Becoming a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher

Becoming a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher requires years of practice, study and a rigorous examination of skills. For teachers, the Certification Mark demonstrates a commitment to maintaining the purity, excellence and high standards of Iyengar Yoga.

Certified Iyengar Yoga instructors teach the method set forth by B. K. S. Iyengar

without mixing in other styles or disciplines.

They maintain a regular personal practice; continue their training with senior teachers or by traveling to the Iyengar institute in India, and hold to ethical guidelines.

Every Certified Iyengar Teacher has passed at least two rigorous, standardized assessments. Some have passed many more.

Becoming Iyengar Yoga teacher begins with long term, thorough and dedicated practice.

One is a student of Iyengar Yoga for many years before becoming a teacher. Only after three years' study, and after developing a relationship with a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher who agrees to become a mentoring teacher, may the candidate begin the application process. In the assessment process itself, candidates are carefully observed and evaluated as they demonstrate asanas and Pranayamas and as they teach a class of students.

FURTHER ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

In addition to the ethical guidelines given above, certain broader considerations which are essential to maintaining the integrity and vitality of the teaching of B.K.S. Iyengar

are given here to serve as a guide to teachers.

First, it is most important that all teachers of Iyengar Yoga keep in mind that what unites us as a community is an allegiance to a magnificent body of knowledge. Within this community, B.K.S. Iyengar has a special and unique status as the originator and developer of this body of knowledge.

He is called “Guruji” by his students as an acknowledgement of this status,

which can be his alone within this community.

Second, B.K.S. Iyengar has freely shared his knowledge and understanding; the result is the system we know as “Iyengar Yoga.” It is misappropriation for anyone to hoard or otherwise manipulate this knowledge in order to increase his or her status, personal power, or financial gain.

Third, it is in the nature of any teaching that students are receptive to the teacher. Automatically, a certain power is invested in the teacher. Moreover, it is an appropriate role of a teacher to seek to arouse enthusiasm for the subject in the students—to draw them in, as it were.

In the case of a yoga teacher, because the subject is a highly personal one, the teacher may appear to have exceptional personal powers. In this situation, teachers can very easily become proud or confused, mistaking the powers vested in them by the teaching situation and by the subject of yoga for personal powers or personal merits. Teachers need to develop a fine discrimination in this regard.

Fourth, teachers must always bear in mind that their role is to transmit knowledge and understanding. It is the teacher’s responsibility to refuse an inappropriate relationship with a student.

The teacher’s relationship to a student is analogous to that of a parent to a child.

Finally, the ethical conduct of the teacher inside and outside the classroom is a model for the conduct of the students and that power must be used constructively. In addition, the conduct of any teacher of Iyengar Yoga, insofar as he or she is known as an Iyengar Yoga teacher, reflects on the whole community of Iyengar yoga teachers, on the discipline in which we practice, and on B.K.S. Iyengar, Geeta Iyengar, and Prashant Iyengar themselves. Becoming a teacher of Iyengar Yoga thus involves a broad ethical responsibility. All of us have personal weaknesses. Hence, each national and regional association of teachers of Iyengar Yoga, as well as the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, has an ethics committee to uphold the standards of conduct set forth above.

The Assessment Process

Assessment is a rigorous, standardized testing process, which includes an observed practice of asanas and pranayamas, a written exam that includes anatomy and yogic philosophy, and a demonstration of teaching skills in which candidates teach students

a predetermined sequence of asanas.

Having passed their initial assessment, teachers may identify themselves as Introductory II teachers in the Iyengar Method. Only teachers who have passed the Introductory II assessments are entitled to identify themselves as Certified Teachers and to use the Certification Mark.

Teachers not certified in the Iyengar method should not use the name Iyengar.

All are asked to respect this.