C O V E R S T O R Y

YOGItimes magazine for the modern yogi
ALASKA
By Nara Rosser
photography by Paula Phillps
As a yoga enthusiast and teacher in Alaska, I could tell you how I spend time in flowing poses at the base of snow-capped mountains. I could also write on how hard it is to drag myself out of bed in the cold darkness of December, while attempting to summon a burning enthusiasm for boat pose. I could explain how energizing it feels in May to be gaining sunlight at seven minutes a day, and could confess how hard it is to stay focused on my yoga mat when I’ve been trapped inside all winter. The truth is that I do unroll my mat by the crackle of the woodstove in my cabin when it’s cold and dark outside. In the summer I hardly need sun salutations, because at 10 p.m. the sun is still shining.

The truth about my life as a yoga teacher in Alaska is one of contrasts and extremes: I practice yoga in the Alaskan wild, but I also love a good cosmopolitan, some strappy shoes and a chic dress. But it is these contrasts and extremes that hold me in Alaska. Alaska’s extremes manifest themselves both physically and philosophically. In Cordova, a small fishing town in Prince William Sound, lattes, DVD rentals and paintball supplies are all available in one location, just around the corner from the basement yoga studio with butter-colored walls. Several hundred miles north in Alaska’s interior in Fairbanks, my current home, you’re just as likely to find a big-game hunting guide sitting cross-legged next to a vegetarian.

The roughly 80,000 people in and around Fairbanks support a few yoga studios. It is in a studio across town that lifetime Fairbanks resident, Mariah Dunham finishes instructing her students in a gentle Equilibrium Yoga class and heads out on her Harley-Davidson, straight from final relaxation to the revved up throttle of her second favorite pastime.

A personification of extremes herself, Mariah speaks with certain honesty: “Teaching yoga helps me balance my life out. I became a teacher because I was a lazy student. I realize I work better for other people, so if I know that I will have students coming to my door for a class I will always be there. This works for me.” Mariah is the type that doesn’t feel conflicted by her many different interests.

Neither does Karen Russell, a yoga instructor and Kripalu DansKinetics (yoga-based dance) teacher in Anchorage, Alaska. Like Mariah, whose practice seems to creep off her yoga mat and into her motorcycle-riding and business life, Karen is also aware of how her practice influences the rest of her life. As a mother of three, attorney, yoga teacher, wife and recovering alcoholic, she describes her life as a practice: “Much of my personal practice is karma yoga – selfless service to my children, service to my law firm and service as an active member of AA. Much of my meditation practice is spent in the one-hour AA meetings I attend three times a week … sitting quietly, hearing others speak on how they deal with their lives. My pranayama practice is often remembering to take some slow deep breaths in the midst of a stressful work day.” Since her students are very diverse, from insurance adjusters to dancers of all ages and fitness levels, Karen notes that her students “like that I am not ‘yogaish,’ but am a real person and that I make yoga accessible to everyone.”

Unlike Karen, who found her home in metropolitan Alaska, New York-New Jersey native Alyssa Kleisser took root in a much more rural part of the state. Kleisser landed in Cordova, which is only accessible by boat or plane, and doesn’t have a single traffic light. This isolation provides a wonderful sense of peace and tranquility, as well as a lack of competition. Alyssa is the only yoga teacher in this close-knit community. The downside to this is that there is no opportunity to take a class from the instructor across town. Like many others, she has had to travel out of state for advanced training and workshops. The result of this isolation from the broader yoga community is that one is forced to look more deeply to one’s own practice. A dance teacher of 18 years, she was a little reluctant at first to teach yoga. “My students accept that I’m not a yoga master, but are grateful that I’m helping them discover themselves through yoga. In essence we’re learning together.”