Why I Still Choose Iyengar Yoga After 17 Years And What It’s Taught Me About My Body
This post is written with deep gratitude to B.K.S. Iyengar, who passed away in August 2014 at the age of 95. He spent more than seven decades developing and refining a system of yoga that has reached millions of people around the world, not just as a physical practice but as a genuine path towards health, clarity and self-understanding. His daughter Geeta Iyengar, who passed away in 2018, extended his work specifically into women’s health with extraordinary care and rigour. Whatever I have learned about my own body and about teaching others, I owe in large part to their lifetimes of dedicated work. This practice is their gift.
When people find out I’ve been practicing yoga for 17 years, they often ask what style I use. When I say ‘Iyengar’, the response is sometimes surprise. It’s not the most talked-about style right now. It doesn’t have the social media presence of vinyasa or the trend-driven appeal of hot yoga. It’s quieter than that.
And that quietness is exactly why I keep coming back to it.
I began practicing yoga in my mid-twenties the way many people do, looking for something to manage stress and feel better in my body. I tried several styles before I found myself in an Iyengar class with a senior teacher. What struck me immediately wasn’t the physical intensity. It was the attention. The level of detail. The way a single pose could be explored for twenty minutes and still reveal something new. The way props, blocks, straps, bolsters, and blankets weren’t modifications for people who couldn’t manage the “real” pose but intelligent tools for experiencing the pose more fully and safely.
That approach changed how I understood my own body and eventually how I understood movement itself.
Iyengar yoga is built on the teaching of B.K.S. Iyengar dedicated decades to developing a yoga system applicable to virtually any body, regardless of age or condition. His daughter Geeta Iyengar extended this work specifically into women’s health, developing therapeutic sequences for menstruation, menopause, fatigue, anxiety, and recovery. The tradition has rigour and intellectual depth that I find genuinely satisfying in a way that more physically dramatic styles often don’t.
After 17 years what I value most about this practice is what it has taught me about patience. About working with the body rather than against it. About the difference between sensation that builds intelligence and sensation that simply creates damage. About how much there is to learn in stillness.
I also value what it has given me as a teacher. When I work with women, particularly women navigating midlife, hormonal change, or postnatal recovery, the Iyengar framework gives me tools that are genuinely appropriate to their situation. We’re not chasing a pose. We are exploring what this body needs today, in this season of life, with these props, this breath, and this level of energy.
That’s a very different thing from fitness. And for the women I work with, it’s often exactly the thing they’ve been looking for without knowing how to name it.
Jie teaches Iyengar-informed yoga and APPI-certified Pilates in regional Victoria. Private sessions available in Broadford, Kilmore, Wallan and surrounds.
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