My name is David Netzorg. I live in Detroit. When I was growing up in Detroit, in the 1950s, yoga was not widely known. But when I was 12 years old, I happened to acquire a yoga book entitled “The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga” written by a yogi from India. It was a very impressive book with many photos. I enjoyed learning some yoga postures and pranayamas from the book.
From 1964 to 1968 I studied physics at Earlham College in Indiana. Knowledge about yoga was still fairly scarce where I was. But I did find two books that were somewhat helpful.
From 1968 to 1972 I was a graduate student and research assistant in the physics department at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania. In 1969 I took the seven-step course in Transcendental Meditation (TM) as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and I started to meditate twice a day. At first I found it a challenge to let go and just allow the meditation to happen, but after a few weeks of twice-daily practice it became easy. In the following months and years I continued to meditate twice a day and I also learned some additional asanas and pranayamas. My experiences in meditation and my life in the world both improved at a speed that amazed me. In 1971 and in 1972 I attended week-long TM retreats taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Being in the presence of Maharishi, hearing what he taught, and doing the increased amounts of meditation, asanas and pranayama, all combined to produce some very satisfying and permanent results, including increased awareness, increased peace of mind, understanding and compassion, more creativity, abundance and coincidences, etc.
In September of 1972 I left Penn State University and enrolled in a seven-month in-residence TM teacher training course taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Spain. The course produced a very satisfying transformative leap forward for me. In the spring of 1973 the teacher training course ended, and I went home to Metro Detroit. I worked as the physics laboratory coordinator at the University of Michigan Dearborn campus and taught TM in some of my free time.
In 1977 I moved to Hawaii. I lived in Hawaii for four very satisfying years. I taught physics at the University of Hawaii community colleges, and I taught TM in some of my free time. Hawaii is a spiritual center, so many noted yogis and other spiritual teachers visited during the time I lived there. I was able to spend a little time with some of them, including K. Pattabhi Jois
(Ashtanga vinyasa yoga), Swami Satchidananda (Integral yoga), Swami
Muktananda (Siddha yoga), and others.
In 1981 I moved to Santa Cruz, California. I lived in the Santa Cruz area for 14 years. For a number of years I worked as a computer programmer for electronics manufacturing corporations in the Santa Cruz area. I also had some gardens and learned to play the guitar. I continued my personal practice of meditation, asanas, pranayama, karma yoga, etc. That helped me to survive the stresses of the very demanding computer work and the corporate lifestyle that I was immersed in during work.
Some time after I arrived in Santa Cruz, I learned that there was a very capable yoga master from India teaching near me. His name was Baba Hari Dass. He taught yoga as a path to inner peace. He was willing to teach anyone who was interested and nonviolent, and he did not charge any fees. During the eleven years from 1984 to 1995 I spent a lot of my free time studying with yoga master Baba Hari Dass, learning more about meditation, pranayama, asanas, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Bhagavad Gita, karma yoga, kirtan, prayer, and so on. In 1993 I also completed a 200 hour in-residence yoga teacher training course at Mount Madonna Center in California, a Yoga Alliance registered yoga school supervised by Baba Hari Dass.
In 1995 I moved back to Metro Detroit. In some of my free time, I taught yoga practices. At first, I taught at a yoga studio. Then I taught on my own for a couple of years: I rented teaching space in various locations. I did my own publicity and finances.
I also joined the Yoga Association of Greater Detroit (YAGD) and I participated. I met many inspiring people in the YAGD. I served as YAGD Treasurer for a year.
In 1998, the YMCA in Farmington Hills, Michigan invited me to teach there. I taught asanas, pranayama and meditation at the Farmington Hills YMCA for eight years, from 1998 to 2006. Now the year is 2023. I re-joined the YAGD recently. I enjoy the monthly meetings, the book club, the web site and the Facebook page. These days, I do most of my yoga teaching via my yoga websites and portions of my YouTube channel.