When I dropped into my first yoga class in 1982, it was with a casual curiosity.  I was looking for something to break the stress of working and going to nursing school.  Classes at the Iyengar Yoga Institute were, however; anything but casual.  Teachers taught from a depth of knowledge and with an ardor that had an immediate gripping effect on me.  At the time I would have called this effect exhilaration from the practice or, perhaps, fascination with the method.  Over time I came to recognize it as the same ardor I sensed in my teachers and fellow students.  This is what Patanjali in his Yoga Sutra calls "samvega", an inner momentum that gathers in the sincere practitioner of a true method as the practice of yoga exerts its influence.

An early realization of yoga's influence came to me when I was about to start an IV on a young woman in the throes of labor who was bleeding profusely, feeling her life and her baby's life slip away.  Touched as I was by her distress and the gravity of the situation, I suddenly thought to stop tensing my lower abdomen and compressing my chest.  As my body relaxed and my breath softened, my mind focused and the IV slipped in easily.  Furthermore, I came to learn that a strong calm focus spreads to others as potently as does distress.  

Later, I would learn that this experience is what Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita calls the "skillful action" of yoga.  We often don't consciously choose our circumstance, but we may always choose how we respond.   Our choice of response influences the immediate circumstance, as well at the circumstances to come.  This is the positive feedback loop that creates samvega, the inner momentum that ignites the transformative process of yoga.

Patanjali speaks intermittently of yoga as process and yoga as a state of being.  People sometimes are confused into thinking that he is speaking of different kinds of yoga.  There is only one yoga which manifests with infinite variety in each individual.  Vyasa in his commentary on Yoga Sutra III.6, quotes the saying "Yoga is to be known by yoga and yoga itself leads to yoga.  He who remains steadfast in yoga, always delights in it."

When I entered the Advanced Study / Teacher Training Program at IYISF, it was not with the intention to teach, but to deepen my practice.  My coming to teach, to travel to Pune to study with the Iyengars, to go through the Iyengar assessment and certification process, were all a part of a natural progression of the stages of yoga as they unfolded in me personally.  Teaching for me is a culmination of the gratitude and appreciation I feel for the Iyengar family and all the great teachers who have preceded and succeeded them, including my primary teacher, Janet Macleod, for her bountiful generosity of spirit and Kate Holcombe for teaching me to chant the Yoga Sutra.