I am currently in the 3rd day of a 8 day yoga intensive with Peter Thompson @ Oasis Holistic. I attended a similar workshop 6yrs ago, also with Peter, but have not practised any Iyengar since.
Peter's teachings are simple but profound. I am going to share some of the "take-aways" I got these past few days so I don't forget (and hopefully, what I understood isn't too far off from what he was trying to teach us!)
1/ Stop intellectualising yoga! Take the brain out of the practise and let the asana speak to you. The body will know where to go, there is no need for the brain to be giving instructions to it all the time.
2/ The asana is lead by the movement of energy through the body (and it is often initiated at the base of the spine, not dictated from the head!). The movement in a sequence is therefore not jumpy and stacatto in beat, but fluid, mindful, deliberate...
3/ The asana has to be practised with integrity and honesty. Very often, we try to cheat the asana by taking short-cuts: so, we manage to get into a pose, but a pose without integrity is harming the system and hence unsustainable and will hurt the body eventually.
4/ Yoga is a process of building blocks. If you do not understand Tadasana (standing mountain pose),
there is no way to practise Adho Mukha Vrksasana (handstand) 
with integrity. If you can't get the shins to support the body in Virassana (Hero)
, the body will collapse in supta-vajrasana 
or hanumanasa 
(Monkey pose). Go back to basics and make sure the foundation is right and build from there. Sometimes, we need to go backwards to be able to progress forward.I don't know what all this will mean to my own practise. When I first encountered yoga, I flirted with all the different schools but Ashtanga and Vinyasa really appealed to me, and that has been my practise these past few years. I am ashamed to say that in Vinyasa, I was able to cheat the Asana-God really well! As we never stay in a pose for very long, it was easy to get away with it. In Iyengar (at least in Peter's workshops), we stay in a pose for what feels like eternity, and one has no choice, but stay true to each asana. In yesterday's 6hr workshop, we only did 4 asanas - we studied each pose in minute detail and practised it till we understood! And it was a beautifully humbling experience.
I was doing Adho Mukha Vrksasanas (handstands) with the heel of my hands and not with the balls of the hands where they should be! That's equivalent to standing with all your weight at the heel of your feet (and you can stand on the heels of your feet, but the body is not centered, there is no balance, the energy cannot flow, it's tiring and I guess the pelvic tilt will probably result in backache eventually). After 2 days of trying, I still can't seem to activate the balls of the hands properly. Peter had us doing Adho Mukha Vrksasanas off blocks with the index fingers pushing into the blocks. And of course, I could not get up and had to ask for help.
I had always thought I did a perfect Hanumanasana (side split), but here again, I have been cheating. In Virassana (simply kneeling), Peter taught us the importance of supporting the body with the full length of the shin, ankle and feet. When I applied the same principal to my Hanumanasana, I realised that my legs were rolling outwards and my body was in fact collapsing into the pose. To maintain integrity in Hanumanasana, there is actually an inward rotation so the full length of the legs can support the body. And, I needed a rolled up blanket to be able to do this.
There were so many great things in this class, I guess I can go on and on..... but the best would be for you to sign up for one of his workshops. He is in Singapore and Bali for the next few months so look it up. http://www.oasisyoga.sg/teachers/peter-thomson
