Joy and Presence with Lois Steinberg

By Robin M. Mishell
Editor, Yoga Samachar

“How far away are you from your soul?” You may hear this query when you’re in a Lois Steinberg class. Often, after a demo, Lois corrals her students with a resounding, “Let’s do it.”

After 35 years honing her craft, Lois’ light-hearted approach is infused with passion, intelligence and lots of humor. After all, Guruji has said, “Without humor, life is not worth living.”

Yoga Samachar caught up with Lois at the Peace Café in Honolulu in March of 2011. She mentioned that it was 23 years before Guruji had ever favorably commented on her practice. “I was going home when he said, “Yes, your practice is finally coming better now.” After he said that I didn’t need that airplane to fly home! But then, the next time, he admonished me. “What happened to you? Your practice has gone so much down. I didn’t realize it had, but then I saw he was right, and I just worked even harder.”
Lois Steinberg just works harder. At everything! Perhaps that explains how she gets the best effort out of her students. Lois is an Advanced Junior II teacher who has written several books on therapeutics including the updated Neck and Shoulders volume. She holds a PhD in nutritional sciences and worked as a mental health specialist for many years. Ultimately, she left academia to dedicate her life to Guruji’s teachings.
When she’s not teaching domestically or abroad, practicing or running her center in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, you can find her growing her own vegetables, hiking and catering to her cats. Here’s her take on a wide range of topics:
 
Q: How did you begin teaching yoga?
A: No one knew what yoga was 35 years ago. When I started I was working as a mental health specialist for the state. I worked with emotionally disturbed children in a locked facility and then I was a child abuse investigator. I remember this one family who came for counseling from far away. They would come and say, “We heard you do yoga and I have this bad knee. Can you help me?” Or kids who weren’t opening up to me in their therapy sessions; I would lie them in Setu Bandha Sarvangasana to open their chest and they would start opening up and revealing their emotions. I would use the yoga for this and it would really help. 
I was always teaching and practicing yoga regardless of work or school. The whole time I was in grad school I put in 17-hour days for 9 years, and I really burnt out. I quit academics and then I was working even more! Back then teaching yoga was not a full-time career option. It’s not meant to be a full-time career option. Why do people even want to be a yoga teacher?
It’ s a huge responsibility. You have to be really involved in a certain way to guide and help people to a higher plane of consciousness. It’s a really difficult job with low pay, long hours and no medical.
 
Why do people even want to be a yoga teacher? It’ s a huge responsibility. You have to be really involved in a certain way to guide and help people to a higher plane of consciousness. It’s a really difficult job with low pay, long hours and no medical.
 
Q: What does your teaching and practice schedule consist of today?
A: Every day, absolutely without fail, I do pranayama for about 30 minutes. I choose to do it when I wake up. That sustains me. I walk or bike to my center, and do two to three hours of asana. I teach seven classes a week. There’s something about teaching that gives me energy back. When I have a day off, I let go and realize I’m tired. When I have to be in full throttle, I don’t allow myself that. I want to be able to give my all when I’m teaching.
 
Q: What do you get from your practice?
A: Joy and presence. It brings me to the quiet state. I don’t think of it as any particular religious belief, but that coming to yourself and coming to the presence and coming to what the second Sutra describes as stilling the fluctuations of the mind. And how to get to deeper layers of your consciousness where it’s present and spreading and not being interrupted by unnecessary thought.
I was telling Guruji the last time I was there (Jan. 2011) that I became so quiet, in one of his classes. He said that’s practical Samyama. That’s practical meditation; actually it’s practical absorption. It’s when you’re practicing asana - you’re using the body as a point of meditation. You become so quiet - it’s absorbing. It’s a spiritual absorption and a practical one. Practical, meaning that you are using your body and increasing your range of awareness to get yourself quiet. This is using the body as a source of meditation. 
 
Q: What have you heard in regard to how Iyengar centers are doing during these economic times?
A: The problem is that yoga is popular now. Teachers are financially suffering because of the recession and because of the competition. Most yoga teachers weren’t trained in marketing. I think we’ve learned over the years to get savvier with the Internet and Facebook. However, it’s difficult for us because we just want to practice.
Actually, everyone is shooting themselves in the foot by training teachers. We don’t need more teachers. We need more students and I don’t know how that’s going to happen unless we take on a national campaign through IYNAUS to advertise what we do. The advertising is expensive, but I think we need to do it.
 
We need more students and I don’t know how that’s going to happen unless we take on a national campaign through IYNAUS to advertise what we do. The advertising is expensive, but I think we need to do it. 
 
Q: How do you run your center?
A: I run 12-week semesters that are coordinated with the school year. That way all beginner students can start at once and not feel intimidated by others in the class who seem more experienced. At the same time, the more experienced student won’t feel held back. Otherwise, you lose students when you have mixed levels. 
Up until 4 years ago, I didn’t allow anybody to take more than one class a week. Now I allow them to take two classes. That’s it. I want them to establish a practice. All the teachers at my center teach from the same syllabus. It’s very structured. We give students practice sheets for their home practice. Students can buy an inexpensive membership and practice in one of the two rooms we have. 
 
Q: Tell us about your experiences with Guruji with regard to therapeutics. 
A: It’s amazing to see Guruji help people improve the quality of their lives. He has this genius ability, combined with experience, to know how you’re thinking and feeling and what’s wrong with you without seeing medical reports. He knows how to help you work with your conditions to live a full life. I love when he states in the 1976 film, Ultimate Freedom, “Unless and until you have freedom of the body, freedom of the mind is a far-fetched idea.” He also says, “You see my body is in pieces, but my mind is in one piece. Your body is in one piece, but your mind is in pieces.”
 
 “Unless and until you have freedom of the body, freedom of the mind is a far-fetched idea.” He also says, “You see my body is in pieces, but my mind is in one piece. Your body is in one piece, but your mind is in pieces.” 
 
Q: Tell us about some of your experiences with therapeutics.
A: There was this young woman in her 20’s who had cancer for seven years. Her family really believes I gave them an extra year with her. Helping her with yoga improved her quality of life and helped her to die. Even her last words, when she was struggling to say something, was that she wanted to breathe. The yoga really became a part of her life and helped identify who she was at that point in time. And that was really touching and very, very moving.
What’s amazing to me in regard to therapeutics is how fast some people get better. Just one class and they’re better, whereas for me and some of my colleagues, we have to work at it so much!
 
Q: Can you talk about the ego and how it relates to practice?
A: I know that when Guruji is teaching, if you’re thinking too much, if your mind is interfering, he won’t teach you. He can’t teach you. In fact, the very first class I had with him, he said, “You keep your minds empty.” It’s not about emptying the mind. It’s about stopping those thoughts that disrupt your mind that keep you from learning. The ego interferes. It’s not about a big or small ego, but that ego can interfere with learning. It can interfere with getting to the source of your true self. You can’t let extraneous thoughts such as “I can’t do it,” interfere with learning. You have to keep an open mind, be present and not have any expectations.
 
It’s about stopping those thoughts that disrupt your mind that keep you from learning. The ego interferes. It’s not about a big or small ego, but that ego can interfere with learning. It can interfere with getting to the source of your true self. You can’t let extraneous thoughts such as “I can’t do it,” interfere with learning. You have to keep an open mind, be present and not have any expectations.
 
Q: What are some of the most amazing things Guruji has ever said to you?
A: Well, he just recently said to have the awareness on top of your awareness. Who comes up with words like that? Everything that comes out of him is amazing. Many of us wish we could attach a recording device to him all the time. He also explained that yoga is an art, science and philosophy. The philosophy is dharana, dhyana and samadhi. The science is asana, pranayama and pratyahara. The art is yama and niyama. To break it down like that, and have us think, and give us pause, and let us change our habitual way of thinking is something he’s so gifted at, and there’s nobody else who does that. 
 
Yoga is an art, science and philosophy. The philosophy is dharana, dhyana and samadhi. The science is asana, pranayama and pratyahara. The art is yama and niyama.
 
Q: How do you honor Guruji?
A: I honor him by practicing every day to the best of my ability, everything he’s taught me, and sharing his knowledge. Guruji is the only man in our time who has this ability of teaching and practicing yoga like he does. 
I’d like to keep this alive. Just talking about how he’s practicing and how he’s still giving to everybody. It seems more imperative now that he’s almost 93. He’s still imparting what he can even though he’s surpassed us in so many ways. In terms of his compassion - that he still tries to teach us. It seems like he still thinks we can come up to his level and he keeps trying. I think that’s very generous.
 
In terms of his compassion - that he still tries to teach us. It seems like he still thinks we can come up to his level and he keeps trying. I think that’s very generous.
 
Q: How has Guruji’s teaching changed over the years?
A: He has stated his teaching took a leap and evolved at age 75. It became more penetrating. It was how he was imparting his teaching and making you aware of your awareness. Up until that time he felt that his mind was like a “goose train” and now his mind is faster than a jet engine and it really is.
 
Q: Can you speak to how yoga gets a hold of some people and doesn’t let go and for others this is not the case?
A: For long time practitioners, yoga is their base. They turn to yoga as a sustaining force in their life. Where as other people are casual practitioners. They only come to class to do yoga. They don’t really have their own practice. That’s not going to change for them until they establish their own practice. 
 
Q: How do you train people to become Iyengar teachers?
A: I think the teacher can recognize a student’s practice and see their joy in it. You can also see who is practicing or not in your classes. The student who is practicing can start helping in class and often they can practice with the teacher watching while they practice or they can practice together.  “Hand-make” them, as I like to say, into teachers. 
Many of us from the early days started this way. But, we live in this world, and now it’s become a profession. First, I would like to see whose got the quality in their practice and secondly, they should be mentally stable people. People have no business teaching if they’re mentally imbalanced and that’s true of any teaching profession.
 
Q: Why do some people climb the ladder of assessment levels and others don’t?
A: Many want to improve and others are complacent. Life interferes. Birth, death, work. Some people are only teaching one class a week while working full-time jobs. Regardless of their lives, some people want to use the levels to make them progress, to challenge themselves and get them out of a rut.
Some people just can’t face a test because it is so anxiety provoking. Some people are full of test anxiety, but they’re still going to push themselves through it. I hear from students that it makes them study in a way they wouldn’t have if they didn’t have these guidelines to go further. It deepens their practice to go through it. It’s a challenging exam, no question about it. 
 
Q: How can we draw young people to our method?
A: I would like to see us attract young people by making Intro I level into an exam that recognizes that you have an established practice and the ability to teach and nothing more. I don’t think we’re going to get young people unless we do that. I’m not sure we even need more teachers. However, if we want to initiate the next generation we are only going to be able to do that by having young teachers who attract their peers.
 
Q: What advice do you have for new teachers?
A: Look at your students. Teach to them. Look and see what’s in front of you and teach to that. Throw out the script. Teach from your own practice. Teach what you know. Don’t teach new things you haven’t absorbed in your own practice. If you’re nervous about teaching, especially a beginner’s group, know that you’ve learned more than them so you’re going to be teaching them things they don’t know. Have confidence.
 
Q: It’s evident you love teaching. Tell us about the rewards you get from teaching.
A: I feel blessed because I go to places where I’ve seen the students evolving and changing for the better, as they get deeper and deeper in their practices. I don’t know many people who get this opportunity to see that in their daily lives. To see people who are really working to be better beings, better citizens of the planet, and to be really caring.
 
Q: Thank you Lois. Do you have anything else you’d like to add?
A: I really love the yoga and will always practice and keep trying new things. It just brings such joy.