Part 1 -- Viniyoga - The Way I learnt and the Way I teach

This post describes the Life of Sri. T. Krishnamacharya, who lived in Chennai, India. He is considered to be the Guru behind the teachings of Viniyoga. 

I follow his teachings in all my classes. This is the only way of teaching which appeals to my inner yogini :))

This is the first series about Viniyoga; it focuses on Sri. T. Krishnamacharya and his life.

The second series will be about Viniyoga system; how it is taught, why it is taught in a certain way and why I believe in it.

I hope my readers can understand these ideas and experience them in my classes :) 

Śrī Tirumalai Krishnamacharya was one of India’s most respected authorities on the Vedic tradition and Yoga Teachings and practice.

He was born in Karnataka State in South India on November 18th 1888 and belonged to a family of distinguished ancestry. Among his forebears was the 9th century teacher and sage Nathamuni. Śrī Nathamuni was a great Teacher who created remarkable works, such as the Nyaya Tattva.

At the age of twenty-eight, he trekked over 200 miles to Lake Manasasarovar at the foot of Mt. Kailash in the Himalayas in Western Tibet, to learn Yoga from Ram Mohana Brahmachari. He stayed for over seven years returning on his teacher’s instructions to South India to teach. Being a master in many subjects, Krishnamacharya was offered high scholastic positions in great institutes of learning. Instead he chose to be a Yoga teacher to fulfil the promise he made to his own teacher in Tibet. Eventually he came to establish a school of yoga in Chennai devoted to using Yoga as Therapy for different ailments.

With his vast learning in yoga as well as other systems of Indian Philosophy, he emphasized that the practice of yoga must be adapted to the individual, and not the individual to yoga. This was probably one of his most significant contributions in the field of health and healing through yoga. 

Some of his early students, such as TKV Desikachar, Pattabhi Jois, BKS Iyengar and the late Indra Devi, became renowned teachers themselves.

Śrī Krishnamacharya is now recognised the world over as an accomplished exponent of Yoga, and a major influence in shaping what we see as Yoga in the West. He made it his lifetime work to nurture Vedic culture by teaching Yoga, Sanskrit and the Vedas, to one and all who sought him. 

His death in 1989, at the age of 100, marked the passing of a great sage and teacher.