what the archive holds is the

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

program for the inauguration of the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in January 1975, shown at left.

The entire program can be viewed online at https://iynaus.org/rimyi-1975.

We are working hard to make materials from the IYNAUS Archives available to members. People who renew their membership for 2017 will have access to some of these materials almost immediately.

If you are an IYNAUS member with personal archives related to Iyengar Yoga, please contact us to discuss ways we can help preserve those materials. Your archival contribution will help preserve the future of Iyengar Yoga. Please contact Scott Hobbs for more information: sh@scotthobbs.com.

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Donations MANY THANKS TO THE 2016 IYNAUS DONORS! The IYNAUS Board of Directors would like to acknowledge the generous support of those who’ve donated to IYNAUS and the Bellur Fund over the years. Starting with 2016 and moving forward, we’ll include an annual public thank you to our donors in Yoga Samachar. We apologize if we’ve missed anyone!

Anonymous

Upma Chauhan

Laura Garrison

Stephen Kelley

Lisa Miller

Vicky Abbott

Tehseen Chettri

Lucy Geever-Conroy

Elizabeth Kerwin

Tori Milner

Susan Abernethy

Lindsey Clennell

Marysia Gensler

Laurel King

Margie Minkler

Alexander Aguilar

Henriet Cohen

Joanne Germano

Charles Knull

Jan Mitchell

Kevin Allen

Patricia Copeland

Dina Ghen

Lisa Koch

Bonnie Moeller

Melinda Altshuler

Cyndy Cordle

Alice Gill

Kathryn Koenigsberg

Natalia Momchilova

Kathryn Arbour

Richard Corsillo

Rick Gindele

Katherine Kreisher

Arthur & Marcia Monroe

Sandi Ashton

Carmen Coyle

Dale Glasco

Julie LaFleur

Willamarie Moore

Lou Asselin

Sheri Cruise

Gita Morena

Ermin Cruz III

Courtney Golden, in gratitude for teacher Sachiko Willis

Lee Lahla

Winnie Au

Anna Lamb

Octavia Morgan

Beth Aucoin

Paula Curtis

Deborah Lancaster

Brooke Myers

Elisa Aueron

Eileen Daugherty

Judith Landecker

Popsi Narasimhan

Laura Baker

Sherril Davidow, in honor of the wedding of Alex & Holger Aguilar

Jean Landry

Beth Nelson

Wade Landry

Mr. and Mrs. Alan Nichols

Moran Lantner

Chris O’Brien

Elvin Laracuente

Kathleen Padgitt

David Larsen

Elizabeth Pagan

Jeffrey LeGro

Sterling Painton

Valerie Leiter

Deborah Parker-Johnson

Pamela Leonard

Kavi Patel

Ora Leonian

Sonal Patel

JR Lill

Jerilyn Pearcy

Laura Litman

Joanne Pearson

Michael Lucey

Dana Perkins

Kateryna Lund

Sarah Perron

Barbara Lyon

Heather Phillips

Vindra Maharaj Roy

Nina Pileggi, in honor of Amy Duncan

Christine Ballerano Michelle Barczak Sylvia Barra Jane Barrett Jessica Becker Hillary Berbeco Peggy Berg Tara Bernstein LeAnn Billups Tristan Binns Andrea Blanch William Bloomhuff, in honor of the wedding of Alex & Holger Aguilar Kathryn Boardman

Annette Davis Clara Amelia Davis Thomas DeBoni Frank Deitle Marilee Dejacimo Anna Delury Brad Denning Angelique DeSilva Deborah DiCarlo Stephanie Dodge Mario Dubovoy Alison Easter Betty Eiler

Laura Bowden

Susan Ellington

Megan Bowles

Becky Estes

Jann Boyer

Margaret Evans

Constance Braden

Annie Fedler

Leslie Bradley

Sascha Ferguson

Kirsten Brooks

Natalia Ferrer

Karin Brown

Jane Fitzgerald

Rebecca Brown

Martin Fletcher

Sarah Burks

Kate Flock

Julie Byers

Christie Fraser

Renata Cardinal

Jonathan Freilich

David Carpenter

Jane Froman

Sandra Castellano

Donna Furmanek

Ruth Caudell

Jill Ganassi

Kerry Cavanagh

Sarah Gant

Adee Chandally

Carol Gardner

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Kathleen Goodman Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan Kate Graham Cynthia Grant, in memory of B.K.S. Iyengar Theresa Guise Karen Haden Alex Hansen Judith Harper Lue Hartman Jenny Hartman Signe Hartmann Patricia Harty Noel Hehr Win Heiskala Madeleine Hexter Jeffrey Heyrman Shivayogi Hiremath Howison Hollenberg Katherine Horak Elizabeth Hynes Jean Iaderosa Joyce Ireland Janice Irwin Andrea Isco Diana Jacaman Martha Jacobs Monika Jaeckle Momi Jhung Denise Johnson Susan Johnson MaryEllen Jurchak Sheri Katz-Plotkin

Vimla Maharaj-Banks

Sandi Pimental

Rosalind Malcom Diana Martinez

Judi Pofsky-Cohen, in honor of the wedding of Alex & Holger Aguilar

Sharon Maruca

Robin Popinski

Rachel Mathenia

Jennifer Poteat

Valerie Mathews, in honor of the wedding of Alex & Holger Aguilar

William Prelle

Elizabeth Martin

Mary Frances Matichak Holley Mattson Nichole McBride Ann McDermott-Kave Kristin McGee Margaret McGeevy William McKee Sarah McNerney

Tracey Radloff Ruby Reay Mary Reilly Lori Ritland Michael Romero Hugh Ross Sarah Ross Cici Rotell Jacqueline Routhenstein Denise Rowe

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Stephanie Rozene, in gratitude for teacher Judy Brick Freedman Marilyn Rubin Faith Russell Jayne Satter Christine Saudek James Scacchetti Julia Schneider Shannon Schnibbe Stephanie Schubel Lynn Schultz Deborah Schwartz Linda Schwartz Kimberly Scott Leigh Seacord Donald Serat Sonia Shaeri Julia Shaida Juliet Sherwood Carrie Shield

Leslie Silver

Chere Thomas

Mary Wixted

Judith Sims-Barlow

Laurel Thomas Laulkar

Sharon Womack

Penney Sing

Martina Timol

Patti Wrogen

Sue Sirkus

Dan Truini

Elvira Zaga

Genesis House Recovery Residence

Ruth Skole

Floriana Tullio Sarah Tuttle

Riverwest Yogashala, Milwaukee, WI

Norvell Family Foundation

Eric Small Cheryl Smith

Charles Udell

Marilyn Smith

Jean Upshaw

Peter Smith

Gary Vercelli

Suzanne Spitzer

Ileana Vidal

Sudeep Srivastava

Tatyana Wagner

Theresa St. John-Siegel

Ellen Wagner

Beverly Stone

Peggy Wallace

Alexandra Sullivan

Asha Watson

Zaid Syed

Lillian Waugh

Julie Tamarkin

Laura Webster

Maggie Tanzer

Michele Weis

Mary Taylor

Paula Weithman

Katharyn Taylor

Cora Wen

Andrea Theis

Gregory White

Ann Thomas

Sachiko Willis

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institute of La Mesa, CA Iyengar Yoga Tucson, AZ Clear Yoga, Rhinebeck, NY

The Yoga Place, Lacrosse WI Postures, Naples FL

Namastday Yoga, Beverly Hills, CA Ancient Healing Arts Yoga, Lebanon, NH

Yoga Sol, Delray Beach, FL

River Valley Yoga Center, Florence, MA

Community Yoga, Fernandina Beach, FL

Students of Judy Brick Freedman

Grow Yoga Together, Greensboro, NC Santa Barbara Yoga Center, Santa Barbara, CA Otter Creek Yoga, Middlebury, VT Yoga Cooperative of Madison, WI Ventura Yoga Studio, CA

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Treasurer’s

REPORT— IYNAUS FINANCES

IYNAUS FINANCIAL UPDATE

BY DAVID CARPENTER In last spring’s issue, I provided a comprehensive overview of IYNAUS’ finances. Given the positive feedback that I received from a number of members, we will plan to make a similar report each spring. In this report, I will provide the financial results for the 2016 convention, present our current balance sheet, and provide updates on dues levels and other issues that I addressed last spring.

Financial Report on the Spring 2016 Convention In the spring issue, I explained that, due to the confluence of several factors, IYNAUS’ finances were in a perilous condition at the end of 2015. We then fervently hoped that the 2016 Convention would allow us to replenish our coffers so that we could meet some glaring needs and take steps to ensure greater financial stability for our association going forward.

The convention did exactly that. Thanks to the hard work of our convention committee and to Abhijata Sridhar’s extraordinary teaching, the convention did more than provide profound experiences for all who attended. It was also an unqualified financial success. Net income from the event itself was about $135,000, and the IYNAUS store had approximately $18,500 in sales at the event. In absolute terms, this was the most financially successful convention in our history. As I foreshadowed last spring,

the board will use these proceeds to address unmet capital needs of the association (such as improving our website) and to establish a rainy day fund that will better ensure that we can hereafter withstand the kinds of shocks that came perilously close to causing a financial crisis at the end of 2015. Toward that end, we are determined to end the historic pattern of using our convention proceeds to heavily subsidize our operations in nonconvention years, and we are launching membership and other initiatives that should enable IYNAUS to enhance our revenues and advance our mission better.

Current IYNAUS Balance Sheet A balance sheet is a snapshot of an organization’s assets, liabilities, and net worth at a particular moment in time. My practice has been to publish our balance sheet, as of the end of October, in each fall’s Yoga Samachar. In some respects, this makes the organization look stronger financially than it is because we collect assessment fees in the spring (about $73,000 this year), and while some of each year’s assessment costs are incurred by October, many are not. But there is no perfect time of the year to show our balance sheet, and because the major objective is to allow year-to-year comparisons, October is as a good a time as any. The following table shows the IYNAUS balance sheet as of that date in each of the past four years.

IYNAUS BALANCE SHEET Oct. 2013

Oct. 2014

Oct. 2015

Oct. 2016

105,485

155,177

83,936

266,717

37,030

31,818

0

12,190

0

CURRENT ASSETS Unrestricted Assets IYNAUS bank accounts and cash equivalents Accounts Receivable Withheld 2014 dues—IYAGNY Withheld 2015 dues—IYANC

IYASE loan on Maitri Conference loss

6,000

3,000

0

0

Store accounts receivable

2,061

3,852

1,836

1,253

IYNAUS store inventory

79,219

95,046

106,870

90,590

Prepaid expenses

864

669

720

1,172

Computers and equipment

3,452

3,452

2,729

753

3,740

8,363

5,460

Restricted Assets IYNAUS archives bank account

Certification mark bank accounts

84,915

83,394

90,818

111,433

TOTAL ASSETS

281,996

385,360

339,280

477,378

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Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

IYNAUS BALANCE SHEET Oct. 2013

Oct. 2014

Oct. 2015

2,110

1,837

0

3,300

0

Oct. 2016

CURRENT LIABILITIES Accounts Payable Prepaid 2015 assessment fees Long-term notes (international archives)

9,250

9,250

9,250

9,250

TOTAL LIABILITIES

11,360

14,387

9,250

9,250

EQUITY (Net Worth)

270,636

370,973

330,130

468,128

TOTAL CASH OR CASH EQUIVALENTS

190,400

242,321

183,217

383,610

UNRESTRICTED CASH OR CASH EQUIVALENTS

105,485

155,117

105,126

266,717

Our balance sheet is much stronger than it was a year ago— when we were in a very weak position—or at any time in the past four years. My focus is always on the unrestricted cash: the money available to spend for any purpose. It is $161,000 higher than it was a year ago. That is due in significant part to the proceeds from the convention, but there are other factors as well. Our $44,000 receivables from IYAGNY and IYANC have now been converted into cash. We also recently received a $15,000 bequest from a generous donor, and this gift is not formally restricted (although the donor asked that we consider using these monies to establish programs to better reach underserved populations, and we will do so).

Our “restricted” cash is also up slightly. As a reminder, these monies primarily consist of the certification mark account that is jointly controlled by IYNAUS and by Gloria Goldberg in her capacity as the U.S. attorney in fact for Prashant and Geeta Iyengar. These monies are available only for jointly approved projects to promote Iyengar Yoga. We now have monies sufficient to launch some new initiatives, and the board is actively considering several proposals.

Finally, we have a separate restricted account composed of charitable contributions designated for our archives project.

This account is down slightly, but for very good reasons. In the past year, we incurred some costs that will assure the preservation of our archival materials. We also made some highly significant acquisitions of extensive new material for our archives, and some travel and transportation expenses were necessary to do so. We are very grateful to the members whose generosity has enabled us to pursue our archives project.

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Update on Financial Issues and Challenges Here is a quick update on the financial issues that I discussed in the last report.

DUES INCREASE In my reports over the past few years, I have often referred to the association’s need for increased annual revenues. Last spring, I announced that we would be actively considering a dues increase, and we discussed this issue at the general membership meeting, where several of you encouraged us to increase IYNAUS dues. The board then decided to do so. We initially proposed a $15 increase for all members effective Oct. 1, 2016, subject to consultation with the regional associations. Several of them urged a lesser increase for our general (nonteaching) members and requested that we also defer that increase until Jan. 1, 2017. To accommodate these concerns, we determined that we would instead increase the dues of teaching members (our approximately 1,100 CIYT members) by $20 and increase dues for our approximately 3,000 general members by $10, with both increases effective Jan. 1, 2017. We determined that higher dues for teaching members was equitable because they are the primary beneficiaries of most of what IYNAUS does, and we hope to use the enhanced dues revenues to create additional benefits. This is our first increase since 2009, and we are confident that these added revenues will increase the effectiveness and financial stability of the association.

There is one particular need that the increased dues revenue will meet. Historically, our association has relied on board members to do work that is performed by paid staff members in other organizations. That will continue. However, there are some

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TREASURER’S REPORT CONTINUED

quite tedious and ministerial tasks that have grown enormously burdensome as the size of our membership has increased. It long ago ceased to be realistic for board members to perform these functions. Accordingly, these devolved to our general manager, Sharon Cowdery, and have prevented her from devoting more of her time to tasks that would better advance the IYNAUS mission. With increased revenues, we will be able to hire an additional part-time staff person to remove this burden from Sharon and free up her time for more important matters. Because of Sharon’s long experience with the association and the other career options that she has, we want to give her greater responsibilities and a new title, Director of Operations, with a commensurate increase in her compensation.

RETAINING NONTEACHING MEMBERS AND ATTRACTING NEW MEMBERS One valuable outcome of our general membership meeting at the convention is that several of you suggested measures that can be adopted to improve our retention of nonteaching members. Those measures cost money, and with the dues increase and more staff support for Sharon, we will be able to pursue these initiatives.

At the same time, we will be establishing a more robust set of benefits for our members and are hopeful that we can greatly increase the number of nonteaching members, particularly in regions that do not own and operate institutes. If we do a better job retaining nonteaching members and attracting new ones, it will increase our dues revenues and give us greater latitude to make investments that will promote the IYNAUS mission.

PUBLIC RELATIONS Shaaron Honeycutt has joined the board and is heading up our PR efforts. She has a vast array of ideas for disseminating information about Iyengar Yoga and its benefits. All these ideas require money, and we are optimistic that greater financial resources will translate into increased effectiveness for our public relations efforts. These efforts will be assisted by the new trade name (CIYT) and trademarks that we have created for our certified teachers.

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF YOGA THERAPISTS (IAYT) After thorough discussions with senior teachers in our community, IYNAUS has established a relationship with the International Association of Yoga Therapists. This relationship has no effect on the uniqueness and identity of our CIYTs and of Iyengar Yoga. But it will enable interested and qualified CIYTs to be certified as yoga therapists by this association and

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thereby acquire an additional credential. The annual cost to IYNAUS of this relationship is less than $1,000. But we have the option of incurring additional costs to enable other interested CIYTs to be more effective in pursuing applications of Iyengar Yoga that are consistent with their levels of certification. We will be carefully considering these opportunities in the coming months. Increased dues revenue will give us greater latitude to pursue these opportunities.

CERTIFICATION AND ASSESSMENT In my spring report, I discussed measures that Leslie Bradley and the certification committee have adopted that should reduce the shortfall between our assessment revenues and expenses in 2016. The assessors elected Laurie Blakeney to succeed Leslie in 2017, and Laurie will be experimenting with a different structure for managing the assessment system that has the potential to reduce its costs in 2017 and beyond.

THE IYNAUS WEBSITE The board has approved initiatives to upgrade our website technologically and also to improve both its content and the presentation of the content.

CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO IYNAUS In the past several years, IYNAUS has not only received contributions that are passed through to the Bellur Trust but also charitable contributions that have been made to IYNAUS itself (which is a tax exempt Section 501(c)(3) corporation under U.S. tax laws). These have included contributions designated for our archives project and also contributions that are unrestricted and can be used for any of our programs. We are grateful for the generosity of those members who have made these contributions; these monies have given the board significant latitude to enhance existing programs and to launch new initiatives.

So for those of you who have the financial means to do so, please consider making a charitable contribution to IYNAUS before the end of the current calendar year or when you pay your dues for next year. As noted, contributions can be designated for the archives project, or, if they are not designated for any particular purpose, the contributions will be used for our general programs.

IYNAUS is able to receive gifts made in wills or other estate planning documents, so please consider that option as well.

David W. Carpenter IYNAUS Treasurer Oct. 26, 2016

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

Abhijata’s daughter, Satvika, helps Ruth Fisk draw raffle tickets at the banquet on Sunday evening at the convention in Florida.

Photo: James Greene

Yoga Samachar Fall 2016 / Winter 2017

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B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States P.O. Box 538 Seattle, WA 98111 www.iynaus.org

Abhijata Sridhar teaches Utthita Parsvakonasana to nearly 1,200 students at the 2016 IYNAUS Convention in Boca Raton, Florida.

Photo: James Greene