Dale’s Master’s degree is in Exercise Science with an emphasis on Motor Learning and Biomechanics.  She is certified as a Health Fitness Instructor by the American College of Sports Medicine and as a yoga instructor by B.K.S. Iyengar.  Her training and experience in the prescription of many modalities of exercise and body work include Yoga, Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Feldenkrais, resistance training, cardiovascular training, water exercise, meditation and visualization, acupressure, and applied kinesiology.  She has worked with clients ranging in age from three to ninety-three, with extensive experience helping persons with health and orthopedic problems.  She developed an innovative breathing and stress management course for the cardiopulmonary rehab program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Dayani Human Performance Center.  Her series of workshops focusing on the anatomical, physiological and biomechanical foundations of exercise assists teachers and clients in deepening their understanding of therapeutic movement.  Dale uses imagery, allegory, story-telling, and humor to help clients maintain focus on postural, biomechanical, kinesiological, and visual detail to create an environment for self-healing.

One of my teachers, Manouso Manos says that when he is asked, “Who was your first Iyengar teacher?” he replies “Iyengar.”  Not too many people can say that these days.  But, I can.  Though my experience was not as intimate as Manouso’s and the other senior teachers of his period.  I learned, not from the Iyengar’s presence, but from his writing.

When I began my yoga practice there were no yoga teachers in my area.  I didn’t discover a yoga teacher until I had been practicing on my own for three years.  He was a one hour drive away.  At that time, it seemed quite a distance to travel, though, later in my life, a one hour journey for a yoga class was no problem.  Before finding my first real live teacher, I began yoga with a book, two books actually.  A friend of mine recommended Richard Hittleman’s 28 Day Exercise Plan.After one week with Hittleman, I was sold on the practice of yoga.  Then, as now, I had no idea how far my practice would take me.  At the end of the 28 day plan is a 3 day exercise routine to cycles through which I followed for about 3 months.  During this time, I digested as much about yoga as I could find in the library and local bookstore.  I couldn’t get enough.  I was reading a friend’s runners’ magazine when I came across an article written by someone who had attended a yoga class with this demanding instructor from India, B.K.S. Iyengar.  I was attracted by his no-nonsense approach.  The fact that he left students quaking and crying did not deter me.  It seemed to me that his actions were born in a compassion for his students, that he wished the best for his students and for that to happen they had to deliver great effort.  He showed them right effort.  I asked the local bookstore to order Light on Yoga.

Upon receipt of Light on Yoga I immediately began the course of study at the back of the book.  I attempted every pose he suggested.  I read and re-read instructions, hoping to find out why a pose rated as fairly easy was so difficult for me.  I followed Iyengar’s plan to the letter.  I believed adherence to the time schedule was possible.  It wasn’t until later that I discovered that the schedule was quite arduous, a ‘take no prisoners’ approach.  I practiced twice daily – standing poses in the morning and other poses in the evening after work.  My practice was compulsory.  I believed then, and now, that yoga literally saved my life.  I did not practice from fear of failure, since I had no idea what failure in yoga looked like.  I did not practice looking towards long term benefits, as I really didn’t have the fortitude to plan ahead at that time.  I practiced each day, because each day my practice made me physically and mentally stronger.  My self-confidence grew with each day on the mat, which at that time was a baby blanket.  Instead of the difficult poses giving me cause to doubt, they invigorated and challenged my body and mind.  Success was assured by the daily practice, not by any implied results.  As far as I knew at the time, this was a practice with no end, therefore no results. I just kept practicing.   

They say that when you are ready for a teacher, one will appear.  Though I didn’t have teacher appear in person, I did have quite a bit of teaching available to me.  Richard Hittleman’s book taught me what was to become a major process in my learning and practicing postures.  Perform each posture three times.  The first time you barely stretch into the posture, just kind of shake hands with the posture.  The second time a posture is performed with a moderate stretch and the last time a posture appears is the “gold” for the day.  Guruji Iyengar’s book gave me details for each posture along with a class plan.  This provided the structure I needed in which to follow Hittleman’s process.  Just over a year after I began my yoga practice I attended an intensive to learn how to instruct “Easy Does It Yoga”, a yoga class for people with physical limitations.  For this class, a posture might be learned with only the arms or only the legs.  This taught me to look at the postures, not just by how they felt to me, or looked with the set of instructions I gained from Iyengar, but as portions of the whole form.  I began to work with just arms, just shoulder girdle.  I would question the position of a leg in one posture and carry that question to another posture.  The final step in my self-teaching process came from LeBoyer in his book Inner Beauty, Inner Light.  This book is a prenatal yoga book.  In the book, LeBoyer expounds on the benefits of yoga in a beautifully poetic manner.  I found that in all my posture analyses I had neglected the aesthetics of yoga postures.  I now found beauty in my practice.

 Yoga came at the right time for me.  I was a young adult who had grown from a highly confident, successful, responsible teenager to a college dropout, to a wife separated from her husband, and, finally, a single parent unable to bring enough money in the house to support my son and myself.  I believed my life had failure written all over it.  Just prior to beginning my practice I had discovered that the trouble my husband and I were having trouble in our marriage, was not entirely due to poor relationship and communication skills, but, in large part, because he had developed paranoid schizophrenia.  Neither of us knew how to deal with the situation and were doing what we could, which turned out not to be enough for the marriage.  But, it was enough to create a more stable environment for my son and me.  I was wracked with guilt.  I had let my husband down, I hadn’t recognized how bad things were early enough to make a difference.  My mother repeatedly informed me that it takes two to make a marriage and two to break one.  It was so easy for me to believe I had failed at marriage, just as I had failed at college, just as I was failing now to support my little family financially.  My self-esteem had never been lower.  And yet, I had received a promotion at work.  I was a supervisor and respected by those who worked with me.  My son was generally a happy child with only minor adjustment problems.  There were many aspects of my life that were working, but it was so difficult to focus on those, when each day brought crisis related to lack of money, emotional support, or the inability to provide bolstering for a husband who was unable to function psychologically. 

 After three days of practicing yoga from Hittleman’s book, relaxation began to spread from savasana to other parts of my day.  The difficulties in my life took on new meaning.  They were no longer signals of personal failure.  I was eventually able to look on them as, actually, evidence of inner strength and an opportunity to deepen my reliance on God.  Physically, yoga became a daily massage from the inside out.  It gave me the increased stamina necessary to labor in the evening as a homemaker and mother, after a day’s work away from home.  My sense of humor became more pronounced.  I laughed more often than I cried.  And, in savasana, God spoke to me.  How could I not practice yoga? 

 Since then, my son has grown to be a sensitive, responsible husband and father.  I have earned two college degrees and experienced more ups and downs in my career than I could have ever imagined tolerable.  I have met and married one of the most supportive men I have ever met.  I have earned an Iyengar teaching certification, of which I am very proud.  My yoga practice still compels me to the mat each day.  I look forward to the opportunity to practice.  It is a self-affirming gift and I am grateful for each day of the past 22 years for having it in my life.  Some students come to class and state that they use the class experience for their practice because they don’t have the discipline to practice on their own.  Though I listen, I cannot relate.  My practice has pulled me to it since that first day, since the day I read the back of Hittleman’s book:  “the next 28 days can change your life.”