Striking a pose

In India, yoga has been practiced for thousands of years as a source of well-being. The physical side of yoga is associated with developing core strength by putting your body in different postures and following a sequence of poses, and since its renaissance in the early years of the 20th century a number of different schools of yoga have developed.

Mysore, in southern India, became an important hub for yoga in the 1920s when Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, seen as the father of modern yoga, started teaching there.

Krishnamacharya is credited with popularising Hatha Yoga, a style that emphasizes the asanas, or physical postures, and performing them in a set sequence.

BNS Iyengar, one of Krishnamacharya’s last surviving students who is now in his late 80s, is still teaching at the Mysore