It takes approximately a decade of studying Iyengar-only yoga to become a fully-realized Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher (CIYT). Here, we explore accessibility issues surrounding the certification process, and possible barriers to entry for the practice from a lived perspective.
I feel comfortable saying that two of B.K.S. Iyengar’s books: Light on Yoga and Light on Life come strongly recommended by those over on r/yoga, a digital forum on the lesser-known social media platform Reddit. I purchased both. Having chewed through what I can, I began to arrive at a realization that I cannot grow as a practitioner in the ways I need (or want) to should I keep practicing alone, without some kind of reliable instruction or program.
At this point, I have more than a dozen or so hours of research into 200 hour YTTs (Yoga Teacher Trainings) and wish to achieve some type of certification which would greatly expand my understanding of yoga and its underlying philosophies. The pursuit would be to expand my own repertoire and vocabulary; my inquiry academic in nature. Unfortunately, Iyengar yoga—while being the one style I most desired to get certified in, also appears to be wholly inaccessible for today’s common person. This, and nowhere else is where I hit a snag with the lineage. In one of his few documentary appearances, the 2008 film Enlighten Up!, B.K.S. Iyengar remarks:
No, I go for the common man… it [yoga] is not from India. It was originated, that’s all. But it concerns the human being. That’s why the very word Patanjali used, he has used the word…it is ‘sarva bhāva’ [सर्व भार्व ]…means ‘universal culture.’ He never uses ‘Hindu culture’. He has used the word ‘universal culture.’ That’s the beauty of his word. So it stands for humanity.[1]
When asked in the same interview about the overall evolution of hatha yoga and his view on how his style of yoga is being taught, Iyengar interjected:
From where my Guruji left, I proceeded. I want my students to proceed from where I left. That’s all. That is as simple as it is. [1]
Unfortunately, BKS Iyengar passed away in 2014. Today, members of his family and his most dedicated students perpetuate and rubber-stamp his teachings.[2] [3] Nine years since, it appears the current accessibility of Iyengar Yoga is far more complicated than he himself would have us believe. In helping to realize Iyengar’s vision for yoga, it is required to receive instruction from someone who is certified in Iyengar yoga. Being a more technical tradition it also appears more structured and therefore the certification process waxes bureaucratic. The process is abnormally rigorous compared to current modern practices of other yogic traditions.[4]
Let us discuss what it takes to become a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher (CIYT). According to the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States (IYNAUS), there are five (5) certification levels.[5] Once a student has passed certification, they are able to use the Iyengar trademark and CIYT logo:
Only CIYTs are permitted to use the term ‘Iyengar Yoga’ to describe their yoga programs. Non-certified teachers may not use the term ‘Iyengar Yoga’ or any related terms such as ‘Iyengar-style’ or ‘Iyengar-influenced’ in any form of business advertising or for any program for financial gain.[5]
The institutional “heart and soul”[6] of Iyengar Yoga, the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMYI), is located in India and currently appears to accept Indian residents only. Non-Indian residents need to find a local certified instructor, though it appears there may have been a time where they did accept foreign students. In 2012, the main prerequisites for foreign students at RIMYI were: 1) the student practice Iyengar Yoga for ‘at least’ eight (8) years, with regular practice in advanced inverted postures; and 2) all students will need to have read the introductory chapter to Light on Yoga (Iyengar’s own book).[7]
The other in-person educational live-study option is the Bellur Trust center in Karnataka, India, which has not updated their website since 2016 and whose website offers no enrollment information.[8] IYNAUS offers the best and most current information on how to get certified in any of the five levels. According to RIMYI’s Certification and Assessment guidelines from July 2020[9], for level one (1) certification, eligible students must have practiced Iyengar Yoga for a minimum of three (3) years with a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher, with their respective regional associations acting as both the regulatory and assessing bodies. Level one certification also requires an Introductory I and II certificate.[10] Levels two, three, and four each require two (2) years of holding the previous level’s certificate and the conduct of general classes.
At the soonest, a Level 4 practitioner will have studied Iyengar Yoga for a minimum of seven (7) years. At Level 5 certification, you are potentially staring down the barrel of what is likely a decade of strictly Iyengar-based yoga training. Additionally, annual dues and membership fees are also required. [11] In fact, RIMYI appears to have a regulatory influence on all “Iyengar Yoga” Teacher Training Courses (YTT/Cs), requiring that they are three (3) years long, 25 people or less, and only one is to be carried out at a time.[12] RIMYI also wants to be informed of any YTTs happening by any of its associated bodies at all times. If this is beginning to sound like a lot, that’s because I think it is and now hopefully you are able to understand the overall predicament in having this style of yoga become accessible to the common person.
Iyengar’s passion for wanting to bring structure to the wild frontier that is modern hatha yoga is noble, yet with the rapid advancement of yoga, particularly in the West, today it seems his efforts may have been in vain. Iyengar does a brilliant job of distilling the philosophy of yoga into the presentation of the asanas themselves. His talent was presenting asana as a palpable and conquerable experience. For the perfectionist or detail-oriented, it also provides a series of fence posts to guide the pupil—much like the bumpers in a bowling alley. Asana is a regulated practice in the Iyengar method, even though it does not have any binding series. It certainly appears to demand a certain level of dedication other lineages of hatha yoga do not (e.g., vinyasa, yin, ashtanga, kundalini, stråla, etc.) though I have only looked into Iyengar, Ashtanga, and Vinyasa-focused YTTs.
While I can appreciate, to an obvious and certain extent, some level of regulation and certification beyond the more ‘flexible’ and traditional 200-300-500 hour Registered Yoga School (RYS) standards as set forth by the Yoga Alliance—which were recently been ‘E’levated for E-RYS programs. All registered Yoga Alliance schools are scheduled to implement the revised standards after December 31, 2023.[13]
Put simply, the barrier to entry is high for the aspirant. I can appreciate the dedication required from a seeker to ensure the quality of Iyengar’s precise instruction, but considering the process, it is not hard to wonder CIYTs are hard to find. Furthermore, becoming a CIYT is so costly that in my entire home state of California, there are only 213 registered CIYTs.[14] Of which, only four individuals are certified at Level 4 and thirty-seven at Level 3.
They are more dense in high cost-of-living (COL) areas. Locales where the income is higher allows CIYTs to recoup the cost of their training. Anecdotally, I have also noticed a lot of the CIYTs closest to me pair their practice with a different therapeutic profession or have specialty backgrounds and therefore charge professional rates much higher than other yoga studios.
It is difficult to access the budget and work environment needed to regularly maintain travel to the jeweled city of San Francisco to study Iyengar Yoga regularly. For any in-person instruction, you’d pretty much need to live close to a certified instructor who is of a higher level. This scenario repeats in each big city across the U.S. again and again. Personally and currently, I am averse to online instruction especially when it comes to something like hatha yoga. I am more of the traditional ‘hands-on’ learner and feel more comfortable taking cues and feedback in-person.
It is noteworthy to mention, the Iyengar Yoga Association of Northern California (IYANC) fancies itself the ‘Harvard of yoga schools’[15] and its regional institute, the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco (IYISF) offers scholarship applications to help with tuition.[16] I was not able to locate any reports of recipients or confirm the active status of the “affordable access” program.[17] As of this writing, class prices at IYISF vary from $16 per 60-minute “member” drop-in class to $27 per 75 to 90-minute class on the high end for a non-member with a small class package.[18] I have little doubt the money is worth is every penny. CIYTs are experienced and have worked very hard to achieve their credentials. Operational overhead should also be considered. It would seem then, that there exists a ‘Goldilocks zone’ of overlapping circumstances that make this discipline suitable for the interested yoga student: extraordinary work-life balance, disposable income, and good proximity to a certified instructor.
At the end of the day, Iyengar Yoga’s strategy to stand aside and separate from the shoulders of the
other disciplines is what makes it both appealing and inaccessible. It manufactures its own supply and demand as only the seniors teach the juniors in its trademark-certification-mentorship model. Attrition
is baked right in. Knowledge will eventually trickle down—but only to bona fide members and always
for a price. It demands a significant commitment and investment from its prospective students in the
way of time and money should you yourself wish to become a CIYT. To any reader who currently is a
CIYT, your dedication is a testament to Iyengar’s vision for yoga. You—along with all certified
instructors—are doing a great thing. That is, spreading yoga to the world.
For me, in order to meaningfully pursue Iyengar’s style of yoga, I would need to uproot major aspects
of my life. At the moment this is something I (and perhaps a lot of other people) are not necessarily
unwilling, but rather entirely unable to do. In this economy? While I have a lot of respect for this
lineage, I believe the best thing I can do (for now) is begin with an E-RYS-200 hour YTT certification.
On its face, the certification process for a CIYT is very cumbersome to even consider beginning,
especially if it were to be planned around many other ongoing aspects of life. I will still be on the
lookout for a certified Iyengar Yoga instructor, because I’d enjoy the background knowledge. Things could always change in a year or two. Hell, they could change tomorrow.
The question I ask myself then, is: how do we make all styles of yoga truly accessible for all, yet stay
faithful to their respective lineages and honor their traditions? Iyengar’s style itself came about as he
wanted to repackage his Guruji’s (T. Krishnamacharya) ‘brand’ of yoga. At the end of the day, how
people choose to traverse their yogic path varies wildly. This results in a vast array of organizations,
institutions, and instructors waiting to share their knowledge with the world. This inherent diversity is
what makes yoga so fascinating.
Regulations and standards should instill credibility, safety, and unity in the yogic disciplines which they govern. What they certainly should not do is serve as gatekeeping mechanisms for the spiritually curious or mildly intrigued. While mild intrigue alone is a terrible indicator of a pupil’s commitment to yoga and its eight limbs, I hope you will agree that curiosity in this regard is something to be satiated. Cognizance of overly prohibitive or systemic barriers are key to spreading the practice and union of “yoga”.
References
- Kate Churchill, Nick Rosen, Enlighten Up!, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCjEyjXO_Xw
- Iyengar Yoga Iyengar Yoga National Assoc. of the United States, Iyengar Family of Teachers, 2023, https://iynaus.org/iyengar-family-of-teachers/
- Iyengar Yoga Assoc. of Northern California, Meet Our Certified Iyengar Yoga Teachers, 2023, https://iyisf.org/meet-our-teachers/
- Iyengar Yoga Natl. Assoc. of the United States, Begin Now, 2023, https://iynaus.org/begin-yoga-now/
- Iyengar Yoga Natl. Assoc. of the United States, Iyengar Yoga Certification, 2023, https://iynaus.org/iyengar-yoga-certification/
- The Official Website B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga, Institutions > RIMYI, 2023, https://bksiyengar.com/modules/Institut/RIMYI/rimyi.htm
- The Official Website B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga, Registration at RIMYI, 2012, https://bksiyengar.com/modules/Institut/RIMYI/register.htm
- BKS Iyengar Bellur Yoga Center, About Us, 2016, https://belluriyengaryogacenter.com/
- Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, Certification and Assessment Guidelines, pp 6, 2020,
https://iynaus.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/RIMYI_Certification-Course-Guidlines-Booklet-June-2020-1.pdf - Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Institute, Certification and Assessment Guidelines, pp 7, 2020,
https://iynaus.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/RIMYI_Certification-Course-Guidlines-Booklet-June-2020-1.pdf - Iyengar Yoga National Assoc. of the United States, Maintaining CIYT Status, 2023
- IYNAUS; RIMYI, FAQs Related to Certification Manual, 2023, https://iynaus.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/FAQs-Related-to-Certification-Manual.pdf
- Yoga Alliance, Elevated RYS 200 Standards, 2023, https://www.yogaalliance.org/Our_Standards/Elevated_RYS_200_Standards
- Iyengar Yoga Natl. Assoc. of the United States, Find a Teacher, 2023, https://iynaus.org/find-a-teacher/
- Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, History of IYISF, 2023, https://iyisf.org/history-of-iyisf/
- Iyengar Yoga of San Francisco, “IYANC Regional Scholarship Application Form”, 2023,
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfFHocQxJ0lMP_vt_CTTvzODnBYnLL6M-sEnb-JiK5hIM6vtw/viewform - Iyengar Yoga Assoc. of Northern California, Scholarship & Financial Aid, 2023, https://iyisf.org/affordable-access/
- Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco, Class Pricing, 2023, https://iyisf.org/class-pricing/