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Iyengar Yoga and Transformation

Writer's picture: ClaireClaire

Two hours before it was scheduled to take place, I fortuitously came across an Instagram post advertising a webinar featuring research conducted by Matylda Ciołkosz, a scholar whose work I’m familiar with. The presentation’s title “The Teacher Disappears: Cases of disaffiliation on the margin of the Iyengar Yoga community,” grabbed my attention. As a long-time Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher (CIYT) who left the system for 3.5 years and returned, I harbor ongoing concerns about what I perceive as systemic dysfunction and pedagogical shortcomings in the method.


Matylda opened her talk with a brief discussion of post-lineage yoga (PLY), a concept developed by contemporary yoga scholar Theo Wildcroft, that examines how yoga teachings are disseminated and regulated within lineage-based communities. According to Wildcroft, many yoga teachers and practitioners start their yoga journey following a particular lineage, such as Iyengar Yoga, and don’t question its authority. At some point, though, they may seek to expand their understanding through alternate channels. This may prompt them to separate from the lineage or, in some cases, they may be asked to leave. This process of incorporating new learning from other systems into one’s teaching or practice is discouraged within the Iyengar system, as certified teachers must agree not to “mix methods” and teach only what they have been taught by more senior Iyengar teachers. Such a limitation can provoke many emotions among practitioners and teachers, including the fear of being ostracized.

 

This type of fear-mongering, along with a tendency to lead practitioners to believe that they will injure themselves if they practice “incorrectly,” was among the reasons respondents in Ciołkosz’s study cited for leaving the Iyengar system. They also named feeling patronized by instructors and hierarchical structures, the requirement to adhere to therapeutic protocols unsupported by empirical data, a perceived mismatch between Iyengar teaching methods and the needs of potential student groups, dogmatism, and practical concerns around time and money as additional factors that led to their decision to separate from the system. Most interesting to me, however, they also reported that the “methodical and precise” nature of Iyengar Yoga that drew them to the system initially, and which they credit with helping them build a solid foundation for their practice, eventually became a constraining factor as they developed “new-found feelings of autonomy.” Moving beyond the confines of a lineage-based system seems, then, to represent a transformative process, one that Ciołkosz described as “a logical consequence of beginning the practice in the first place.”

 

To me, this is a manifestation of BKS Iyengar’s well-known statement "Yoga does not just change the way we see things; it transforms the person who sees." It’s also consistent with adult constructive-developmental theory, developed by psychologist Robert Keegan, that postulates that adults make meaning in stages, beginning with a rules-based instrumental period and moving into a transformative phase where we become able to navigate uncertainty and adept at self-reflection. Although the Iyengar system claims to promote this transformative process, in practice its norms and expectations often hinder the development of self-agency, ultimately resulting (based on personal observation and other sources, such as Matylda’s study) in practitioners opting to leave the system.

 

BKS Iyengar hinted at this trajectory himself, often stating that, after his death, Iyengar Yoga would cease to exist because the ways people engage with yoga would continue to evolve. He also frequently stated that it’s important for novices to learn from a teacher(s), but eventually we must become our own teacher. Both statements suggest a transcendence more in line with the path of spiritual liberation outlined in the Yoga Sūtra (the philosophical text which the Iyengar system follows) rather than adherence to institutional rules and regulations.

 

Many studies, including my own doctoral research, indicate that adults seek out yoga instruction, often in response to a disorientating dilemma[1],  to pursue some type of physical, psychological, and/or spiritual transformation. The desired transformation is often articulated in material terms: relief from back pain, greater flexibility, less depression and anxiety, a more benevolent outlook. However, the Yoga Sūtra explains spiritual transformation differently. In a nutshell, its message is one of renunciation. Specific yoga practices are recommended to attenuate our response to obstacles and to detach altogether from the cognitive process. In my experience, many contemporary practitioners resist this interpretation of the Sūtra and instead prefer to imagine the end-result of yoga as something more tangible and personalized. That debate is a topic for another essay. I mention it here to make the connection between the full-scale renunciation outlined in the Sūtra and the process of moving past lineage-based yoga discussed above. While still clearly rooted in prakrti (the material world), the latter seems to me to be an appropriate and inevitable outcome of a discipline that is meant to transform.  


[1] According to adult education theorist Jack Mezirow, transformative learning occurs when adults, often prompted by a “disorienting dilemma,” critically reflect on internalized norms and behaviors and consequently refine and/or adapt how the perceive existing meaning structures.

 



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rosierichardsonyoga
Jan 18

Wonderful post. Looking forward to the follow up on “the debate”!

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