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Summer 1989

NAMASTE,

I would like to begin this newsletter by thanking all of the people who sent such warm and thoughtful letters to Susan and me congratulating us on our marriage, which was announced in the spring newsletter. We were deeply touched by the response and are grateful to be part of such a caring community; your encouragement and good wishes mean more than I can say. We do get high with a little help from our friends.

We get by with a little help from our friends, too, and this certainly has been and is true for Unity Woods. Your continued support, for which we are also truly thankful, has enabled us to grow in many ways over the past ten years.

In the beginning the task was to create interest in yoga—what it was, what the practice had to offer, how it could be incorporated into a “normal” Western lifestyle – and let people know that Unity Woods existed to help explore the subject in a serious and systematic way. As a result of those efforts, and in conjunction with the increased emphasis on physical fitness in the culture as a whole, the need to effectively deal with the high stress existence we have carved out for ourselves, and the desire for personal growth, that interest has indeed blossomed. Because of that, many of the classes at Unity Woods are overflowing, upon which I commented in the last newsletter.

This expansion has not been confined to Unity Woods, of course. The number of yoga students, classes, and teachers throughout the area has grown significantly, and nearly every YMCA and recreation department and a number of schools, colleges and universities now offer yoga classes. Membership in the Mid-Atlantic Yoga Association (MAYA), a regional organization established to promote knowledge about and practice of yoga, increases each year. And as an advisory board member of Unity in Yoga, an organization whose scope is international, I am aware of expanding interest in yoga not only in North America, but in Europe (both Western and Eastern), South America, the Soviet Union, and even in the mother of yoga herself, India. Mr. Iyengar remarked on this phenomenon when I was in Pune for his birthday celebration last year, exhorting us as teachers to use this growing interest to challenge our students even more, to show them, to the best of our ability, the potential that exists in yoga.

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This ongoing expansion has required Unity Woods to change and adjust almost constantly. After years of scattered classes, for example, we opened the studio in Bethesda in 1985. The newsletter has increased from a single page to what you have in your hand. The number of classes has doubled from ten to twenty, and the program has increased in scope to include workshops with leading teachers from around the world and seminars on a wide variety of subjects.

The teaching staff had also grown from one to seven. You will notice from the schedule on page 2 that Carol Cavanaugh and Anne Wutchiett are the newest additions.

Anne has been studying at Unity Woods for three years now, and over those three years she has moved from Level I to Level V in the asana classes and completed Level IV in pranayama. She has attended workshops with nearly every senior Iyengar teacher in America, as well as Kofi Busia and Dona Holleman. But most important, her practice has been intense, unswerving and devoted, and that is the primary reason for her unusually rapid and remarkable progress. She began assisting me in classes a year and a half ago, and started teaching at other locations around town last year.

Three years is a short time to become a yoga teacher, but having observed Anne’s dedication and accomplishments over that period, I have no doubts about her readiness. In fact, Manuoso Manos, in his visit here last year, commented to her that it was time for her to start giving back some of what she had received and to do that by teaching. So it is with great pleasure that we welcome Anne to the faculty.

I met Carol while she was the director of the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, a position she held for ten years, and our paths crossed subsequently on various occasions: conventions, when I went West to teach or visit, and most notably in India, when we studied at the Iyengar Institute together. Because in our previous meetings we were both always taken up with whatever business was at hand, it wasn’t until Pune that I got to know Carol better. After classes were over, we would muster groups for ice cream intensives or repair to Darshan’s where, over mango fruit pulps, we would work on The Pune Board Game (which we never finished). I found myself drawn by her sense of humor as well as her obvious love of yoga.

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When I learned she would be coming to Maryland to study acupuncture at the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Columbia beginning this summer, it occurred to me that this could be a wonderful opportunity for both of us: a chance for Carol to continue her teaching and for Unity Woods to have the services of an experienced and respected teacher to help alleviate some of the overload. We discussed it when I was in California last February and Carol agreed.

An interesting sidelight is that Carol is the first teacher on the faculty who has not been taught primarily by me. She is a long time student of Ramanand Patel in addition to her studies with the Iyengars. That, coupled with her experience directing the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, means that she will be bringing many new ideas to the classes and to the office. The advent of Sunday morning’s Level I/II classes is a good example. Since we instituted the muli-level system, we’ve never mixed absolute beginners with other students. Carol came up with the idea and made it seem like a good one. I’m sure that having Carol on the faculty at Unity Woods will be stimulating and enriching for us all, staff and students alike, and I’m happy to welcome her to the East Coast, to Maryland, and to Unity Woods.

So far in discussing the growth at Unity Woods, I have talked almost exclusively about expanding and increasing the resources at our disposal and the services we offer. But at this stage some choices that may involve things other than getting bigger and doing more present themselves. This is new territory and involves examining priorities and seeking to establish the proper balance, and in the next newsletter I’ll take a look at some of the issues that arise.

In the meantime I wish you all a healthy and happy summer.

In the Spirit of Yoga,

       

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