Interview: Leza Lowitz, Director of Sun and Moon Yoga Studio, Tokyo (Part 1 of 2)

Interview by Dylan Robertson

This is the first of a two-part interview with Leza Lowitz, director of Sun and Moon Yoga Studio, located near Meguro Station in Tokyo. Here in part 1, Leza and I chat about her studio, her teaching and how she sees the landscape of the Tokyo yoga community today. Then, in part 2, Leza and I will talk about the Yoga Classics Input Project and Tibetan Heart Yoga, which her studio is introducing to Japan. The interview followed Leza’s Wednesday evening vinyasa class in October, 2009.

When did Sun and Moon Yoga Studio open?

Six years ago, on December 15th, 2003. We were one of the first small neighborhood studios to open, before the big yoga “boom.”

I first came to Sun and Moon in 2004. It’s been five years, but the studio is still looking great. It just goes to show that it’s worth investing in good workmanship.

The craftsmen who built this studio also build sento (traditional Japanese bathhouses) and have done so for half a century. They use eco-friendly material and did the work with hand tools. I feel their loving care is embodied in the studio.

Yes, it’s a very nice intimate space with good energy. I always enjoyed your classes and how you hold the space with your positive energy and vibe. I find myself smiling even during the more difficult poses.

It’s really important for a teacher to marshal the energy of the class, because each person has an individual purpose in being there and you want to help that purpose unfold. Like preparing dinner for a friend: if you just throw something together, it might come out ok, but you could really put your love and energy into selecting good ingredients, cooking them lovingly, creating a nice setting, then through your intention, you can raise the vibration and potentiality of the experience. Sun and Moon is my home, and people who come here feel it’s their home, too. So it’s important that the space is comfortable, welcoming and always positive.

Photo by Jasbir Sandhu

I liked the chanting we did at the start of your class. What instrument were you playing?

It’s called a harmonium; a cross between a harmonica, accordion and piano. It was made in New Delhi by a family who specializes in them. Four years ago, I first studied in India at the Varanasi School of Classical Music, and worked with Gina Sala and Mercedes Bahleda. I played the piano since I was a child, so I enjoy the harmonium, but I’ve got much to learn.

It’s a different experience, because not many studios really incorporate chanting and I’ve never been to one that uses a harmonium.

Chanting is something that really strikes open the heart. When chanting the names of the divine, you’re really chanting to the sacred within yourself, to everyone around you and to everyone in the world. It’s a wonderful way to open yourself and bring people together.

I used to feel awkward when I chanted but I was fine tonight. I guess it was you.

Maybe it was you! Well, I think it’s okay to feel awkward and still chant; the chants will take care of you. It doesn’t really matter as long as you’re there and you feel the vibration. People who find it difficult to follow the words can just hum along, and that’s perfectly fine. Each Sanskrit letter has a sacred vibration. You pick up on that, and it’s so uplifting.

I notice the growing collection of the books on display that you’ve authored, co-authored or contributed to.

Yoga opens you up in so many ways, one of them is by freeing your channels of creativity and silencing your “inner critic.” Ten years ago I wrote, Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By, inspired by each yoga pose. With Reema Datta, I later co-authored Sacred Sanskrit Words, a compendium of Sanskrit phrases for yoga. Lately, I’ve published a book of fiction about Tokyo called Green Tea to Go and more. I just finished a book retelling the ancient Jataka tales, when Buddha was incarnated as various animals. Amanda Giacomini (MC Yogi’s wife) is doing the paintings. When I need to learn something, the best way is to write about it. So I’ve published 16 books so far and have no plans to stop any time soon.

How do yoga and writing work together?

Writing and art are “revelatory.” They reveal things to you. Yoga has that same magic quality of showing you things you might overlook. Poetry can help you see the extraordinary in the ordinary; Yoga helps you really wake up to the magic, sacredness, celebration and beauty of life. Your yoga practice should make you more alive, more expressive, more passionate and courageous. But it’s a discipline. In art, you figure out the problems through DOING, not THINKING. For me, both yoga and writing are about staying with it and listening more deeply, letting go of the outcome. Working in the yoga poses ties into creativity because you fail many times in a pose. And finally, there’s nowhere to get to, you just say: this is my pose. You accept it through surrendering to the process.

Yoga boomed in Japan around 2005. What’s happening now?

Then, a lot of it was the purely physical practice. Now, people are more interested in exploring other aspects like spirituality, chanting, healing, meditation, Tantra, or more practical ways to apply yoga to their work and daily lives.

When people are looking through the menu of what’s available in terms of yoga here in Tokyo, there are many asana workshops, so the other more spiritual or holistic workshops tend to stand out and people are now gravitating towards them.

Even if people start out with physical, if you get deep enough into your practice, asana changes your breath and energy, which in turn change your thoughts. This changes your lifestyle and your actions, changing your karma. Through yoga, you can’t help but become more integrated. We can have a big impact by living holistic lifestyles and modeling holistic relationships.

What do you mean by “holistic relationships”?

We’re all interconnected. By practicing the yamas and the niyamas, respecting others, the planet and the environment as if we’re all related, we can live from a place of interconnectedness and inspire others to do so. That’s really my mission now. Sun and Moon is exploring the spiritual elements of yoga by practicing SEVA (Service) and Karma Yoga in our communities and around the world, sponsoring projects for Yoga in Africa, helping war-torn families in Kabul, supporting the charity Yoga Aid Japan, and opening a Japan branch of YCIP, the Yoga Classics Input Project, sponsoring Tibetan refugee families inputting sacred yogic texts that might otherwise be lost. Karma Yoga is something we hope to share with people on a much larger scale here in Japan. The time is ripe.
For more information on Leza Lowitz, Sun and Moon Yoga Studio and the Yoga Classics Input Project, please see the following websites.

• Leza Lowitz: www.lezalowitz.com
• Sun and Moon Yoga Studio: www.sunandmoon.jp
• YCIP English Site: www.yogaclassics.org
• YCIP Japanese Site: www.yogaclassicsjapan.org