The Value of Practice: Interview with Marla Apt

The Value of Practice: Interview with Marla Apt

“One of the beautiful things about doing yoga at the Feathered Pipe Ranch is that can devote more time to the practice. We get to spend hours in daily mindful practice yoga. The mind, body, and emotions are all aspects of our consciousness. Refining and culturing them has a potent and cumulative effect.”

~ Marla Apt

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The Value of Practice: Interview with Marla AptFrom our understanding you first came to yoga and Iyengar yoga through your study of Buddhism. Is that true?

Marla: Yes, that is true. I was studying Buddhist philosophy, which exposed me to yogic philosophy. I was somewhat familiar with yogic philosophy, but not with the practice or how the practice and the philosophy merge. Buddhism was the lens through which I viewed yoga during my first years of practicing yoga.

Did you find that they resonated with each other, or were some things in conflict with each other?

Marla: I immediately felt that they resonated with each other. When I first discovered Iyengar yoga I was kind of blown away. While I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the philosophy, I thought it difficult for laypeople to to grasp. When I took my first Iyengar yoga class, I was amazed at how the concepts could be experienced in a practical manner, accessible to anyone with a body. I continued to be impressed with how BKS Iyengar was able to use asana and pranayama to access the goals of Yoga. Having already done some seated meditation practice, I found yoga to be complimentary and to be a sort of meditation in action.

You started Iyengar Yoga Therapeutics. What was your motivation for doing this?

Iyengar yoga is inherently therapeutic. BKS Iyengar developed yoga therapy early in his studies and practice of yoga. He started working with doctors and took an interest in helping people through yoga. He saw very quickly in his teaching career how yoga could help people overcome illness and injury and devoted a large part of his life to that subject.

While all Iyengar Yoga teachers are trained with a therapeutic approach to modify and help students with basic problems and common ailments, we don’t consider that to be yoga therapy. Rather, therapeutic Iyengar Yoga is prescriptive, specified to individual students and their condition. Iyengar yoga therapy has been taught to the senior teachers directly by BKS Iyengar. I wanted to help share knowledge of this healing art to all teachers of Iyengar yoga and to most importantly, make this therapy accessible to the general public.

Iyengar yoga has really been one of the pillars of everything we have done at the Ranch during the past forty-five years. What is your experience of the Feathered Pipe?

Marla: It’s an honor because I know the history of transmission at the ranch. Many of the senior teachers who helped spark the flame of yoga in this country began that process at the ranch. So I definitely feel that history when I’m there: the wisdom of the teachers and seeker in the students.

It’s nice to be able to help continue the thread of the ranch’s tradition of yoga studies in the same beautiful yoga room. At the Ranch, I feel that we are supported in our practice. The lack of distraction helps to maintain our intention. Feathered Pipe provides an ideal retreat setting. The yoga is the focus of the week and everything else serves to support that.

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Join senior-level Iyengar Yoga instructor and founder of Iyengar Yoga Therapeutics, Marla Apt for a combination of explorative practice and the settling into our unique nature that occurs effortlessly surrounded by the pristine nature of the Feathered Pipe Ranch, June 15 – 21, 2024, “Cultivate Energy And Resilience: An Iyengar Yoga Retreat.”

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About Marla Apt:

Marla Apt - Iyengar YogaLos Angeles based Marla Apt is a senior intermediate level Iyengar Yoga teacher who has been involved with medical research studies at UCLA on yoga for depression, anxiety and IBS and created the first yoga therapy content to be incorporated into the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine’s curriculum. She is a writer/contributor for Yoga Journal and Yoga International magazines. Marla visited India for the first time while doing research for a degree in Buddhist Philosophy and has since returned numerous times for yoga studies including a year of study in Pune, India with B.K.S. Iyengar, his daughter, Geeta Iyengar and son, Prashant Iyengar. She continues to study annually with the Iyengars at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMYI) in Pune, India.

She is pursuing her interest in making the healing benefits of yoga available to communities in need as a member of the non-profit organization, Iyengar Yoga Therapeutics. She leads workshops and teacher trainings throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Learn more about Marla: yoganga.com

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