Lifelong
PRACTICE
FELICITY GREEN BY PAUL CHEEK
O
n July 15, 2017, I had a long conversation with my teacher Felicity Green. She was in the comfort of her home on Lopez Island, Washington, and I was in Washougal, Washington. She shared her experience about the way her yoga practices have evolved over the years and of her relationship with the Iyengar Yoga community. Her example lights the way.
I knew about the body pretty well, and when I saw Iyengar Yoga, I saw that it fit. It had the integrity of the body in it. two-week teacher training. He came every year for the next three years and did several workshops in the U.S.
PC: What do you think it was about Iyengar Yoga that made you know it was the one for you?
Felicity Green at The Hamlet, where she lives on Lopez Island, WA
Paul Cheek: Why did you start yoga and how long have you been practicing? Felicity Green: I started yoga in 1964, with a class at a community center in Palo Alto, California. The teacher was in his 70s and had been doing yoga for three years. He knew more than I knew. I started yoga because, before I left South Africa in 1962, I had had a shoulder operation and I was given the prognosis that I would never lift my hand behind my head again or lift my elbow. After I settled down a little in the United States, I saw a notice for a class in yoga. I went to see if that could get me a little bit more movement in the shoulder.
PC: How long was it until you discovered the Iyengar Yoga method? FG: I discovered the method in 1970. Before 1970, I just did yoga—whatever attracted me. I went to different workshops and worked from a book with good illustrations. In 1970, I saw a French teacher, Rishi Jean Bernard. As soon as I saw him, I knew Iyengar Yoga was what I wanted to do. He offered a teacher training in France in 1971, and I went to that. It was a
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FG: I trained as an occupational therapist in South Africa. There were 10 of us, so we were just thrown in with the medical students for the first two years, which included a year of dissection, where we actually dissected the body from the skin down to the bone. I knew about the body pretty well, and when I saw Iyengar Yoga, I saw that it fit. It had the integrity of the body in it, whereas other forms of yoga didn’t really have that integrity of the body, of using the body in the way it was designed to be used. That was what attracted me to Iyengar Yoga. It seemed very pure in that way.
PC: So at that time, were the teachers teaching any of the philosophy or was it all body centered? FG: For me, it was body centered, although it didn’t have much effect on my shoulder in the beginning. The reason I continued with yoga was that I felt the difference in me when I practiced. I was much calmer and more centered and able to deal with my three little kids, being in a strange country, and everything like that, which, for the first six months to a year, created a lot of stress for me. The philosophical side, although I didn’t know a lot about it, definitely affected me and that was why I continued doing yoga. It was not so much because I felt there was a big difference to my shoulder, but because I felt that it made me feel different and able to cope more easily.
PC: When did you start your practice, besides taking classes and workshops?
Yoga Samachar Fall 2017 / Winter 2018
