Note: To become certified as an Iyengar Yoga teacher you must pass a test, often referred to as an ‘assessment’. This assessment is rigorous and takes years of working with a mentor to prepare. I went up for Intro 1 & 2 assessment, for the first time, in 2017. I passed 3 of the 4…
At the intensive in India, this past December, Prashant Iyengar many times said that he wants us to become our own teacher. That we need to stop relying so heavily on our teachers to tell us what to do in our practice. Which doesn’t mean we don’t need a teacher. You need a teacher so…
Do you think it’s important to have a yoga teacher? I do. This past weekend I traveled up to the Ann Arbor School of Yoga to attend the weekend intensive with my teacher, Laurie Blakeney. (In the photo below, that’s me standing on Laurie’s shoulders!) I have been attending these weekend intensives regularly for years….
I sat down with my mentoree Dawn (pictured here) to discuss her experience with Iyengar Yoga and talk about a new class she is offering this fall. Aaron Fleming: Hi Dawn, tell us a little about yourself. Dawn Baurichter: In addition to yoga I enjoy being outside, traveling to national parks and walking the trails….
I attend class with my teacher, Laurie Blakeney, three or four times a year, usually during her weekend intensives up in Ann Arbor. In between her intensives I try to take class with other senior certified Iyengar Yoga teachers. There’s no certified Iyengar Yoga teachers senior to me in Cincinnati so I must travel to…
Misconceptions about yoga abound. But I am here to tell you that it is not what you think it is. Yoga is not what you think it is. And Iyengar Yoga is not what you think it is. If you have never taken a yoga class I bet you already have an idea of what…
Can you grow a relationship with yoga? Many people don’t think of yoga as something you can actually learn. That is probably because a lot of what we see in advertising makes us think that yoga is an exercise for people who are already flexible and some how intuitively already know what they are doing….
In the previous post, we touched on Why we use props in yoga. The props are essential for helping us approach the poses with safety. But we also use the props to help facilitate a more profound effect through the awareness of the breath. When we are doing active poses, and not holding still very…
B.K.S. Iyengar invented ways to use props to support the body in yoga poses. He saw that many people had difficultly achieving the poses and therefore could not reap the benefits of a practice. His props help when there is a limitation like stiffness or injury. At first, Iyengar used found objects as props, such…
At the national Iyengar Yoga convention in Dallas this past April the teacher, Abhitjata Iyengar, the grand daughter of B.K.S. Iyengar, differentiated between beginners and practitioners. She instructed the beginners to concentrate on gross actions. The practitioners were asked to work more subtly. I wondered, who were the beginners? And who the practitioners? The criteria…
