Teacher Training

Iyengar Yoga in Britain

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918- ) has been the single most influential teacher of yoga in Britain.  His clarity and precision in teaching groups of people enabled a distinctive and highly popular method of yoga to spread en masse.

Iyengar's teaching became influential in Britain largely through networking among the elite connections of Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) who for many years made his family home in Highgate, north London. At Menuhin's invitation, Iyengar made annual visits to London from 1961-1976, giving public demonstrations, and gaining an increasingly large number of students. Iyengar continued to make regular visits to Britain during the 1980s and more occasionally in the 90s.

It was through the connections with Menuhin and the Asian Music Circle that the first yoga classes were organised and Iyengar’s first book Light on Yoga (1966) found its publisher.

Throughout the 1970s, only Iyengar-
approved teachers were allowed to teach in the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) adult education classes, the most popular organiser of yoga classes in London during this period. Iyengar’s systematic, rigorous and physical teaching style also had significant early supporters in Brighton and Manchester.