B.K.S. Iyengar did much to popularise Yoga in the west. A student of Krishnamacharya, his brother-in-law, he came to the west in the 1950s and did much to popularise yoga as exercise. He was a great friend of the celebrated violinist Yehudi Menuhin and taught Vanda Scaravelli, among others. Her book, “Awakening the Spine” is a truly beautiful book. My long time teacher, Ilonka Miklosi, has studied with Iyengar, and my newer teacher, Carol Murphy, studied and taught Iyengar style yoga for a number of years before discovering the magic of Asthanga Yoga. I studied Iyengar yoga with Ilonka Miklosi, and apart from some mechanical shortcomings adapting the style to western bodies, shaped by the chairs that we sit on, it provides an excellent foundation in form and allignment. Criticised in more recent times because of the rigidity of the postures (Bernie Clarke in “Your Spine, Your Yoga” suggests that the rigidity comes from the military schooling of the Raj period in India and the necessity to build an Indian identity to match their Imperial overlords in the first half of the twentieth century), there is nonetheless a purity of form and line in Iyengar Yoga and a good Iyengar trained teacher is heir to a proud lineage. It is a style particularly suited to beginners, provided they have the discipline.
05
Oct
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