In 1989, after ten years working as a freelance dancer in different parts of the world, Sue Everett was planning a short stay in Australia, followed by a move to the US. But the course of her life changed during that visit when she discovered Iyengar Yoga.
She says she arrived back in Australia ‘in a pretty bad way. I had a disc herniation that was quite serious which was due in part to contracting Scheuermann’s Disease, or Scheuermann’s Kyphosis in my early teens. This had rendered the T12-L1 vertebrae weak and susceptible to injury. Over the years as a performer I had over-exerted and put the area under too much strain, so it was only a matter of time, apparently, before sustaining an injury. It rendered me not quite completely immobile. I could stand upright and lie down, but I couldn’t bend down. I just took painkillers and kept going.’
First her brother in Sydney, who was a student of Iyengar Yoga, showed her some asanas. ‘Initially I was unconvinced; I could see how passionate he was about it but I didn’t see how it could help me,’ she said. Her next stop was Melbourne, so he encouraged their older sister to take Sue to Rathdowne Yoga Room where she had been attending classes. ‘So my sister took me along to my first class. I had to work therapeutically. It caught my attention, it made a lot of sense.’ The methodical and technical aspects as well as the structure appealed to Sue, with her background in classical dance. ‘I went to class every day, I established a practice almost immediately.’
She had to go slowly in the beginning, and re-learn how to stand and how to sit. ‘And slowly but surely it started to change.’
The experience that had the biggest effect on her was meeting Guruji in 1992.
By that stage Sue was a trainee teacher (Introductory), and living with senior teacher Peter Scott, whom she married the following year. Guruji preferred to stay with his students, rather than in a hotel, when he travelled and in Melbourne that privilege fell on Sue and Peter. During his stay they would practice together each morning at the Rathdowne Yoga Room, before Guruji taught his workshops. ‘He helped me a lot with how to manage my back.’
These days Sue says her back is very different. ‘It is amazing, from not being able to bend back or forward. I didn’t need to have surgery; I think I have avoided many years of medical intervention. It was many years before I could feel comfortable in many poses. In the last six or seven years of practice I have been pain free.’
Perhaps not surprisingly, Sue says what engages her in Iyengar Yoga is that it is profoundly transformative. On every step of her yoga journey she has had to work out how to approach each asana, to manage her back injury, and move beyond it. She brings this deep understanding to her teaching. Sue is now a Senior Intermediate 1 Iyengar Yoga teacher and Teacher Trainer.
In 1996 Sue and Peter moved to Noosa in Queensland and set up a centre there. In 2006 they moved back to Melbourne and set up Yoga Jivana in Northcote. Sue became better known in the Iyengar Yoga community when she agreed to be the administrator of Stephanie Quirk’s therapy series. Until then, Sue said the question she was most asked was about Peter, who as a senior teacher is well known and highly influential throughout the community. She joked about having a T-shirt made, stating ‘Yes, I am Peter Scott’s wife’.
She declined the initial request to join the board of BSKIYAA. ‘I was asked to consider coming onto the board but I said no at first’. Like most, she has a busy life: as a senior teacher and co-director of Yoga Jivana, Sue manages the day to running of the studio, which has nine teachers. She travels to teach yoga and has family responsibilities. But last year she joined the board as a teacher member, and was chair of the teachers’ committee.
When she was asked to step forward into the role of president at the AGM in October last year, she agreed. Sue is deeply appreciative of the work done by so many people to run the Association, and felt if they could find time, so could she. Though, she admits, ‘nothing really prepares you, there is a lot of work’.
Sue brings to the job a clear vision: she wants to build stronger ties with teachers and general members and to put a fresher, more vital twenty first century face on the Association.
