Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers are held to unusually rigorous standards, earning their certification after years of dedicated practice, training, and evaluation by trained, qualified assessors. The Iyengar Yoga Certification Mark is your guarantee of a yoga teacher who is able to meet you right where you are. Certified Iyengar Yoga teachers know how to guide students of all ages and abilities. Deep-seated understanding and experience of the yoga asanas (postures) allow instructors to teach appropriately to the group in front of them, whether they are younger, older, athletic, or have physical limitations.

 

From the beginning, Iyengar Yoga develops strength, stamina, concentration, coordination, flexibility, and more. Using physical alignment as a starting point, Iyengar Yoga encourages the spread of intelligence throughout the body, the growth of self-awareness, and an experience of the asanas as a form of “meditation in action.” Ability to clearly demonstrate the postures. Sharp observation skills. Effective teaching points. These are the marks of a Certified Iyengar Yoga teacher. Classes are sequenced to promote health and skill in the body and stability in the mind. This total approach ensures that students progress from posture to posture, class to class, and year to year. 

 

Students in Iyengar Yoga begin with basic standing poses. In time, forward bends, back bends, twists, inversions, restorative poses and more are taught. As students mature, so does the practice. Teachers may use props such as blankets, blocks, belts, and wall ropes to help students benefit from the poses regardless of their physical condition or level of experience. Mr. Iyengar’s revolutionary use of yoga props is now ubiquitous in yoga of all styles.

 

Yoga is union—the union of mind, body, and spirit. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali lay out an eight-step path towards this spiritual fulfillment. Iyengar Yoga, firmly grounded in ancient tradition, guides modern students along this eight-fold path in a way that’s practical, experiential, and intensely personal. In B.K.S. Iyengar’s unique teachings, the yoga asanas and Pranayama (the control of the breath) create the springboard that allows students to penetrate beyond the outer, physical layers and explore the inner layers of mind, energy, and spirit. The two quests of the physical and the spiritual are not separate but interdependent parts of a total approach to self-mastery and enlightened living.

 

Written by Tori Milner from the "Why Iyengar Yoga" brochure put out by IYNAUS