Krishnamacharya

The founder of Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai, began his yoga classes in the royal school of Mysore Maharaja. Krishnamacharya had every qualification to become an academic and also to take up the post as pontiff of Parakalamutt. But he declined all these avenues and took to teaching and propagating yoga as a 'gurudakshina' to his teacher. He learnt yoga under his guru in a remote cave in Tibet for seven years.At the end of which, the guru asked him as gurudakshina, that he should get married and leading the life of a 'gruhasta' and also take it as a life mission to spread the teachings and practises of yoga across the length and breadth of the country.
He took this mission very seriously, so much so that he was actively teaching yoga even into his ninetieth year. He took on a pupil aged 23 when he was past 80. Not for him mass yoga classes and counting numbers. He believed in individual attention to every pupil and tailored the classes to each student. NO wonder that several of his students have turned out to be teachers and pioneers in setting up yoga institutes throughout India and abroad.
There was an interesting anecdote about practise of yoga in Sweden. One of his students had learnt yoga and was practising the same when she got back to her place in Sweden. After a few days, she called back and said, while the practises were solving her physical ailments when she was in Chennai, they were not doing so in Sweden. Krishnamacharya asked her if it was very cold in Sweden. She said no, it is summer and it is quite warm with loong days and short nights. Krishnamacharya thought for a few minutes and realised the problem here. Her asanas had to be done before sunrise and just after sunset. During summer the days were long and it was very late by the time the sunset and then she did her asanas. Within a couple of hours, the sun rose again and she had to wake up and do her exercises before sunrise. While days and nights are fairly equal in Chennai, this practise was perfect, it got skewed in Sweden. He had to tweak the treatment to suit the peculiar conditions there and then she was in comfort!
Great man. Yes, I think he single handedly revived the practise and teachings of yoga and got it a respectable and desirable status that it enjoys today.