Iyengar Yoga a practise for everyone!
I enjoy practicing and teaching Iyengar Yoga. I love the methodology of yoga practise pioneered by Guruji BKS Iyengar which has touched so many lives. This method of yoga practise is accessible to everyone. If you have a human body then you can practise Iyengar Yoga. The first page of Geetaji’s book ‘Yoga in Action, Preliminary course‘ the dedication to Guruji sums it up beautifully.
As this yoga is for everyone of all ages, of all abilities, beginners or advanced practitioners.
“Dedication to Guruji”
Who guides one and all
Innocent, ignorant and intelligent
Young, old and infirm
Men, women and children
Raw beginners, accomplished and infirm
All pupils with equal zeal and zest
He takes to the zenith
The Invocation to Patanjali
If you have attended an Iyengar Yoga class, it often begins with an invocation to Patanjali.
When I started teaching I didn’t dare to do the invocation to Patanjali out loud. Yes I was too shy and being in Dubai with people from diverse beliefs and cultures I didn’t want to offend anyone by bringing any religious overtone to the practise. As Guruji’s yoga is for everyone…it is Universal. Yet as the years went by I felt there was a definite palpable shift in the flow of the class if I silently chanted it before each session. So slowly I started to do the chant out loud in class. Mostly, no one seemed to mind. Yet the real way the chant is done is when both the students and teachers chant together…how to do this. So that’s when I thought, let me do a video to introduce this.
Invocation to Patanjali Video
Here is the Video!
Note: The is a typo in the above video, ‘Geetaji’s and translations’…it should be Geetaji’s Translation. Apologies, I only spotted it later! Will be more mindful next time!
To gather material I did some research and came across this great article by Peggy Cady. It’s worth a read. In addition Geetaji, Guruji’s daughter whose impact on pioneering yoga for women, and advocate of yoga as a therapeutic practice also wrote on this subject. I used these as my references to create the video. I also found a video recording of Guruji BKS Iyengar chanting which I used as the audio guide.
The initial hesitancy of chanting is also expressed by Geetaji:
“We decided to chant these two slokas from the very beginning. When Guruji asked us to practice yoga we started with this recitation. But we didn’t do it in the classes because when people came as beginners, they had the idea that it is a religious prayer of concern only to Hindus. It took people a little while to understand. Whenever we had some public program, a celebration such as Diwali or Guruji’s birthday, we would recite these prayers. People started taking interest and asking us what the prayers mean. When it was understood, everybody accepted it. For several years now we have been chanting these prayers before classes.”
adapted from an interview given by Geeta at RIMYI in 1992 during the Canada intensive
RESOURCES:
In addition here is a pdf to help you learn and understand the chant
Download the audio recording of Guruji BKS Iyengar chanting the Invocation to Patanjali
