I first began doing yoga in Los Angeles during the 1970's and I quickly became intrigued. Soon after completing an initial series of once-a-week classical style classes held in the local community center, I moved to San Diego where, in addition to my daily personal practice, I began taking classes five to six-days-a-week in a school where the teachers had studied in India with BKS Iyengar. There was nothing "casual" about my yoga because I knew early-on it was to be my life's work.
I wanted to leave San Diego and travel the world, to seek out master yoga teachers, and to learn all I could. I sold most of my possessions and was willing to spend everything I had, because I felt certain that in the future, I would be able to sustain myself by teaching yoga.
A few days before I left San Diego to begin my travels, I heard about a free yoga class in Balboa Park. Although I already considered myself to be a "serious" yoga student studying in a "serious" yoga school, I wanted to experience what a free yoga class, given outdoors in a public park, might be like. It was a gentle, classically oriented two hour yoga class ... presented on the lawn under an expansive canopy of trees.
It was a perfect Southern California morning. Neither too cool nor too warm, the day was as mellow as the teacher's voice. After his gentle class, the teacher placed his hat on the lawn and although not directly asking for payment, he said he would accept donations.
For thousands of years, yoga was considered spiritual work with its teachers depending upon their students for lodging, food, and the other necessities of life. When yoga came to the West, it was argued by purists that Western yoga teachers should not charge for classes ... like the yoga teachers of India and like the teacher in Balboa Park, yoga should be taught for sustenance or donations only.
When that mellow yoga class in the park ended and after all the students were gone, I was curious about how much the yoga teacher had received and I looked into the hat: At the bottom lay seventeen cents, an apple, and a flower.
By the time I left San Diego, I knew I was going to be a full time yoga teacher and I knew I was going to open a yoga studio somewhere ... but I didn't know where. But before that could happen, I was willing to spend my entire savings so I could first study with master teachers throughout North America, Europe, and India.
Sam with Swami Vishnu Devananda in 1976
|
Sam with BKS Iyengar
in 1978
|
 |
 |
By then, I was willing to sell the remainder of my assets so I could rent commercial space and open a yoga center. However, it was abundantly clear that I could not open a yoga studio and survive on ... seventeen cents, an apple, and a flower.
When I established my first school, I was still torn between the historical perspective of teaching for donations or directly asking students to pay for their classes. I dealt with that conflict by establishing a sliding fee schedule and I was quick to offer my classes for free to anyone who even suggested that money was a problem.
In the next few years, I learned a number of important lessons about yoga that went well beyond charging for classes and paying the bills. Among them, I learned that people seldom place value in what they don't pay for. That certainly rang true from the beginning of my yoga teaching career; for whenever I did not charge for classes, lessons were neither embraced nor appreciated ... and students who did not pay quickly drifted away.
On the other hand, something special happens when students give to support their yoga teacher and where they take classes, whether that support be in the form of money, or their time, energy, or expertise that furthers the ability of the yoga teacher to teach. And so it has been for thousands of years. Supporting the yoga teacher is a spiritual component that both nourishes and reinforces the student-teacher relationship.
For more than thirty years, my students have been good to me. They have supported me both directly and indirectly; and even though chronic illness has forced me to limit the number of outside classes I teach (see Biography), I'm still fully involved with yoga by teaching privately and by sharing my yoga teaching experience through this web site.
If you consider yourself to be a serious yoga student, and if my teaching through this website has contributed to your yoga practice and education, there are ways you can participate in the traditional student-teacher relationship other than paying to read this web-book or by making monetary donations:
-
You can critically read this web-book and email me with your comments, questions, recommendations, feedback, and editing.
Your critical evaluation of the material in this web-book helps me to refine existing content and generates additional material for everyone's benefit.
-
I maintain this website alone. If you are technically experienced, I need assistance with website design, promotion, and development. In order to help as many people as I can, this website needs to become more accessible on the internet, as well as easier to navigate, read, and print.
-
You can purchase my books and video lecture directly through my website rather than through other book sellers.
Check or money orders
in any amount may be mailed to:
Sam Dworkis
12591 Shoreside Lane
Wellington, FL 33414
|
Credit card contributions may be made using PayPal, the internet's most secure and popular payment system 
