Day: January 6, 2015

Richard Rosen on his humble and humorous beginning…

I taught the first class on Monday, March 15, 1987. I had two students, which was double the number I had for the second class. Since then by my rough estimate I’ve taught over 6500 public classes at PYS.

When we started the school back in 1987, none of us really thought we could make a living teaching yoga. But we agreed that we would do everything we could to make yoga enjoyable and accessible to as many people as possible.

We’ve always prided ourselves on being a little bit different than other yoga schools,… over the years we’ve hosted classes for disabled students, cancer survivors, people with Parkinson’s, seniors, toddlers, and teens, for people with back problems. We’ve supported low fee community classes, a training program for disabled students to become teachers themselves, and of course our own teacher training program has launched the careers of any number of current teachers here and around the country.

Richard Rosen on his favorite pose:

“Many years ago when I first began yoga practice in the early 1980s, my least favorite yoga pose was shavasana, usually interpreted as the Corpse Pose. I couldn’t see the point of lying around and doing nothing, it seemed a huge waste of time. But I think now the real reason I objected to it ​was that it made me feel very nervous, vulnerable, after a vigorous asana practice my inner life was too exposed and I wasn’t ready to look at it that closely. But now, that’s all changed and shava is by far my favorite pose. Shava is a retreat and a refuge, an essential daily “time out,” when I give myself the permission to “do nothing,” figuratively and literally, which is of course the ultimate yoga practice.”

Lump in the throat – Just sheer respect.