Donna and I began attending yoga class about eight years ago, largely due to health concerns. Doctors wanted her to have surgery on her spine to correct a troubling stress injury. The prospect of surgery scared us enough that we were soon looking for every alternative we could find.

We became regulars at a chiropractor's office, one who specialized in the treatment of athletic injuries, though Donna's injury was more work related. He recommended regular massage, so we found a gifted massage therapist. We often drove to an acupuncture school where we learned the basics of Chinese medicine, and she found a little relief there. All these treatments served to strengthen her muscles and joints, and relieve stress.

We heard about a weekly restorative yoga class at a nearby church. My doctor encouraged me also to take better care of myself, to get regular exercise, and because I was driving anyway, I joined Donna for the class, discovering quickly that my body liked this restorative pampering and relaxation. The yoga style we first learned was called Svaroopa, and I remember using lots of props: cushions, blocks and straps (bondage?) to hold certain poses, allowing us to surrender more deeply into them.

A few months later, we decided to relocate to shorten our commute, giving us more time to get our domestic things in order, and just plain have a life outside the rush hour traffic congestion. After our move, we re-thought our health care, finding a new chiropractor just a couple blocks away, complete with an acupuncturist and massage therapists regularly using his extra office space.

Turns out our new chiropractor has treated many yoga instructors and students for years. He recommended an instructor who herself began practicing yoga years before, because of a horse riding injury.

We began enjoying her classes at a new studio for us, learning more about yoga as a healing practice for our bodies and minds - and also - very important - how to take care of yourself in class.

If a teacher doesn't offer alternative postures, or suggest backing out of uncomfortable positions, or encourage you to honor your body's abilities, then you're on your own, you need to do these things for yourself.

It's very easy to want to please a yoga teacher in a yoga class, in part because they create a safe place to learn outside your comfort zone, to stretch your limits, doing so in a compassionate and forgiving way. And the safe place is central to learning the practice, a learning that takes years. We have so few truly non-judgmental spaces in our cities and towns, that this freedom at the yoga studio - to just be - is refreshing, an oasis and balm to the endless hustle and stress outside.

We soon found our two weekly basic Iyengar classes with Lori were making a significant, if gradual, improvement in Donna's strength and range of motion, and in my own flexibility and sense of well being as well. The Iyengar approach, as taught by Lori, was the perfect transition from the purely restorative to a more active style for us, with the easy flow between postures serving to get us moving more comfortably and breathing more deeply in the classes.

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