Iyengar yoga is about raising your body’s intelligence. It’s about self-exploration and finding the optimal alignment. Sometimes jokingly referred to as “furniture yoga”, the practice characteristically uses props such as wood and foam blocks, bolsters, chairs, straps, blankets and wall-mounted ropes to help open your body gently yet powerfully.
The props isolate muscles and bodily actions in order to focus attention to specific areas that need attention. They also ensure that you’re doing your yoga poses with the optimal alignment to keep you feeling healthy, supported and strong in your practice.
It is not a flow class. If you’re looking for a sweat-generating, fast-paced workout, you won’t find it here. The movement is slow-paced and works deeply upon the soft and hard tissues, so you may find that you sweat a bit from the intensity of the poses.
If you practice flow, power flow, Ashtanga, or any other faster-paced types of yoga, you’ll likely find that Iyengar helps your alignment and sense of body awareness. It’s common for even yoga teachers to suddenly recognize harmful alignment or dullness in the body through this slower and steadier pace.
Because of its low-impact focus on alignment, and its use of supports, Iyengar Yoga adapts to a wide range of bodies and levels of ability. It’s used therapeutically for rehabilitation from, and working with, pain and injury.