I will never forget how natural my first yoga class  felt. Of course, I had no idea that the class would initiate a lifelong endeavor of plumbing the depth and truths of the body, breath, mind, and consciousness.

Today, after 25 years of practice and 19 of yoga teaching, I’m a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher. I want to tell you what Iyengar Yoga is, and about Weeks Well, a mindfulness and wellness company influenced by this lineage.

1. Yoga is a huge word. It means union. It is old, thousands of years old or older. Being what we are, humans seek to derive meaning. Through the millennia, we have developed countless systems of action, value, philosophy, governance, nutrition, and lifestyle around which to organize and believe. 

Yoga reaches for the stars, as it were, because it sets out both to systematize and make experiential the many wellness aspects of life, living, and death. BKS Iyengar, born poor in India in 1918, was one of the men in the 19th and 20th centuries who brought modern yoga to the mat as we know it today. His system of teaching yoga, called Iyengar Yoga, can be summarized by his statement: ”Life itself seeks fulfillment as plants seek sunlight.” Here are specific things you need to know about an Iyengar Yoga class:

• Nearly every prop you use in any yoga class was invented by Iyengar. If you are in a class that is not a “typical flow” or hot yoga class, it’s likely that this class is influenced by the Iyengar System.

• Iyengar Yoga is markedly different from Vinyasa Yoga, or Flow Yoga, which descended through the Ashtanga System. Iyengar Yoga consists of classes of postural or pose-based activities, sequenced in a tested, refined, and transformative way for the majority of students in that class.

• At a time when yoga’s accessibility to all people is a correct and hot focus, Iyengar Yoga is one of the most accessible modern-day yoga practices because it is infinitely modifiable based on the students’ individual needs. The point of being a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher (CIYT)—a credential that takes >3,000 hours of study and practice to obtain—is to see and understand each student and to challenge those students to move or release their bodies toward more alignment.

• Alignment is a word most often conflated with Iyengar Yoga. It is a guiding principle of the practice, but it is only the beginning of the journey and it changes over time. What once felt “aligned” internally may need refining based on circumstances. Alignment must first be safe and then, immediately thereafter, challenging in the direction of transformation. This is Iyengar Yoga.

The core essence of Iyengar Yoga is the connection between the teacher and the student. It is for the teacher to understand how to teach correct actions that create alignment, modification to that alignment, and then, transformation in the body, mind, and breath. This leads to peace.

2. This is our guiding principle at Weeks Well. We believe in “practice, not perfect” and we believe that posture and breath are the depth and rhythm, and that mindfulness is the song. We are a:

• Platform of teachers—an Iyengar teacher, an Iyengar teacher-in-training, and experienced RYT 500 yoga teachers—that offer rich postural weekly classes designed to help you transform.

• Place for weekly mindfulness and yoga nidra (deep or yogic relaxation) classes, IRL classes, and workshops and retreats.

• Learning center for best practices in organizational mindfulness, the scientific research on yoga, and the lineage, diversity, and accessibility conversations in yoga.

• Company that fosters transformation.