Iyengar Yoga

Iyengar Yoga is excellent for people of all ages and all abilities. 

Your teacher will answer any questions you may have about equipment and clothing required for the class. In general, teachers can provide a minimum amount of equipment for a new student.

Loose-fitting clothing is enough and you should be prepared to practise in bare feet.

You should tell the teacher if you have medical conditions, such as post-operative conditions, hypertension, heart problems, high or low blood pressure, back, neck or knee problems, menstrual disorders etc. You should not eat for at least two hours before an Iyengar Yoga class or four hours in the case of a heavy meal.

Iyengar Yoga is for anyone irrespective of age, gender, health, religion and circumstances in life. Iyengar Yoga is not competitive. You will not be judged against other people. A distinctive feature of Iyengar Yoga is the use of equipment, called props, to enable a student to develop strength, flexibility and control in a posture in order to achieve their full potential. In this way a student works to his or her maximum ability within a general mixed class. The teacher is trained to select the correct prop and to supervise the individual student.

The teaching of yoga postures in an Iyengar Yoga class is essentially similar wherever you go; each teacher will teach the postures which he/she has selected for the class for a specific reason, but the manner of teaching postures is the same worldwide. This means a student can go to any teacher and fit in to the class immediately.

In general the class will start with a few moments of quiet to prepare for the yoga. This is followed by some preliminary movements to mobilize, open and activate the body and quieten the brain to encourage a focused, concentrated state of mind. Standing postures are then often practiced, in which one learns the fundamentals of how to adjust and align the body correctly. This has to be learned before more advanced postures can be successfully mastered. Standing poses therefore form the foundation of even the most advanced postures.

Some basic pranayamas may be introduced during the relaxation/recuperative period at the end of each asana class. 

The high standard of training of teachers ensures a good record of safety for the students. Students will often say they walk away from an Iyengar Yoga class feeling straighter and full of energy despite of having worked quite hard.

The trademark of Iyengar yoga is the intense focus on the subtleties of each posture. B.K.S. Iyengar taught his classes from his home in Pune, India and has become one of the most influential yoga gurus of our time. In a typical Iyengar class, poses are held much longer than in other schools of yoga, in an effort to pay closer attention to the precise musculoskeletal alignment within each asana. Another trademark of Iyengar yoga is the use of props, such as blocks, belts, bolsters, chairs and blankets, which are used to accommodate injuries, tightness or structural imbalances, as well as teach the student how to move into a posture properly.