gurubhai

In April 2008, during a quiet afternoon in a stone house high above a mountain lake, five women gathered, with 195 years of yoga practice among them. They are each senior Iyengar Yoga teachers who assembled for the unique occasion of being students together at the ascent intensive taught by Geeta Iyengar. These women were some of the first to root Iyengar Yoga in North America — “the vanguard,” as Felicity Green calls them during the ensuing conversation. Now they are entering new territory, again at the forefront, exploring how to live their senior years as teachers and yoginis.

Felicity was the host of the conversation, gentle yet matter-of-fact. Now seventy-five and living on Lopez Island, Washington, her yoga teaching really picked up speed at the age of fifty when her family responsibilities had been fulfilled. Joan White, one of the few people to hold an Advanced Certificate from B.K.S. Iyengar, shared her stories and reflections with verve and Philadelphian cadence. Elegant and measured in her movements and speech, Margot Kitchen has been teaching yoga since the early 1970s and now devotes much time to the certification of new teachers. Leslie Hogya of Victoria is the president of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Canada; she exudes warmth and humility. In a delightful British accent, Shirley Daventry-French alternates between self-deprecating wit and reflections that reveal her independent mind and depth of experience in yoga, which she has practised since 1969.

I gladly took up the invitation to witness the discussion between these five women. What they spoke of has universal relevance: how to bring forward past experience into the present, not just as memory but as stepping-stones for what we become in each new phase of life. I am in a different phase than these women, starting a family and building my body of work, and I have only a cursory experience of the Iyengar approach to yoga; yet I was drawn to their reflections as if toward light.

There was a sense of community in the small group, something that many of them miss out on in their day-to-day role as teachers, and relief perhaps to find themselves among gurubhai, peers in the same yoga lineage, grappling with similar challenges. I realized the courage it takes to reveal one’s self-questioning as well as to share stories about injury, illness and aging. There was a strong desire to be honest about these challenges, both for their own benefit and for others. This conversation, then, is an offering …

Felicity A couple of years ago, I developed a heart problem. And that was a big shock because I thought, Oh, I do yoga, and I’ll be healthy until I die. Right? Other things happened and my health sort of went downhill. And it was like, Okay, maybe I’ve got to give up teaching yoga. Maybe this is a message that I am too attached to it. I realized that I had made a lot of sacrifices to do all the teaching that I had done.

I thought that I needed to find something else to be passionate about. But I really know that yoga is my passion. I still want to teach, but I am limited in what I can do myself. And so my question was: how do you grow old graciously in yoga and be ethical — because Mr. Iyengar has always said, “Don’t teach what you do not do.”

Joan I’m also in a situation where I can’t demonstrate certain poses. In 2005, I had a very life-changing accident. I got pitched up in the air from a horse. It broke most of the ribs on the right side of my body; it punctured my lung; and for the third time, I broke my back. In the past, I’ve been pretty much able to recover most things. And this time I’m too old to recover all of them.

I’m so used to demonstrating every pose and I can’t. Is this fair to the younger students? Am I making people see Iyengar Yoga as “old people’s” yoga? I’m sort of caught in that whole bind. How much can I teach?

And as Felicity said, my whole life has revolved around yoga. I have been teaching since 1971. I gave up over and over and over again many things in terms of life choices, family choices, friends — because I never had any time. I am still teaching nine classes a week and doing a certain amount of traveling, but what do I do now?

But you know, here we are. We are literally the forefront. I started with Mr. Iyengar in ’73, so he calls me his “oldest student in America.” [laughter] I have this wonderful privilege, and I want to continue learning and sharing what I know. I feel like there’s a whole new horizon that has opened up. I have talked a lot with Geeta about this and she says, “Go to the essence.” You know, we just have to get out there and do it, because we are the examples that yoga is more than what asanas you can do.

Margot Yoga is more than asana, period.

Joan But what’s hard is that most people who are coming to yoga …

Felicity … want to do asana.

Joan As we age, we are adding more and more philosophy and pranayama into our teaching. You feel it yourself and you realize all the other sustaining parts of yoga. You finally put asana in perspective.

Margot And that’s where we can be an example now. I’ve also scaled back because of a heart problem that came very suddenly two years ago. And so I’ve had to really look carefully at what I’ve been doing. I was in India in October at the Iyengar Institute, and I spent a month in medical classes. I’ve always helped in the medical classes; I’ve never been a patient! It was great but very humbling. I struggled. I think I cried for a month just because it was all backbends to open the chest after some surgery.

I realized that surrendering is very difficult. I’ve also had accidents, like you have, Joan. When are we going to learn to slow down? So at this point, I think it is starting to filter in. [laughter] I think that Iyengar Yoga attracts type A personalities. I think that most people in this room are type A personalities! Unfortunately we had to get bashed before we started realizing how to temper our practice, how to deepen it.

Margot I look at people my age who are retired. One woman came up to me and she said, “You are so blessed to have a passion,” which you were mentioning, Felicity. And that’s right. My yoga practice is changing but it doesn’t make it any less passionate. I find with the supported practice that I’m doing, the insights are deeper.

Joan There are things that improve with age. My body doesn’t forget the way my mind does. Even if it’s injured, I still have found more body awareness as I’m aging. It just gets better, the body awareness — even though the ability to remember what I have become aware of may be slowed down! [laughter]

In yoga philosophy, we often hear about going from the gross to the subtle in our sense perceptions and our yogic practices. This depth of experience and understanding is the hope of aging; it is the “wiser” in growing older and wiser.

Yogic texts describe a human life as occurring in four twenty-five-year phases, the ashramas. It is interesting to see how relevant these phases are, even though they were devised in ancient times. The shifts felt by these women at the elder stage of life, as well as my own current focus on family and community, echo the ashramas. During the first twenty-five years, brahmacarya, we study the world and the basics of spiritual practice and theory. From studenthood, we become householders, family men and women, grihastha. Around age fifty, we enter vanaprasthya, deepening our spiritual practice and also sharing what we have learned with those who seek us out, becoming teachers. The final ashrama, sanyasa, is a retreat, renouncing attachments and dedicating oneself to the highest goal, to become one with the Divine.

These yoginis show that we create our lives not just once but many times over. Being faced with greater limitations has brought all of them to question what they do with their time and energy. This is one of the fundamental choices of life, and we face it many times every day.

Felicity I’ve noticed something about making commitments, because my energy goes up and down. In the past, if I made a commitment, I’d do it, come hell or high water. But I’m not going to do that to myself anymore. If people ask me to make a commitment, I say, “Okay, but it is contingent on me feeling well at that time.”

Shirley You remember Guruji used to say if you invited him, “God willing!”? [laughter] I have cut back on a lot of commitments too, and become very, very selective. When I was younger, I was cramming too much in. And that’s my nature. This is where the blood pressure comes in. Now I look at each new year and plan time off, family vacations, time together with my husband. It is working much better. Gradually I came to the realization that, from now on, this is my life, making these changes.

Leslie Well, I’ll speak for Shirley — she has learned the art of scheduling her vacations first! [laughter] We are fortunate in Victoria that our yoga centre was founded as a nonprofit society. We work together, so when one person is out of the loop, there are all the other people that can help keep things going. That’s been a real blessing.

For myself, fortunately I’m a type B personality [laughter], and physically things are okay right now, but I’m facing the whole thing about family and retirement. My husband’s retiring and he’s been on study leave this year. Before, my husband was always busy, and now he’s not so busy! He’s going to go live somewhere for two months and I want to go with him.

Joan I think if you have a family, the pulls become stronger at this age instead of less strong. I have a grown son. I now have grandchildren who I love and would love to have more time to spend with them because they’re really fun. But what am I doing? I’m going off to teach yoga, and it is a passion. It’s obviously been my passion to do it all these years. But what about the rest of my life? And then it suddenly hits you that people are dying all around you …

Felicity Yes, I mean, how long am I going to wait?

Margot Well, we always have the choice. But it means surrendering and getting rid of some attachments.

Joan Exactly!

Shirley I think you have to keep questioning and really looking inside, using the reflective practices we’ve learned to find out if it is time to drop this. And it wouldn’t be a bad thing in Victoria if I pulled back. It’s not going to fall apart because I go.

Margot So at what age are we in our fourth ashrama?

Shirley Seventy-five. I’m in it.

Felicity Me too, I’m almost there.

Juniper Congratulations! [laughter]

Shirley This is a funny story. When I was about to turn sixty, I wrote to Guruji to ask if I could come to the Iyengar Institute. Because I was planning to go around my birthday in October, I said in the letter, “Since I am entering my last ashrama … ” I had thought each phase was twenty years. He wrote back and said, “Well, you can come to Pune, but sorry, you’ve got fifteen years more of work!” [laughter] So, of course, I am in it now. The more I look at these stages of life, the ashramas, the more it makes sense.

Margot If we keep pushing and pushing, we’re not giving the right example. The experience of our years, the insights that are coming now — that’s what we have to give. So it is a gift to everybody else — and ourselves — when we pay attention and start surrendering.

What do we look for in a teacher? Authenticity is what attracts me most to teachings and teachers, the feeling that they know what they are talking about, from experience. I think if teachers understand their own story and are attuned to the unfolding of their own life, then they inspire the same attention in their students.

And yet, these women shine light on the fact that “our story” and our identities are always evolving. Rather than solidifying their identity as yoga teachers, the elder years have caused them each to step back from their life’s work, at least through reflection, in an attempt to lighten their attachment to it. In this process, the teachers spoke of the inspiration they gain from the niyama, the five observances concerning the self, outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. Samtosa is especially important; it is as Felicity said, “the one niyama that is never translated any other way that I have seen in any translation of the Yoga Sutra. Samtosa is always simply ‘contentment’.”

Joan In my classes, I try to explain that if you don’t have some feeling of contentment, then you’re missing out on a good part of this yoga. In the moment-to-moment practice, we say, Okay, I can do better in this pose if I notice where this is and that. But how about the sense that you did the pose, that you made the effort? There should be some sense of contentment that you did it, with room for improvement.

Leslie Yes, I was just talking about this the other day, that tapas and samtosa work side by side. We have to constantly challenge ourselves with the fire of the practice and constantly accept that this is who we are and what our limitations are. Geeta has been talking about that too.

Joan Yes, in the course she’s asking, “How do you know what your limit is?”

Felicity For me, I feel I need to just keep in touch with myself and come out of a pose if it’s not right.

Shirley I think that is absolutely important. I mean, what would Geeta say to us if we weren’t doing that, you know? Not the doing but to not do.

Margot Well, Guruji quietly said to me at the end of a month of classes in Pune: “I have observed you. Now you must do less.” I came home and told my husband and he went, “Yes!” [laughter] We are talking about how far we can go with the poses. But it’s really, how far can we go with the things we are doing in our life?

Joan That’s right. It becomes a life issue. I think about this idea of letting go. I’m just trying to figure out what and where can I let go.

Felicity The thing is that when we have done something like this for a long, long time, we begin to identify with that aspect of ourselves. “I’m a yoga teacher.”

Joan “This is what I do.”

Felicity So if you are not teaching yoga, who are you?

Joan I’m a life learner.

Felicity Like Swami Radha once said, when something happens to you — you have an accident or a divorce or whatever it is — if you’re a teacher, you have to look at that as a blessing. Then you have compassion for anybody who is going through the same thing because you know what it means. If it’s just a word, you don’t really understand. So it is the same with our health problems. We find out how to make it better and then we are better teachers if somebody comes to us with the same sort of problem.

Joan Yes, some students have been with me and watched me go through the whole process of recovery from the injuries, so for many of them it is very uplifting. As they develop their own problems, they know they’ve seen me work back from this.

Felicity I must say, this is my reason for having this conversation with all of you. We’ve had the privilege of working with Guruji. And Guruji has shared with us what he knows. And now we’re the vanguard in a sense — people who are still seriously involved in yoga, who haven’t dropped out, and we are all getting up there! Are we able to put it out somehow to people who are younger, so maybe they don’t make some of the mistakes we have? It’s a warning: don’t over-identify with being the yoga teacher. Keep a balance; don’t cut your life down narrowly. I think those are important things to help others to do it better.

Margot Definitely.

Shirley But I mean, looking at your life, would you want to go back? Would you?

Felicity No, I wouldn’t.

Shirley Sometimes there are regrets and things. But I wouldn’t want to let go of any of the awareness I have developed whatsoever. You know, this body is clearly aging. But the value of all the experience — all the experience — this is the yogic path.