Instructor Thaws Out the Usually Frozen Yoga

It was in the early 1970s that Geo Takoma lost sight of himself as he battled the hellish nightmares of running bird dog patrols in Vietnam. Within a few months of his honorable discharge, the former Marine sergeant took a long, hard look in the mirror.

The frightening image staring back--an abusive, overweight alcoholic--shook him back into reality. Takoma stopped resisting what Vietnam had given him, the desire to live in a peaceful world, and set immediately to work re-creating himself.

By adopting a Hindu philosophy, Takoma transformed himself from an aggressive individual into one who teaches peace through yoga. His classes attract 150 students a week around Orange County.

“Basically, I’m American,” said Takoma. “Real American. I played football in high school, went to war, and liked the aspect of competition this society thrives on. I used to thrive on it, too. The brutal aggression of war closed my heart. That was killing me.”

Takoma wanted to regain the muscular build and physical endurance he had as a football player, but he didn’t want to re-enter the competitive side of athletics. He was drawn to the nonaggressive philosophy of yoga.

“I absolutely fell in love with yoga,” he said. “I wanted to learn everything I possibly could about it.”

In his study, the wanna-be yogi traveled to India but discovered he disliked traditional yoga methods.

“Imagine, going all the way to India only to discover that . . . , “ he said. “India didn’t have the intense level of yoga I was seeking.”

By 1975, he gained certification under the guidance of Indra Devi, considered to be the first lady of yoga. “Now she’s 90,” Takoma said, “and she’s still teaching today.

“In studying many different yoga philosophies I began to see that, whether in Southern California or India, the morose nature of those spiritual classes where you walk around like you’re half-dead bores me. And it bores most Americans. We’re an action-oriented society, so I devised a new American-style yoga.”

Takoma broke some rules in establishing “Power Yoga,” an intense hourlong session filled with stretching and visualization exercises. Postures blend ancient yoga teachings with the fact that Americans have wider hips, bigger legs and tighter necks than the yoga masters of Buddha’s day.

The avant-garde meditations are offered at the Girl’s Gym in Newport Beach, Club Postnuclear in Laguna Beach and Sports Club Irvine, or Takoma will guide you through his teachings in the privacy of your home. Classes vary in size but average around 20 students, with both men and women participating. The cost is $8 a session or $55 a month, in a public or private setting.

“More women than men attend,” Takoma said. “But men need to learn to relax. Men need to open their hearts and awaken the child within too.”

In Takoma’s philosophy, to be fully alive is to be fully spirited like a child, so he imitates movements a baby makes. Under his guidance, he says the body can respond to the arching, twisting yoga postures with the elasticity and the enthusiasm of youth.

“Americans carry stress in our necks,” he said. “So I reworked the positions to eliminate any additional neck stress. But most of the positions are derived from a baby’s natural movements used to strengthen its newly formed body.”

Some of Takoma’s poses are drawn from his experiences as a football player and weightlifter. In the “linebacker” pose, students maintain a position like a defensive linebacker with their legs set shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, body weight forward, hands out in front. This stretches the hamstrings and works the lower back into a fully relaxed position.

The “Russian weightlifter” is designed to strengthen the upper body and tighten the triceps.

“I have the students imagine they’re one of those Russian weightlifters lifting 900 pounds,” Takoma explained. “With one big breath they hoist the weight over their heads. Then we quickly repeat this exercise for 10 repetitions. By the last lift, everyone is heaving and puffing from the strain of the imagined weight. It’s a real high to look out at those straining, grimacing faces.”

Looking for a real workout that wouldn’t strain her knees led Debbie Heussenstamm to “Power Yoga.” Advised by an orthopedic surgeon to cut aerobics classes from her exercise regimen, which also included swimming and speed walking, Heussenstamm decided to give yoga a try. She heard about power yoga through a friend.

“I thought this was going to be a class on stretching,” she said. “I had no idea you could build up such a sweat. Power yoga has even replaced my swimming and speed-walking routine.”

At first, Heussenstamm attended classes once a week; now she’s developed a four-times-a-week habit. Debbie, a weaver, and her husband, Paul, an artist, open their art-filled home to Takoma and his yoga devotees four mornings a week.

“Classes used to be held at the fire station in Emerald Bay,” Debbie said. “But the floors were hardwood and the firemen were noisy. It will be a year ago tomorrow that we were told we’d have to cancel class because of the voting booths. I have a big living room, so I invited every one up to my house. Pretty soon we decided to just move the classes to our house.”

Recovering from a severe auto accident led Jan Ernst of Huntington Beach on her search for an exercise regimen that could rebuild her sprained back but support her weakened spine. Although she was unable to do many of the traditional inverted yoga postures, she found she could participate in Takoma’s class.

“I’ve been into yoga for over 20 years,” Ernst said. “Geo’s program is a complete physical and spiritual workout. His techniques build muscles and tissues through isometrics and stretching. There’s no need for stress-inducing equipment.”

For Geo Takoma, power yoga is an offshoot of the Love Generation.

“The ‘60s planted the seed,” he said. “The ‘90s gets rid of the mythology and moves toward reality.”