yoga
my introduction to yoga
a secretarial colleague was insistent to show me a yoga pose when the bosses were not around…yoga? I had never heard of it before… she demonstrated karnapidasana… it reminded me of the calisthenics team I was on in high school… through the Chicago parks department I found a hatha yoga class… I loved how calm and centered I felt afterwards and thought that someday I would want to give others that same feeling . . . that was in 1975 . . .
enter Iyengar Yoga
while living in Oahu during my Pan Am flight attendant years, I fell into the liquid brown eyes of a fellow flight attendant…we married…a year later when pregnant with our first daughter, a fellow flight attendant who had just had a baby the year before suggested I attend a prenatal yoga class…it was an Iyengar Yoga class…I was incredulous that I could not keep my knee caps lifted…awareness and stamina just wasn’t there… 4 years later… we were living in San Francisco…a fellow flight attendant had just returned from India with presents for me: 3 Pune blankets, 3 belts, a bolster, and a pranayama pillow…she told me to go to the Iyengar Yoga Institute just 10 minutes from where we lived at that time to study yoga…I was compelled to enroll in the 2 year Iyengar Yoga teacher training program…
Some time after the San Francisco earthquake, we moved to WA…where we were joined by our second daughter…and I began studying with Aadil Palkhivala before the space for Yoga Centers was found…
—in August, 1995 I became certified in the Iyengar method…
on practice
…I struggled with my practice…raising two daughters…finding time to take a shower was a challenge, let alone find time to practice yoga…Aadil gave me the grace to allow raising my daughters to be my yoga practice…I was reminded of a homework assignment that I wrote for Judith Lasater while at the Institute:
“The concept of abhyasa – vairagyam from the Yoga Sutras struck a chord in my heart as well as in my mind. I discovered when experimenting with my own yoga practice that one cannot exist without the other. I struggle with disciplining myself to practice. I debate whether to do my practice first thing in the morning, which I prefer, or enjoy breakfast with my family. If I succumb to the temptation, will I do it in the afternoon or before I go to bed, or wind up missing one day? This eventually starts a pattern like dominoes.
( f a l l i n g o n e s )
I re-read an interpretation of the Yoga Sutras that stated: Vairagyam is tested when the mind is swept by anger. My two and a half year old daughter brings out the best and the worst in me. Reacting to her ego’s provocation with my ego through anger or from greed (disturbing “my” thought, space, life) makes us both miserable. Responding with humor, love or compassion eases the ego’s sense of being jeopardized or being challenged by this experience. With my daughter I am practising vairagyam. It is constant practice – abhyasa.”
on pranayama
I sink to the ground with a sigh, nourishing my self as my body relaxes against the ground. I would love to retreat from the outside world for a longer period of time…the telephone rings, a voice calls up, disturbing me from my center, withholding the deeper sense of stillness I crave.
meeting BKS Iyengar
June 2005, Light On Life tour, Estes Park, Colorado…I finally meet my Guru…
honoring BKS Iyengar’s 90th birthday
December 2009, Pune, India article Yoga Samachar
