I would like to share my story on how I found yoga and built the Central Mass Yoga Community.

People probably expect to hear that I was introduced to yoga at an early age and aspired to become a master yoga teacher my entire life.  This is not the case.

I was 18 when I was first introduced to a Hatha yoga class at college.   My friends and I giggled throughout the entire class.  We thought it was funny when we bumped into each other as we stretched in class or when the teacher called one of the poses “wind relieving pose”.  I was accustomed to places where the lights were very bright and the music very loud.   It seemed foreign to me to be in a place with dimmed lights and without music.  Living with awareness and listening to my body was not something I thought about.   Yet, there was something unique and interesting about this form of fitness that left me curious.  Because life happens, I went on with my college years and gradually the memory of that yoga class faded.

It wasn’t until several years later when I was struggling in my personal life, reading self-help books that I discovered books on Hatha Yoga and Yoga philosophy.  I read all I could on Ashtanga Yoga, the 8 limbs of yoga.  I was inspired!   A good friend of mine who knew about the books I was reading mentioned that there was a nice yoga studio in Portland, Maine and I might find it “fun” to actually try the physical practice of yoga.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to try a class since some of the books showed people doing some scary yoga poses and Kriya’s (cleansing practices).  I hoped that the teacher would not make me do them!

My continued curiosity, extensive reading and this friend, eventually, gave me the courage to attend my second yoga class at the local yoga studio.   It was an Iyengar studio.  Iyengar Yoga was named after and developed by B. K. S. Iyengar.  It is a form of Hatha Yoga that emphasizes detail, precision and alignment in the performance of posture (asana) and breath control (pranayama).  This second class was life changing.  I didn’t realize how stressed I was until attending this class. It was challenging to move and emotionally I could feel myself letting go of pain.  I found tears welling up in my eyes.  The class left me feeling more alive than I had in a long time.  I became aware at that moment of the effects of stress and knew I didn’t want to live my life that way.   I went home that night feeling taller, a bit more confident and relaxed.  I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to be a yoga student and a teacher of yoga.  I started practicing every day and going to one or two classes a week, however, my children were very young so it was challenging to get to class at times.  I started putting poses together moving from one pose to the next as in a vinyasa style, even though no one in my area was practicing vinyasa at that time.  I simply developed my own flows, I called them “Lucy’s Salutations”.   I kept to my schedule every day.  Interestingly enough, I am not a disciplined person by nature, the discipline derived from my yoga practice.

I was blessed that many master teachers came to vacation, teach, and practice in Maine.  I was able to practice and learn from people that are now famous; Judith Lasater, Rodney Yee, Patricia Walden, Francois Raoult, Arthur Kilmurray, Gabriel Halpern, Erich Schiffmann and others.   I was also taking classes with the Iyengar teachers at the studio as they came back from studying directly with Mr. Iyengar in India.  I searched for the best teacher training program at that time. This led me to enroll in the teacher training program at the Himalayan Institute of Science and Philosophy in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. The program was intense and between two small children and a busy home life it took me two years to complete my teacher certification since the requirements included spending some time living in the ashram in Pennsylvania.

After ten years of living in the Portland area and experiencing a vibrant yoga community, my family moved to the Worcester area.  I was now a certified Hatha yoga teacher with teaching experience.  I was excited to share all that I had learned and find a yoga “home” for myself.  I took one class at the Y but it was not what I had hoped for.  Yoga studios were pretty much non-existent and since I could not find a yoga “home”, I decided to create one.  In January of 2000 Central Mass Yoga and Wellness was born!  I was the only teacher for almost two years, teaching 13 classes per week, plus workshops.  Today, we have grown from thirteen classes to almost forty classes per week plus workshops, teacher training and Yoga Warriors International.  We have 20 teachers and staff and have expanded to three yoga rooms.  We have over 12,000 students attending classes each year.

Thank you my dear students and teachers for helping me create this wonderful Central Mass Yoga Community!

Namaste,

Lucy