BUZZ - Illini Media
I am bent over at the waist with a towel on my stomach and suspended by a rope tied to the wall. I’m trying to balance my head on a block while simultaneously keeping my legs straight and tightened. Aziz says my spine needs elongating so he’s put me here while he instructs the rest of the class in how to put their legs over their heads.
I am bent over at the waist with a towel on my stomach and suspended by a rope tied to the wall. I’m trying to balance my head on a block while simultaneously keeping my legs straight and tightened. Aziz says my spine needs elongating so he’s put me here while he instructs the rest of the class in how to put their legs over their heads.
This is my first day of yoga class and what started as an idea to get in shape in a new way this summer has turned out to be nothing like what I had expected. Already I’ve seemingly been singled out by my hyper-extended knees and curved spine, but I somehow trust Aziz’s expertise because of his eye for noticing the nuances of my body without having to be told about them. My fear of being the center of attention has turned into fascination. Of course, that could be the blood rushing to my brain.
My friend and I leave to walk home discussing the class and Aziz’s thoroughness and attention to detail. I have never been more relaxed in my life. I would find later that yoga actually makes me a nicer person for the rest of the evening.
I had come to trust my own instructor at the Yoga Institute of Champaign Urbana (YICU), but when I asked him what he thought of my doing a story about yoga, he insisted that I had to talk to the director; his teacher. “My knowledge is like a drop in the ocean of what she knows.” Lois Steinberg is the director of YICU and I met with her on a summer afternoon at her home in residential Urbana to discuss yoga and her own fascinating story.
After introductions and a few questions, she analyzes my posture and quirks just like Aziz to demonstrate how she teaches people to see. “In our culture, I see now, that because of our lifestyle we don’t have good body carriage. We become very off-balance and we are taught to see the body to help people learn. The body is the way.”
Lois, like many people, became interested in yoga after she saw an instructor on television in college. Circumstance and continued study lead her to the Iyengar (eye-yen-gar) method of yoga, developed by B.K.S. Iyengar. He is the only person in the discipline who no longer has an instructor. In his nineties, he is the master of this form - and Lois’ immediate teacher. She travels to India every year religiously to visit and study with him and his daughter, Geeta. She says that her favorite part of yoga is that she is continuously learning. “I go there whenever I feel I’m getting stale and need to be refreshed.”
Even though at fifty she is the director of her own yoga school, has traveled to every corner of the world to instruct, and has recently written a book about yoga for women’s health, she still loves being a student herself. An incredible part of the study of yoga is the relationship of teacher to student and one that she holds in the highest esteem.
I ask her if she recommends yoga to anyone. “Anyone can do yoga. A lot of people think that you need to be flexible or thin, but anyone can be taught. It’s only the people who aren’t willing to commit to learning that I can’t teach.” She continues to tell me about the people and problems she’s seen it practically cure from painful menstruation to keeping the bodies of star athletes viable long after their arduous careers. In terms of finding someone to learn from, she says “Make sure they have a teacher. If they’re not still learning, they’re doing something wrong. Find out who they learn from, and then who that person’s teacher is too. That’s the most important things I recommend if you want to start.”
After my experience with yoga and my discussions with Lois and Aziz, I’ve really come to trust their method and when I do yoga will continue to seek out Iyengar instructors. In yoga, I have discovered the deepest calm of my life and works parts of me I don’t even think about until they’re pleasantly sore the next day. As I mount my bike to leave and mention taking classes with a friend, Lois casually drops “Oh, it’s a great thing to study with another person. Like when I was in India and taught Sting and his family. They love to do it together.”
The B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Institute of Champaign Urbana can be found on Springfield in Urbana across from Strawberry Fields or on the web at www.yoga-cu.com.
Or use www.iynaus.org to find Iyengar instructors in your area.
