What is Iyengar Yoga?
Iyengar Yoga is based on the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar (1918-2014), one of modern yoga’s most revered teachers and practitioners. He helped bring yoga to the west with his pioneering teaching in the 60s and 70s and with his book Light On Yoga, which has served as a “bible of yoga” for generations of yoga students and teachers.
Iyengar yoga emphasizes precise alignment of all parts of the body within each yoga pose. B.K.S. Iyengar taught that alignment awakened the intelligence of the body, deeply engaged the mind, and helped students penetrate and harmonize the physical, mental, and spiritual “layers” of the self. He also greatly extended and refined the use of yoga props and was a pioneer and master of using yoga therapeutically.
Iyengar yoga is grounded in the ancient Indian art of yoga. Iyengar Yoga teaches not only yoga poses (asana) and breathing techniques (pranayama), but all eight “limbs” of classical yoga, which range from ethical practices to meditative absorption.
Iyengar Yoga teachers are held to an unusually rigorous standard. Certification as an Iyengar Yoga Teacher requires years of training and evaluation. We are trained to teach proper alignment of the body, to use props to modify the poses and teach specific actions, and to incorporate all the limbs of yoga into our teaching to help students penetrate and harmonize all the layers of the self.
“I never stop learning, never stop thinking of the practice of yoga. I don’t think of my body when I am practicing. I only think if I can expand myself to each and every corner of my body. I ask myself, do I exist there or not? I observe myself during my practice. I see where there is dormancy in my body and where there is fullness. I ask myself, why is there fullness or dormancy in that particular area? I question every second and see that the mind is spread evenly everywhere. For, when the mind is spread evenly through my body without any deviation or refraction, then the mind dissolves. It is like a silence in the ocean. I am completely silent in the ocean of my body. Only the Self exists. And that is what yoga teaches. We can learn objective knowledge through books or from contact with society. But subjective knowledge can only be learned through contact with one’s Self.”
