Alan Brown
Senior Intermediate Level 2 Iyengar Yoga Teacher
I started practising Iyengar Yoga in 1979 in Bradford, Yorkshire with Lilian Biggs who remained my yoga teacher for many years. It was she who trained me to be an Iyengar Yoga teacher and I gained my Introductory certificate in 1987. I decided to leave my job in computing and become a full time Iyengar Yoga teacher in 1990 after my first visit to the Ramamani Iyengar Yoga Institute in India for a 3 week intensive with BKS Iyengar.
I live in a small village in the Yorkshire Pennines very close to the Pennine Way where I am fortunate to have an equipped yoga studio in my house. I teach regular classes and workshops my studio as well as in the surrounding area, including a weekly yoga therapy class for those students with health problems which make it difficult for them to cope in an ordinary class. I am often invited to teach workshops and courses in other regions of the UK and abroad.
An Iyengar Yoga teacher trainer since 2000, I run teacher training courses for the Introductory Iyengar Yoga teaching certificate. I also run regular training workshops for the higher levels of Junior Intermediate assessment.
As an active member of the Iyengar Yoga Association of the UK I have sat on the Assessment and Teacher Training Committee of the IYA(UK) since its inception. I acted as Chair of that committee from 2006 until 2010. I remain an enthusiastic member and I also contribute to the work of the IYA(UK) in other ways.
I have been a member of the Bradford and District Iyengar Yoga Institute since it began and I am currently the chair of that organisation. Since it began, the BDIYI has spread out over a large area and now has one of the largest memberships in the UK, including over 50 active teacher members teaching classes over a wide area of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Details of these and regular events featuring visiting teachers as well as local classes can be found on the BDIYI website.
Recently I have been spending much of my time in the South of France where I teach yoga classes to both French and English students. Every year in the month of September I organise a yoga holiday in this beautiful area. Accommodation is in a converted country farmhouse with attached yoga studio and vegetarian, organic home cooked food.
