The class was taught by a student of Marie Svoboda’s. In 1970, I took my first yoga class through the U of W Experimental College class. After receiving a high draft lottery number in 1969 I decided to drop out of college to become a full time hippie. In the full embracement of a hippie lifestyle, I was led to yoga. Here is my story of what the yoga scene was like in the 1970s.Īs a student at the University of Washington from 1967 – 1970, I participated in many Vietnam War protests, as well as protests against many other things that the “perceived establishment” was behind (racial prejudice, prejudice against women, war crimes and so much more). The three of us had all been long time students of Marie. Marie had the only yoga studio in Seattle until 1977 when Richard Schachtel, Gail Malizia and myself each opened our own independent yoga studios. Marie Svoboda opened her Queen Anne studio, “Marie Svoboda Yoga” in 1969. Lilias Folan did present a housewife kind of yoga on American television in the 70s (not what I was looking for) and yet there was no yoga studio to be found in Seattle – until Marie Svoboda opened hers. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi brought the Transcendental Meditation practice to many. Other Indian gurus that I observed in the early 70s in Seattle included: Yogi Bhajan, Swami Muktananda, Pir Vilayat Khan, Swami Satchitananda and others. The teachings of the East were first carried forward to me by the Beatles in some of their music and by Ram Dass in the book, “Be Here Now”. Can you imagine a big city without yoga, without the internet, and without the underlying teachings of the East being embedded anywhere? Seattle did not have yoga etched anywhere until very late in the 1960s.

Hatha yoga book from early 1970's