Iyengar Quotes On Effort And Discipline, Explained

Iyengar quotes on discipline: the short version

How hard should you try in yoga, and how do you keep going when you would rather stay on the couch? Mr BKS Iyengar, his daughter Geeta and his son Prashant had plenty to say about both. Their Iyengar quotes on discipline are short, a bit cheeky and very practical. Below are 22 of them, each with a plain explanation of what it means and where you might meet it on the mat.

Iyengar quotes on effort and discipline in short form

• Right effort: do your best, not your most, and do it well.
• Regular beats big: a little practice often does more than a rare heroic session.
• No time is an excuse: time is found by people who decide to find it.
• Failing is part of it: the people quoted here treated mistakes as information.
• Calm discipline: control comes from steadiness, never from aggression.
• Practise at Flametree: start with a free first class if you are new.

Iyengar yoga is the style developed by Mr BKS Iyengar. In the 20th century he did more than anyone to set down traditional Indian yoga, through his books and his teaching, and he pioneered the use of props. It is sometimes called modern classical yoga, and it’s the style we teach at Flametree. His daughter Geeta and his son Prashant carried the teaching on, and you’ll meet all three on this page.

What is the right amount of effort in yoga?

Good effort in yoga is not the same as hard effort. These seven quotes are about aiming at the right amount, then doing it well.

It is better to do a good pose minimum than a bad pose maximum.

What it means: A mild pose done well teaches you more than a showy pose done badly. If you reach for the biggest version you can find, your breath tightens, your shoulders creep up and the shape falls apart. If you take a smaller version and keep it clean, you can feel what each part of the body is doing.

In class a teacher will often send you back to a lower or simpler version of a pose, with a prop under your hand or a wall behind you. That is this idea at work. The pose is judged by how well it is made, not how far it goes.

Read more: Triangle Pose and why props help, using props in yoga | Also on: Practice

Do your optimum and not your maximum.

What it means: Prashant puts the same idea in five words. Your optimum is the best amount for today, in this body, with this breath. Your maximum is the most you could squeeze out, which usually costs you something.

A good test in class is to ask whether you could keep breathing smoothly while you hold the pose. If the breath has gone ragged, you are probably past your optimum.

Read more: how long to hold yoga poses | Also on: Practice

The principle of consolidation is ‘do not do more but do better’. Do with less effort and more composure.

What it means: Consolidating means making what you already know firmer and more reliable. Prashant’s advice is to resist the urge to add more, and to improve the quality of what you are doing instead.

That might mean spending a whole term on Mountain Pose and standing poses before anyone rushes you toward something bigger. Doing with less effort and more composure sounds easy and turns out to be a lifetime of work.

Read more: Mountain Pose, the base of every standing pose, managing effort in your yoga practice | Also on: Practice

People’s psychology is to “do less” and for this to “expect more”. Remember that if the effort is less then the effect too is less. If the efforts are right then the effects are right.

What it means: Geeta is describing a very human habit: wanting a big result for a small effort. Her answer is simple cause and effect. If you put in a little, you get a little. If you put in the right kind of effort, you get the right kind of effect.

Notice she says right, not more. In class the right effort is often small and exact, like lifting the front of your thigh or stretching your arm a little further from the shoulder.

Read more: yoga for beginners in Darwin | Also on: Practice

Never go to an asana with aggressiveness.

What it means: An asana (yoga pose) is not a fight. Going at a pose with force tends to harden the muscles and the face, and that is the opposite of what the pose is for.

A teacher might say, “Soften your eyes, soften your jaw, then ask the pose again.” Effort stays in the legs or arms that are working, and the rest of you stays quiet.

Read more: why the pose begins when you want to leave | Also on: Health, Illness And Injury

Aim at the quality of the asanas and not the quantity. Quality means doing the postures accurately, steadily and whole-heartedly.

What it means: Geeta names three marks of quality: accurate, steady and whole-hearted. Accurate means the pose is arranged the way it is meant to be. Steady means you can stay without wobbling or gripping. Whole-hearted means you are actually there, not thinking about dinner.

One carefully made Triangle Pose is worth more than ten rushed ones.

Read more: Warrior 2 and what an accurate pose looks like | Also on: Practice

Skill is the ability to do the same thing with lesser effort.

What it means: Think of someone who rides a bike every day. They look relaxed because they have learned to use only the effort the ride needs. Prashant says that is what skill means.

In yoga it shows up as a pose that gets lighter over months. The first time you hold it you grip everything. Later you find the few muscles that matter and let the others go.

Read more: effort and ease in practice | Also on: Practice

To release is also an effort. If you don’t know, you will just hold on there. It takes effort to release.

What it means: This one surprises people. Letting go is not the same as collapsing. Real release, such as in a restful pose at the end of class, asks you to notice where you are holding on and then choose to soften it.

That noticing is the effort Geeta is talking about. A teacher might ask you to soften one thing at a time, such as the tongue, the forehead or the back of the knees, and you will find each one takes a small act of attention.

Read more: Savasana and how to relax properly | Also on: Relaxation, Rest And Sleep

Sometimes over sincerity can make you action-holic. You are waiting and wanting to do something somewhere all the time.

What it means: Prashant is poking fun at the person who is so keen that they can never rest. Always waiting and wanting to do something is its own kind of restlessness. The keen student pushes on when the right move is to pause and look.

If you are the sort who arrives early, stays late and cannot sit still in the last pose, this one is for you. A good practice has gaps in it, where you do nothing and see what the body has learned.

Read more: yoga when you are tired or travelling | Also on: Practice

How do you keep going when you do not feel like it?

Discipline is mostly about showing up on ordinary days. These eight quotes are about regular practice, small starts and getting past the excuse.

A minimum of thirty minutes a day has to be spent. Don’t say that people have no time. They can gossip on the road.

What it means: Mr Iyengar does not let anyone off the hook here, and he says it with a grin. Thirty minutes a day is not a lot, and most of us can find it if we look honestly at how we spend our minutes.

He is not asking for a long, perfect session. He is asking for a regular one. Many people find it easier to start with ten minutes at the same time each day and let it grow from there.

Read more: how to build a daily yoga habit, yoga practice at home | Also on: Practice

Do not think about having no time; then you will squeeze the time for your practices.

What it means: This is the same idea, said another way. If you keep telling yourself you have no time, you will not look for it. If you stop thinking about it, you find the time.

A practical trick is to tie your practice to something you already do, like the end of your morning cup of tea. The gap appears when the habit has a home.

Read more: a daily yoga habit that lasts | Also on: Practice

Sometimes the body says, ‘Yes,’ and the mind says, ‘Excuse me today.’ Sometimes the mind says, ‘Yes,’ and the body, ‘Excuse me.’ I always say, ‘Let us go ahead.’

What it means: Everyone has days when the body is willing and the mind is not, or the other way round. Mr Iyengar’s answer is to go ahead anyway, gently, and see what happens. He did not wait for a perfect mood.

The first five minutes are often the hardest, and the mood tends to follow the action. You can always do a smaller practice on a poor day. That still counts.

Read more: yoga when you are tired | Also on: The Body And Alignment, The Mind And Meditation

It doesn’t take a long time to break discipline but to build discipline takes a very long time. To break discipline takes just a fraction of a second.

What it means: Habits are built slowly and lost quickly. One missed week turns into two, and a month later you have stopped. Geeta is reminding us to protect the routine we have built.

It is not meant as a scolding. It is a reason to keep the practice small and steady, so it is easy to protect. A short session on a busy day keeps the thread unbroken.

Read more: habits that last | Also on: Practice

If you are practising casually, the effects too will be casual. If you practise regularly, the effects will grow subtler and subtler.

What it means: Mr Iyengar links how you practise to what you get from it. Practise now and then, and the results stay vague. Practise regularly, and they become finer and more precise.

Many students find this out after a few months of weekly classes. The breath is steadier, the pose is easier to arrange, and small things about the body that used to be hidden become clear.

Read more: getting started in Darwin | Also on: Practice

Laziness and lethargy are arch-enemies of Yoga while cheerfulness and enthusiasm are the friends that elevate the practitioner.

What it means: Geeta pairs two opposites. Laziness and heaviness pull you away from practice. Cheerfulness and enthusiasm lift you toward it. Notice she calls cheerfulness a friend, which is a lovely way to think about it.

You can pick the friend deliberately. Put on the practice clothes, put the mat down and smile at the first pose. The cheerful mood is sometimes built by the doing, not the other way round.

Read more: yoga and lifting your mood | Also on: Life And Happiness

To master an asana, you need patience and discipline. The asana will not come by making faces.

What it means: Mr Iyengar means this literally. If you pull faces and clench your jaw to get into a pose, you are using the wrong effort. The pose arrives through patience and steady, repeated practice.

Students are sometimes told to relax the face in class, and it is a handy check. If your face is tense, your pose is probably carrying more strain than it needs.

Read more: why forward bends feel hard, and how to ease in | Also on: Practice

If infinity seems a long way off, let us not forget that when, by an act of effortful intelligence, we remove our feet from the warm bed to the cold floor, we have taken our first step.

What it means: The big goal can feel enormously far away. Mr Iyengar shrinks it to one small act: putting your feet on the cold floor when you would rather stay warm. That is the first step, and it takes effort of its own.

Getting to the mat is the hardest part of many practices. Once you are on it, the next step is much easier.

Read more: starting a morning practice | Also on: Life And Happiness

What does discipline do for you?

Discipline is not only about doing more. It changes how you treat your own mind and body.

Man has learnt to tame cats, dogs, serpents, lions, tigers and elephants; but he has not learnt to tame himself.

What it means: We have learnt to manage horses, dogs and even elephants, yet taming our own habits and moods is harder. Mr Iyengar is saying that self-discipline is the real skill, and that yoga is practice for it.

In class you meet this in small ways, like staying in a pose a few breaths longer than you wanted, or not fidgeting. Each time is a tiny act of training yourself.

Read more: the eight limbs of yoga explained plainly | Also on: The Mind And Meditation

The body must be trained to be the servant, not the master.

What it means: If the body is the master, you do whatever it wants. You skip practice because it is tired, you avoid a pose because it is awkward. Mr Iyengar wants the body trained to cooperate, like a good helper who does what is asked.

That does not mean forcing it. It means teaching it, patiently, through repetition and good alignment, until it becomes a willing partner.

Read more: yoga for stiffness and flexibility | Also on: The Body And Alignment

If you say you are trying, you are not trying; it is only a mental movement. Don’t try, do it.

What it means: “I’m trying” can be a way of staying outside the action, hedging your bets. Mr Iyengar is pointing out that a mental attempt is not the same as the movement itself. Commit to the actual action.

In class a teacher might say, “Don’t try to straighten the leg, straighten it.” Then your attention goes into the leg instead of into your doubts.

Read more: holding a pose with full attention

The minute you say, I am satisfied, the light is fading.

What it means: Complacency is the quiet enemy of practice. As soon as you decide you have mastered a pose, you stop looking at it, and your pose stops improving.

The teachers who have practised for decades will tell you the pose always has another layer. Staying curious keeps the light on.

Read more: keeping your practice fresh | Also on: Learning

You must be as joyful when you fail again and again as you are joyful when you succeed. It is often when you fail that you move toward the goal without being aware of it.

What it means: Mr Iyengar asks for the same cheerful spirit whether a pose goes well or badly. Failing is part of learning, and often you are closer to the goal than you realise.

Headstand and handstand are good examples. Many people fall over many times before they find the line, and the falls are part of the way there.

Read more: learning headstand with a wall and a teacher, how to do a handstand without fear | Also on: Life And Happiness

Related pages

• Yoga Philosophy And Iyengar Yoga: notes from Flametree
• Poses And Practice notes
• Managing effort in your yoga practice
• How to build a daily yoga habit

Frequently asked questions

What did BKS Iyengar say about discipline?

He said that discipline is the heart of practice and that it is built by doing a little regularly. He also said a minimum of thirty minutes a day is possible for anyone who is honest about their time. He treated discipline as patient training, never as aggression.

How much effort should I put into a yoga pose?

Aim for your optimum, not your maximum. Prashant Iyengar said, “Do your optimum and not your maximum.” A useful check is whether you can keep your breath smooth and your face soft while you hold the pose.

Can I learn Iyengar yoga discipline in Darwin?

Yes. Flametree teaches Iyengar yoga in Darwin, in the studio and LIVE online, and a regular weekly class is a good way to build the habit these quotes describe. New students get a free first class.

Is discipline in yoga about being strict with yourself?

Not in the Iyengar tradition. Mr Iyengar warned against going to a pose with aggression, and Geeta paired discipline with cheerfulness and enthusiasm. The discipline is steady and patient, and it works best with a friendly attitude to yourself.

Flametree Yoga Studio teaches Iyengar yoga in Darwin and LIVE online. This page is general information about yoga, not medical advice. The quotes are short credited extracts from the books, articles and talks named beside each one.