So began Joyce's
baptism by fire in the art of yoga. The next course held for the
South Africans was in Malawi in 1971. This was a two week course
for teachers, followed by a one week course for students. The
pranayama and meditation classes in that course were
particularly memorable. Further courses were held in Swaziland
in 1972, 73 and 76, all of which Joyce attended. By 1975, the
Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute had been opened and
Joyce and one of her students, Pat Deacon, were the first South
Africans to make the visit. There were just eight people in
those classes, amongst them being Geeta Iyengar, Pandu and Shah.
That small group was completed with one person from Mauritius,
and one from the UK. When BKS Iyengar visited Swaziland in 1976,
he gave out the first certificates to his South African
teachers, with Joyce being awarded Intermediate Senior, which
soon upgraded to Advanced. After having had to wait eight years
to be granted a visa by the Indian government, Guruji was at
last able to pay his first visit to South Africa itself in 1979.
He opened the Iyengar Institute in Pietermaritzburg, gave a
legion of radio and press interviews and two spectacular
lecture/demonstrations in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Joyce runs
the Kimberley Iyengar Centre, has served as Chairperson of the
Central Committee of the South African Association, Chairperson
of the Assessment Committee, and was one of the key people
involved in devising the teacher training system current in
South Africa. She still maintains a full schedule of classes and
has been to Pune many times since that first 1975 visit. She
still lives in Kimberley with her husband, Louis. She has two
children Theodora, an artist and Iyengar yoga teacher living in
Johannesburg; and Christo, a fertility expert living in San
Francisco. She is also blessed with two grandchildren, Natasha
and Mark.
