What is Iyengar like?
A. He’s an interesting man. He has, like anybody, kind of a wild side, although he’s tamed down a lot now that he’s much older. [Iyengar is 81.] But in his younger years, he was a pretty tough teacher. Eastern gurus are not necessarily the easiest people to work with, and they’re not for everybody. He’s very compassionate, but sometimes his compassion can be mistaken for something else. He used to hit a lot. Today he doesn’t do that very much; he’s an elderly man. But I can tell you something: When he touches, whether he’s touching or he would give you these little sharp hits, they would have a tremendous impact on the pose that you were doing. He knew that if he hit you on your thigh, he would hit in such a way that if he wanted your chest to open, your chest opened. Q. He would hit with his hand? A. His hand. There are a lot of stories about Iyengar because of that. But for me that was not an issue. I understood that the teaching and the depth of the teaching and the knowledge was so
