Yogini

Yogini, The Power Of Women In Yoga, by Janice Gates. She is the founding director of Yoga Gardens in San Anselmo, California.

My friend Deanna, who travels back and forth from Brazil to the States is both an Afro-Brazilian dance and yoga instructor. While in Brazil, she lives on a little island in Bahia, called Boipeba and runs a restaurant and a Pousada. She is staying with us tonight, after teaching her dance class and she and another girlfriend, SueBee and I shared dinner and beers. Anyway, she brought this book with her and I'm flipping through it while she's in the shower.

Yogini, is a very lovely book that celebrates the power of women in yoga. It features these women yoga instructors/practitioners:

Donna Farhi*Sharon Gannon*Shiva Rea* Patricia Sullivan*Indra Devi*Sarah Powers*Nishchala Joy Devi* Vanda Scaravelli*Angela Farmer*Swami Sivananda Radha*Lilias Folan*Sally Kempton*Rama Jyoti Vernon*Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa*Sonia Nelson* Judith Hanson Lasater* Swamini Mayatitananda

Here is what the inside jacket cover says:

For thousands of years, yoga has been practiced throughout the Eastern world, and while ancient art and writings give us tantalizing glimpses of a female participation in days gone by, for the most par, yoga practice was limited to men. Not until 1937 did the first Western female teacher, Indra Devi, merge. Even today, as millions of women are practicing yoga, the vast majority of teachers are still male.

Yet, yoga is an astonishing tool for female empowerment--for shaping not just the body, but the spirit and indeed, one's entire life. That first step onto a yoga mat can be a step to complete personal transformation.

In this book, yoga teacher and scholar Janice Gates profiles 17 noted female yoga teachers and practitioners, highlighting how the art and practice of yoga has suffused their lives with joy, power, and light in ways they never imagined...including sculptors, diplomats, mothers, pioneers, and visionaries. And all of them, teachers of unusual insight and wisdom. This is a book about yoga, but much more than that. It a book about women, and womens' journeys to claim the power that they have always held.

I've been a student of hatha yoga since 1976 when I was pregnant with my second child, Govinda. I purchased Jeanne Parvati's Book, Prenatal Yoga and Natural Childbirth, which contained some good yoga postures for pregnant women. A couple of years later my mom loaned me her book, Richard Hittleman's Yoga 28 day exercise plan which I used for quite awhile. Over the years since, I've practiced more and less. I even taught three beginning yoga classes for a couple of semesters at the community college. Each class met for three hours, once a week. I appreciated that opportunity a lot as my personal practice really improved. I also taught yoga to women who were recovering substance abusers when I was working as a Drug and Alcohol Counseling Assistant. I used my friend, Annalisa Cunningham's book, Stretch and Surrender A Guide to Yoga, Health and Relaxation for People in Recovery. In this book, she offers 32 yoga poses with accompanying affirmations. My favorite was the Warrior pose with its affirmation:

I am a Warrior of the heart.

Annalisa has actually written four other books also: Healing Addiction with Yoga; Gentle Yoga for Healing; Spa Vacations; Yoga Vacations; and you can check them all out here.

My personal favorite yoga instructor of all time, I have to admit, is a man, Tom Hess. I really haven't practiced with that many instructors really but nevertheless he is very good. He teaches at Chico Sports Club, Iyengar, style. I really noticed big shifts in my body when I was studying with Tom. He's a nice guy, funny, a little sacrilegious and not too earnest.

Here are the yoga books sitting on my bookshelf right now:

The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga by Swami Vishnudevananda with over 140 full page photographs. This is not a book I've really ever used but I brought it because it's so old fashioned, traditional. The copy I have was published in 1959. A very masculine book, the second chapter is titled: Man, His three Bodies, and Their Functions.

Another very sweet book is, The Art of Sensual Yoga, A Step-by-Step Guide for Couples by Connie and Robert Dunne Kirby with Geraldine Ross. There are some beautiful pictures of couples stretching, bonding and loving together. Jerry and I have don't some of the poses in this book. Chapter one is called, Starting Over, and here's what it says:

On a psychological level our deepest need as men and women is to overcome our separateness; to leave the prison of our aloneness. This desire for interpersonal fusion is our most powerful struggle. It is our most fundamental passion. It is the force that keeps the human race together!

To love somebody is not just a strong feeling--it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.

Next is Yoga, The Path to Holistic Health by B.K.S. Iyengar. I've always thought that I favored Iyengar style yoga because it is so technical and you hold the poses for long periods of time. I like laying or sitting there in a pose for a good length of time and either hearing or going over the specific instructions in my head. It's a wonderful meditation that I can really get into, entering into my body through the words and traveling to the area I'm stretching, finding a way to open and create more space. It's always worked well for me. That's one of the reasons I liked Tom's classes so much.

I've long since given this book to my grandkids but I had Be a Frog, A Bird, or a Tree, Creative Yoga Exercises For Children, by Rachel E. Carr when my kids were little.

The last book I'll mention is, Yoga, The Poetry of the Body, by Rodney Yee. My best friend, Ren, gave me this book and she's a dog person and I found a poem in the book, from the chapter titled, Observing Your Breath, to dedicate to her. It was written by Jane Kenyon.

In and Out

The dog searches until he finds me upstairs, lies down with a clatter of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing saves my life--in and out, in and out; a pause, a long sigh...

Besides being a dog person, Ren is a yoga person too, who allows her practice to wax and wane. I'm recalling her friend who was a yoga instructor and he offered "Elvis Yoga Classes". They would go to class and practice to Elvis music. Whatever rocks one's boat I say. How about the Naked Yoga that is so popular now?

Jerry is a much more dedicated yoga practitioner than I am. He takes the time for his yoga routine everyday. He's been doing it for something like 38 years now. His friend Paul, from New Jersey taught him this routine when they first came out to California. He's more of a Sivananda style yogi. I used to tease Jerry and tell people that he did "Annoying Yoga", that he studied with Swami Annoyananda. People didn't really get my joke until I explained that Jerry's yoga annoyed me. As I've mentioned before, I tend to like Iyengar style yoga which is very focused on alignment. When Jerry and I first started practicing yoga, our bodies in close proximity to one another, we'd be going into an asana, I would notice his body in some misalignment. This would agitate my mind I would want to fix him. I would be annoyed. Finally I told him he couldn't practice where I could see him because he was such a distraction for me. My teasing was as much a spoof on myself as on him of course.

I have a box full of Yoga Journals.

It's interesting to notice that when I was younger, the only real meditation I found that I could engage in was hatha yoga and other physical movement like dance. I was way too agitated in my body and mind to just sit and meditate. As I've gotten older I appreciate sitting meditation much more. Not that I can sit for long periods of time now but half an hour sessions are very sweet and necessary for me.

I've really let my yoga practice go lately and my body and mind miss it. Maybe all this will inspire me to dedicate myself more to the flow of yoga in my life.