Iyengar yoga is the type of Hatha yoga named after its founder B. K. S. Iyengar. It is also the combination of the three parts of yoga, Postures, breathing exercise and meditation as most of the Hatha yoga systems in the world and its popular part is perfection in postures.
Its beauty can be seen in the complete way of doing postures. It focuses on going postures from simple to complex. Iyengar yoga’s main features are flexibility, stability, and awareness. This yoga seeks perfection in the postures and the perfect result from doing yoga. Perfect postures can fulfill our passion for yoga in our life and give us the complete satisfaction and benefits. Iyengar said that postures are an essential part of yoga journey in our life but they are not the end aim of yoga.
Iyengar Yoga is helpful to all types of people. It doesn’t discriminate anyone but it wants to collect everyone in its boundary. Iyengar yoga is for everyone and it wants to keep in its surrounding to every person of the world. Either someone is strong or weak; there is the place for all of them in this yoga. Iyengar yoga is the set of yoga which can be practiced by the different category of the people.
B. K. S. Iyengar managed more than 200 types of classical yoga poses in his own modality. He further re-categorized different breathing exercises in his own system. Iyengar yoga is a development of the practice of body, mind, and spirit to be liberated in life as the main purpose of the most of the yoga types of the earth. This yoga first focuses on the postures because postures are the beginning part of yoga. If we can’t do postures perfectly, we can’t go ahead perfectly. After getting perfection in our postures, we can go ahead in the field of spirituality more confidentially.
The base of Iyengar yoga is the eight limbs of Patanjali’s ‘Yoga Sutra’, the first scientific book about yoga and one of the most famous scriptures of Hindu philosophy. Eight limbs of Patanjali are the main foundation of yoga in modern times. This formula has the scientific ways to apply yoga in our daily life. This scripture describes the different levels of the spiritual path and gives the guidance to those who really want to walk in the path of yoga.
In Iyengar yoga, the structure in poses is very important. This yoga is also good for the physical and mental well-being. It can help to heal most of the mental and physical diseases and prevent us from many illnesses in our life.
How this yoga is different than other yoga types may be the main concern of the people who are searching the best yoga type to start in their life. Why do we have to choose this special Iyengar yoga in our life among many types?
Iyengar yoga is designed by considering the small and small factors of our body. It focuses on the arrangement of our body when we perform yoga. It uses the different types of props in the practice of yoga. Using props is especially for the people who can’t perform yoga due to their weakness. Those props help us to maintain the balance of our body.
Iyengar yoga for the sick and weak people uses supports to make comfortable. For the support, we can use sandbags, benches, blocks, straps etc. Those kinds of props can be very comfortable for our muscles. They are the real ways of making the less muscular effort while doing yoga.
In doing postures of Iyengar yoga, students should be alert being calm in the parts of the body where they are feeling the sensation. They have to bring their awareness to each breathing and body parts where there is the pressure. When we do yoga, our attention should be only on doing asanas because awareness is the most important factor in yoga. Slowly we become habitual in doing asanas. We don’t have to sleep but we have to be silent, peaceful, and emptiness. We should be fully conscious.
Iyengar yoga is different than other types of yoga because the teachers of this yoga are highly experienced and they know how to teach yoga to different personalities. Teachers teach Iyengar yoga in their direct observation for every student of yoga. In the class of Iyengar yoga, we can find the more supervision from the side of the teacher.
Teachers focus our every part of doing yoga and if we do some mistakes, they correct us immediately. The power of observation of the teacher is very appreciable because they are trained by such deep level to fit them to teach at a micro level.
The beginning part of the Iyengar yoga is the standing poses and simple postures. Slowly, there will be forward bending and back bending. After that, twists, inversion, and restorative poses are practiced. At the last part of the yoga session, there will be a deep relaxation.
For the deep relaxation, there usually can be done Savasana (Corpse Pose). When we do Savasana at the last part of the session, all the discomforts will disappear, satisfaction and peace of mind can be found. We can be in the state of bliss if we practice Iyengar yoga regularly for a long period of time.
Especially, we do Iyengar yoga for the flexibility of our body and to stretch our muscles. If we hold the postures for some minutes, our muscles start to be relaxed and toned. To keep our mind calm, we should do Iyengar yoga. Iyengar yoga helps us to be free from the pain of our body.
This yoga improves our postures of the body’s parts such as the neck, back, and legs. Postures can help us to increase our self-esteem and self-respect. Yoga helps to strengthen our immunity power which prevents us from the diseases. Yoga frees us from the blockages of our body which is the best way to be protected from the diseases.
Iyengar yoga helps us to make our lifestyle better. Our lifestyle becomes simple when we start Iyengar yoga. In Iyengar yoga, we learn how to make better our eating habit which is the healthy eating habit. This yoga can also upgrade our breathing and respiratory system. It helps to make our mind alert and body fit.
Iyengar yoga helps us to increase our stamina and concentration power which is very useful to boost our memory power. This yoga can be the turning point to those who want another way of living in the world. Meditation can heal the stress of our mind that we gain the strength for our day to day busy life.
Iyengar yoga is based on the gradual development of the difficult Asanas which help us to go in the deeper level in meditation. Meditation is the main dose of our spirit. If we can go into the deeper level, we can experience the higher state of happiness.
Iyengar yoga helps us to bring back the energy and the happiness in our life. It opens the most beautiful part of our life, positivity. It adjusts all the misbalances of our life and gives us the natural solutions for every problem which are connected with our life. For this very reason, Iyengar yoga can be the best yoga if you are searching one of the yoga types in your life.