Simply put, yoga is the “unifying practice of body/mind/spirit,” explains David Lurey of San Francisco. As an instructor of transformational yoga, Lurey often uses various spiritual teachings as guidelines for his classes.
Yet “every time I give my card to someone, they say, ‘Oh my God, do you teach Jewish yoga?'”
Lurey relates this good-naturedly because yes, he is Jewish and, yes, he does at times incorporate Jewish teachings and music into his classes. And — the reason people ask him if he teaches Jewish yoga — his business card depicts a Star of David emerging from a lotus.
“The Magen David — that happens to be my name,” he says with a laugh. “It is also an ancient yoga symbol: the masculine and feminine, upward- and downward-pointing triangles.”
But no, he does not teach Jewish yoga. Lurey instructs his students in vinyasa yoga, which literally means “the linking of movement with breath.” It is a form of yoga he prefers, “that’s a little more of an athletic practice and allows me to go deeper into my body to build strength.”
At the same time, Lurey’s religious foundation is not something he can or wants to compartmentalize. “Because I come from a very strong Jewish family, I’ve always had a kind of spiritual nature,” he says.
His grandfather had a “Conservative [Jewish] nature,” and his mother and her family were exiled from Egypt around 1963 or 1964 because of their religion.
“I’ve always felt that that part of my heritage is something that I want to hold on to.”
As a child, he followed the traditional route and was bar mitzvahed. But from there, he says, “I was pretty much given the freedom by my parents to do as I chose.”
He has clung to the customs and traditions he loves, which he also finds relevant to the yoga sutras, or spiritual themes, of the practice.
In ashtanga yoga, he explains, the word “ashtanga” means eight limbs. “It kind of describes an eight-fold path, similar to the Ten Commandments, for how you’re living your life in the world. For example, are you living peacefully, truthfully? Can you give and receive equally?”
Yoga “is about looking inward,” Lurey says, and “for many people, it takes a lot of effort to do that.”
He didn’t set out to be a yoga instructor. After high school, Lurey sought to break out from the “conservative lifestyle” of his native North Carolina. He moved to Colorado to go to college in Denver, where he studied hotel management and pursued sports, including skiing and mountain biking. He vaguely recalls going to a yoga class or two, but does remember what drew him there: “I thought the instructor was beautiful and wanted to check her out.”
When he was offered a job with the Hyatt corporation, he grabbed it, thinking he’d work his way up to hotel manager. It was while working as food and beverage manager at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, putting in 10- to 12-hour days, that — on the urging of a co-worker — he began to take a more serious look at yoga. It was as a way to alleviate stress, reduce tension and relax. It worked, and that’s when he got hooked.
After leaving his job at the Hyatt, he worked briefly for a software firm, but ultimately decided that sitting at a desk eight hours a day was not for him. He knew he would rather be working with people — and what better way than through yoga?
As a certified yoga instructor, Lurey teaches regularly at the San Francisco Bay Club and Yoga Tree, and has a private, “environmentally friendly” studio and garden behind his Lower Pacific Heights residence. He also travels extensively for classes and workshops, most recently to South America and Europe, and teaches special classes throughout the Bay Area.
One such gig is the upcoming “Shabbat Yoga Practice,” scheduled for Saturday, March 17 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. After meeting with Rabbi Eve Ben-Ora, Lurey is enthusiastic about the possibilities.
“She pointed out that ‘shalom’ also means ‘wholeness and completeness,’ which is what yoga means,” he says. In the class, which he assures “will be accessible for all levels of all students,” the rabbi will sing and do blessings for healing.
“We will weave that into the practice,” he said.
This isn’t the first time Lurey has woven elements of Judaism into his yoga practice. Once, at Chanukah, Lurey led a class that spoke of resilience and inner light, themes that come heavily into play in the ancient story of the Maccabees, as well as yoga’s meditative, spiritual path.
“Every one of my classes has a theme based on some yoga principle,” Lurey says. “It may be as simple as paying attention to your breath or paying attention to the fluctuations of your mind.”
Anyone can go the gym for a physical workout, he notes, adding that he believes yoga is a “work-in. People want something beyond just the physical.”
“Shabbat Yoga Practice” with David Lurey and Rabbi Eva Ben-Ora will take place 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 17 at the JCCSF, 3200 California St., S.F. For information on that and other yoga instruction with David Lurey, visit www.findbalance.net.