YOGA FROM THE HEART: CHAYA'S STORY

Chaya Spencer was not your typical teenager. At 14, she traveled by herself to India to spend summer vacation (with the help of a chaperone) at an ashram her mother had visited while on her own spiritual journey.

Chaya loved India and the ashram so much that she didn’t want to leave, and she came home to New York City determined to do everything she could to spend the following summer at the ashram near Bombay. “I ironed people’s shirts, babysat, and did whatever odd jobs I could,” she says. “I earned enough to go back for the summer, but I ended up staying three years.”

During that time, Chaya traveled around the world with her spiritual teacher, Swami Muktananda, and his entourage. She studied yoga, yoga philosophy, Sanskrit, Indian music, and Indian cooking in addition to her American schoolwork, which she handled by correspondence.

She earned a GED, then went to Sarah Lawrence College, which accepted her on the basis of an essay she wrote detailing her experiences.

In 1990, Chaya returned to the ashram in India for hatha yoga teacher training, and she began teaching classes there. After a break for marriage, a move to New York, and the birth of two children, she resumed her career as an instructor.

“It was after I started teaching again that I found my true direction,” she says. “I had been teaching general hatha yoga as I had learned it at the ashram, but when I started studying with John Friend, my whole approach changed.”

Chaya first met Friend in India. “He came to the ashram one day,” she says, “and he did the most unbelievable demonstration of yoga in the courtyard. It totally blew all of us teacher trainees away. John had had many teachers, and he was a certified Iyengar instructor, but he went on to explore other ways of doing yoga and in 1997 founded Anusara Yoga, which is based on his own discoveries. Today Anusara Yoga is the fastest-growing branch of yoga in the world.”

In the years after he and Chaya first met, Friend became a devotee of Gurumayi, the successor to Swami Muktananda, who passed away in 1982. “John would go to the ashram in India,” says Chaya, “and also to the one in South Fallsburg, New York, near where my parents still live. He would spend time there, studying with Gurumayi and offering classes. Eventually, I began to attend his yoga classes.”

Chaya enjoyed Friend’s classes because they brought together elements of yoga that she could previously find only by working with different schools or branches. “Now they were all together in one approach,” she explains. “Anusara combines the incredibly intelligent alignment that some traditions are strong in with the element of spirituality and of connecting with your own heart that some other traditions do well. John so inspired me to practice with my whole heart and body, and so engaged my whole being in my practice, that I decided that his was the style I wanted to teach. I began to train with him and completed the Anusara teacher certification in August of 2002.”

Chaya felt connected with Friend in part because of her spiritual studies. “For the first time,” she says, “I was able to take the spiritual insights I had learned at the ashram and experience them physically, in my body. It wasn’t a mental practice, it was a very physical practice, and at the same time it involved the heart. Anusara yoga awakens the heart while never losing sight of its solid physical foundation. Correct physical alignment is essential because it keeps you safe and prevents injury while allowing you to move as deeply into the poses as your body is capable of moving. Connecting to the heart is important because that’s what lets you find yourself and the truth. Then you transform that spiritual experience into physical action with your body and learn it on a cellular level.”

Chaya’s own training and practice may be demanding, but the classes she teaches literally offer something for everyone. Even those who can barely move report life-changing benefits from her gentle beginner classes, while more experienced students find their lives, minds, and bodies coming back into balance, even during difficult life experiences. In fact, many students report that a class was so beneficial, it must have been designed specifically for them.

“I think the reason people say that is because they come in with a certain expectation,” says Chaya. “It might be physical or emotional or involve a problem they’re having, but whatever it is, they’re open to receiving what they need, and that’s what happens. Going to yoga means spending time with yourself and connecting with yourself. If you go to class with that intention, it’s only natural that you’ll draw to you whatever you need. Your instructor and the postures are simply conduits that healing energy flows through.”

Chaya aims for the optimal and encourages her students to get there in careful stages. “Everyone’s body has an optimal range of motion,” she says, “and an optimal level of strength, and optimal ability. I try to inspire each student to practice at his or her best level, and to do that I really rely on Anusara Yoga’s anatomical alignments. They make sense, and if you work with them, they’re incredibly therapeutic. They don’t cause injuries, they heal injuries. The only time a well-designed yoga class can cause an injury is if you’re not being mindful, if you’re not remaining conscious of what you’re doing, or if you’re trying to keep up with the rest of the class even though your body’s telling you that what you’re doing isn’t good for it. Yoga is not a competition. Doing a posture well has nothing to do with what the person next to you is doing. It’s important to be in an appropriate level class and then to pay attention to your body.

“Beginner level classes are basic and appropriate for anyone who is new to yoga,” she explains. “They’re an introduction, and they feature basic poses that anyone can do to one degree or another. The pace is slow, and there’s lots of explanation. A beginner class will typically include standing poses to build strength and teach alignment, seated poses that includes twists, some gentle back-bends, and lots of emphasis on the breath. Our Level II classes are challenging, with inversions, arm balances, and other poses that require focus, concentration, strength, flexibility, and careful attention to alignment. Yoga is a mental discipline as much as it is a physical discipline in that you have to be mindful of your body. You have to pay attention. In addition, we have mixed-level classes, which we call Level I/II, and those classes accommodate everyone.”

In January, 2005, Chaya moved her Shree Yoga Studios to Saddle River, New Jersey. She and affiliated Anusara instructors offer everything from beginner and Level II classes to classes for women, meditation classes, gentle classes for those with physical challenges, free meditation sessions, and Vinaysa (flowing yoga) classes.

“Even though we are different instructors offering different classes,” says Chaya, “we are all connected through the Anusara Yoga philosophy. That philosophy engages far more than bones and muscles, and it involves more than breathing and bending. It teaches us how to live and express our fullest potential, not just in class, but all the time, everywhere, 24/7. I’m convinced that Anusara Yoga brings out the best in all of us because it’s yoga from the heart.”

HAPPY HOUR WITH A TWIST: NEW YOGA STUDIO OFFERS STRESS RELIEF

Four Profiles with very different stories

John Walsh

When John Walsh talks about stress, he knows his subject. He’s worked in data processing for 40 years and is on call 24/7 as the manager of information systems for a consumer goods manufacturer in Secaucus, NJ. “Keeping the computer network up and the response time fast means that I don’t have a life,” he explains. “It takes a toll on your body, brain, relationships, and everything else.”

Four years ago, Walsh, 61, felt himself slowing down. “I was having trouble getting out of the car and climbing stairs,” he says, “so I decided to take up some kind of physical activity. I looked for something nice and soft and quiet, so the first thing I tried was tai chi. Then I turned to yoga, which friends recommended.”

Chaya Spencer at Shree Yoga Studios became Walsh’s primary instructor. “I like her method, the way she presents, and I like the style she teaches,” he says. “I’ve tried others, but I prefer the Anusara style because it’s free-moving, graceful, and flowing. It’s been a major transition for me, and it’s really helped on the job. I used to think of my work as an endurance contest, taking all those calls, dealing with all that pressure. Now I can stop, look at the trees, center myself, and understand who’s inside me as well as how my body works and how I can do my job more efficiently. Yoga has definitely helped my concentration.”

Walsh soon organized a corporate yoga group for on-the-job stretching and bending. The group meets every day at noon, and Walsh, who attended teacher training classes, is now the instructor. “That break cuts the day in half,” he says. “It lets me put all of the morning’s stresses right out of my mind, and I come into the afternoon as a whole new person.

“Yoga is terrific exercise,” continues Walsh, who has no trouble climbing stairs or getting out of cars these days, “but it’s far more than that. It has helped me grow mentally and increase my awareness of who I am spiritually. Evening classes will be perfect for people with high-stress jobs. Yoga is a great way to leave the office behind on your way home. It also sets the tone for the rest of your day, helping you calm down and pick up your personal life.”

Bea Cronin

Stress is Bea Cronin’s middle name. Director of Human Resources at Ramapo College in Mahwah since 1988, she juggles more than the usual professional and domestic responsibilities. Her husband, who was hospitalized since August, died at the end of 2004. In the summer of 2002, her son and a friend were killed while hiking in the Andes in Peru. “Then my cousin was killed, there were other family losses, and I needed surgery myself,” she says. “It’s been one thing after another.”

How does Cronin cope?

“I run and swim and do fast walking,” she says. “I’m aerobically inclined, and I thought those things were helping until I went with a friend to a yoga class taught by Chaya Spencer. Then my whole life changed, right there with the first lesson.”

That was one year ago. Cronin credits Spencer and yoga with helping her relax, focus her mind, and release the day’s pressures, both major and minor. “Whether it’s a beginner or mixed-level class, you’re part of a group but you work at your own level. I think of yoga class as a refuge from the outside world. It reminds me of a big cosmic dance that connects us all.”

Best of all, says Cronin, the postures and breathing techniques she learns in class are available any time, anywhere, to help her face the day with equanimity.

“You learn how to breathe,” says Cronin, “and the next thing you know, you’re in a whole new relaxing world. There are yoga teachers and there are yoga teachers, but Chaya is very special. I can’t recommend her classes highly enough.”

Suzanne Morris

Suzanne Morris ran the graphics department of an international manufacturing corporation when she got interested in yoga.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” says the Ringwood, NY, resident. “My only experience was doing it once or twice on vacation. And when I started taking classes four years ago, I wasn’t able to do all the postures. I was learning to move my body in new and unfamiliar ways. But my teacher, Chaya Spencer, was wonderful. She made me feel comfortable even when I couldn’t do something, and she made every lesson feel as though it had been designed specifically for me, both physically and mentally.”

Morris became so enthused about yoga that she invited Spencer to give a workshop for the design studio staff. “That was a wonderful event,” she says. “I wanted to share yoga’s benefits with everyone at the studio. When you work all day, your energy is always going out, but yoga is an effective way to bring your energy back in. Yoga’s deep breathing combined with its different postures always helps me center myself and refocus my energy, restoring balance to my mind and body.”

Morris had a baby one year ago, but she continued to work until September, when her office moved to California. “During all those changes,” she says, “the changes of being pregnant, then being a working mom, then the office relocation, then the decision to be a stay-at-home mom and freelance designer, yoga was a constant, reassuring, stabilizing force throughout all that. Chaya and yoga helped me accept change and transition no matter what was going on.”

Now that her baby, Faith, is a year old, Morris appreciates yoga’s back benefits. “All that lifting and carrying take a toll,” she says, “but several yoga postures help strengthen the back while making the spine more flexible. That’s a good combination for avoiding pain and preventing injury.”

In addition, she says, yoga offers busy parents important moments of solitude. “Emotionally and spiritually,” says Morris, “that’s essential.”

At Shree Yoga Studios, the weekday schedule includes evening classes for office workers and harried commuters. Stay-at-home moms, like Morris, have daytime and evening classes to choose from. “I love my Wednesday night class,” says Morris. “I always leave feeling inspired. It’s one of the highlights of my week.”

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