BY INGE SCHILLING

People unfamiliar with the yoga experience think of it as sort of a religion where they must be young, limber and willing to chant. They must meditate, contort their bodies and stand on their heads for hours. They see emaciated old yogis with long gray beards living in caves on a Himalayan mountain top dispensing sage advice and explaining to an eager student the Meaning of Life.

“O Great Father, I have crossed oceans, swam rivers and climbed mountains to hear your wisdom.”

“Eat a lot of rice, my son, and as for the meaning of life, Life is a Fountain.”

“Life is a fountain?”

“Life’s not a fountain??”

Once familiar with the concepts of yoga, people realize that yoga is NOT a religion and in fact is totally without the baggage of most organized religions. They now see first-hand that very stiff persons whose joints crack and bones creak, who can’t touch their toes, can’t bend forward, can’t twist their torsos and are well past their prime, are no less candidates for lessons in yoga than those agile youngsters they had once associated with the practice. And they no longer roll their eyes and whistle the theme from “Twilight Zone”, when the subject of yoga comes up.

Before leaving the subject of religion, a matter I avoid discussing with my students, I want to state that it is my belief that God is within us, and not seated guru-style on a throne in the heavens rewarding and punishing us.

From their very first lesson, students see that with proper yogic breathing, they do NOT need to twist themselves out of shape or otherwise torture themselves in order to practice yoga. They do find, however, that consistent practice is essential to achieving tranquility and peace of mind

At present, with exceptions, I have a group of students who are anything but limber. However, with slow and gentle direction, they are beginning to loosen up and to understand what yoga is about and to feel the essential mind, body and spirit connection.

From my personal experience, I have learned that yoga gives me energy, calms my nerves, keeps my body in shape, and I am able to stay more focused than I was before I began the practice of yoga. In short, I am a lot less uptight than I was forty years ago.

Despite my daily meditations, when I neglect both my exercises and pranayama for a day or two, I’m aware that my balance is compromised to an uncomfortable degree. However, with just two sets of Soorya Namaskar, I’m able to soon return to a balanced state of mind.

How did I become interested in yoga? I was a professional ice skater from 1952 – 1968 and again from 1974 to 1977. As a pair skater in the mid-1960s, my partner and I got an invitation to appear on the “Johnny Carson” show. While I thought this was very exciting, I got myself into such a nervous state, I was unable to control my breathing or to sleep properly.

Someone told me to “stand on your head and you’ll get calm.” So I did a head-stand with arms bent and hands folded beneath my head. Indeed I did get very calm. But, I must have remained upside-down too long, because my stomach did not like this at all. I got sick. I thought there must be a better way.

Shortly after that unpleasantness, I passed by a book store, and saw in the window a book on something I’d heard about called, “yoga”. I bought it, and that was the beginning of my experience with this most gratifying practice, but in which I merely dabbled whenever I had the time.

Then, while living in Los Angeles in 1970, I attended classes at the Yoga Center and had the great fortune of meeting Swami Vishnu Devananda. That was the highlight of my yoga experience thus far, and he insisted I do a particular exercise – going from Sirshasan (headstand) to Vrischikasan (scorpion pose). A life-changing event for me. For that I am forever grateful to Swami Vishnu Devananda who was the catalyst for all my future endeavors in the practice and the teaching of yoga.

Even before the start of my more than twenty years in the spotlight, I knew I would derive great pleasure from pleasing others. This carried over to my teaching days, and I suppose into my everyday life. As my career as an ice skater wound down, I taught style, dance, grace and expression to skaters, many of whom were children. I learned I had to be extremely creative to get and keep the attention of the five and six year-olds. It was fun for me to watch as my little students learned the moves, nailed the timing and developed the style of skaters. I was pleased to find that I’d made it fun for them as well. All very gratifying for their teacher.

The average age of the citizens in this part of Florida is about 100, and at the moment I have no children in my yoga classes. But I would really enjoy having some. If I were to teach very young children, I would do some breathing, of course, but rely mostly on animal postures such as cow, cat, camel and cobra. In addition, I would introduce them to easy poses such as wheel, bridge and gentle body twisting. Meanwhile, I’ve achieved a very pleasant rapport with my adult students, and I believe they are pleased with me.

While it is known and scientifically proven that yoga can enhance physical and mental well-being, lower blood pressure and aid in the healing of many diseases, I will never at any time give medical advice to students of any age, or to anyone else for that matter. Regarding blood pressure, we know that it can be lowered ten to twenty points after sixty to seventy minutes of asanas, proper breathing and relaxation. One of my students, cardiologist Dr. Ravindra Nathan has witnessed it lowered even more.

Concerning my practical exam, I requested only a small group of four from the gym to participate so I could avoid running all over the room correcting a large number of students on the disk. Dr. Nathan, you will note, was not among them, because he participates in another yoga class that I teach at Brooksville Regional Hospital. However, other than giving classes at the gym, I teach a yoga class to medical doctors and persons related to the medical profession. Most are from India. Incidentally, we normally do more pranayama such as alternate nostril breathing and inhale/exhale than those shown on the DVD.

I have yet to attended a Bikram, or hot yoga class, although I may do so in the future.

I honor and respect Power Yoga, but don’t teach it. I agree with many of my yoga teachers who say that it is mostly exercise and not enough of a body, mind and spirit connection. That’s certainly not to say I am against exercise. I work out regularly at the gym and do cardio and lift weights – in moderation. While the exercises and the stretching in power yoga are enjoyed by many, I prefer to lead my students gently into the yoga experience, especially when I have older ones in my class.

I prefer traditional Hatha yoga as do my students from India, and I still go to classes and seek out yoga studios both locally and even while traveling. In 1980 when I married my husband (an American), he was both the owner and innkeeper of a small, seaside inn on a beach in Mexico where he lived for more than forty years before we sold the inn and moved to Florida.

In Mexico in my role of Mrs. Innkeeper, I worked with him, of course, and as a people-person, loved entertaining the hotel guests who were mostly from the U.S. And Canada. At times, however, I also coaxed those who were interested onto the beach-side patio of the hotel and gave them free yoga classes overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They loved it! And paid me with their smiles. Here was an opportunity to gain experience by teaching yoga, have a lot of fun doing it and entertain the hotel guests all at the same time. Their appreciation was my reward.

Bottom line? There were always lessons to be learned in every one of the classes that I ever gave or got, and I continue to give and get both – anywhere I can.

My students from India, by the way, have one advantage that I don’t have. Here I am – born in Germany, raised in Austria, now a citizen of the United States having lived and taught yoga for twenty years in Mexico and now teach it to medical doctors born in India who can pronounce Sanskrit words better than I’ll ever be able to.

I always arrive early to the classroom to get myself centered, focus on my breathing and set my mind at peace. I leave my ego outside. My aim is to make the student feel comfortable. One must constantly encourage them, get them into the postures with ease and, where and when appropriate, give them an ever-so-gentle push both mentally and physically.

While I don’t personally address depression with my students or with anyone else for that matter, I do notice that my students have a calmer and happier demeanor at the end of the session than they presented at the beginning. I notice a cumulative effect. Over a period of weeks, these same students now exhibit a noticeably different and far better disposition, attitude and outlook than they did prior to their enrollment in the yoga program. This is very gratifying to me.

On the other hand, I can be frequently challenged by an overly-talkative student (usually a man) and must invent stuff in order to handle the situation. For example, they feel compelled to announce aloud every move they make and voice comments such as, “But my arms are too short to reach the floor.” But it requires imagination, and I say to the person something like, “Take a deep breath, Jack,” and while they are thus occupied, I look at them directly, nod quietly and approvingly which invariably quiets down the chatty one. Now, once they realize that I never force them to touch the floor, or I instruct them to bend their knees to touch the floor, they relax without further prompting. The situation has been resolved diplomatically with kindness rather than force, and the class goes on uninterrupted.

Assuming I am being considered for certification, I’d like to briefly give some additional information about myself. I was born in Kassel, Germany in 1933, educated in Austria both during and after WWII and studied ballet before operating the spotlights in a traveling ice show to earn the money to pay for my skating lessons. From shining a spotlight on the stars in the show, I was now in the spotlight as a star.

The fact that my weight today is the same as it was when I was skating professionally, is due to both a proper diet and of equal importance, to yoga discipline. And while I was unaware of yoga in younger years, there is no question in my mind that this discipline combined with the fun and enjoyment that goes into it, was and remains an integral part of my life.

I have a new student who moved here recently from New York. She informed me that by practicing yoga she had succeeded in avoiding life in a wheelchair. She suffered from severe scoliosis (which she still has) and was scheduled for hip surgery. However, she opted first for yoga which she practiced daily for several weeks. When the time came for the surgery, new x-rays revealed that no surgery was necessary. Although she still suffers from scoliosis, she keeps up the daily practice of yoga, and is able to perform asanas rather well in my class, enjoys good balance and incredibly can perform a remarkable natarajasana, or dancing shiva. Her condition continues to improve.

In my own case, during one of our performances on ice, I was dropped from my partner’s outstretched arms and onto the hard surface of the ice resulting in leg fractures. Only recently, a chiropractor told me that had I not practiced yoga for all these years, my hip would be out of kilter, and I would most likely walk with a limp. However, I walk just fine, and ski every year high in the mountains of Colorado.

And that reminds me. I like to think of yoga as a virtual Fountain of Youth. Maybe that old guru in his cave was right after all, and Life really is a Fountain.

NAMASTE,

INGE SCHILLING