Elaine McGillicuddy
It was anatomy that sparked my study of yoga in San Francisco in 1982. Marcia Stefanik, a Stanford University professor (and yoga practitioner herself) taught our unique 6 week anatomy course at the Iyengar Yoga Institute. We were to identify all the muscles involved going into and out of the various yoga poses.
When I returned to Maine I looked in vain for such a resource close to home. The closest on the east coast was in Bethesda MD where Stan Andrzejewski, a physical therapist, taught yoga classes at John Schumacher's Unity Woods Yoga Center.
Then Tom Myers moved to Maine! I had finally found my Anatomy guru.
Portland Yoga Studio (PYS -- www.portlandyoga.com) which my husband Francis and I had recently co-founded (1989) has become a regular venue for Tom's workshops ever since.
My anatomy studies with Tom, -- including his cutting edge 200 hour course, then called "The BroadReach of Bodywork," -- form the warp and woof of my yoga teaching style. And they continue to illuminate my own long and rewarding journey unravelling a fibrous hip and maintaining recovery from knee surgery complications, through yoga.
Anatomy Trains was another welcome gift. Its applications are immediate, e.g. in teaching the mild backbend Cobra, I instruct students not to hyperextend the head too much lest by shortening the sternocleidomastoid muscle, they counteract the stretch in the belly.
Elaine G. McGillicuddy M.A. is a certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher and co-founder in 1989 of Portland Yoga Studio in Maine where she still teaches a few classes. Elaine studied yoga in San Francisco; Boston; Bethesda; Pune, India and in numerous workshops nationwide.
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