Iyengar Yoga

B.K.S. Iyengar turned ninety years old this year. By all accounts he is healthy and happy as he and his two children run their yoga center in Pune India. His efforts along with a few other giants of modern yoga were essential in bringing yoga practice here to the U.S.

B.K.S.Iyengar at age eighty-eight.

In April 2008, just as I was prepared to leave my work at the Sierra Club and take on a better paying job with more responsibility, I took the advice of my friend Heather Haxo Phillips and began my own yoga practice. Since working for Heather several years ago in a non-profit, she moved on to teaching Iyengar Yoga full-time. I wanted to feel better and more healthy as I took on a new job. I decided to try and become more fit. Practicing Iyengar Yoga with Heather was one of the things I began doing as part of a fitness routine. Additionally I lifted weights, used a few different aerobic machines, jogged, bicycled, and swam.

The new fitness component of my life went along pretty well. I was trying to be very disciplined and regular with my activities. Soon, my 'Ski' machine contributed to an overuse injury of my elbow. The NordicTrack Ski machine was my most convenient and main daily activity, as it was right in my bedroom.

In this routine I tried to emphasis things that were very close and very convenient. I assumed that travel time, lots of equipment, and other additional overhead would only serve to become excuses for missing days. When my elbow injury put the brakes on skiing, I was just becoming comfortable with my once a week yoga. The yoga studio was four blocks from where I was living, and after NordicTrack skiing in my bedroom, walking to yoga was the most convenient alternative. I added a few more days per week of yoga to replace the skiing. Within a few months, I began to feel comfortable practicing yoga with all the more advanced people in class. I felt some of the benefits of a yoga practice too. It was a positive feedback-loop.

My big commitment happened just at the start of 2009. I asked the owner of the studio, Adeline Yoga, if I could get a New Year's discounted six-month unlimited membership. He agreed. I started 2009 at a special two hour, 9:00 A.M., New Year's Day class and began a very committed practice then and there.

I intended to go to yoga class five days a week, and do other activities the other two days. Typically I was able to keep this schedule. I felt I was making good progress with my yoga practice, with my confidence, and with my outlook on life.

In April 2009, the anniversary of attending my first Iyengar Yoga class, I was practicing yoga regularly and I decided to make some changes in my diet. I thought about different "Diets" and listened to several peoples' experiences. In the end, using my low-overhead fitness model, I tried a very simple change in my diet. I simply did not eat anything after dinner. No other restrictions, just stop eating after about 6:00 P.M. I found I was able to do this pretty easily.

April, May, and June of 2009 I practiced yoga both at the studio and at home nearly seven days a week. My 'Don't eat after dinner' plan was working pretty well for me. In those three months, I dropped some weight, and my progress in my yoga practice was exciting. On July 1^st my six month "unlimited membership" would come to an end and I was trying to come up with a plan for the second half of the year, with yoga goals, weight goals, diet goals, work goals, and housing goals.

While pondering these changes on July 5^th I went in to get that neck lump checked on, and the rest of that story exerted itself. I dropped all diet, yoga, fitness, discipline, and goals from my thinking. In dropping these things and directing my attention to doctors and scans and surgery, I've gained an upper hand in my cancer battle and I've gained about fifteen pounds.

I always work better with exciting plans and goals and dates, carefully noted in my calendar. I get a kick out of New Year's resolutions, and One-Year plans, and things like that. I am reintroducing myself to my abandoned yoga practice and my attention to food and fitness, today, November 1^st. Seems like I'm going to live, so I want to retake my responsibility to seeing that I live well.

I am crystal clear on how being fit is better for me then not being fit. I have a huge psychological boost when I'm more fit. In my recently successful track record things worked when I kept it very simple, with very low overhead. What worked was a yoga practice, and cleaning up my eating habits. These may not be the end all but they were working well, so as of today I'm going to pick these two things back up and see where it takes me.