Enter Iyengar

     When the summer was over, Small moved back in with his family on California’s Catalina Island. He adopted a vegetarian diet and read everything available on hatha yoga and meditation.

     “Catalina was perfect for me. Avalon is a small town – only one square mile. I had grown up there and knew everybody. If I fell down in the street, people would rush to pick me up. I could walk, but I sometimes needed a wheelchair, because I would get so weak.”

     He began taking yoga classes whenever he could with Swami Satchidananda, who was then teaching in southern California. And then came the defining moment in his life:

     “The doctors told my parents the disease was progressive, so they hired a carpenter to start building ramps in the house. They thought they were doing the right thing, but it shook me up. I knew at the moment I had to take charge of my life, so I called my brother and asked him to kidnap me. I couldn’t make it to the seaplane on my own.”

     His brother agreed and carried him down the dock and helped him onto the plane. He flew to Los Angeles, where he found a small hotel with a heated pool and began his own program of physical rehabilitation.

     Drawing on his studies with Swami Satchidananda, he devised a system for doing yoga in the pool. Since people dealing with MS are warned not to get over-heated, Small believes yoga and swimming go hand in hand – swimming cools the body and yoga calms the nervous system. His doctors encouraged swimming, but at that point he didn’t have the strength or coordination. He discovered, however, that he could do modified yoga in the pool. And as he built up his strength, he found he was able to swim again.

     After several months of physical rehabilitation, he only needed his canes at the end of the day. He read several books by B.K.S. Iyengar and became interested in what was beginning to be known as therapeutic yoga.

     When Small learned that Iyengar would be teaching in Berkeley, he was eager to go, but by then the classes were already filled. Typically, Small didn’t let that stop him. He went anyway.

     “I met Mr. Iyengar there and he took an interest in me. After he went back to India, we began corresponding, I practiced at home and attended workshops conducted by his students and would write him about my progress. He wrote back with suggestions.”

     Small found that the Iyengar system, which uses props such as blocks and ropes and chairs, enabled him to hold the poses longer. His fatigue lessened, his digestion improved, and he could walk farther. Finally Small felt strong enough to make the trip to India, where he spent time in Pune studying with the Iyengars.

      Today, although he’s not cured or completely symptom free, he’s able to teach and travel all over the world, and it’s been 25 years since he’s had a serious attack. He also supervises the Eric Small Yoga Program, which together with the Southern California MS Society provides free or inexpensive training to hundreds of people coping with MS in 12 locations in southern California.

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