Yoga News

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By Christie Hall 

Christie Hall is a writer, yoga teacher, and long-term Iyengar yoga practitioner. In this article, she describes some important lessons learned at the recent national Iyengar yoga conference in San Diego, titled Yoga, Universal to All, or Sarvabhauma Yog. Particularly noteworthy were the sessions headed up by Birjoo Mehta, a senior Iyengar yoga teacher and increasingly, a leading force within Iyengar yoga. 

Birjoo Mehta lept lightly to the stage the first evening of the Iyengar Yoga conference and convention in San Diego, May 10-15. He was to spend the next several days showing us how to create steadiness and balance as a means of bringing consciousness into our poses. 

He was a child when he began studying with BKS Iyengar in 1974. As a young man, he traveled with his teacher through Europe, the United States and Australia, demonstrating poses. An engineer by profession, he has led Iyengar yoga conventions in the United Kingdom since 2001, and he traveled to China in June 2011 with Iyengar, teaching the evening sessions with guidance from his teacher. 

My teacher, Manouso Manos, had urged us all to get to the conference to experience Birjoo’s teaching, but I achieved far more comprehension of the purpose of yoga than I ever dreamed I might.

"’Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of consciousness’ (Yoga Sutras I,2] Yoga is seen as the study of the workings of the mind. The way the mind interacts with the senses, the breath and lays down emotional imprints. It is a study of consciousness.”  ~ Alan Goode

The message from BKS Iyengar has always been twofold: Find the correct alignment in the pose and let consciousness spread until the pose itself felt whole. For some such as me, however, learning alignment has been such a task that spiritual accomplishment has been even more elusive than the turn of a femur. At some point, I mostly gave up trying.

Birjoo brought us a simple how-to message, however, a map any individual can follow to find that stillness in a pose. We should worry less about making alignment corrections in a pose, he taught. Instead, we have to use our minds even more than we use our bodies. As Manouso often notes: Finding resolution with the physical body is considerably less threatening.

Rather than focusing on the fine points of alignment, Birjoo put much more emphasis on the meaning of yoga – stilling the fluctuations of the mind to reach an awareness of our true, unchanging self. He set out the process in a pragmatic fashion, likening it to a corporate initiative, outlining the steps from vision to accomplishment:

1. What is the vision of yoga? Developing the ability to perceive our permanent form.

2. What is the mission of yoga practitioners? Stilling the fluctuations of thought – in order to perceive our true, unchanging self.

3. What is the strategy for accomplishing our mission? Practicing yoga asana.

4. What tactics shall we use in our strategy? Finding alignment in yoga postures.

Like his teacher, Birjoo brought joy to his teachings. He made us laugh with implied threats of long holds of Kapotasana. His hands wove like birds as he spoke. He smiled, he coaxed, he reached for analogies to help us understand how to perceive consciousness within yoga postures and, once perceived, to command its use. By the second day, his voice was a bit hoarse.

I began to understand some writings that had long been obscure to me:

"From fluctuation to stillness, stillness to silence, and silence to sight of the soul is the journey of yoga." BKS Iyengar in Tree of Life p. 121 

As much as I longed for the state described in Yoga Sutra 1.3, that having stilled the mind, “The seer resides in his own true splendour,” I was very much stuck in 1.4: “At other times, the seer identifies with the fluctuating consciousness.” (Iyengar, pp. 52-3.)

Birjoo's theme of awareness and consciousness in the pose vs. physical actions proved disconcerting until I had the faith to actually try it. Here are some reflections from Birjoo’s sessions on how this principle applies to the practice of yoga asanas.

Finding Tadasana in Every Pose – Samasthiti

This pose is like the unchanging self at the center of all our fluctuations. It is the touchstone, the place of quiet at the center of a practice. The other poses all become variations. The key to envisioning this is in the name Samasthiti: sama – same; sthiti – steadiness.

To find the quiet within fluctuations of other poses, Birjoo directed us to bring an element of Tadasana to each pose. In Utthita trikonasana, Birjoo suggested we maintain the back leg actions of Tadasana in both front and back legs as we slowly lowered into the pose.

I kept the back leg and buttock in the neutrality of Tadasana, and connected the front leg buttock bone firmly toward the heel. Although physically exhausted after a challenging day of standing poses, I found that a surprising kind of steadiness resulted; a quiet, unfluctuating mind translated to a pose that felt grounded.

The next afternoon, he brought Tadasana to the practice of Bharadvajasana 1. Once we had turned the abdomen and chest, Birjoo asked us to recreate the torso of Tadasana. One side of my body had become noticeably shorter. Once I opened and lengthened it, again quietness descended. 

We touch back to universality when we bring Samasthiti to other poses.

Balancing consciousness

For any other physical activity, the movement itself is the point. In yoga, the asana starts when the activity and movement of creation stops. We pay attention to the details of the pose as we create it, then, once in the pose, we let awareness move to where consciousness is. Then we seek to balance the consciousness throughout the pose.

The second day of the conference, Birjoo asked us to add another layer of awareness to our poses. In all the asymmetrical standing poses, consciousness concentrates in one leg or the other, he noted. He described it this way: 

Where there is excess consciousness, the pose is more dense. Where there is less consciousness, the pose becomes light.

Birjoo outlined this process in Utthita trikonasana, where the back leg becomes light, with consciousness concentrated in the front leg. He suggested moving the bones where consciousness, density remained, and to move from the flesh to bring consciousness to the pose where it was light, such as the back leg. 

Another consciousness-balancing technique works through awareness of opposites. He suggested that where the flesh was puffed out or extended, excess consciousness existed. He also equated this with ahamkara, sense of self. On the opposite side was an interruption of consciousness. To balance consciousness, we had to reopen that interruption. For example, a locked elbow produces excess consciousness along the inner elbow, and we must release the back side of the elbow to create evenness. In Uttanasana, the puffiness of the upper or lower back requires an opening of the front chest or abdomen.

These modifications required something much different than what he termed the beginner’s approach of paying attention to aligning the pose. Instead he invited us to arrive in a pose and explore, to be open to the areas calling for our awareness.

Once we find heightened perception in one area, we next draw that awareness to the opposite region of the body to balance awareness, consciousness throughout the pose. All in all, the conference gave me a whole different level of understanding of the subtler levels of experience in yoga asana and of the amazing depth of the teachings of BK. Iyengar.

Christie Hall began studying yoga in 1995 to cope with crippling back pain. Her home practice started with the book, Yoga: The Iyengar Way. She started teaching in 1997 after studying with Iyengar teacher Karin O'Bannon and she has studied as student and as teacher exclusively with Iyengar teachers, including BKS Iyengar in Colorado in 2005 and Geeta Iyengar in 2007. More of her writings can be found on her blog: www.pratipaksha.com. Her Web site is www.christieyoga.com.

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You know yoga has hit main stream when the Smithsonian is planning an exhibit entitled "Yoga: The Art of Transformation,” dedicated to the history, manifestations, and goals of yoga, And curiously, the Smithsonian is using a very modern approach to financing the venture: Crowdfunding.

The crowdfunding campaign, "Together We're One" is set to be launched on May 29 and will run through July 1. The Smithsonian has previously used crowdfunding to fund an exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum of artist Ai Weiwei’s work. But with a funding goal of $125,000, the yoga crowdfunding campaign will be on a much larger scale than previously attempted.

The "Yoga: The Art of Transformation” exhibit will be open from October 19, 2013 thru January 26, 2014 at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. According to the Smithsonian website, the exhibit will explore yoga’s goals; it’s manifestations in both Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sufi cultures; its means of transforming body and consciousness, and its profound philosophical foundations. The first exhibition to present this leitmotif of Indian visual culture, it also examines the roles that yogis and yoginis played in Indian society over two thousand years.

To stay updated on the exhibition and related programs, sign up for the Smithsonian e-newsletter.

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By Carol Horton, Ph.D.

Yoga Gangsters is a Miami-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering at-risk youth struggling with poverty, trauma, and the difficult life issues they generate via the science and practice of yoga. Informally launched in 2003 by teacher, writer, and activist Terri Cooper, Yoga Gangsters has since expanded into an independent 501c3 that’s served over 3,000 people (mostly youth in crisis) through weekly yoga programs held in over 25 inner city schools, hospitals, jails, homeless shelters, youth centers and other non-profit organizations throughout the Miami area.

In addition to offering classes, Yoga Gangsters assists youth with career training and job placement by providing selected applicants with full scholarships to the Urban Guru Program, a 200-hour yoga teacher training. Terri Cooper also leads a Yoga Outreach and At-Risk Certification program, an affordable three-day workshop that trains yoga teachers and other interested individuals to effectively serve youth in crisis. This program, which has trained over 265 volunteer yoga teachers to date, is a prerequisite for Yoga Gangsters Level II training, “YG2: Yoga in the Hood.”

In this interview, Terri Cooper explains how yoga saved her life, ignited her passion to serve, and enabled her to connect with others and build Yoga Gangsters into the inspiring organization it is today.

Carol: Let’s start with your journey. How did you first get into yoga?

Terri: My story is pretty common. I think that everyone turns to yoga because they’re looking for something. Most often, they need to heal—whether from back pain or an emotional crisis.

I was at a place in my life where nothing was going well. I was completely disconnected from myself, my family, my purpose. I was spiraling downward. My life was unmanageable.

In all honesty, I’m not sure how much longer I would have been living and breathing on this earth if I hadn’t found yoga when I did.

Carol: What first really hooked into the practice, and why?

Terri: I had tried yoga once or twice back around 1999-2000. But at that point I was too drug addicted to do it. Plus, I got injured on my second day of class. Still, that was enough to give me some sense of spiritual connection to the practice.

I didn’t throw myself into yoga until a few years later. In 2003, I decided that I wanted to change my life, and would commit to whatever it might take to do so—getting clean, ending negative relationships and making an all-around life change.

The first year of my practice wasn’t pretty. I was a miserable person. I’d lie in bed and cry and cry…everyday. I didn’t love myself at all.

Yoga was the only thing that made me feel better. So I’d drag myself out of bed and go to class. Every day. I didn’t have any special method or teacher. I’d just go to whatever I could afford, which meant lots of donation-based classes.

Carol: When did you decide to teach yoga, and why?

Terri: I knew that I wanted to teach right away. I threw myself into a teacher training during that first year of intensive practice. Since I was still detoxing, though, a lot of it is a blur.

I also knew that I wanted to teach people like me. At that point, I didn’t feel that most of the studio population was like me at all. Now, I know that’s not really true, because we’re all one. But then, I felt like the mainstream yoga community could never understand my experience. I was drawn to teach those who were addicted or incarcerated.

I started in several locations throughout Miami in 2003. It grew organically from there. I taught everywhere, including regular yoga venues like studios, condos, and gyms in affluent South Beach. But I also made sure that I got over the bridge to teach in Miami, which is a different world. Sometimes I taught 25 classes a week.

In 2005, I started teaching kids in the Juvenile Hall on a regular basis. I also taught in a lot of low-income schools. I can only guess how many thousands of kids I served—I didn’t document any of it. Now that I’m running Yoga Gangsters, I wish that I had. But I had no clue that what I was doing was going to turn into an actual nonprofit.

Carol: How did Yoga Gangsters get started?

Terri: I felt called to study with Seane Corn due to her outreach work, and started with her before she founded Off the Mat (OTM). Then, I took the first OTM training back in 2005. Seane, Hala Khouri, and Suzanne Sterling (the co-founders of OTM) were extremely encouraging, and have been mentoring me for years. They supported me in taking my work to the next level and making it legit.

Carol: So, did OTM teach you how to run a nonprofit?

Terri: Well, I still don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m a college dropout and an ex-crystal meth addict. But I do have an incredible work ethic. And I’m driven and passionate. But even now, Yoga Gangsters doesn’t have the foundation and structure that so many other organizations doing this kind of work have.

Really, we are straight yoga gangster—we’re from the street. We don’t have a lot of professional expertise to support us. But we do have street cred and many hours of direct service. We really connect with the people that we serve.

Carol: What age groups are you working with?

Terri: At this point, we’re teaching everyone, including adult staff, teachers, and social workers in the institutions we serve. Our focus is addressing crisis and trauma. We have a training program that teaches the basic relationship between yoga and trauma, and how the practice can help manage and heal it.

We encourage our teachers to work where they’re most comfortable, where they have empathy and understanding. Some work well with little kids, others with teens and young adults. Often, people work best with those who have suffered from the same sorts of traumas they’ve experienced. So, for example, if you’ve lived with domestic violence, you might feel called to work with battered women.

Carol: Do you think those who haven’t personally experienced such trauma can teach those who have effectively.

Terri: Yes. Everybody needs to find their own balance. For me, this means learning more professional skills, like how to write a grant and build a board of directors. For someone from a more privileged background, it might mean learning to stop seeing yourself as separate from those that you serve.

Yoga enables us to experience connection, to realize that we’re all one. To be of service, you can’t come with a hierarchical point of view, like “I’m educated and I’m going to save you.” All that does is perpetuate the inequality that’s such a problem in the world.

To really be of service, you need to level out the playing field. You need to realize that you’re not saving anyone—if anything, your service is saving you. But wherever we’re starting from, we can all find that middle ground through real connection.

Carol: What’s it like to do this work? Can you tell me a good story that provides a living example?

Terri: Sure! Here’s one of my favorite stories that really shows what this work is like:  

I was working with young ladies in the Juvenile Hall in Miami. I’d go every week, but only see the girls three or four times before they’d get transferred to a different facility. It was an institutional, impersonal setting. The students would come in to class wearing orange jumpsuits and handcuffs.

One day we were doing headstand. That pose can be dangerous, and as usual, I made sure that everyone made an agreement about what needed to happen to keep it safe.

There was one girl who was quite large—maybe two and a half times bigger than me, and I’m not small. I could see in her eyes that she really wanted to go up into headstand. But when she started to try it, she got freaked out: “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”

I came up to her and said, “If you want me to help you, I can.” She tried again, but the same thing happened—as soon as she started going up, she got really scared and stopped.

I got down on my knees next to her and looked into her eyes. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “But if you want to—I’ve got you. I will not let you fall.”

And the way she looked back at me—I knew that no one had ever said something like that to her before in her life. I can only imagine the traumas she’d survived to land in jail at age 14.

I got her in a bear hug to support her. And she kicked up into Headstand. She started screaming and kicking. She was wild. But I held on. And she went up and came back down, just fine.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, she stood up, threw her arms up in the air, and started running around the jail, waving, hooting “Woooooooooo! Wooooooooo!” And there was an incredible feeling of joy—real joy, right there in the jail.

It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. After class, when I got back in my car, I had to sit and cry it out for 20 minutes.

And I have so many stories like that. Sometimes, I work with kids with bullets still lodged in their bodies.

And at first, they refuse to do any yoga at all. So I’ll just start practicing – maybe stand on my head for 10 minutes. And the kids will come up, crowd around, get curious …“What’s she doing?” Pretty soon, they’re trying it themselves. And they love it.

Carol: I watched a great video on your website where you were talking to kids about yoga as a mind-body-spirit practice. Do you bring in the spiritual dimensions of yoga a lot? If so, is that a problem?

Terri: Yes, I’m a preacher girl all the time! I’m always talking to my students about yoga philosophy—the importance of non-attachment, letting go, cultivating gratitude, and creating the life of your dreams. I also teach them about using mantras.

I haven’t had any problems with being accused of teaching religion or anything like that. If anyone asks whether yoga is a religion, I explain that it’s a mind-body science. Plus, I think that the fact that Yoga Gangsters is so grounded keeps us from having those problems—because I know that many other people do. For example, I play a lot of hip hop in my classes, like Jay-Z and Eminem. Sure, I’ll also bring the energy down with more meditative music toward the end of class. But overall, it’s a very familiar, earthy vibe.

Carol: Tell us a little about the organizational structure of Yoga Gangsters. How many teachers and staff do you have?

Terri: Our Executive Director, Marisol Tamez, is our only paid employee. Marisol took us through the process to become a 501c3 (a legally recognized nonprofit). She manages our programs and volunteers, and helps with everything. Jodi Weiner, our Executive Project Manager, volunteers her time and is also crucial to the success of our organization.

I volunteer for Yoga Gangsters about 20 hours a week, more when we’re really focused on fundraising. I teach one outreach class every week at Booker T. Washington High School in Overton, which is one of the most under-served schools in one of the impoverished cities in America. I also teach a three-day, 12-hour volunteer training program four times a year. Otherwise, I own a yoga studio, teach classes and run a 200-hour, Yoga Alliance certified, teacher training program.

Yoga Gangsters has 135 trained volunteers. We run six-week programs at institutions that want yoga; if it works well, we’ll renew the contract for another six weeks. We do a lot of one-day functions as well. This allows volunteers to work regularly or occasionally, as they wish.

I’m not sure of the exact figures, but I’d guess that 75 percent of our volunteers are yoga teachers. Others are parents, school teachers, guidance counselors and others who have taken our training. It’s only 12 hours and $200—we want to make it accessible. What makes a good teacher is being grounded, focused, centered and completely authentic—wherever you come from and whatever your background is, that’s all you need to be.

Carol: What are your biggest challenges in doing this work?

Terri: It’s difficult work. It’s beautiful and it’s worth it—but if you ask anyone engaged in yoga service, they’ll tell you that most of us are underpaid and overworked. After all these years running Yoga Gangsters, we still have very little money. Our operating budget last year was $40,000.

Plus, we’re working with people and organizations that are severely under-resourced themselves. Every time I build a relationship with a set of kids, something happens—a school closes or a program shuts down. Every time I build a relationship with someone in power, they move on.

I’ve tried to quit this project several times. But I always come back to it. What keeps me going is actually working with the kids. Every time I go and teach, I’m re-energized. That part of the work is easy—and incredibly rewarding. Teaching these kids gives me a reason to be excited to get up every morning, no matter what.

Yoga Gangsters currently offers yoga teacher trainings in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Columbus, Denver, Dallas, Tampa, and Naples. For more information, e-mail Terri Cooper directly at terri@305yoga.com. You can support Yoga Gangsters by making a financial contribution, buying a T or hoodie, or (if you’re in the Miami area) volunteering to teach by clicking here. Communities interested in starting YG programs can email barbara@305yoga.com.
 

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Breath gives us life, and with yoga, breath, and life, takes on a whole new dimension.

This is the central theme of Why We Breathe, the latest yoga documentary released in late February, which explores the practice of yoga from the perspective of six nationally recognized yoga teachers. The 50-minute documentary rotates between interview clips with the teachers as they share how they discovered yoga, what they love about it, and why they still come back to their yoga practice day after day.

“People are initially drawn to yoga…for the physical side of it, because people are looking for ways to get in shape and look fit and be healthy, and that’s definitely what helps get people through the door,” sas yoga teacher Angela Tara Hsu. “But what keeps them there and what hooks them and keeps them coming back is once they cross over the physical part of it, and they reach the mental benefits, the spiritual benefits, the healing benefits, on a much deeper level.”

John Yax, another interviewee, had been practicing martial arts for years before his sister, a longtime yoga practitioner, agreed to teach a yoga class to the group that Yax practiced martial arts with. “We felt amazing afterwards, so it sparked my interest,” he said. His brother Chris, part of the martial arts group as well, was also hooked.

“Once I started practicing [yoga], it didn’t take long for me to realize how powerful it was in terms of healing the body,” Chris said. “We were always practicing martial arts with the intention of dissolving the ego and being able to see clearly when you’re in a confrontation. And I realized through this practice of yoga that it was like the rocket ship to where we were going, where in one class, it took years for me to achieve that state of presence or stillness in the midst of the martial arts world. And within one or two classes, I’d experienced it, and realized that there was something more than just the physical healing of it—it was the space that was created in my mind and body that just felt amazing.”

All the teachers interviewed had slightly different introductions to yoga, of course, as well as different reasons for falling head over heels for it. It seems like the practice gave each of the teachers exactly what they had been searching for, as if yoga morphs to fit the needs of whoever is using it.

For Briohny Smith, yoga helped her get out of her head, as she puts it. “I think that a lot of our insecurities and fears come from us believing the thoughts that are in our heads all the time, and yoga helped me…quiet those thoughts down.” And while she realizes that yoga won’t rid her of all her negative thoughts all the time, she said that she is now better able to deal with it when she does have those thoughts, thanks to all the tools that her yoga practice offers.

For Briohny's husband, up-and-coming yoga star Dice Iida-Klein, it was the calming, stress-relieving benefits that originally attracted him to yoga. “I’ve always needed something physical to at least allow me to sleep and allow me to calm down," says Iida-Klein. "There’s a lot that goes on in my head, so it’s always been a good way of chilling out—really just working myself physically.”

Although he was a competitive athlete for most of his life, doing baseball and hockey for several years each, plus cross country, tennis and wrestling in his teenage years, Iida-Klein said yoga was something entirely different and unexpected. During one of his first yoga classes, a Vinyasa flow 2-3 level course, he said, “I remember 40 minutes in thinking I’ve never had my butt handed to me like this before—just sweat, all over the floor. Inversion time came…and that was the first time something had ever made me like ‘I need to relax; I need to chill.’” Pleased with the sudden and unexpected response to calm down, the seasoned athlete was hooked. 

Why We Breathe, is a wonderful inspiring movie about the many ways in which yoga touches and inspires us. Watch the full documentary for free and catch all of the interview clips at www.whywebreathe.com. It opens with a beautifully inspiring slow-mo rendition of yoga on the beach, and is sure to get you feeling motivated to hit your mat.

Why We Breathe - A Yoga Documentary from BackToAwake on Vimeo.

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In today’s pose of the week we learn to access the readiness and stability of a great warrior in Virabhadrasana II, or Warrior II pose. Watch as renowned Iyengar yoga teacher John Schumacher demonstrates the silent power of this pose as we strengthen the front leg, and open the pelvis and chest.