IMIYA Mission Statement
Purpose
The Intermountain BKS Iyengar Yoga Association is committed to serve the Iyengar yoga community by offering both educational and financial resources to current Iyengar yoga teachers, Iyengar yoga students and the wider yoga community.
Iyengar Yoga
Iyengar Yoga is a form of yoga developed by the late B.K.S. Iyengar. Iyengar Yoga is known for its precision in alignment, sequencing, and use of props to help facilitate learning and a deeper understanding of yoga. Iyengar Yoga’s philosophy is based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
IMIYA
The Intermountain Iyengar Yoga Association (IMIYA) was established as a United States regional Iyengar Yoga association that represents Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Our core purpose is to study, teach, disseminate and promote the art, science, and philosophy of Yoga according to the teachings and philosophy of B.K.S. Iyengar. Our purpose is exclusively educational and charitable. All Board Members are volunteers.
Our organization is formed to perform the following primary functions:
- Public Education – To educate the public as widely as possible about the teachings of Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar and to maintain the teaching standards set by him.
- Exchange of Culture – To facilitate and expedite communication between B.K.S. Iyengar and his United States students and foster a fruitful East-West cultural exchange, bringing Western culture, people, ideas and knowledge to the East and vice-versa, so that a more complete understanding may develop among the many diverse cultures of each.
- Research – To foster medical research and to exchange research findings on Yoga related issues.
- Service – To find and implement ways to better serve the practitioners and teachers of yoga.
- Scholarships and Outreach – To sponsor and/or organize and fund events and activities that are consistent with the purposes of the Association.
- Library – To establish a reference library and maintain archives of pertinent materials written by or about B.K.S. Iyengar, including audio tapes, video tapes, photographs and other appropriate items.
- Newsletter – To establish a newsletter and/or other means of disseminating information consistent with our purposes.
Additionally, we are fully committed to ongoing collaborative antiracism education, harm reduction, uplifting marginalized voices, and fostering a thriving, welcoming yoga community where all practitioners can continue to grow together through transformative practice.