Getting to Know Cathy Eising
It’s no surprise that Cathy Eising’s students at Iyengar Yoga Asheville describe her as well-prepared: she meticulously plans the sequence of what she calls “the next event” with careful attention to the needs of each student as she strives to enable everyone to derive the physical, emotional, and mental benefits of asana. Her students will also tell you she’s kind, generous, and dedicated to their wellbeing.
Cathy agrees she dives deeply into class preparation, as well as into her other wide-ranging interests and pursuits. Whether raising well-adjusted dogs or a young cockatoo, caring for native plants or her social work clients, Cathy demonstrates a keen curiosity and unwavering commitment to learning and excellence.
Cathy grew up in Westchester County, New York. A self-described “tomboy,” she loved to ride her bike, climb trees, and ski, a passion she shared with her dad, who worked for the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, Cathy moved to Aspen after high school to become, she proudly said, “a ski bum” and taught skiing for a few years. Her mother’s interests were more home-bound: she was masterful at growing orchids, sewed all of Cathy and her sister’s Halloween costumes, and stayed busy with volunteer work. “My childhood was in many ways typical for someone growing up in the 50s in the suburbs,” Cathy explained. “But there was a family secret: my firstborn sister was affected by developmental decline and lived in an institution for many years. My parents did not talk about it. This lack of transparency may have been one of the reasons I eventually was drawn to social work to help people come to terms with their truths.”
Skiing eventually ran its course and Cathy moved with a friend to Manhattan where she enrolled at NYU to pursue a degree in music education and majored in piano. “I loved music, especially jazz, worked hard at playing, and I was dedicated, but not gifted.” Cathy completed college with a degree in music education. During her first job as a music teacher, she was feeling a bit adrift when an unplanned pregnancy provided her with a new direction and sense of purpose. “I became, like thousands of other young women, a single mom. This was a turnaround moment for me. I knew I had to change and find a practical and stable way forward to provide for my daughter and myself.”
Cathy enrolled in a Masters program at Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University in New York City. Additional training with her MSW allowed her to practice psychotherapy. “My life at the time was challenging with school work and a baby and I needed coping strategies. I started taking a yoga class at the local YWCA. Right from the start she felt that “Yoga offered me accessible tools to manage my emotional states and a path forward to calm my vrittis,” the Sanskrit word for the disturbances that affect our consciousness.
Through her friendship with folks who were part of the Yoga Teacher Association of Westchester County, Cathy began her deep dive into yoga. “I was incredibly lucky to study with Joan White in the early 1980s.” Joan began her yoga training in Michigan in 1968. In a 1972 horseback riding accident she broke her back and sustained other serious spinal injuries. She suffered from temporary paralysis and slowly began to recover enough to do some yoga poses. Joan participated in a 1973 class in Ann Arbor taught by B.K.S. Iyengar. His guidance helped her recover; she went on to be certified at the Advanced level, and has studied with the Iyengar family for decades, serving for several years as the Chair of the national certification Committee for the Iyengar National Association.
“I loved Iyengar yoga right away,” Cathy said. “The precision and detail of Mr. Iyengar’s approach allowed my mind to be captivated and encouraged me to tune into my body.” At first, with school studies and the demands of motherhood, Cathy was a once-a-week yoga student. She participated in a few weekend workshops, but didn’t have much time for more frequent yoga classes. However, she continued her home practice with diligence: “With yoga, I acquired the tools to work with my inner experience, including a tendency toward depression. I felt drawn to a life of service through social work, which allowed me to help people work through their personal struggles.” During her career, she worked in a group home in the South Bronx, a psychiatric hospital for teens with drug abuse problems, and an outpatient clinic for people of all ages that Cathy described as a place for “Garden Variety mental health issues.” Cathy felt energized by getting to know people with such different perspectives and backgrounds.
“My choice to become a psychotherapist was also related to the challenges of raising my emotionally and mentally disabled daughter, who has struggled with addiction most of her life. Over the years I have reflected on the idea of history repeating itself, given that my older sister was disabled as well, but my mother lacked the skills and the professional support to raise her. Helping my daughter continues to require a great deal of my energy and attention.”
In 1986, Cathy met her future husband, Larry, also a psychotherapist. Although she was “all in” with her chosen career, in the early 90s Cathy had a dream that ultimately changed her life. She calls it “My Gorilla Dream.” The message of the dream was that “I wasn’t meant to live a life sitting down. I was meant to engage in life in a physical way.” Shortly thereafter, a health club yoga teacher she knew from the Iyengar Yoga community became ill and asked if her to substitute teach. “I knew that if I was going to teach yoga, I’d better know what I’m doing.”
Cathy was, she asserts, given a sign, and began taking three back-to-back classes every Wednesday—beginners, intermediate, and teacher training—taught by Mary Dunn in Greenwich, Connecticut. Mary Dunn’s mother had been a student of B.K.S. Iyengar and was responsible for bringing him to the U.S. Mary began learning under Iyengar in 1974, eventually becoming a founding director of the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the U.S. and a co-founder of three Iyengar Yoga Institutes in America in San Francisco, San Diego, and New York. In the classes Cathy teaches, she is fond of quoting Mary Dunn, whose insights shaped Cathy’s approach to yoga instruction. “I share many of my favorites with my students:
• ‘As you lift and open your chest, be there in the house of elevation.’
• ‘Savasana consolidates the transformative possibilities of practice and imprints the transformation in all aspects of life.’
• ‘Let your breath be peaceful in your body and your body open around your breath.’
• ‘Let your body be a finely-tuned instrument to facilitate the expression of the Life Force.’
As Cathy explained, “Mary had a gift with words, poetry, image, and metaphor. She was able to express ‘the big’ spiritual concepts in accessible ways that were not tied to beliefs, but to experience.”
Cathy counts herself incredibly lucky to have studied with Mary and Joan, and, as a result, she felt very prepared when she went up for assessment in the Iyengar certification process. She earned an introductory certification in 2001 and a Junior Intermediate 1 certification in 2005. When she retired from social work, Cathy taught yoga at private studios for several years.
Around this time, Cathy, who loved dogs and cats, had a fantasy about raising a parrot. Larry’s sister owned a pet store and was fostering a two-year-old Triton cockatoo that needed a home. “I said yes and then rose to the occasion. I read everything I could get my hands on about raising a parrot.” These birds can live up to 70 years, so this was no casual commitment! Cathy dug in and soon became an expert in companion training for parrots. She explained “It’s possible with positive reinforcement to allow parrots, who are as intelligent and challenging as human toddlers, to cohabitate with humans in a healthy way.” So Cathy and Larry became parents to Marky and lived together—mostly amiably—for the next nearly 23 years. Jealousy erupted at times: Larry has a few scars to prove it!
When Larry retired, the couple decided to relocate from New York. Cathy looked into rehoming Marky because she knew that moving would be too stressful for him. Cathy landed on a rescue organization north of Seattle that specializes in cockatoos. “It was such a painful decision for me, but I knew it was in Marky’s best interest. He would be able to live in spacious flight cages with his own kind.”
Cathy said her final goodbye to Marky at the Newark Airport, and although she receives updates from the rescue group, she has not seen her feathered friend in several years. She knows he’s happy and that settles her heart.
It turned out that Asheville captured her heart next, and the move in October 2015 has been a happy one. She became a regular student at One Center Yoga and then a yoga teacher there. When that studio closed, Cathy joined Iyengar Yoga Asheville. She also has expanded her gardening expertise, especially in native plantings that attract birds, butterflies, and bees.
In the past couple of years, Cathy has been drawn to the study of Astrology. “I find that its particular wisdom validates what I’m experiencing in my life and offers me another language to describe my spiritual journey.”
Service to others, including her ongoing commitment to helping her daughter. Teaching and practicing yoga. Raising well-adjusted dogs. Planting a garden that attracts wildlife. Daily meditation and yoga. Political activism. All these interests share a common denominator: “I find that I’m drawn to what life is presenting next, whether it’s awaiting the flourishing of seeds into plants, looking for an astrological map to explain the cosmos and the individual psyche, teaching yoga and admiring my students’ dedication. In all of these activities, the core question remains—how can I be of service? I’m open to all the ways I can fulfill this intention.”
For the joyous and rewarding opportunity to share Cathy’s service, yogic expertise, and generous spirit, please join her Zoom class every Sunday, from 11am–12:30pm. This is a donation-based class, geared to students of every level. What Cathy is most interested in is the quality of attention that students bring to class. “The ability of students to go upside in headstand is less important to me than their curiosity to go inside themselves.”
Instructions for registering for Cathy’s Community Class (every Sunday from 11 am-12:30 pm) can be found halfway down the left-hand side of the home page (click here https://iyavl.com).