Opening Gathering for Light on Prāṇāyāma
Date and Time: January 18, 2026 8am UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) In this new Yoga Readers cycle we will be reading B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on
Date and Time: January 18, 2026 8am UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)
In this new Yoga Readers cycle we will be reading B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Prāṇāyāma – his major work on yogic breathing, and a text that has quietly shaped how many teachers and practitioners around the world understand, teach, and practise prāṇāyāma today.
To open this journey, I’m inviting you to a special communal gathering on Zoom. (The Zoom links are sent via Yoga Readers Newsletter, Whats’app Group and Facebook Group.)
In our opening Zoom session for Yoga Readers: Light on Prāṇāyāma, over 50 practitioners gathered from around the world—New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, Dubai, and many places in between—to begin a five-month reading journey through one of B.K.S. Iyengar’s most complex and demanding books.
This was written from lived experience, from observation, from rigorous trial and error, and from a deep understanding that prāṇāyāma is both transformative and delicate.
One of the most surprising parts of the session was the origin story of the book itself. Iyengar was not formally initiated into prāṇāyāma by his teacher T. Krishnamacharya—in fact, he was told: “You are not fit for pranayama.” So Iyengar did what only Iyengar could do: he observed, researched, experimented, and gradually “reverse-engineered” the practice from within.
We explored how Light on Prāṇāyāma was shaped through multiple drafts—tested and re-tested in bodies, translated into language, and refined through dialogue between Iyengar and his Western (often female) students who challenged every instruction: What does this actually mean in the breath? Is it intelligible? Is it safe? The book we hold today is not only a yogic text—it is also an intercultural collaboration, trying to give words to something that is deeply internal and subtle.
In the recording you will also hear us reflect on what it means to read yogic texts as practitioners: not as consumers of information, but as students learning discernment.
We spoke about why prāṇāyāma is taught less frequently than āsana in the Iyengar tradition, why it can feel “simple” while being profoundly difficult, and why it becomes a bridge between body and mind. If you missed the live gathering, the recording will not only help you catch up—it will help you enter the spirit of this journey.
I’ve created the Light on Prāṇāyāma Study Pack – a complete resource for those who want ongoing access to all the recordings, study questions, and materials from this cycle.
The Study Pack includes all session recordings & the complete Study Companion PDF with reading schedule, focus questions, reflection prompts, and practical tools for teaching, key Sanskrit terms with explanations, and a curated bibliography for further exploration.
It’s designed for teachers, serious practitioners, and anyone who wants a lasting resource they can return to as their practice with prāṇāyāma matures.
Date and Time: January 18, 2026 8am UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) In this new Yoga Readers cycle we will be reading B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on
Thank you for registering for Threads in Patanjali’s Wisdom online course with Dr. Agi Wittich This page contains everything you need for eight weeks
Agi Wittich is a yoga practitioner since two decades, and is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher. Wittich studied Sanskrit and Tamil at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, completing a PhD with a focus on Hinduism, Yoga, and Gender. She has published academic papers exploring topics such as Iyengar yoga and women, the effects of Western media on the image of yoga, and an analysis of the Thirumanthiram yoga text.
