“Yoga is relationship.” TKV Desikchar
Student teacher relationship is key to yoga transmission. Yoga is not a self-improvement project and you can’t learn yoga on your own. A teacher is defined in part by their own studentship; a student’s yoga is largely determined by their being in living supportive relationship with a teacher; a teacher’s yoga is determined explicitly by the needs of the individual student.
I am part of the Desikachar lineage; Desikachar was a student of his father Krishnamacharya. Whenever I am beginning a session transmitting what I have learned from that sampradayā, I invoke them. Whenever in my personal practice I am recalling their teachings, I use this invocation to begin.