Certified Iyengar.

BKS Iyengar

Learning Iyengar Yoga is a humbling experience, but the lessons feed a part of us that is very hungry. BKS Iyengar dedicated his life to learning the many aspects of yoga at a granular level to be able to teach it to his students. Because of his inexhaustible work, Certified Iyengar Instructors are usually outstanding teachers and the more open we are to what they have to share the more we understand the incredible work BKS Iyengar did.

However, before anyone can be open to learning what an instructor has to offer, much less understand what it took for them to become certified to teach the Iyengar method, a few things have to happen. Thanks to Mr. Iyengar they are beautifully embedded into his teachings. His method wakes up our body and mind systematically by introducing poses in a sequential order.  Instructors teach the poses in Sanskrit with English translations. When we hear the names of the asana in every class and connect them with the actions of the pose, our hearing refines and adapts to a whole new language. Over the course of our studies, our ego takes a back seat to our desire to learn. At the same time, the ego provides us the necessary fuel we need to keep going. 

Meeting Dr. Geeta Iyengar in Pune, India

When our ego steps down a natural sense of reverence takes hold for the Father of Modern Yoga who synthesized the path of yoga into 196 pithy Sutras or threads: the sage, Patanjali. The Sutras are aphorisms that serve as an incredible tool to guide us as we delve into the vast subject of yoga. To honor his contribution many classes begin with an Invocation to Patanjali. BKS Iyengar's daughter, Dr. Geeta Iyengar, said the following about the importance of chanting The Invocation:

"We chant so that at the very beginning that feeling of sanctification comes from inside, with the feeling of surrendering oneself, because nothing can be learned in this world unless you have the humility to learn.”

With a humble disposition comes an openness to learn more and work harder that is met with help from your instructors. My Iyengar instructors did some little things that made a big difference in my belief I could do the work required.  Kathleen Pringle, the owner of Stillwater Yoga and a Senior Level Iyengar Instructor, showed me a trick with my Microsoft Word program, so I could begin to save the Sanskrit words as I documented the classes I took. Nancy Mau, an Intermediate Junior Level 3 Certified Iyengar Instructor let me borrow a CD of the Invocation, so I could carve out time to learn the invocation in my car. Kquvien DeWeese chanted particular Sutras of Patanjali in her classes each week and had them listed on her website with the translations so that I could study them. After a while, the names of poses began to resonate, I began to recite the Invocation with some proficiency and chant some Sutras. The once daunting language of Sanskrit slowly began to make sense.  I'd gained a better sense of hearing that seemed to wake up my mind and fostered my belief in my ability to keep learning about this vast subject. It also fed a desire to want to share what I was experiencing with others. 

I remember when I asked Kathleen how to become a Certified Iyengar Instructor, she smiled then explained the process. It is something Kathleen has had to do innumerable times in her 30-years as an Iyengar Instructor and Teacher Trainer. However, she knows that until the student goes through the process, they won't understand what is required. That’s because, like anything with the Iyengar name in front of it, it is something that comes through experience. Earning the “Certified Iyengar Instructor” title is only a small, albeit important part of the Iyengar Teacher Training Process.

B.K.S. Iyengar is renown for being the World's Best Yoga Teacher. His teacher certification process assures that teachers of the Iyengar Method strive to be the best teachers they can be. Therefore, the process is designed to have very high standards. One recent Certified Iyengar Instructor, Sam Cooper explained, "This is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I graduated from college, from Seminary, and earned a Doctor of Ministry degree.  Becoming a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher was harder than any one of those three. Academic work engages your brain. You pour information into your brain, you process it, and you produce something with your mental faculties. To be a yoga teacher you have to be a yoga student first, and being a yoga student, means that you must cultivate the intelligence of your body. This demands a lot more than developing mental intelligence. I believe this is why it was such a challenge for me, I think.”

The rewards for becoming a Certified Iyengar Instructor are much greater than a title or a piece of paper you can hang on a wall. They are life changing: for you and more than likely for the people with whom you share the practice. While the process is being re-evaluated on an ongoing basis to encourage more students to embark on it, it is still a process that requires a long-term commitment, focus, and discipline.  I believe it is challenging because it creates the ‘opportunity’ for you to face yourself in a way most people may never have to. I came to the practice after ten years of other types of yoga and over 23 years of ballet training. I felt I had body/mind intelligence, but I’d also developed a lot of bad habits. To overcome these takes time and feedback from our teachers.

Kathleen Pringle and some of my Teacher Training Peers

The wonderful part of the Iyengar Teacher Training process is you have a mentor to guide you through it. Not only that, you have an amazing community of Iyengar peers, practitioners, and instructors who are always at the ready to answer questions and lend support or advice. In Iyengar Yoga, moments with your mentor can be very uncomfortable: "I did that? Oh no. I said that, really?" However, these moments bond you to someone who has gone through the process and helps you learn about yourself in a way you never thought possible. You continuously hone your ability to hear your teachers and yourself. You systematically learn restraint and discrimination, along with the power of your breath in affecting your thoughts, words, and actions. None of this could happen without the help of a mentor. Your mentor understands what you're going through; therefore, they are the perfect guides to get you through the process.

The process seems to assure the self-realization that Patanjali's Yoga Sutras so succinctly describe. Not that by the end of your first level assessment, you'll be a self-realized human being, far from it, but you will realize enough to know you want to stay committed to your Sadhana. Sadhana is the means by which anyone reaches a goal. It is an effective and effortful practice that continues regardless of any obstacles in your path. The more directed your Sadhana, the more you can apply ever-increasing skill and efficiency. In other words, the more effort you put into it, the more things fall into their proper place to allow for sustained practice. Sadhana Kriya or the skilled action of any practice requires tapas, discipline, svadyaya, self-study, and Isvara pranidana, faith.  With these three qualities, a Sadhana transforms from effortful effort to effortless effort.

I liken the Iyengar Certification Process to a psychotherapist going to get their Ph.D. to become a psychiatrist. Many programs require they go through psychoanalysis before they serve others. One article I read, by Steven Reidbord M.D. in Psychology Today referred to it as "Calibrating the Instrument" so the therapist can better help their patients. I feel BKS Iyengar strived to develop such a rigorous training process so that his teachers are well-calibrated instruments for serving the students of Iyengar Yoga. The bonus is we become well calibrated for life, too.

My Mentor, Kquvien DeWeese

My mentor, Kquvien DeWeese is an Intermediate Junior Level 3 Iyengar instructor. She is very committed to Iyengar Yoga and her personal self-realization process. Her lessons on how to remedy the obstacles on our path along with how to “stay behind the chaos” we create for ourselves have been invaluable and come from her personal experiences. I'm grateful for her insightful albeit hard-to-swallow truths about my teaching skills and her meaningful encouragement. She's not afraid to be honest about her process; therefore, she serves as an inspiring mentor who helps me learn to honor mine.

The distinction between Iyengar training and most other types of yoga teacher training is that it encourages things like assisting more senior instructors and peer training.  My training group for my second assessment met about once a week to practice and enjoyed guest appearances by our other training buddies from other states (Peer training eventually becomes a World-Wide experience in Iyengar Yoga). In addition to Peer Training, there is Personal Study and research that must take place. Each assessment level (there something like eight levels) has a specific syllabus to follow.

Once I went down the rabbit hole of all the information available on the subject, I didn’t want to come out of it. However, yoga is about learning balance, restraint, and discrimination. It’s amazing how many places in my training process and my life these lessons reared their head. 

Some of my study material

Finally, there is the “Mock Assessment.” Each Mock comes with a set of very honest notes about how the teaching could improve. The choice to improve stays with you, but with effort improvement happens. No matter what the critique, how much apparent backslide, or noticeable improvement there is it’s important to maintain abhyasa and vairagya (continuous practice and detachment). 

My final assessment for the Introductory II Certification happened in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 8th Street Yoga. The owner, Phyllis Rollins, who I’d had the honor of meeting at trainings and workshops was unable to be there, but I felt her presence through her warm and inviting studio. Assessors, Sue Salaniuk from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sandra Pleasants from Charlottesville, Virginia, and Mary Obendorfer from Kalaheo, Hawaii complimented that warmth with their own. I will never forget the sincerity in their eyes when they explained, “Please don’t misinterpret our facial expressions as anything negative. We want you all to pass.” Overall, I felt during the assessment weekend all the prospective teachers were rooting for each other. We bonded much more than last year when we all were like deer in the headlights not knowing what to expect. This year, we had folks from many states across the U.S. as well other places like Holland and Israel. We shared meals and stories, fears and worries, and emails so we could keep sharing.

The first day involved an assessment of our level pranayama or breath regulation practice, a timed written exam, and a demonstrated practice of up to sixty-six poses in our level syllabus. The final portion of the assessment was the teaching demonstration.While you can prepare as any teacher would prepare, an Iyengar Instructor must be ready to address whatever presents itself that day. They must be prepared to “see” and “teach” the students who are in front of them.

Erin Bailey greeted me with a hug the day I came for the teaching portion of the assessment. She is another peer I’ve trained with who’d recently received her certification and was hosting this assessment (with aplomb I might add). When the assessors arrived, each one engaged me in some way, either by asking how I was or how I slept the night before. I responded in kind.

I didn’t tell them that before I went to sleep, a deep reverence for B.K.S Iyengar, who is no longer with us came over me. The thought of him put things in perspective. I wanted to honor this great man whose personal Yoga Sadhana spawned a systematic method of teaching that enabled the transformational effects of this art, science, and philosophy to spread around the world – a method of teaching he did with more love, humility, authenticity, and integrity than anyone I know.

The epiphany calmed me down that night. The next morning, before the clock (on the wall and my wrist), started timing the 40-minutes I had to teach six poses, the assessors allowed me to be in the studio alone. I focused on the photos of BKS Iyengar that surrounded the room. I said the Invocation to Patanjali to myself. I did some of the poses I’d learned that calm the system down and sharpen the mind. I thought about the support of the community that I’d built over the years through this practice. When the time came, everyone including the three assessors took their places, then, with faith and courage, I turned around to share what I’d learned with my students.