Margarete Eckl is celebrating her 70th birthday this year – and looking back on half a century of yoga practice. As a teenager, she discovered her enthusiasm for asanas through a book by Kareen Zebroff, and they have been part of her daily life ever since. In this interview, she talks about her beginnings in yoga, formative encounters with her teachers, her personal practice, her teaching and how yoga has taken on new facets over the years.

Claudia Lamas Cornejo (clc): 70 years, congratulations again on this wonderful milestone birthday!

Margarete Eckl (me): Thank you!

CLC: Did you practise anything special on your special day?

ME: Nothing in particular, I started my day with pranayama and did headstand and shoulder stand in the late afternoon – those are a must. Otherwise, I was outside enjoying the glorious weather at beautiful Lake Constance... it's hard to waste time on the mat when the weather is this good... (laughs).

CLC: 70 years full of intense experiences and events – how many of those years have you been practising yoga?

ME: My very first yoga book – I always like to tell this story – was by Kareen Zebroff, ‘Yoga for Everyone’, and that was around 1970. I must have been 15, 16 at most, so a teenager. I don't remember how I came across this book, though, because it was quite some time ago (laughs).

I can still picture the book cover today: Kareen Zebroff sitting in Baddha Konasana. I also remember that Kareen Zebroff used to teach short sessions on television back then...

....CLC: Yoga was on television at one point?!

ME: Yes, yes, you weren't even born then, but there was a programme called ‘Drehscheibe’, a kind of advice magazine, and she taught yoga on it. But I only practised with the book, not in front of the television.

CLC: Which type of yoga would you say she practised?

ME: It was Hatha Yoga. At that time, Iyengar Yoga was still unknown to me.

CLC: What fascinated you about yoga back then, or made you curious about the subject?

ME: It was the aesthetics of these postures that appealed to me. I was a teenager, wanted to experience the world, so it wasn't about becoming calmer in spirit. As a child and teenager, I was a very good athlete, I liked to be active, running, long jump, gymnastics, I was very enthusiastic about it and yoga fitted in well with that.

As a small child, I always used to strike all kinds of wild poses, which made my mother throw her hands up in the air and say, ‘Child, what are you doing?!’ Those were probably my first yoga poses.

CLC: Are there any photos of that?

ME: Unfortunately not. But I experienced the same thing with my children. They loved everything that involved being upside down and could sit perfectly in Janu Sirsasana or Virasana before they could even walk, because those are the most stable positions to sit in.

CLC: Did it matter that your first yoga teacher was a woman?

ME: Definitely. A young woman who had very good posture and also radiated a certain self-confidence in the yoga poses was definitely a role model.

CLC: How did you get into Iyengar Yoga?

ME: That was much later, when I was in my mid-30s, had three small children and was in a serious crisis. At that time, yoga was already offered at the adult education centre, but not Iyengar Yoga. The teacher sat at the front on a wool blanket with her eyes closed, so she didn't look at anyone or correct them, she just told us what to do. Through a friend, I came across a ‘core energetics coach’. She asked me, ‘What do you really enjoy doing?’ – ‘Yes, yoga, of course! I like going to my adult education centre class in the evenings!’ Then the therapist said, ‘Well, why don't you do some training?’ She recommended Bad Wörishofen, as the Iyengar Yoga Association Germany didn't exist yet, and Louise Wörle, Michael Forbes and Barbara Weiss taught Iyengar Yoga there. That was my first contact with Iyengar Yoga.

CLC: What year was that?

ME: That must have been around 1990/91. So, 35 years ago, half my life!

CLC: And what kept you interested in Iyengar Yoga, or did you try other styles?

ME: No, I was completely convinced right away, without having known many other styles of yoga. I was fascinated by how precisely and accurately the postures were done.

I went to my old yoga class one more time and couldn't do it anymore. Thirty kilometres away, in Reutlingen, there was already an Iyengar yoga teacher named Solange Amacher. I was thrilled to go there once or twice a week and soak up her lessons. So, after that first weekend in Bad Wörishofen with Iyengar yoga, it was absolutely clear: THIS IS IT!!!

CLC: I have now had the pleasure of attending your classes for about three years, and for me you are definitely one of those teachers who seem to find it easy to stand in front of the class, always radiating joy and good humour – did you know right away that you wanted to be a teacher and now even a senior teacher and trainer?

ME: No, I wanted to get to know it better and experience it for myself first. At some point, I had to teach, and I said to my coach, whom I was still seeing at the time, ‘I'm not doing that!’ She then asked me, ‘What's the worst thing that could happen to you if you have to stand up there and teach?’ ‘I'd drop dead.’ ‘Well, then you'd just drop dead, no big deal.’ (laughs) That's when I realised how silly this fear was.

As a child, I wanted to be a teacher. I grew up in the countryside and the mothers and women there didn't work, they were housewives, but I had a young female teacher at school and that's why it was clear to me that I wanted to be a teacher! In that respect, being a yoga teacher wasn't so far removed from my childhood dream.

CLC: Which other teachers have influenced you?

ME: At first, there were quite a few male Iyengar yoga teachers who travelled and taught at that time, such as John Schumacher from the USA, Dharmavir Mahida from India, Ramanand Patel from India/USA and many others.

A good 25 years ago, I travelled to Rapolano for the first time to see Gabriella Giubilaro. After the first ten minutes of class, it was clear to me that she was my teacher! Michael and I actually travelled there because John Schumacher was teaching as a guest teacher with Gabriella, and Michael was a student of John Schumacher. Gabriella was my own discovery. Later, we invited her to our studio for many years, as well as Lois Steinberg and Jayne Orton, but for me, what Gabriella says always resonated deeply.

CLC: Did you meet Geeta Iyengar?

ME: Yes, that is of course the other, very important part. I flew to Pune for the first time in 1998 for Iyengar's 80th birthday. There were two weeks of celebrations and practice, and that's when I met Geeta for the first time. She did most of the teaching back then, as Guruji was being spared a bit on his milestone birthday. That was before I met Gabriella as a teacher.

I had tremendous respect for Geeta, found her to be very wise and was deeply impressed by how much she saw, despite the huge number of people in the hall.

The way she kept all these practitioners busy and under control, and was so clear, was incredible. She was an important woman.

CLC: Geeta was also a companion to many women who promoted Iyengar Yoga, especially in the West, wasn't she?

ME: Yes, the well-known, visible women in the West, Patricia Walden, Gabriella Giubilaro, Joan White, Lois Steinberg, Bobby Clennell and many of the British yoga teachers who studied with Guruji together with Geeta come to mind. These women were very devoted to Guruji and Geeta. With their publications, they contributed not only to preserving the knowledge, but also to making it available for future generations. Some men, and I don't want to name names here, the proximity to Guruji did them no good and then scandals happened, which is something we simply don't see with women.

CLC: How did you experience BKS Iyengar´s teachings?

ME: As a guruji/master, I found him excitingly lively and spirited, but as a teacher, I think he would have been too harsh for me. I always found it irritating when men acted very dominantly.

CLC: In his book ‘Light on Life’, he explains that he deliberately furrowed his bushy eyebrows to ward off any advances...

ME: Yes, well, he had to protect himself, so, nothing against Guruji, but my teacher was clearly Geeta. From 1998 onwards, I travelled to Pune to see her every year until she died, except in 1999 when Constance was born, but the following year Michael and I travelled there together with Constance.

When Geeta was in Berlin in 2001, a few teachers were invited to have dinner with her, and that was the first time I saw her outside of class and exchanged a few words with her. She was very warm and friendly in personal conversation; as a teacher, she was very strict and very clear. For me, her clarity was what fascinated me the most.

CLC: Do you remember any of Geeta's corrections?

ME: Actually, she once brought me up on stage in Berlin and explained a detail of Utthita Parsvakonasana to me; I can still remember her correction, her touch, standing behind me. Once in Pune, she scolded me because I had rushed into a pose and she didn't like that. We were practising Eka Pada Viparita Dandasana over the chair, with the upper leg vertical. She hadn't finished her explanation and I was already in the pose. That's when I realised: ‘You just have to listen very carefully!’

Other than that, she even praised me once, or rather, she gave me an ‘approving grunt’, yes, really (laughs)! That was during a handstand. She was still walking around the room at the time, and we practised going up into a handstand, first with one leg at a time and then with both legs. At that moment, she was standing right next to me when I went up with both legs. She then grinned at me and made a friendly humming sound (laughs).

CLC: ... that Geeta always saw everyone and everything, you mentioned that earlier...

ME: Yes, once when I was doing a headstand, I moved my eyes and looked around, and she immediately shouted, ‘Don't look around!’ – there were easily 170 people in the room! She saw things like that!

CLC: How do you stay in touch with your teachers today?

ME: I still travel to Rapolano once a year to visit Gabriella, whom I met 25 years ago, and since online participation has become possible, I take part in her classes every fortnight. I also practise online with Abhijata in Pune once a week. I would very much like to go back to Pune for a whole month. The last few times I was there, it was always for special celebrations, such as the institute's 50th anniversary in January 2025.

CLC: With your studio on Walterstraße, you also had an anniversary this year, 20 years, right?

ME: Yes, exactly, 20 years on Walterstraße, 15 years on Maistrasse, and now we've been here on Haydnstrasse since 25 June, where a lot is still in the making.

CLC: Your own yoga practice is also a continuous process of becoming and developing. What or how have you been practising more in the last 10 years compared to the years before?

ME: I used to really enjoy doing lots of sun salutations, for example, so I preferred dynamic practice to holding poses for a long time. Today, it's the other way around, although I still really enjoy practising handstands and forearm stands. But basically, I no longer have such a strong urge to practise dynamically. It's no longer right for me, because then I start to feel twinges here and there and my body clearly shows me that I need something else. Since the menopause, I have been taking a different approach: I mainly practise the poses that give me mental and physical strength. Before that, I practised a lot for my stiff shoulders, for example, and now I practise more to maintain my strength. Through my menopause practice back then, I learned to appreciate the ‘cooling’ forward stretches, which I didn't like at all before. (laughs). 
Overall, my relationship with some asanas has changed, and my practice has to change and adapt. I have to say that the inverted poses have become even more important to me. When I have very little time, I make sure that I at least practise headstands and shoulder stands extensively, and I notice that I really need them; my body craves them, and I feel balanced and refreshed afterwards. That wasn't so clear when I was younger. I still really like standing poses and backbends, so actually, I enjoy practising everything today and am more balanced in practice overall.

CLC: You are Level 3, do you look at the poses for the new Level 4 from time to time?

ME: Well, I'm at Level 3 and I practise these poses. Some work better than others and many are very interesting, but I don't have to prove anything to anyone anymore, so it's quite clear that I won't be doing Level 4. I want to practise good basics and, above all, what I teach. Very often, before a class, I practise the programme that I will be teaching afterwards and add one or two asanas for myself.

CLC: I've noticed that the majority of your students have grown old with you in good health and fitness. Do you adapt your classes to these people who have been practising with you for 25 years and know a lot, but perhaps can no longer do all the advanced poses they used to, or how do you integrate them?

ME: Interesting question... I have hardly lost any practitioners who at some point said, ‘This is getting too strenuous for me now.’ Just this morning in class, there were two ladies over 80 who have been practising with me for 25 to 30 years, and they still keep up very well because they know what they need for each posture, and I know them so well that I know what I can expect of them and, above all, how. With increasing years of practice and teaching, one understands more how people feel in the posture and what they need. For me, that's the beauty of being a yoga teacher: I have many loyal students who are ageing and maturing with me, and young people are joining us – for example, three of my four children, aged between 26 and 41, now practise in my classes, and that motivates me to continue practising and teaching.

CLC: What is your wish for the next 70 years?

ME: (Laughs) For the next seven years, I would like to keep everything as it is in terms of the number of weekly classes, because that's what I enjoy most. After that, I'll plan for the next seven years and so on.

Claudia Lamas Cornejo: Thank you very much for taking the time for our talk to and once again wishing you all the best for your anniversary year!

Margarete Eckl: Thank you very much!