Women are the foundation of our communities and societies. They are powerful at work and nurturing at home. But they are also stretched and stressed.
Yoga helps to balance a woman’s hormones, making symptoms like menstruation and menopause less troublesome. It can also keep her fit and flexible during pregnancy.
Geeta Iyengar
Geeta Iyengar is a yoga teacher credited with advancing yoga for women. She began studying with her father, B. K. S. Iyengar, at a young age and soon began substituting for him during his international teaching tours. Later, she became co-director of the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India, and also taught internationally herself.
Her classic guide, Yoga: A Gem for Women, provides detailed guidance on employing yoga to help regulate the menstrual cycle and addresses such issues as bloating, breast tenderness, irritability, mood swings, aches and pains and more. She emphasizes that it is not necessary to avoid inversions during the pre- and postmenstrual periods, though some poses are recommended for certain stages of the cycle.
Another excellent resource for practitioners and teachers of Iyengar yoga is Lois Steinberg’s Woman’s Yoga, which includes extensive photos and descriptions of poses, along with suggestions on how to synchronize practice with the ovulation and menstrual cycles. However, it may be too technical for beginners.
Blanche Devries
Women transform through the reproductive cycle, and if their yoga practice is wisely adjusted to support those shifts, it will stand them in good stead to move through menstruation, pregnancy, birth and beyond. But this can only happen if yoga is infused with a deep respect for the female body.
Blanche Devries, a disciple of Pierre Bernard, was one of the early practitioners who shaped the American image of yoga as something both exotic and wholesome. As Joseph Laycock explains, DeVries borrowed from the physical culture movement and combined yoga with sensual Orientalist dances that offered a sense of feminine empowerment.
Devries’s approach was a precursor to the popular classes that Lilias Folan, host of the 1970s PBS show Lilias Yoga and You, would lead viewers through. Her message resonated with many Americans who sought a balance between the demands of work and home life. As yoga continues to evolve, it is important that the women who lead its classes continue to represent a diverse array of backgrounds and experiences.
Indra Devi
Indra Devi (born Eugenie Peterson-Labunskaya in Riga, Latvia in 1899) was the first Western woman to teach yoga. She was also one of the first to write about it, publishing her first book in 1947.
Her life story is an extraordinary and often controversial weft and warp of major socio-political events of the twentieth century. During the Russian Revolution she adopted her stage name of Indra Devi and moved to Berlin where she became a socialite, attending balls and horse races, while breaking with traditional Indian customs.
She then moved to India where she studied under yoga master Krishnamacharya. Indra Devi was the first Westerner to teach yoga in India and wrote her first book, “Yoga: The Art of Reaching Health and Happiness” while she lived there. She later taught in China and Mexico. She was instrumental in spreading the practice of yoga worldwide, making it a popular activity for Hollywood stars like Gloria Swanson and Greta Garbo as well as ordinary housewives.
Pattabhi Jois
Pattabhi Jois was a yoga teacher and founder of the Vinyasa style of yoga known as Ashtanga. He is widely credited with bringing yoga to the West and making it popular. His method emphasizes repetition and devotion. He also stresses the importance of linking breath to movement. His teachings have influenced many of today’s yoga classes.
He was born on the full moon in 1915, in Kowshika, a small village in southern India. His father was a priest and astrologer, and he became interested in yoga as a boy after watching a demonstration given by Krishnamacharya.
He studied with his guru and spent most of his life traveling to teach the style of yoga that he learned from him. He died in May 2009 at the age of 93. His family continues to run the Yoga Institute of Mysore, which teaches the Ashtanga yoga practice that he developed. His grandson, R Sharath Jois, runs the school.