Have you ever met someone who just plain exudes joy, with a contagious smile and energy that you want to absorb? Don’t you just wish that person would never leave so that you could forever bask in their happiness? Alie McManus is that kind of person – and she’s coming to Yoga Trek this month to offer a backbending workshop that will enable you to catch some of her je ne sais quoi and, well, knock your yoga pants right off! Alie has a breadth of yoga teaching experience and has a creative, fun, clever and completely accessible teaching style that will support you in reaching your backbending potential within minutes. Read more to learn about Alie’s yoga background and gain many wise nuggets about how to find your inner joy that you can start spreading around. The workshop will be held Saturday, September 18th, from 2:30 – 5:30 pm at Yoga Trek. The cost is $40 ($45 after September 13th). Register online and secure your spot today!
Q: What was your first yoga experience?
My first yoga experience was while I was at the University of Vermont. I practiced with a video by Erich Schiffmann and Ali Macgraw called Yoga Mind and Body filmed in the White Sands Desert. The sound of Erich’s voice was calming and the beauty of the scenery brought me to a place of peace. I loved doing that video so much that it was the only yoga I wanted to do. When I was in Boston my favorite art professor asked, “You do yoga and you don’t go to class?” Through his encouragement, I was introduced to Barbara Benagh with whom I studied for four years.
Q: You’ve had an interesting journey with one of this country’s prominent yogis, Erich Schiffmann – beyond your experience with his video. Tell us more about that.
I stayed connected to Erich Schiffmann’s work through his writing of the asana column for Yoga Journal. For me reading his instruction in the Journal was similar to doing the video; I felt like I was coming back home every time I heard his voice through the video or the written word. This was so inspiring and so calming and so ultra-normal feeling [like Erich, Alie is known for coming up with new ways to phrase things!].
I eventually met Erich after I moved to northern California and attended what might have been the first ever Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, CO. My first experience involved asking him for permission to participate in his full all-day teacher training immersion. He uses a very casual and relatable language in his classes – he says “wiggle” and “wriggle” quite often in his classes. My second interaction with him involved approaching Erich in the cafeteria to inquire about the difference between wriggle and wiggle….he said, “What do you think?” Erich is very approachable and down to earth, encouraging a playful sense of self inquiry. After letting him know my story with his video and my love of his teaching, he suggested I attend his teacher training in Santa Barbara which is exactly what I did.
I eventually was allowed a private yoga session, which he doesn’t usually provide. He invited me to his house and it was totally not what I expected. I showed up ready to take notes in my yoga book and “receive his teachings.” Instead, he asked me what [asana] I felt like doing. So I said, “My hamstrings are tight – how about paschimottonasana [seated forward bend]?” After I did that, he asked what else I wanted to do. He proceeded to keep asking me what I felt like doing – the whole practice revolved around really sensing inwardly what I felt like I needed in each moment and what I really was being motivated or inspired to do. In that way I was inspired into each moment and into each posture/asana.
This taught me that even if a lot of the time you don’t know what you really want to do, if you are patient and receptive and stay with your breath without getting ahead of yourself, the most perfect thing winds up just happening without effort if you allow it to happen. In that way, Erich has been my greatest teacher. He didn’t tell me what I needed to do to be a good person. He taught me how to sense what is best for me in each moment – which not only is essential in the asana practice but also improves the quality of one’s life.
After the private lesson he invited me to stay and some other teachers came over to do yoga together. He invited me to join them every night, so of course I came back. When I went back to Santa Cruz, I drove back to LA at my earliest opportunity. I said, “I love this, this is so much fun. I want to do this every day.” He said, “Then move down here, live down the street, and we’ll do yoga together.” My apprenticeship with Erich evolved from there, and I’m still assisting him to this day. I will be in Yellow Springs, Ohio assisting Erich this Labor Day weekend!
Q: What brought you to Chicago?
I grew up in Barrington Hills, IL. After attending university in Burlington, VT, I began my master’s in English Literature at Boston College. I then decided I needed to go to art school and I went to pursue my MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where I met David Kelley, my art professor. After being on the east coast for eight years and then the west coast for another eight years, it became clear I was finished with my apprenticeship with Erich and was ready to go home to Chicago. He encouraged me to do that, like flying from the nest.
Q: How would you describe your teaching?
At this point my teaching style is obviously very informed by Erich Schiffmann. It is also totally informed by my two other main teachers, Barbara Benagh and Angela Farmer. Their approach and my approach is to really show up to yourself when you step on the mat in each moment with a freshness of mind and attention so that what is happening in your body in the postures is very clear. Each pose is like your body moving into different shapes. The shapes are an opportunity to explore your body almost like a landscape. The practice is to navigate your inner landscape and the asanas are beautiful opportunities to pay attention to and bring life to our whole body, including the parts that may often be overlooked.
I love moving through the postures using the breath, using curiosity to increase energy and increase the feeling of spaciousness within your body. What I find happens – which is really effective and so useful – is that you are getting rid of tension in your body. Tension is unconscious holding and when you get rid of the holding, your energy increases, your strength increases, you feel more vibrant, more alive, and happier – and you look awesome! I try to be present with whoever is there [in class] and with whatever is going on in their experience so that I’m supporting them in their exploration of their body in the asana. Each person is as different as each person looks from one another. There really is a need to be open, dynamic, grounded, strong, and willing to really travel with people as much as I am able to.
In my teaching and in my practice, I love meditation. I love simple breath awareness and breathing exercises [pranayama]. My classes are often a really fluid asana sequence with attention to alignment details so that people are empowered. They come out feeling like they have discovered something new about themselves in the poses so that they are stronger, more open, and more receptive.
Q: What do you find the easiest or most challenging aspect of your yoga practice?
The most challenging aspect of my yoga practice is just showing up on the mat on a daily basis.
The easiest part is that once I’m there, I really enjoy myself. This feels so good, this feels so natural. I ask, “Why didn’t I do this earlier?” every time!
Q: How do you continue to evolve and grow as a yoga student and yoga teacher?
The single most important thing to my own evolution is exercising indiscriminate curiosity in all areas of my life. I keep getting turned on by and inspired by life. Yoga is about really enjoying life to your fullest potential. Times when I don’t expect to learn something new are often when something really cool can take place. For instance, in my classes in the past week two of my students showed up with books I’m now interested in reading. It’s just such a fresh reminder that I learn from my students as much as they learn from me. That’s really lovely! It’s really a mutually appreciative experience and everyone benefits!
Q: How are you able to exude such joy to others?
That is exactly how I feel about Erich. When you are around someone who naturally embodies joy or peace…then you catch it if you allow yourself to. This question is so cool! I find – this probably sounds totally far out – we are very much like sponges. The clearer we are, which is what the asanas help us do, the more we can become clear physically and mentally so that we can actually enjoy ourselves. When we are clear, we can really soak in whatever it is that is around us; then when we soak that in very much like a sponge, we can release it more effortlessly to others. Say you are in love with something: you soak in that feeling of love truly if you are in love with it. It is effortless to let it out because you feel it to the core. So it’s not like you even need to try to be joyful or peaceful or in love because that is what you are. It’s like your essence. A peach doesn’t try to smell like a peach! It just smells like one because it is one. I’ve called this the divine love sponge – we are all divine love sponges! It’s all about your experience and being able to relay what you are inspired by. If you are inspired, your job or your joy is to share that inspiration with others.
As long as you are in tune with what happens in your practice, you can share this with others with a greater ease. It can become like having fun, like playing. A lot of the time the practice can seem very strict or traditional or to-the-book: “I’m supposed to do it this way, it must look like this, I must do it this way.” It can instead become more about what feels best to you in the moment and using the practice as what makes sense and feels right to you in the moment so that you are your own yoga. Everybody is tapping into the same source but from their own unique experience.
We come into ourselves – we are more comfortable with ourselves, we are happier…as we do this we help each other and we support each other to just simply be our selves naturally. And that is awesome – I love that! It is so self-empowering, so life affirming – that easy! Of course not always that easy to do it on a daily basis (laughs). A simple mantra from Erich that I use all the time is “Pause, Breathe, Relax!” If you stick with the simple stuff the beauty of life is revealed and it’s so clear that it’s unmistakable and you cannot help but be joyful.
Q: What do you love about backbending?
I grew up doing backbends. When I was a little girl I’d hang out in the back yard with friends and we’d do backbends all day long, spotting each other and doing them until we could do them alone. I was very familiar from an early age with the exhilarating benefits of doing backbends which is why I kept wanting to do them – it’s a no brainer! I love doing them and helping others do them.
I think that practicing them and being able to improve or do something that you’ve never tried before brings a feeling or sense of accomplishment which is also really nice and empowering. I find that being able to do backbends takes easing into it slowly and warming up the spine and opening up the body very gently. Your body responds more easily or kindly to doing the backbends if we warm ourselves up by opening up the shoulders and quadriceps, and getting the spine be more liquid and supple. The backbends then become much more accessible. I like to move into the backbends in a way that is more intelligent for the body so the backbends are easier and more accessible.
Q: What can students expect from your workshop? What is your best advice to them?
We will focus on three ways to feel empowered by the backbending process:
- Move into them slowly
- Obtain a feeling of accomplishment
- Experience the exhilaration more naturally that the backbends provide
Bring an open mind and really just be ready to have fun and be ready to learn something new.
Q: What brings you joy off the mat?
This summer I’ve enjoyed being at my family’s summer cabin in northern Wisconsin to slow down. I love to swim and water ski. I love doing nothing – sitting and looking out at the water and the sky and really just enjoying the colors of nature. I feel like I don’t have as much time to do that when I’m running around. My birthday was in August – I love my birthday actually! I use it as a very special occasion to do only what I want to do so it winds up feeling like the best day of the year.
In the fall I am starting back teaching in the theater department at DePaul University and I teach yoga to the theater students as part of their movement curriculum. I’m also really looking forward to coming up to Yoga Trek!
FAVORITES
Pose: I love Tadasana (Mountain Pose) when it is approached more like Vriksasana (Tree Pose) with the rooting action and the growing action. That literally is one of my most favorite poses because I feel like everybody can sense that – it’s pretty dramatic.
Pranayama (Breath Control): I’m really into alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Sodhana) and Ujjayi (Ocean Breath). Ujjayi really calms the nervous system by lengthening the breath and it increases my energy and my strength. It helps me be present just by listening to the sound of the breath, a clear point of attention turning the practice into moving meditation. Alternate nostril is great for balancing out both sides of the body and the brain. It can lead me into deeper state of calm and ease in body and mind, improving meditation and life overall.
Food – Homemade pie! We just had raspberry mango pie last night.
Drink – I’m always drinking water with lemon and I love iced green tea. (I almost want to say a mojito but I think that’s a bit un-yogic!)
Music – I’m listening to Lady Gaga right now. Is that weird? I love Lady Gaga! My favorite musician is Neil Young. I also love Chrissie Hynde and kd lang.
Chicago-Based Activity – Bike riding along the lake. That’s an easy one!
WP_TAGS: Alie McManus
