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Yoga instructor Alice Rocky demonstrates an exercise to a group of students during one of her classes. She has taught at COM for more than 30 years.

Yoga teacher draws students to classes

End of open enrollment means longtime pupils must move on.

By: Marco Berger

Posted: 12/9/09

Alice Rocky: it's a name with rock star quality, and Rocky is a star with many in the College of Marin yoga community. Now in her 70s, Rocky has taught Iyengar Yoga for three decades at the College of Marin, earning the respect and dedication of students young and old. Proof of her popularity can be found in her 8:00 a.m. classes on Monday and Wednesdays, where a diverse group of students sleepily gather their props, staking out a space with their sticky mats and one by one, carpeting the floor with bodies of different ages and needs. The scenario repeats an hour-and-a-half later for her 9:40 a.m. class, and then again at 5:30 p.m. Altogether, she has 60 students enrolled in each of her classes, including those who are enrolled through Open College.

As of next semester, however, the Open College policy is slated to change, preventing people from taking a class like Rocky's more than four times. The move will affect many of the older students who take courses at COM to work on keeping their minds and bodies sharp and healthy, and it has many of them upset.

A statement provided by Vice President of Student Learning, Nick Chang, said the Open College policy was created in 2006 to allow students who had "exceeded their allowable number of repeats… to re-enroll in [a] course." However, after reviewing Title 5, which governs repeat enrollment limitations, "it became apparent that [Open College] is a non-compliant program that was designed to get around the regulatory requirements," according to the statement.

Students will still be able to take the course four times, but after that they will have to look for alternative settings to practice yoga. One of these will be a non-credit community education yoga class that will not be taught by Rocky, something that has many students worried.

But what makes Alice Rocky, with her petite yet firm stature, so loved? In class, she is demanding, knows what she wants from her students, and lets it be known. She is a working combination of drill sergeant and wise guru. She has a tough exterior, yet a gentle softness, which students who get to know her relate to. In any one of her classes, it is not unusual to hear her really encouraging a student to find their optimum stretch point, sternly point out how another is not following her directions or come around to adjust a foot, an arm or a shoulder. Yet moments later, to end the class, she'll have everyone lying quietly for a few moments in Savasana, "Corpse Pose," while she reads a passage from Judith Lasater's book "A Year of Living Your Yoga." One gets the sense that she is sending her students off to face the day and the stresses of life with some tools.

"I started as a modern dance teacher, then back in the 70's, the College of Marin was looking to hire a yoga teacher, I applied, and I was hired," Rocky says. "At that time, there were no yoga studios in Marin and I had to go to a ballet teacher's version of what she called 'bar yoga,' then at someone's home in Sausalito, and I even went to Berkeley to study with a Swami. I was getting somewhat discouraged with yoga until someone suggested I take Judith Lasater's class at the Iyengar Institute. I did, I loved it and I never looked back."

Asked about teaching at COM, she says, "People keep coming back, so they must like the way I teach. We have a very strong Iyengar program here; it is known all over. Both Dario Fredrick (who teaches yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and I have studied in India with Iyengar" (B.K.S. Iyengar, the 91-year-old founder of Iyengar Yoga, stills teaches in India).

Iyengar is a kind of yoga that uses many props: blocks, blankets, belts, bolsters and even chairs. At first, Alice used neckties that a student brought in and had to order props for the class herself. But since then, the closet in the newly renovated PE 60, boasts a variety of objects.

Students are so devoted that one hand-made the wooden blocks, and in 1997 some of Rocky's pupils created and sold a COM Iyengar Yoga calendar to raise $2,700 for props. They were even able to build some cabinets with the funds raised.
"Alice is phenomenal," says Madeline Florence, a mature, soft-spoken yoga student. " I have such confidence in her. She is constantly improving her own practice and bringing back to her students."

Florence has severe osteoporosis and a pin in her ankle, and credits the class with improving her life. "Yoga has made a huge difference. I walk better and am no longer in pain." Having taken the class since the 1990s, however, Florence will not be able to reenroll when the Open College policy ends.
It is not only older students who have expressed their love of Rocky's class, or their concern about the upcoming enrollment restrictions.

Tiffany Epperson, 28, a Nutritional Sciences student, says: "The yoga class has been instrumental in making me a better student. I love Alice; she has sweetness and a kindness, and a sort of maternal feel to her that I am really drawn to. I would not be able to afford to take yoga if I had to go elsewhere."

Students with limited incomes often cannot afford to take classes elsewhere, and feel that Rocky understands them, knows what their bodies are going through, and can empathize with their limitations and needs. Some are not sure what they will do without the class.

One thing is clear, regardless of age, the students trust Rocky to guide them through 90 minutes of mind and body renovation. Some come to have a good work out; some to work on injuries, but most come because they know they get a quality teacher for a very affordable price.

"There are people in this who have been coming for 10-20 years, the class is enormously useful", says Judy Mesinger, "You can't find a class with the expertise of Alice Rocky and pay this price. Now, they are saying that I have only one more semester that I can take this class."
Some students are asking themselves if this new policy to end Open College may possibly be a case of age discrimination, or even racial discrimination, since it affects foreign students, as well.

When asked what she will do about the policy COM wants to enforce, Mesinger says, "I am going to work on changing this. I have gone to the board and written letters... the COM mission statement says 'to serve the community'. They are not serving the community by making it difficult for people to take classes."

"We need to encourage seniors, people in their 80s to be active mentally and physically. We need to do whatever we can to keep them a part of our community." Says Florence. "We need to keep the diversity here, and keep all of the community in the Community College of Marin."

Rocky says, " I've studied with Judy Lasater, who is a senior Iyengar teacher, for over 26 years. You find your teacher and you stay with them, and now with this Open College disappearing, it is very traumatic for these people. Students have written petitions and they have gone to the board, but they are saying, no! I would like to see students to be able to continue, especially the older students, it is so important for their health. Everyone will say they could go elsewhere, but that is not what they want to do."

Right now, at least, it looks like most will not have a choice, but at least for one last semester, Rocky's students will all get the guidance they seek from their beloved teacher.