February 2025 Dispatch: Two Blocks and my undying love for you
Whew Galaxy. Welcome to February. We have emerged from what felt like the longest January of recent memory! And while it does feel good to be over that hurdle, I think I see lots of potential hurdles and challenges that await us on the horizon. More than ever, I feel like the concepts of mutual aid, resource sharing, and cultivating safe community spaces are really integral to getting through.
While I define myself as a lover, for sure, and absolutely delight in exploring aspects of devotion, passion, and heart connections in this month of the cupid, I felt like that focus felt a little tunnel-visioned, with all that is happening in the world. A few months ago, I polled our teachers about potential monthly themes they might like to explore, and Jackie mentioned a month of highlighting props. That immediately sparked my interest, and got me doing what I love to do more than anything else: finding the connections between seemingly disparate things.
So first: a little context around yoga props. I’m sure we’ve all heard at this point that props aren’t just for beginners, but let me get that out of the way by providing a little history. We owe our yoga props to one amazing yoga teacher and practitioner: BKS Iyengar. Iyengar’s legacy is a complicated one; he was famously mercurial, most definitely had a temper, and his practice style is perhaps best known for being very focused on exterior form, “perfect” alignment, and prioritizing a teacher’s perspective to guide a student’s experience, rather than prioritizing a student’s felt experience in a pose. I think it’s always a good thing to know your history and roots, and to also never be afraid to re-examine old beliefs and practices, innovate, and keep creating, so I can’t say that I’m on board with many aspects of the Iyengar legacy and teaching style.
But one thing that Iyengar did remarkably well was innovate. Iyengar was sickly as a child, credited his yoga practice for the restoration of his health and well-being, and was deeply inspired by the idea that all people could benefit from a yoga practice. But the practice, as it existed in young Iyengar’s time, wasn’t accessible to all people and all bodies. Iyengar was the first person to create exterior tools to help bring the pose to the individual person.
He used objects that he saw in his world. He took bricks from a brick yard that was nearby, and those became yoga blocks (still often called bricks in Iyengar studio spaces). He noticed that stylish French people in the airport were tying their luggage with canvas belts, and those became our yoga straps. A bench that was present in the photo studio used to take the pictures for Light on Yoga became a prop for Halasana, and later further evolved into the backless yoga chair (one of my favorite props). He created the Iyengar rope wall by noticing a wooden log protruding from the ceiling of his practice space, and hanging a rope from there to assist in going upside down with less pressure and tension.
I’m so impressed by Iyengar’s relentless creativity, and how unbound he was by ideas of tradition, or “right” ways to practice. He learned from the same teacher as Pattabhi Jois, Krishnamacharya, and created a practice out of those teachings that is very different from what the Jois legacy and practice is. It reminds me that innovation is present in so many traditions that pass teachings down from student to teacher - it’s always a balance between learning the roots of practice, and then learning to improvise.
In the Iyengar tradition, props aren’t there to create a hierarchy of those who can and cannot do a pose. Props are for all students. They may start out by creating more supportive conditions for new students, but experienced practitioners are expected to use them, too. Iyengar talks about props for the “advanced” student providing a greater sensitivity, a better understanding about the direction of energy, and the ability to cultivate states of simultaneous relaxation and alertness. In a way, they’re there to create the conditions of endless practice - there’s always more to feel, understand, and absorb oneself in, and props can be a companion on that journey.
So I hope this context serves to move us relatively quickly beyond the idea that props are for beginners, because I want to move into this idea: props are an expression of love, mutual aid and support, and a conduit of connection in all ways.
Maybe 10 years ago, I crossed paths with a boss, teacher, and mentor named Jenny Kaufman (who teaches at yogaview in Wilmette, in case you ever want to take class with her). Jenny helped me to become a much better, more proactive and connected teacher in lots of ways, but there was one simple suggestion that was revolutionary for me: she suggested to me that I bring my students their props as I was waiting for class to begin.
That small suggestion was revolutionary for me, because at my core, I’m an incredibly shy person, and much more of an introvert than an extrovert. I knew I needed to do a better job of greeting my students, connecting with my students, and understanding who my students were and what they needed, but I was absolutely frozen when I tried to come up to them and talk to them one-on-one prior to class. I often think that people we assume are aloof, cold, and unwelcoming are very often simply shy, and in need of some better frameworks to initiate conversation. But combine that with people who are coming to a yoga studio, perhaps for the first time, and who are overwhelmed with nervousness themselves: that can create the conditions for a really cold and unsupportive first yoga experience.
And I really wanted to connect with my students. I grew up practicing yoga in my bedroom, with books, along with VHS tapes, and the first time I actually walked into a yoga studio, I had to psych myself up for weeks, because I was NERVOUS. I didn’t want anyone to feel as nervous as I felt in those first couple of group yoga classes. Like I said at the beginning of this thing, I’m a lover at heart. I want to connect, I’m delighted to get to know the people who come to my classes week after week, and though I’m an introvert, I love showing people that I love them. Like Dumbo with his magic feather, having two blocks in my hands helped me to approach a student on their mat, say hello, give them their little prop gift, and start a conversation about who they were (if I didn’t know them), and what I needed to know about them and their practice.
These days, I don’t get to work the studio space in the same way, because I’m normally at the desk signing in, or I have a teacher assisting in my class, passing out the blocks and the consent cards.
But those two blocks that I essentially make you take in every class I teach? They have become these little rectangular expressions of my love and support for you and your practice. They’re a way to let you know that you belong here, that I see you, and that, no matter the practice, we can figure out a way for the practice to meet you where you are. Props are my way of saying: we need to support each other, we need to share our resources, we need to provide extra support to people who need it, and receiving support isn’t weakness; it’s the ultimate “advanced” practice.
Those blocks, these props, they’re my Valentine to you, Galaxy friends. I love you, and I love creating a space with support built in, with automatic prop delivery (whenever I can), that you want to come to, again and again.
Also: here’s my favorite Valentine’s day poem, about an onion.
Valentine
by Carol Ann Duffy
Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
What I’m Reading
You might think this is more of a book geared toward yoga teachers, but I think everyone can benefit from exploring this reference, and it’s one of my favorites for exploring how to use props in a yoga practice: The Complete Guide to Yoga Props by Jenny Clise. One of my favorite things to do is to get out all of my props, roll out my mat, and simply play and experiment - I call it going into the lab. This book has been a helpful guide during my explorations, and I think it’s nice to remember that it isn’t necessary for a teacher to teach us how to use a prop - we can explore and find innovative ways to use props all on our own (and I think Iyengar would approve). If you dig this kind of prop usage in yoga, be sure to check out Eyal Shifroni’s books, too - I have four of them, and reference them often.
