Tirumalai Krishnamacharya
Indian yoga teacher, scholar, Ayurvedic healer, and the man widely called 'the father of modern yoga' — the source teacher whose three best-known students (B. K. S. Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois, and Indra Devi) carried his synthesis of asana, breath, and Sanskrit scripture to virtually every corner of the postural-yoga world. Born 1888 in Karnataka into a long Sri Vaishnava lineage tracing to the saint Nathamuni, Krishnamacharya was a polymath: he held seven degrees, mastered six Indian darśanas, was fluent in Sanskrit and several Indian languages, was a celebrated Vedic chanter, and a deeply trained Ayurvedic practitioner. From 1933 to 1955 he served as yoga teacher in residence at the Mysore Palace, where he developed the dynamic vinyasa-based asana practice that became the seed of modern yoga. After 1955 he taught privately in Madras (Chennai) until his death in 1989 at age 100, transmitting an increasingly therapeutic, individualized form of yoga to his son T. K. V. Desikachar and other students.
quotes in library
Quotes by Tirumalai Krishnamacharya
110 quotes“Not the individual to yoga.”
“This is the principle of viniyoga.”
“What works for one body may injure another.”
“Therefore the teacher must know the student.”
“And the practice must serve the student's life.”
“Asana without breath is just exercise.”
“The breath is the life of the practice.”
“If your breath is short and ragged in a posture, you have gone too far.”
“Come back. Let the breath teach you the right depth.”
“Inhale with the body's expansion. Exhale with the body's release.”
“This is vinyasa: linking breath to movement.”
“Without vinyasa, asana is dead.”
“With vinyasa, asana is meditation in motion.”
“Pranayama is the heart of yoga.”
“Without pranayama, asana is incomplete.”
“Without asana, pranayama is unsafe.”
“Yoga is for everyone.”
“But not every yoga is for every person.”
“Asana with breath is yoga.”
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