Iyengar Yoga | |
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![]() Utthita Trikonasana, with a Yoga brick to assist correct alignment | |
Founder | B. K. S. Iyengar |
Established | 1970s |
Derivative forms | Anusara Yoga, Forrest Yoga |
Practice emphases | |
Attention to detail and precise focus on body alignment often with the use of props | |
Related schools | |
Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga |
Iyengar Yoga, named after and developed by B. K. S. Iyengar, and described in his bestselling [1] 1966 book Light on Yoga , is a form of yoga as exercise that has an emphasis on detail, precision and alignment in the performance of yoga postures (asanas).
The style often makes use of props, such as belts, blocks, and blankets, as aids in performing the asanas. The props enable beginning students, the elderly, or those with physical limitations to perform the asanas correctly, minimising the risk of injury or strain.
B. K. S. Iyengar learnt yoga from Tirumalai Krishnamacharya at the Mysore Palace, as did Pattabhi Jois; Iyengar Yoga and Jois's Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga are thus branches of the same yoga lineage, sharing many of the same asanas. [2] Iyengar began teaching yoga as exercise gradually, starting with individual pupils such as the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, whom he met in 1952; Menuhin's fame helped to propel Iyengar Yoga as a brand in the Western world. [3]
A landmark was the publication of Iyengar's bestselling [1] book Light on Yoga in 1966, describing over 200 asanas in "unprecedented" [4] detail. [5] The yoga scholar Andrea Jain called the book "arguably the most significant event in the process of elaborating the [Iyengar Yoga] brand". Jain and others have noted that the book's biomedical claims, such as of toning up various organs of the body, were attractive to its audience but were stated directly without any supporting evidence. [6] [7] Authorities such as the yoga scholar Elliott Goldberg have described it as the bible of modern yoga; [8] [9] the book has sold over three million copies, and has been translated into at least 23 languages. [1] [10]
Iyengar Yoga became an institution with the 1975 founding of the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, named in memory of his wife. [3] A further major step was the founding of the first of many institutes abroad, the Iyengar Yoga Institute (IYI) in Maida Vale, London, in 1983. [3] The old IYI building was replaced in 1994, and the new one was officially opened by Iyengar in person in 1997. Iyengar Yoga had however been taught in London before that, in evening classes run by the Inner London Education Authority starting in 1968. From the start, Iyengar personally assessed the quality of the teaching every year. [11]
The first Iyengar Yoga Institute in America was founded in San Francisco in 1976 by Mary Dunn, Judith Lasater, and others; Iyengar visited the area that year. [12] Further Iyengar Yoga Institutes have been opened in 1984 in Los Angeles, [13] and in 1987 in New York. [14] [15] National Iyengar Yoga Associations have been created in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and New Zealand. [16]
Iyengar Yoga is a form of yoga as exercise with a focus on the structural alignment of the physical body through the practice of asanas. [17] It differs from other styles of yoga in three ways: precision, sequence and use of props. [17]
According to the Iyengar Yoga Institute, unlike more experiential approaches where students are encouraged to independently "find their way" to the asanas by imitating the teacher, an Iyengar Yoga class is precise, with misalignments and errors actively explained and corrected. [18] It states that the style "emphasises precision and alignment", [18] and prioritises correct movement over quantity, i.e. moving a small amount in the right direction is preferred to moving more but in other directions. Postures are held for a relatively long period of time compared to other schools of yoga; this allows the muscles to relax and lengthen, and encourages awareness in the pose. Props including belts, blocks and blankets are freely used to assist students in correct working in the asanas. [18] [2]
The New Yorker writes that Iyengar Yoga is characterized by great attention to detail and precise focus on body alignment. Iyengar pioneered the use of "props" such as cushions, benches, blocks, straps and sand bags, which function as aids allowing beginners to experience asanas more easily and fully than might otherwise be possible without several years of practice. Props also allow elderly, injured, tired or ill students to experience the benefits of a wider variety of asanas via fully "supported" methods requiring less muscular effort. [8]
Yoga Journal notes that in contrast to other styles, beginners in Iyengar Yoga are introduced early on to standing poses (such as Trikonasana and Virabhadrasana), [19] executed with careful attention to detail. For example, in Trikonasana, the feet are often jumped apart to a wide stance, the forward foot is turned out, and the centre of the forward heel is exactly aligned with the centre of the arch of the other foot. [20]
The New York Times writes that Iyengar Yoga is distinctive in its diversity of sequencing and choice of asanas. This, suggests Carrie Owerko, an Iyengar Yoga teacher, helps reduce injury. Owerko states that the style emphasises the inversion poses, headstand (Sirsasana) and shoulderstand (Sarvangasana), more than other styles, "insist[ing] on a yoga blanket to prevent overstretching of the neck area". [14] In Owerko's words, "Iyengar yoga is very cautious and mindful." [14]
Dunn stated that "People have incorrectly pigeonholed Iyengar Yoga into 'alignment, technique, props' rather than 'learning, experiencing, integrating'—which I think are the real words". [21]
Iyengar teachers have traditionally completed at least two years of yoga teacher training for the introductory certificate. They may complete subsequent intermediate levels and senior levels of certification, potentially entailing a decade or more of training. The system is being replaced from 2019, with a requirement for at least six years of practice before assessment. [22]
Practitioners in the West can attend the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Institute (RIMYI) in Pune, Maharashtra, India once they have practised yoga for eight years. [23] A "Protocol" governs attendance at the Pune institute. [24]
In 2019, the Iyengar National Association of the United States decertified one of its most senior teachers, Manouso Manos, for repeated sexual assaults, and updated its ethics standards based on the Yamas and Niyamas in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as a result. [25] [26] [27] [28]
Iyengar Yoga (like Iyengar's Light on Yoga [29] ) has the following invocation to Patanjali: [30]
Sanskrit | IAST | Translation [30] |
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योगेन चित्तस्य पदेन वाचां। मलं शरीरस्य च वैद्यकेन॥ योऽपाकरोत्तं प्रवरं मुनीनां। पतञ्जलिं प्राञ्जलिरानतोऽस्मि॥ | yogena cittasya padena vācāṁ malaṁ śarīrasya ca vaidyakena yo'pākarottaṁ pravaraṁ munīnāṁ patañjaliṁ prāñjalirānato'smi | Let us bow before the noblest of sages Patanjali, who gave yoga for serenity and sanctity of mind, grammar for clarity and purity of speech, and medicine for perfection of health. |
The yoga scholar Suzanne Newcombe notes that despite the references to Patanjali, Iyengar did not ask students to adopt any set of beliefs. She describes Iyengar as trying to "teach an embodied experience of concentration and unity of body, breath, mind and soul", focussing on "asana while teaching a method accessing all the different aspects of yoga within this single limb." [31]
Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar was an Indian teacher of yoga and author. He is the founder of the style of yoga as exercise, known as "Iyengar Yoga", and was considered one of the foremost yoga gurus in the world. He was the author of many books on yoga practice and philosophy including Light on Yoga, Light on Pranayama, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Light on Life. Iyengar was one of the earliest students of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is often referred to as "the father of modern yoga". He has been credited with popularizing yoga, first in India and then around the world.
An āsana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose, and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define "asana" as "[a position that] is steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English.
Downward Dog Pose or Downward-facing Dog Pose, also called Adho Mukha Svanasana, is an inversion asana, often practised as part of a flowing sequence of poses, especially Surya Namaskar, the Salute to the Sun. The asana is commonly used in modern yoga as exercise. The asana does not have formally named variations, but several playful variants are used to assist beginning practitioners to become comfortable in the pose.
Yoga as therapy is the use of yoga as exercise, consisting mainly of postures called asanas, as a gentle form of exercise and relaxation applied specifically with the intention of improving health. This form of yoga is widely practised in classes, and may involve meditation, imagery, breath work (pranayama) and calming music as well as postural yoga.
Bhujangasana or Cobra Pose is a reclining back-bending asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise. It is commonly performed in a cycle of asanas in Surya Namaskar, Salute to the Sun, as an alternative to Urdhva Mukha Svanasana, Upward Dog Pose. The Yin Yoga form is Sphinx Pose.
Sarvangasana, Shoulder stand, or more fully Salamba Sarvangasana, is an inverted asana in modern yoga as exercise; similar poses were used in medieval hatha yoga as a mudra.
Trikonasana or Utthita Trikonasana, [Extended] Triangle Pose is a standing asana in modern yoga as exercise. Variations include Baddha Trikonasana and Parivrtta Trikonasana.
Bakasana, and the similar Kakasana are balancing asanas in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise. In all variations, these are arm balancing poses in which hands are planted on the floor, shins rest upon upper arms, and feet lift up. The poses are often confused, but traditionally Kakasana has arms bent, Bakasana has the arms straight.
Garbha Pindasana, Embryo in Womb Pose, sometimes shortened to Garbhasana, is a seated balancing asana in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise.
Ardha Chandrasana or Half Moon Pose is a standing asana in modern yoga as exercise.
Light on Yoga: Yoga Dipika is a 1966 book on the Iyengar Yoga style of modern yoga as exercise by B. K. S. Iyengar, first published in English. It describes more than 200 yoga postures or asanas, and is illustrated with some 600 monochrome photographs of Iyengar demonstrating these.
Yoga as exercise is a physical activity consisting mainly of postures, often connected by flowing sequences, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and frequently ending with relaxation lying down or meditation. Yoga in this form has become familiar across the world, especially in the US and Europe. It is derived from medieval Haṭha yoga, which made use of similar postures, but it is generally simply called "yoga". Academics have given yoga as exercise a variety of names, including modern postural yoga and transnational anglophone yoga.
Mark Singleton is a scholar and practitioner of yoga. He studied yoga intensively in India, and became a qualified yoga teacher, until returning to England to study divinity and research the origins of modern postural yoga. His doctoral dissertation, which argued that posture-based forms of yoga represent a radical break from haṭha yoga tradition, with different goals, and an unprecedented emphasis on āsanas, was later published in book form as the widely-read Yoga Body.
Yoga the Iyengar Way is a 1990 guide to Iyengar Yoga, a style of modern yoga as exercise, by the yoga teachers Silva Mehta and her children Mira Mehta and Shyam Mehta. They were among the first teachers to be trained by B. K. S. Iyengar outside India.
The standing asanas are the yoga poses or asanas with one or both feet on the ground, and the body more or less upright. They are among the most distinctive features of modern yoga as exercise. Until the 20th century there were very few of these, the best example being Vrikshasana, Tree Pose. From the time of Krishnamacharya in Mysore, many standing poses have been created. Two major sources of these asanas have been identified: the exercise sequence Surya Namaskar ; and the gymnastics widely practised in India at the time, based on the prevailing physical culture.
The history of yoga in the United States begins in the 19th century, with the philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's poem "Brahma" states the Hindu philosophy behind yoga. More widespread interest in yoga can be dated to the Hindu leader Vivekananda's visit from India in 1893; he presented yoga as a spiritual path without postures (asanas), very different from modern yoga as exercise. Two other early figures, however, the women's rights advocate Ida C. Craddock and the businessman and occultist Pierre Bernard, created their own interpretations of yoga, based on tantra and oriented to physical pleasure.
A yoga brick or yoga block is a smooth block of wood or of firm but comfortable material, such as hard foam rubber or cork, used as a prop in yoga as exercise.
Yoga in Britain is the practice of yoga, including modern yoga as exercise, in Britain. Yoga, consisting mainly of postures (asanas), arrived in Britain early in the 20th century, though the first classes that contained asanas were described as exercise systems for women rather than yoga. Classes called yoga, again mainly for women, began in the 1960s. Yoga grew further with the help of television programmes and the arrival of major brands including Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.
Postural yoga began in India as a variant of traditional yoga, which was a mainly meditational practice; it has spread across the world and returned to the Indian subcontinent in different forms. The ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali mention yoga postures, asanas, only briefly, as meditation seats. Medieval Haṭha yoga made use of a small number of asanas alongside other techniques such as pranayama, shatkarmas, and mudras, but it was despised and almost extinct by the start of the 20th century. At that time, the revival of postural yoga was at first driven by Indian nationalism. Advocates such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda made yoga acceptable in the 1920s, treating it as a medical subject. From the 1930s, the "father of modern yoga" Krishnamacharya developed a vigorous postural yoga, influenced by gymnastics, with transitions (vinyasas) that allowed one pose to flow into the next.
Props used in yoga include chairs, blocks, belts, mats, blankets, bolsters, and straps. They are used in postural yoga to assist with correct alignment in an asana, for ease in mindful yoga practice, to enable poses to be held for longer periods in Yin Yoga, where support may allow muscles to relax, and to enable people with movement restricted for any reason, such as stiffness, injury, or arthritis, to continue with their practice.
The book became a global bestseller, with more than 3 million copies sold, and has been translated into 17 languages.