News From the Regions

IYAGNY Community Outreach Classes The Iyengar Yoga Institutes of New York and Brooklyn hold nearly 100 classes every week, ranging from Level I to Level IV and including Pranayama, Restorative, Women’s, Prenatal, Gentle, and Specific Needs classes. Introductory classes and series for students new to the method are offered as well as teacher training, including ongoing programs for certified teachers. There is also a full slate of weekend workshops taught by faculty on special themes such as “Asana for Anxiety,” “Yoga for Depression,” “Working With Bunions,” “Anatomy of the Breathing Mechanism,” and “Finding Your Balance.” In addition, special workshops bring visiting teachers to the region.

Still another kind of class mirrors the community outreach efforts of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York (IYAGNY) and the universal reach of Guruji’s method: an HIV Class, a Breast Health Class, and a Veterans’ Class.

These free classes remind us that Iyengar Yoga is a vital, lifeaffirming way to work with chronic conditions and to nurture hope and fortitude in the face of difficulties. They show how a yoga institute is more than a yoga studio in the way it reaches out to people in its community. Most of all, these classes demonstrate that, along with the striving for absolute alignment and constant focus, the nature of the Iyengars’ teaching is profound compassion for students of all levels and conditions. This compassion comes from and demonstrates their sure knowledge of how profoundly curative and transformative yoga, correctly performed, can be.

The HIV Class The Iyengar Yoga Institute’s HIV Class began in the days before anti-retroviral medications were available. As the nature of the AIDS epidemic changed, so did the class. People grew healthier and stronger, and along with sequences devised by Guruji and the Iyengars to control HIV infection, students began to do the kind of “regular” yoga that makes everyone stronger, more flexible, and balanced.

There’s always been a special feeling in the HIV Class— friendly and supportive—and a sense of belonging. Longtime students welcome and encourage newcomers. Along with firmness of body and steadiness of intelligence, which B.K.S. Iyengar tells us are two of the defining qualities of asana, one feels here the benevolence of spirit he names as the third quality.

Over the years, we have lost students and mourned as a community. Newcomers have arrived. Senior teachers from around the world including Father Joe Pereira and Stephanie Quirk have taught the class.

What has never changed is the spirit in the class—similar to that among survivors of breast cancer in the Breast Health Class and in the Veterans’ Class. The HIV Class began in 1994 in the old New York Institute on 24th Street and was taught by James Murphy, IYAGNY director, and Brooke Myers. The class still meets at noon on Fridays. In the early days, some students were incapacitated; some did no more than lie on the floor with their heels elevated on blocks to quiet the abdomen and relieve diarrhea. Changes in the HIV Class mirror changes in the epidemic. Conditions of the eye like retinitis, which meant students could not do inversions, are much more rare; so are fever and diarrhea. A second HIV Class, at the Brooklyn Institute, meets at 3 p.m. on Mondays and is taught by Richard Jonas.

One current student says, “I would not classify it as yoga and HIV, but yoga and life. Yoga has an effect on our posture, our life choices, and our ways of thinking. Yoga has become an instrument for a healthier body and a cleaner mind.” Another adds, “The benefits I have achieved in a very short period of time are amazing. The first thing I noticed was a real change in my posture. I feel my body has enlarged. For the first time, I have found out how to have a relationship with all of my body, inside and outside. Another benefit is the level of relaxation; yoga makes it so much easier to reach that state of mind where everything is peaceful.”

— Richard Jonas

The Breast Health Class For the women who attend it, the Breast Health Class is a lifeline. It is both a place for like-minded women to meet and network and a place where they can begin to take charge of their lives and learn yoga in a supportive atmosphere.

Taught by Bobby Clennell, author of Yoga for Breast Care: What Every Woman Needs to Know, the class is targeted to the particular needs of these women; only breast cancer survivors may attend. And since most of the women are over 60, they know they can be in a class without fear of not being able to keep up.

Breast cancer surgery brings a particular set of limitations and a particular set of aspirations not found among any other group of students. Now in its fourth year, the class draws a mixed group. Many of the women, especially the dedicated group of regulars who make up the bulk of the class, are long-term survivors. These women have made tremendous strides in their

Supta Baddha Konasana: Begin on a lower support (i.e., a narrow-fold blanket) immediately following surgery for breast cancer.

practices. Improvement in mobility around the affected site, in particular the arm and shoulder, is one of the first benefits they gain from the class.

A less obvious, but extremely valuable benefit is regaining confidence in a body that a woman may feel has let her down. It takes a while, but with regular attendance in the class (and for some with home practice), trust in the body’s ability to heal itself through yoga builds, week after week, month after month, year after year.

This is a close-knit group. Navigating the health system and attempting to pull together the components that make up a medical support system are among the subjects the students exchange information about.

As teachers, one of our greatest rewards is watching the progress of our students. In many respects, this group is no different from students in a regular class. As their immune systems become stronger, we see their health and strength improving. And if they stick around, something else happens—something wonderful: They become fascinated by yoga and interested in practicing beyond the initial confines of breast cancer.

A breast cancer survivor does not want to think about breast cancer all the time. She wants to move on. Yes, this class takes into consideration the specific needs and concerns of the group, including the aftereffects of chemotherapy (long-term and lingering fatigue), the initial immobility caused by scar tissue (most of these women have undergone some sort of surgery, a mastectomy, lumpectomy or reconstruction surgery), and, in some cases, lymphedema. But this class also recognizes the need to address the entire person—the body, the breath, the mind, and the innermost self.

— Bobby Clennell

The Veterans’ Class The Veterans’ Class takes place at noon on Saturday afternoons at the New York Institute and is taught by Adam Vitolo. The class gives IYAGNY the opportunity to give back to the men and women who have risked their lives for our country. The class is offered to all veterans from any branch of service—regardless of injury or past yoga experience.

The biggest concern plaguing veterans today is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—and Iyengar Yoga really shines in this arena. Our approach to yoga is a clear breath of fresh air to all who enter the class. The discipline of our practice appeals to a veteran’s already-honed skills of attentiveness and focus, and the pranayama taught in Iyengar Yoga helps students take this honed skill and turn it inward so the mind can become quiet and peaceful.

The feeling in the room during class is one of community and openness. “Once you figure out what it’s all about, it becomes so meaningful. It’s like family,” says Anu Bhagwati, a longtime yoga practitioner and teacher in New York.

IYAGNY is proud to offer the Veterans’ Class to honor and pay tribute to a group that has given so much.

— Adam Vitolo

Richard Jonas, Bobby Clennell, and Adam Vitolo are faculty members at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of New York.

IYAMN In October 2014, the Iyengar Yoga Association of Minnesota (IYAMN) hosted senior teachers Mary Obendorfer and Eddy Marks to conduct a three-day workshop in Saint Paul at the Saint Paul Yoga Center. In their asana classes, Mary and Eddy conveyed key philosophical concepts of yoga and demonstrated the seamlessness of practice and philosophy. They also taught two pranayama classes during the well-attended and muchappreciated workshop.

We continued our tradition of holding a winter yoga day to honor and celebrate Guruji’s life and work. This was also held at the Saint Paul Yoga Center and was attended by about 35 people. Local teacher Jeanne Barkey taught an asana class, using it to introduce some of the basic philosophical ideas of the yoga tradition. Members of our association were encouraged to bring guests new to yoga to introduce them to the tradition of Iyengar Yoga, and Jeanne taught a class that was amenable to that group. This proved to be a great success, and we intend to do this once a year as a way to build community and increase membership in our association. The evening concluded with refreshments, including a cake to honor Guruji’s birth. IYAMN also sponsored a workshop with John Schumacher in early June in Saint Paul.

We welcomed new board member Luanne Laurents to the board to succeed outgoing member Michael Moore. We are thankful to Michael for his service to the board. Our board continues with its mission of building the Iyengar Yoga community in this region, especially reaching out beyond the

Twin Cities. Our association has a membership that includes rural Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In addition to the Twin Cities community of teachers, our membership includes Iyengar Yoga teachers across our region— in Fergus Falls and Tofte in Minnesota, Iowa City and Decorah in Iowa, and La Crosse and Madison in Wisconsin, for example. There are thriving Iyengar Yoga communities scattered throughout our region. Nancy Footner, for example, reports from Iowa City that the Friendship Yoga Studio (founded in 1993) is currently offering 10 classes year round and hosts two weekend retreats a year with invited senior Iyengar Yoga teachers. One long-term student, Jenn Bowen, recently passed her Introductory Certification, encouraging news for the Iowa community. We hope to include more news from around our region in future reports.

IYANE The Iyengar Yoga Association of New England (IYANE) held its annual general membership meeting on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2014, in Providence, Rhode Island. In an effort to build participation in IYANE across the region, annual meetings in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will alternate with meetings in other New England communities. The 2014 annual meeting was preceded by a membership drive workshop with senior teacher Linda DiCarlo. We also welcomed new at-large board members Claire Carroll and Kim Peralta, and acknowledged the reappointment of Patricia Walden and Mary Wixted to their second terms on the IYANE Board of Directors.

The Community Service Committee of IYANE has been funding the teaching of yoga to underserved populations since 2012. Domestic violence victims in Massachusetts, developmentally disabled adults in Maine, and low-income women in Boston have benefitted from yoga provided by teachers funded by IYANE. This year, we are pleased to subsidize yoga classes for transgender people in Burlington, Vermont. Also, in response to a request from an Iyengar Yoga student teaching at the Framingham Women’s Prison in Massachusetts, IYANE donated six yoga books to the prison library, including Light on Yoga, Light on Life, Yoga The Iyengar Way, and The Women’s Book of Yoga and Health.

In 2014, IYANE made two Pune Study Scholarships of $500 each available to New England students attending Geetaji’s intensive in December. The 2014 scholarships were awarded to Natasha Judson (Massachusetts) and Marly Schneider (Vermont). The 2015 Pune Study Scholarship recipient is David Yearwood (Maine). All IYANE members are eligible to apply for the Pune Study Scholarship; more information is available at www.iyengarnewengland.com.

Our association was also proud to be a co-sponsor of the 2nd annual Iyengar Yoga Convergence, May 1–3, 2015, at the Portland Yoga Studio in Maine. The brainchild of certified Iyengar Yoga teacher David Yearwood, the annual Iyengar Yoga Convergence brings together Iyengar Yoga teachers from across New England for a weekend of workshops and community gatherings. This year’s teachers featured Patricia Walden (MA), Linda DiCarlo (RI), Jarvis Chen (MA), and Rebecca Weisman (VT).

“The Convergence is like a mini-Iyengar Yoga convention,” said Jarvis Chen. “It’s an opportunity for students to experience some of the wonderful Iyengar Yoga teachers we have right here in New England and to celebrate our shared passion for Iyengar Yoga.”

It’s a powerful opportunity for teachers to work together and share their knowledge and for students to place themselves and their home studios in the context of the broader New England Iyengar Yoga community.

IYANW The Iyengar Yoga Association of the Northwest (IYANW) is as diverse as can be with studios in large cities and lone certified teachers in remote areas. No matter the size, we’re all busy making connections with each other and growing our communities. In Pistol River, Oregon, a coastal community of 200, certified Iyengar Yoga teacher Vimla Maharaj conducts small classes for 10 eager practitioners. The students are dedicated to their classes during the nine months Vimla is in the area. They have also learned the value of home practice and making connections with other practitioners to maintain and flourish as a yoga community—one that grows strictly by word of mouth.

Ashland, Oregon, is technically considered a rural area. With a population of around 21,000, Ashland is a mini-mecca for yoga entrepreneurs of all styles, and the Iyengar Yoga community is steadily growing. This year Rose Yoga of Ashland (RYA) had its first annual member class and several students joined IYNAUS. In addition to two guest weekend workshops scheduled in 2015, RYA is holding bi-monthly home practice support groups at the request of its growing community and may add an additional guest workshop in 2016.

Farther north, in a somewhat larger community, teachers and students at Yoga Northwest celebrated Ingela Abbott’s 35th year of teaching Iyengar Yoga in Bellingham, Washington. Ingela calculated that during those 35 years, “close to 10,000 people have learned to do the dog pose, stand up tall, and breathe deeply, enhancing our beautiful Northwest region with the yogic spirit.” The May 9 celebration included a yoga presentation, awards to students, and a trip down memory lane with studio flyers, photos, and reminiscences going as far back as studio archives and memory allowed.

IYANW has its big cities, too. Shaw-Jiun Wang arrived on the Seattle yoga scene in October 2014 committed to serving the community of greater Seattle. In addition to offering quality Iyengar Yoga classes, the Seattle Iyengar Yoga Studio reached

out to the local community, offering community classes and benefits to organizations that are known to “inspire and contribute to humanity.” The studio has held two benefits in 2015 for Yoga Behind Bars and for YouthCare, an organization providing alternatives and a second chance to homeless youth.

Earlier this year, Pat Musburger of Tree House Iyengar Yoga (also in the Seattle area) provided a forum for conversation in one of her pranayama/asana workshops and was pleased to discover the wealth of knowledge offered by one of her students, an ayurvedic wellness counselor. Later in the year, her student Gayathri gave a workshop on ayurveda at the studio. Pat says, “As instructors, we learn so much from our students, which is just one of the many reasons we appreciate our yoga communities.”

This summer, one of IYANW’s long-established studios in Portland, Oregon, Gudmestad Yoga Studio, will host Anatomy Awareness in Asana with Julie Gudmestad. Julie will be teaching this 5-day intensive integrating essential anatomy with the yoga poses. Classes consist of about half anatomy study and half asana practice to illustrate the anatomy.

Please visit www.iyanw.org for the many workshop choices offered in the region.

IYASE The Iyengar Yoga Association of the Southeast (IYASE) has seen many wonderful workshops and events in recent months. Audubon Yoga Studio in New Orleans celebrated in a special way when more than 75 students and friends joined studio teachers to celebrate and honor the life of B.K.S. Iyengar on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2014. Studio director Becky Lloyd, along with several teachers, provided a variety of offerings, including a talk on the effects of different categories of poses, comments on the obstacles B.K.S. Iyengar overcame in his life, and a demonstration of an impressive and inspirational flow of asanas.

Beloved Iyengar Yoga teacher Judi Rice passed away on Dec. 12, 2014. Judi’s life was honored in early January at a “Gratitude Feast” planned by Judi herself. Family, friends, yoga colleagues and students—an estimated 300 people—joined in this upbeat commemoration. Judi’s strength, courage, and detachment were greatly admired, even as her days on this earth came to a close. Her teaching of Iyengar Yoga will be remembered and passed on for years to come in the Louisville, Kentucky, area, in our IYASE community, and beyond.

Our region’s teachers responded with enthusiasm to IYNAUS’ call for membership workshops, offering 10 events in six states in late 2014 and early 2015. These workshops are an effective way to provide a service for and invite the support of our nonteaching practitioners. Averaging almost 10 participants per workshop, this activity accounts for almost half of our general (noncertified teachers) membership. In January, IYASE and the Iyengar Center of Nashville co-sponsored an inspiring workshop led by Edwin Bryant, expert on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and The Bhagavad Gita. This is IYASE’s second co-sponsored event, in which our regional organization teams up with a community studio.

Within the IYASE organization itself, the board of directors is working to more evenly distribute the workload and “sattvacize” our overall efforts. Removing work that’s duplicative, dividing up and sharing jobs, having shorter but more frequent telephone meetings, and more carefully considering added services to make sure they add value, are some of the tactics we’re trying.

Our biggest step toward removing duplicative work is deciding to have all members join or renew through IYNAUS, effective with the 2016 member year. The parallel paths to membership—via the regional or national organization—are confusing to members and create extra work for our volunteers. We will better serve both IYNAUS and IYASE in making this change.

Another way we’re evening out effort is through job-sharing. The IYASE president’s job is being shared by Chris O’Brien and Jann Boyer for 2016. Other examples include multiple-member teams for the IYASE newsletter and cross-training for frequent tasks such as updating the website and sending out group e-mails, so we can help each other when needed.

To achieve more useful telephone meetings with a greater number of board members, we have two teams, each led by a co-president. The Communications team handles the website, social media, the newsletter, e-bulletins, and continuing education; the Operations team focuses on membership, budget and accounting, scholarships, and organizational records (minutes, contact lists, etc.).

Finally, we added two new services—both carefully considered for value versus cost. Natasha Freeman is our first Social Media Chair. She monitors our Facebook page, keeping it lively and fresh. Our Continuing Education Chair, Lisa Waas, recently created our first online sign-up for an IYASE-sponsored workshop, the Intro I/II teacher training event with Suzie Muchnick, which was held in Naples, FL, May 29–31. The online service is designed to ease the registration process for participants, as well as reduce the logistical work for the organizers.

IYASW The Iyengar Yoga Association of the Southwest (IYASW) has had a busy 2015 so far! We started out the year in January with an Iyengar Yoga teacher meet-and-greet workshop. Throughout the day, teachers from around Arizona took turns teaching to a room full of new and veteran students. Each teacher focused on a particular class of poses: standing, inversions, backbends, etc. This format allowed new students to glimpse the full spectrum of poses that we practice in Iyengar Yoga, and all enjoyed the

We organized this event to introduce students to teachers within our region whom they had never met or taken a class with before, and to bring awareness of Iyengar Yoga to the community at large. Students and teachers came to the Iyengar Yoga Center of Scottsdale at Scottsdale Community College from all over, and attendees were treated to a light lunch and a t-shirt. The biggest treat of the whole event was the joy of coming together as a community. The workshop was so successful that we intend to make it an annual event.

We’ve also had the pleasure of visits from several senior teachers. Dean Lerner and Rita Lewis-Manos held their annual workshops at The B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Center of Tucson. Both Rita and Dean have been coming to Tucson for many years, and their work in helping Iyengar Yoga make inroads into Arizona and the Southwest is immeasurable. It is so valuable to have senior teachers who make regular trips to RIMYI come to our area and share their knowledge with us.

Carolyn Belko came to Scottsdale in February for her biannual workshop and teacher training. Her work as a mentor for teachers in training in our region has seen four teachers through the assessment process since her first visit in 2009, with three more new teachers assessing this year under her mentorship. It is with the support of these senior-level teachers that we are able to strengthen and grow Iyengar Yoga in our community.

We have also had workshops pertaining to general wellness that are a wonderful compliment to regular yoga practice. Scottsdale Community College hosted a workshop on transitioning to a vegetarian diet in March. In the workshop, students learned how to healthfully make the move to vegetarianism with attention to complete nutrition. Also at the SCC Iyengar Yoga Center, Professor Pamela Matt of Arizona State University taught a week-long training in Mindful Movement based on the work of Mabel Elsworth Todd. These workshops were not just for yoga teachers and practitioners, but for all who want to understand their physical selves more completely, so as to gain wisdom on the rest.

IYILA On Dec. 14, 2014, Dr. Ed Feldman, a longtime Iyengar Yoga practitioner and medical doctor, helped the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles (IYILA) celebrate Guruji’s birthday with a talk titled “B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga, and Western Medicine.” He spoke from years of studying yoga and medicine when he said:

“Despite our progress in Western medicine, much of the needed care for a patient remains beyond the scope of our training and our system. Enter B.K.S. Iyengar. Through his insistence, and I want to emphasize this word ‘insistence,’ on anatomical detail and alignment, we have learned that innumerable problems of our muscles, bones, and joints can be relieved or improved with the correct application and practice of yoga. That’s wonderful. But that is just the beginning… Because Mr. Iyengar learned, and we have the opportunity to learn, again, and expand on it, through the practice of yoga that the subject is so much deeper than the muscles and the bones. He would say it is the study of the cellular basis of our existence.”

Our senior teachers continue to bring our community together. Manouso Manos and Gloria Goldberg come to our Institute to teach their dedicated students and to help them deepen their practices.

On Feb. 21, Lisa Walford’s students, colleagues, and friends came together at the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles to celebrate her 60th birthday. The idea was that Iyengar Yoga teachers who have been longtime students of Lisa’s, many of whom have been her classroom assistants and also formally mentored by her in their own certification process, would choose poses or sequences of poses that they think of as “classic Lisa poses.” These are asanas that Lisa teaches regularly in her classes and to which she has added her unique perspective, emphasis, and techniques, designed to convey deeper understanding and more physical accessibility.

Once teachers had selected their poses, a sequence was written. On that Saturday night, Lisa’s students and friends crowded into the studio, settled onto their mats, and were led by Lisa through the Invocation to Patanjali. She then turned the class over to the teachers and took her place among the students. Following class, guests indulged in delectable brownies, macaroons, and cookies, courtesy of Jeff Perlman. A special saffron-laced rice pudding, adored by Lisa, was made and served by Affi Bakhtiar.

We have created a digital outreach program that reaches out to the greater Los Angeles area. We are so spread out here, and many Iyengar Yoga students go to studios in their immediate area, so many dedicated practitioners do not gather at the Institute to learn about B.K.S. Iyengar and his philosophy. Therefore, we have expanded our newsletter to include articles and essays written by teachers and students. It turns out that we have a lot of good writers in our community who are eager to share their thoughts. Every week, we post one piece on our website (www.iyasc.org/articles-essays).

In the fall, IYILA plans to expand to three asana rooms, add ing another 50 percent to our teaching and support facilities. We are excited to have the room to offer more workshops and forums for our community.