I had been working as a conference interpreter for three years, and in High School had done a lot of swimming training. I jumped or was perhaps thrown in at the deep end! My first yoga experience was a two-week summer intensive yoga retreat with people who were much more experienced and teaching. I ran into yoga, almost accidentally, through a friend living in Florence, Italy who offered the chance to study with Dona Holleman, one of the earliest western teachers of Iyengar yoga. When I first started Iyengar yoga in 1976, these questions were not in mind. Iyengar would be able to offer the definitive response. Some of my thoughts may well be shared by them, but only Mr. But perceptions have changed and Iyengar Yoga is now just as likely to be referred to as ‘furniture yoga’, precise in alignment and good for beginners the implications being that the real yoga challenges may lie elsewhere and that Iyengar yoga is not physical enough, not sufficiently tough anymore.Ĭhanging perceptions to one side, what is the essence of Iyengar yoga and why are people practise drawn to it? Is it Hatha Yoga or something else? Is it one thing in Australia, something else in the United States? In reflecting on my own yoga journey, I don’t pretend to speak for other Iyengar teachers and practitioners. At that time, Iyengar yoga had the undeserved reputation of being fierce, perhaps even aggressive, certainly more physical than spiritual, and not for the faint-hearted. Iyengar did not coin, or use, use the term ‘Iyengar yoga’.Īs yoga became increasingly popular in western countries, it was his pupils who felt the need to differentiate what they were learning and practising from other forms of yoga. BKS Iyengar had only just opened his new yoga institute in the India city of Pune, and it was difficult to find a bookshop which carried his ‘ Light on Yoga‘, now recognized as the standard reference for yoga asana practitioners. Hatha Yoga Pradipika Chapter I, verses 64-66 BKS Iyengar never called it ‘Iyengar yoga’ģ5 years ago the term ‘Iyengar yoga’ was barely used. Constant pracatice alone is the secret of success. Success in yoga is not obtained by wearing the dress of the yogi or sanyasi, nor by talking about it.
“Success will follow him who practises, not him who who practises not.
0 kommentar(er)
