SUZY NECE

Suzy Nece is a yoga teacher and a master of Integration. With a BFA in Dance, she danced with Jane Comfort and Company; with a degree in life’s challenges and absurdities, she wrote for National Lampoon; and with a certification in Somatic Psychotherapy, she worked with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. She gracefully weaves these modalities into every yoga class she leads.

I have known Suzy for decades now, having taught and practiced with her at her former studio. the sunlit YogaLoft in Manhattan Beach. I have seen her hold students in their most grieving state, somehow finding a way to convert the moment into movement, shifting the emotions from sorrow to grace to healing. She recently took time to talk with me about the “poetry of the practice” and the ways in which the practice is its own good medicine.

OUT OF THE GATE, my dad owned a gym, old school hardcore, before Gold’s, early Arnold days, the kind of gym that had wooden platforms and heavy lifting. You put chalk on your hands, strapped your knees, sniffed ammonia, and smacked each other around. There was a boxing bag setup up in the attic. I could go there and punch things and lift and feel the strength of being in my body.  And it felt really special to me to be with my dad and his buddies and feel like one of the team.

I've always just been a mover.  I've always self-soothed in that way, through movement.  I don't think I knew early on how important that was, but I can see that now.  As a kid, I would usually be on the floor rather than furniture.  I would rather crawl around, looking up to things rather than looking down at things, moving around that way was always more interesting to me. 

I tried gymnastics, but I couldn't do things they were asking. The coaches were cranky, and I felt like, hey, I just want to be free!  I mean, I could end the routine and put my arms up and look fancy, but I couldn't do the beginning or the middle, right?  As I got older, I was introduced to different types of dance. First Ballet, and then Modern, and I was drawn to Modern because then you could roll around the floor and look up! That was self-expression! I was never into “pretty dancing.” I was usually trying to say something, and, as a dancer, I used movement to create a sentence, to create a voice within me.

As a teenager, I would go from Ballet where it was lonely, disciplined, judgmental, and humorless and then go to the gym with those guys who were always busting each other’s chops. It wasn’t someone pointing a finger and telling you the rules, but more like pushing boundaries (and weights) with ball-busting banter, and quick-witted comebacks. You could talk back at the gym. Everyone had a shot, no one was immune and if it got too heavy, someone was always there to spot you. There was always laughter at the gym (grunting, too) but the laughter made it all feel more equal, like no one was in charge, we were in it together. 

And all of that comes forward into how I look at movement now. Movement is a language. It’s not someone telling you what to do or how to think or what to hear but instead, it's a conversation. It’s not a monologue, it’s a moment.  If I'm stepping into a yoga room to teach, I have to read the room. You know, meet people where they are and then have a conversation and in the conversation is the dance, in the conversation is the yoga. 

Suzy, second from left, with Jane Comfort and Compay.

WHEN I LIVED IN NEW YORK, I danced with Jane Comfort and Company. Jane did the most amazing, political, strong work, a lot of gender exploration before people were talking about it.  We did a lot of cross dressing and part of my gig was to pick up men and throw them –- sort of my signature move, pick them up and throw them! But I threw them too many times in the same direction and I ended up herniating a disc.  I was so jacked up from this repetitive movement. I was out of dance for I don’t know how long, it felt like eternity. 

I had hated yoga before this.  I had gone to a couple yoga classes before because some other dancers thought it would be a good idea. But I felt, Oh, it's so slow and it's so boring! It had that same sort of restriction, that same strict strain of ballet. I just wasn't in a place to get it. I wanted to move faster. I didn't see that there was a place for me in the format. I didn't recognize it was a ritual. I was young; I thought I’d be fine forever, but after I was injured, I went back to yoga and took an Ashtanga Yoga class, which is also the antithesis of freedom of expression. Ashtanga was my tough love.

I was still doing my physical therapy, but yoga was that added element that helped me feel sane when everything felt out of control. The discipline of it actually helped rein everything in. I felt held in it in a way, having someone say, “This is the form, this is the function.” I felt held in the sequence. I felt held knowing it's always going to be the same…I needed that stability.

At the time I felt so angry, so mad that I was injured. I couldn't get past myself. But there wasn't room for that in the yoga room. In yoga, I kept being confronted and confronted and, finally, my resistance had to come down. I think that was a key component. Really, so many times in my life, yoga gives me my life back.

POST-COVID, I haven't committed to teaching a lot of classes. I've been subbing which is usually the hardest thing on the planet because you're stepping into someone else’s gig. But it’s my favorite thing to do. It’s been an interesting place for me to look at how I’m connecting, how might I authentically share in the elements of yoga, of mind, body, breath. My classes are always different because I don't plan. I can't plan. I walk in and talk to people and find out who’s in the room, where the need is, what’s the mix in this space? What's true in this moment, right here, right now?

Once we start moving, I get a sense of what's really going on, where people are holding their stress, and I go from there. I really try to make it about what's happening now.  I'm aware of what's happening in the world, and how that's on every single mat.  Where we are right now in this collective trauma, our collective pain.  And I try to take that into account. The physiology of the sequence I create is one that meets them where they are right now.  Yoga is a total contract.  As a teacher I’m honoring that contract.  That relationship.

A lot of people go to yoga, because why? Because of life. Yoga is occupational therapy for being human.

Not everybody walks in the yoga room because their life is going great that day. Oh, sometimes it’s amazing and you celebrate it!  But a lot of people come into yoga because it's all just too much. They have run out of options; yoga can be a last resort for some in need of relief, healing. The body’s hunched over with the skull, pitched forward with tech neck, and the wrists have carpal tunnel from texting. So that's the shape -- the body collapsed under the weight of it all.  And the mind is trapped in the chaos of constant scrolling and your spine is exhausted by the shape of fear and protection. The nervous system is in overstimulation and hyper-vigilance mode. That’s the reality and I have to read it as a teacher and counter what’s going on by opening the spine and heart, taking big, full breaths to tone your nerves.

Working with soldiers, and laughter, in Afghanistan.

There are a lot of strategies that we use in a trauma-informed practice. You can use humor in a trauma-informed class because I feel like yoga can get so heavy. Laughing is breathing. Crying is breathing, too. When students can laugh at themselves, step out of their own way, and realize how seriously they’re taking yoga, it shifts their perspective off the mat, as well, not being so hard on themselves or others, you know, cultivating acceptance, non-judgment, loving kindness. Once you can actually hear your inner monologue you can begin to reframe how you talk to yourself, when no one is listening. The body is always listening. So, the more kind and forgiving you can be with yourself, the more compassion you can embody off the mat.

As a teacher, I try to keep it moving, and keep asking people to do different things. Variety is the key to sustainability. If I do the same thing every time, that's insanity, right?  If we’ve been on our hands, I’ll shift it, Let’s get out of your hands, let’s come on your forearms. Let's get off our feet and come on to our head. Let's do what we usually do on our back on our belly. Let's do what we do standing, upside down, so that I'm asking my mind and my body to adapt and grow and somewhere in that continual flow, the ocean of body, mind and spirit can't help but come through. 

Are we going to breathe? Okay, I'll breathe. Does breathing require me to lie down and do nothing? Ok, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna lie down. Oh, is this the nap, I love that part! Can we take a little longer nap? Yes!  Some people say, I can't go to yoga, I'll fall asleep! You need it.  It all counts. Carve out little bit of time out for yourself. Come take a nap. Keep making conscious choices to heal.

STAND IN YOUR TRUTH.  I’ve heard that expression, Stand in Your Truth, a lot lately.  It really matters to me that I have those moments where I ask, What do I stand for? Who do I stand with? There’s so much symbolism to all of this.  Language is so powerful. Standing on your own two feet. To be embodied: let’s be honest and clear, that's Intention. That's what makes yoga different, that’s what makes doing a Chaturanga different than a push up. Because there's a purpose behind it. I have a real intention about pushing into my strength. The current of my heart connects to my hands. So how am I grounding in my heart? That’s Chaturanga. 

Yoga is a healing art. It is so important because of the cord it strikes in me when I show up to it. Somedays, I can feel very lost, and so, then, what's that truth? On those days, what am I standing in?  I'm standing in deep water. I'm standing in deep grief.  I’m still coming out of the last few years, with my sister passing, navigating my aging dad and mom with dementia and parenting puberty through the pandemic. ‘No mud, no lotus’ isn’t just a bumper sticker. My truth is compounded by grief everywhere, even if it’s peripheral grief or if it's grief across the pond or on the other side of the world; it’s a mother-mourning kind of grief.  I am not separate from that pain. That’s why it’s so important to stand in practice together. 

If I'm standing in my truth, and if I’m as honest and true as the person on my right and left, I know that if we share breath, side by side, that somehow, it takes the weight off my heart, and I can feel more connected. I can feel more willing and hopeful to go out into the world.  If I'm in a roomful of people that are suffering, I recognize Oh, I'm not alone. 

This is the yoga room, right? This is a room where you can fall apart, and you'll be put back together before you leave. It really is, Leave it all on the mat. Let the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, let it all get really messy because it's fucked up to think you're going to not be messy out in the world. We’re messy and the more you can admit it, then the less messy you're going to be. I think yoga is misconstrued. People think, Oh, I'm gonna go to yoga and I'm gonna quiet my mind and I'm gonna leave peaceful. Sometimes it works like that. But sometimes it’s like you’re a human snow globe and we're gonna shake it all up and then watch it settle and still.

Sometimes teaching is reminding people that what's in the way IS the way. You need to sit with it, before you can move through it and be clear. I think as teachers, the question is: How do we give people permission to heal themselves? To take care of themselves? To be themselves?

WHAT AM I PRACTICING NOW? Right now, I'm not practicing how to “let go.”  I’m letting it all kind of go where it needs to go. I think I'm working on that. I think I'm trying to practice, Let it be. More Let it be. Yeah, Let it be.