A teacher once told Jo Zukovich: “You won’t understand the value of teaching until you’ve been teaching for 20 years.” At the time, Jo couldn’t imagine what fruits her teaching career would bear in the future. But now that she’s been teaching for 20 years, Jo understands. She sees the nature of our physical beings, and describes our bodies as tiny universes, as beautiful and vast as the outer universe we live in.
The practice of yoga has been a steady companion in Jo’s life. She remembers practicing in 1968 – the year her first child was born, and the year Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated. She embraced the practice of yoga as an art form, so she became a serious student and started teaching full-time.
Jo acknowledges that yoga classes were simpler in those days: they usually consisted of only 12-15 poses and were held at a YMCA or in someone’s living room. But Jo’s unwavering dedication to practicing and studying placed her firmly on the path to becoming a certified Iyengar teacher.
“Fifty percent of what I know I’ve learned from my students.”
On one of her first trips to India to study with B.K.S. Iyengar, Jo was struck by the realization that yoga is a wide-ranging subject. She thus returned to India several times to continue studying with the Iyengars.
In 1990, Jo and her husband, Mike Zukovich (also a yoga teacher), opened the San Diego Yoga Studio. This was at a time when yoga studios were not part of the local business landscape. In fact, the landlord was so cautious; he wouldn’t rent to them until he first visited one of their yoga classes.
As Jo’s teaching career matured, new students streamed into her life. Even though all students impact the teacher, one student, in particular, taught Jo the most she has ever learned about yoga.
Matthew Sanford was a graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara when he was first introduced to Jo. He had been paralyzed from the chest down at the age of 13 in a car accident. Reminiscent of how yoga was taught for thousands of years, Jo worked with Matthew on a one-on-one basis.
Matthew recalls that Jo would practice as if she were paralyzed in order to visualize the core of his pose. As the teacher of a paraplegic student, Jo was compassionate, open and creative – without trying to “fix” his disability. They didn’t work on perfecting poses, especially since some (such as standing poses) are impossible for Matthew. Instead, Jo helped him cultivate a presence within his body through awareness, breath and attention.
“Jo’s instructions reverberate throughout the studio like a low hum under the breath of a yoga practice.”
Without question, teaching a student who is paralyzed from the chest down requires thinking about yoga and teaching at a different level. It requires a teacher who knows the deeper practices of yoga. Matthew found that Jo had enough awareness to allow him to proceed at his own pace and that her ego was not invested in his progress. Matthew was so inspired by Jo’s grace, joy and respect that he decided to teach yoga to people with disabilities.
About this process, Matthew says, “You have to feel that yoga doesn’t discriminate. Iyengar yoga allows us to see the components to adapt (at the core), so you can have a mind-body relationship. Jo’s very good at letting yoga be a process. Over time, yoga unfolds benefits. If I hadn’t learned that [from Jo], I wouldn’t be able to teach students with disabilities today.”
Matthew wasn’t the only one unchanged by the experience of working together. “Fifty percent of what I know I’ve learned from my students,” said Jo. “[I’m reminded,] I have so much to learn, work on and practice. I’m never bored.”
The students in Jo’s regular group classes know they are in the presence of a master teacher. Not because her class is “better” than anyone else’s. It is because her teaching approach is light and graceful, yet always tuned in. Her words are ideals that inspire students and uphold a higher vision to which they can aspire. When she speaks, Jo’s instructions reverberate throughout the studio like a low hum under the breath of a yoga practice.
