Humble origins, massive sway
B.K.S. Iyengar was born in 1918 to a large but poor family in the village of Bellur in India. His father died when he was 9, and he went to live with his eldest sister and her husband, the Sanskrit scholar Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who ran a yoga school at the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore.
In 1937, after just two years of practice, he went to Pune to teach yoga. Almost penniless, he had no marketable skills because he failed the school examinations and lost his scholarship. Yoga seemed his only chance to earn an income.
Severely weakened from childhood illness, with students far better and more muscular than he was, Iyengar trained as many as 12 hours a day, existing on little more than stale bread and tea.
By 1975, he established the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune. Currently, there is about a three-year waiting list to attend, and prospective students must have eight years of experience at an Iyengar yoga school to qualify.
Iyengar officially retired in 1984, although he still directs medical classes at his institute, as well as special events like the Iyengar intensive at Estes Park.
The Iygenar style of yoga is considered the most widely practiced in the world today. It’s also used in such places as the UCLA Pediatric Pain Program, and in treatment of such illnesses as scoliosis, multiple sclerosis and herniated disks.
