Krishnamacharya's Legacy

You may never have heard of him, but Tirumalai Krishnamacharya influenced or perhaps even invented your yoga.

By Fernando Pagés Ruiz

on his star pupil to perform asanas. Faced with this crisis, Krishnamacharya quickly began teaching Iyengar a series of difficult postures.

Iyengar practiced diligently and, on the day of the demonstration, surprised Krishnamacharya by performing exceptionally. After this, Krishnamacharya began instructing his determined pupil in earnest. Iyengar progressed rapidly, beginning to assist classes at the yogashala and accompanying Krishnamacharya on yoga demonstration tours. But Krishnamacharya continued his authoritarian style of instruction. Once, when Krishnamacharya asked him to demonstrate Hanumanasana (a full split), Iyengar complained that he had never learned the pose. "Do it!" Krishnamacharya commanded. Iyengar complied, tearing his hamstrings.

Iyengar's brief apprenticeship ended abruptly. After a yoga demonstration in northern Karnataka Province, a group of women asked Krishnamacharya for instruction. Krishnamacharya chose Iyengar, the youngest student with him, to lead the women in a segregated class, since men and women didn't study together in those days. Iyengar's teaching impressed them. At their request, Krishnamacharya assigned Iyengar to remain as their instructor.

Teaching represented a promotion for Iyengar, but it did little to improve his situation. Yoga teaching was still a marginal profession. At times, recalls Iyengar, he ate only one plate of rice in three days, sustaining himself mostly on tap water. But he single-mindedly devoted himself to yoga. In fact, Iyengar says, he was so obsessed that some neighbors and family considered him mad. He would practice for hours, using heavy cobblestones to force his legs into Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) and bending backward over a steam roller parked in the street to improve his Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward-Facing Bow Pose). Out of concern for his well-being, Iyengar's brother arranged his marriage to a 16-year-old named Ramamani. Fortunately for Iyengar, Ramamani respected his work and became an important partner in his investigation of the asanas.

Several hundred miles away from his guru, Iyengar's only way to learn more about asanas was to explore poses with his own body and analyze their effects. With Ramamani's help, Iyengar refined and advanced the asanas he learned from Krishnamacharya.

Like Krishnamacharya, as Iyengar slowly gained pupils he modified and adapted postures to meet his students' needs. And, like Krishnamacharya, Iyengar never hesitated to innovate. He largely abandoned his mentor's vinyasa style

of practice. Instead, he constantly researched the nature of internal alignment, considering the effect of every body part, even the skin, in developing each pose. Since many people less fit than Krishnamacharya's young students came to Iyengar for instruction, he learned to use props to help them. And since some of his students were sick, Iyengar began to develop asana as a healing practice, creating specific therapeutic programs. In addition, Iyengar came to see the body as a temple and asana as prayer. Iyengar's emphasis on asana didn't always please his former teacher. Although Krishnamacharya praised Iyengar's skill at asana practice at Iyengar's 60th birthday celebration, he also suggested that it was time for Iyengar to relinquish asana and focus on meditation.

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