Align with Jessica

11/20/2025

Have you ever heard someone say, “Yoga is a great alternative therapy”?
It sounds well-meaning… but it’s not quite true.
Let’s pause and look deeper — because Yoga is not an alternative system of medicine.
There is no alternative to Yoga, and Yoga itself cannot be an alternative to anything else.
Why? Because Yoga doesn’t fit into the boxes of modern medicine.
Medicine is objective, while Yoga is subjective.

💊 Medicine treats symptoms.
You get a pill for pain.
You take an antacid for acidity.
And it works the same way for everyone.
But Yoga doesn’t work that way.
You can’t prescribe an asana for back pain like a doctor prescribes paracetamol.

Every asana, every breath, every pause in Yoga depends on the inner condition of the person — their state of body, mind, and energy at that very moment.
That’s what makes Yoga profoundly personal and deeply transformative.

🧘‍♀️ Yoga has remedial powers, but it’s not a “remedy.”
Yoga can heal, yes — but not because it’s a substitute for medicine.
It heals because it awakens the intelligence of the body and consciousness.

Modern medicine works in three ways:
*Preventive
*Curative/Corrective
*Recuperative
But Yoga introduces a fourth dimension — a space beyond self-interest.
You don’t practice to fix something.
You practice to experience something.
You work on your spine not to ease pain, but to awaken awareness.

🌸 “Work on your spine not for relief, but for realization.”
This is the heart of Prashant S. Iyengar’s teaching.

He reminds us:
“Do not work on the spine in your asanas only to overcome soreness, stiffness, or pain. Work on it without desire, without greed, and for no returns. Then only it will bestow Yoga — an immeasurable return.”

✨ The Deeper Truth: Yoga Transforms the Healer Within
When you stop treating Yoga like a therapy, it becomes transformation.
When you stop practicing for results, healing happens on its own.

Yoga is not about curing the body — it’s about culturing consciousness.
And in that process, the body finds harmony naturally.

✨Inspired by Prashantoscope: Yoga as a Remedial System — by Prashant S. Iyengar

💭 Reflect:
What does “subjective healing” mean to you?
Can you practice Yoga without expecting an outcome — simply for the joy of awareness?

Drop your thoughts in the comments below ⬇️
Let’s start a mindful conversation about the true essence of Yoga.

11/16/2025

💫 Yoga is not a solo journey — it’s a shared evolution.

Every conversation, class, or shared experience becomes a mirror for our growth.

Here’s how we can keep learning together in our yoga community:
1️⃣ Stay Connected: Keep in touch with fellow practitioners and teachers. Each conversation carries insight.
2️⃣ Be a Lifelong Student: Even when teaching, stay curious. Every person you meet can be a teacher.
3️⃣ Broaden Your Circle: Attend workshops, conventions, and classes from various teachers. Diversity expands understanding.
4️⃣ Share Authentically: Speak about your challenges, discoveries, and “aha!” moments — it helps others grow too.
5️⃣ Stay Open-Minded: Let go of fixed ideas. True learning begins when the mind softens.
6️⃣ Support Each Other: Offer feedback, encouragement, and compassion during practice.

🕊️ When we share, we multiply wisdom.
Together, we rise — one breath, one lesson, one heart at a time.
What’s one thing you’ve learned recently from your fellow practitioners?



🌍 https://www.bksiyengaryogashala.com/

11/14/2025

In last weeks Sunday Times, dancer Alessandra Ferri credits Iyengar Yoga with helping her to return to her profession after retirement ….

Let's DANCE!
At 52, the ballerina Alessandra Ferri is still performing. She tells Jasmine Gardner how she does it…

Alessandra Ferri believes that we’ve all been sold a myth — that once we are past a certain age. our body just can't do the things it used to.

"We all believe this," says Ferri, a star ballerina who at the age of 52 is still dancing. Having returned to the stage in 2013 after six years in retirement. "We let our mind control our lives in negative ways. Your mind goes, "You're 45. You can't
dance. You're too old." But the truth is that when your body responds to your soul, it can do anything"

Ferri is reclining on a sofa in a hallway of the Royal Opera House, dressed in black, with heavy boots that are a bulky contrast to her slim legs. She's still incredibly slight, with her signature long black hair and wide eyes, she has just performed in Cheri - a work combining dance and theatre, about an age gap love affair.

I love playing Lea in Cheri because she is a woman of my age who fell in love with a younger man, and she loves her life," she says. "When a man is in his fifties and he has a 20 year-old girlfriend, everybody says. 'Oh, he's so cool." For a woman, It's
"Oh, look at her!” You know what? Good for her!"

It was for this role in Cheri that Ferri ended her retirement in 2013. The Italian dancer began her professional career at the Royal Ballet in 1990, and only three years later, at the age of 19, she was promoted to principal, the highest position in the company. It was a testament to her talent, which also led to her being poached by American Ballet Theatre In 1985. She has lived in New York ever since. She has two daughters, aged 14 and 18, and split from their father, the photographer Fabrizio Ferri, three years ago.

She explains why, she first retired from dancing "Inside me was stale, For a couple of years I did nothing. I almost couldn't even watch dance"
Quitting hurt - literally. The first few months, It was very painful," she says. "I heard that is quite normal. The muscles that are used to being warm atrophy and freeze up.”

That wasn't the only problem. Retirement, she says, was somehow empty. The core of who l am was asleep. The fact that my body was inactive was making me feel lacking in eneryy and enthusiasm for things. Dancing is not like going to the gym. It's a language of the soul, and I needed to say something was sutfocating.

This feeling led her to begin moving again. She took up lyengar yoga, went back to ballet class and discovered she could, still dance, and brilliantly. In May she performed In the much lauded Woolf Works at the Royal Opera House - a sellout new ballet by Wayne McGregor based on the life and works of Vinginia Woolf. Next June, she will reprise one of her best-known roles in Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet at the Met in New York

There are a lew things she won't do. Big jumps - that wouid probably be too violent on the body:" And these days she rehearses for few hours because “there’s no point exhausting
yourself" Maintenance takes longer, so I do more preparation in Pilates and in class. You also noed more time to recuperate. " But she still pushes herself. “Normal people go to the gym, get on the treadmill and go, "Oh, my calf hurts, I'm not going to do that any more" Then you get nowhere. As a dancer you have a bad calf every day, and we learn that the more you push, the less It hurts bouse you conquer and break the pain barrier . There's a big, amount of willpower involved , where you say, "Am I going to stop my soul from feeling alive because my back hurts? No, I'll take a pankiller."

ALESSANDRA'S WAY
Do yoga - Iyengar yoga, not yoga for older poople. Don't buy into that, it only makes you feel older. Your mind will go, “I’m basically halfway to dying," and then your body gives up.

11/13/2025

Such clarity on why, YES! - Iyengar Yoga is an excellent support for changes during perimenopause.

Newly released on Substack! https://stephanietencer.substack.com/p/should-i-practice-iyengar-yoga-during

11/13/2025

What a testament to Iyengar Yoga 💚

My Unexpected Trajectory

11/13/2025

Some thoughts…

The Yoga Sutras do not glorify collapse or madness but chart a path of refinement through experience and understanding. Yoga is the stilling of the mind’s fluctuations (Yogaḥ citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ), not the shattering of consciousness itself.

Patañjali’s eightfold path is a methodical process, not a spiritual accident. Āsana, described as sthira sukham āsanam, steady and easeful, was never meant to break the body or the mind- but to utilize the connection of both as a gateway to expand our consciousness. The “fire” of yoga is tapas: disciplined transformation guided by intelligence and discernment, not chaos or suffering.

The Iyengar tradition carries this forward with precision and care. Alignment, sequencing, and attention are not aesthetic obsessions; they are tools for stability, so that profound experiences can unfold without fragmentation. The body becomes a vessel of awareness, not an arena of destruction.

Yoga doesn’t burn you down, it offers a path to refine you. It dismantles ignorance, not the person. The awakening it offers is not sensational but steady: a revelation born of practice, humility, and deep understanding. 💚

‘“When the body is made ready and the mind steady, the energy flows naturally. There is no need to seek awakening; it will arise as the fruit of disciplined practice.”

11/12/2025

So much joy, fun, exploration, and inspiration at Breaking the Rules with at this weekend. 🙏
Gratitude for the shared curiosity, laughter, and renewed sense of play in the practice. 💫

11/10/2025

Such great insights by Stephanie Tencer into the pathway to freedom through structure and exploration in Iyengar Yoga.

Awareness. Alignment. Autonomy.

11/10/2025

Yoga is not about mastering the posture — it’s about penetrating the posture.

Guruji reminds us that asana, dhyana, and devotion are not separate paths but one continuum of awareness.
Each asana — from Paschimottanasana to Setu Bandha Sarvangasana — holds a mirror to the mind.

In the silence after effort, you experience jnana — knowledge born from direct, lived experience.
✨ "Where there is asana, there should be dhyana. Where there is dhyana, there should be asana." — Guruji B.K.S Iyengar
💡 Let your practice be your meditation.

Your movement, your study.
Your silence — your teacher.

💬 How do you experience silence in your practice? Share your reflections in the comments.

11/08/2025

It’s been a while since we’ve done this together, and the hardest few months. But so glad to be practising with my sister and diving into ’s workshop with Breaking the Rules. Are we rebel yoginis? Ask mom .lowry.180 ❤️

11/07/2025

Have you ever wondered why we use props in Iyengar Yoga?

Are they just supports to make poses easier — or something deeper?
In Iyengar Yoga, props are not crutches; they are teachers.
They guide us to stability, sensitivity, and self-awareness.

✨ Props teach us humility.
When we use a prop, pride melts away. It’s a moment of surrender and reflection — not weakness.
✨ Props help us overcome fear.
Remember your first headstand at the wall? The wall wasn’t a shortcut — it was courage in physical form. Props help dissolve fear so freedom can emerge.
✨ Props bring stability and stillness.
Guruji BKS Iyengar said, “Āsana is not motion but coordinated and harmonious action.”
With props, the body steadies and the mind becomes one-pointed (ekāgra).
✨ Props awaken intelligence.
A chair, belt, or block can teach what no verbal instruction can — where to release, how to expand, and how to feel light, even in effort.

As our understanding deepens, props transform from physical supports into spiritual guides. They remind us that yoga is not about performance, but awareness.

“Medicines can keep people living, but yoga — through its props — gives life.”

🌸 Let your next practice be a conversation with your prop — not an escape from effort, but a discovery of depth.

How have props transformed your practice? Share your experience below.

11/06/2025

What I love about Iyengar Yoga is the focus and primary tenant of what we are doing on the mat, how we approach the practise and its subsequent effect on the mind- MEDITATION IN ACTION!

I can't tell you how many students I've had share that they feel an entry point into this practise because their mind doesn't wander, they aren't worried about looking a certain way in the pose or focused on how they can't do it properly - and that is because in Iyengar you are supported to focus on your body in very precise ways, with proper support and instruction, and through that focused awareness and attention we find the meditative hook of yoga. It is also through our practise that we effect the nervous system proactively and find we are able to land in meditative states with increasing ease. 💚