Echo Times

Issue date: 12/9/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: Marco Berger Yoga instructor Alice Rocky demonstrates an exercise to a group of students during one of her classes. She has taught at COM for more than 30 years.

Alice Rocky: it's a name with rock star quality, and Rocky is a star with many in the College of Marin yoga community. Now in her 70s, Rocky has taught Iyengar Yoga for three decades at the College of Marin, earning the respect and dedication of students young and old. Proof of her popularity can be found in her 8:00 a.m. classes on Monday and Wednesdays, where a diverse group of students sleepily gather their props, staking out a space with their sticky mats and one by one, carpeting the floor with bodies of different ages and needs. The scenario repeats an hour-and-a-half later for her 9:40 a.m. class, and then again at 5:30 p.m. Altogether, she has 60 students enrolled in each of her classes, including those who are enrolled through Open College.

As of next semester, however, the Open College policy is slated to change, preventing people from taking a class like Rocky's more than four times. The move will affect many of the older students who take courses at COM to work on keeping their minds and bodies sharp and healthy, and it has many of them upset.

A statement provided by Vice President of Student Learning, Nick Chang, said the Open College policy was created in 2006 to allow students who had "exceeded their allowable number of repeats… to re-enroll in [a] course." However, after reviewing Title 5, which governs repeat enrollment limitations, "it became apparent that [Open College] is a non-compliant program that was designed to get around the regulatory requirements," according to the statement.

Students will still be able to take the course four times, but after that they will have to look for alternative settings to practice yoga. One of these will be a non-credit community education yoga class that will not be taught by Rocky, something that has many students worried.

But what makes Alice Rocky, with her petite yet firm stature, so loved? In class, she is demanding, knows what she wants from her students, and lets it be known. She is a working combination of drill sergeant and wise guru. She has a tough exterior, yet a gentle softness, which students who get to know her relate to. In any one of her classes, it is not unusual to hear her really encouraging a student to find their optimum stretch point, sternly point out how another is not following her directions or come around to adjust a foot, an arm or a shoulder. Yet moments later, to end the class, she'll have everyone lying quietly for a few moments in Savasana, "Corpse Pose," while she reads a passage from Judith Lasater's book "A Year of Living Your Yoga." One gets the sense that she is sending her students off to face the day and the stresses of life with some tools.

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