HISTORY
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Noëlle Perez-Christiaens (1925-2019) met BKS Iyengar in India in 1959. She was among his first students from the West. In her search for inner silence, Noëlle was thrilled by the Indian master's insistence on attention and relaxation. But she also encountered difficulties and experienced pain. While in India, one day Iyengar suggested :
“Walk behind women : when your shadow looks like
theirs, you will have made progress.”
This became the seed for the discovery of Aplomb or original alignment.
In the 1970s, Noëlle received BKS Iyengar several times in Paris for seminars. On his last visit, in 1976, BKS Iyengar highlighted the pathological absence of balance in the West.
When he placed his students in balance, astonished eyes began to open. Passionate research began. Noëlle undertook
numerous trips to study the carrying of loadson the head. In Africa she was struck by the beauty and the unbelievable
balance of people carrying weight on the head.
When she recognized original alignment, Noëlle experienced a real metamorphosis : in original alignment yoga postures
became more relaxed, lighter, and more harmonious.
She described the fruit of her experiences and studies in several books.
In 1982, more enthusiastic than ever, she left for Portugal.
There she met Miguel, a stevedore at the harbor, who carried loads of fish on his head. He was to become her husband.
Miguel understood the subtlety of Noëlle's research and helped her to enter into the essence of balance. Walking behind
Miguel, Noëlle began her apprenticeship, discovering every detail of original alignment, which she immediately
internalized.
Noëlle has long been surrounded by loyal students who participated in the discovery of original alignment. Before dying,
she entrusted five of them with the task of preserving and passing on the discovery of her life, a treasure for humanity :
called “original alignment” or,in French, “Aplomb”.
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Today, Aplomb is taught in classes and seminars in various places in France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United
States, Canada, and so on.
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In Cento, Italy, a museum of Aplomb was created by Stefano Lenzi. The museum also brings together numerous works of
at by Miguel.
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By her qualities of soul, intelligence, devotion, and also a very demanding character,
Noelle attracted students in search of a profound teaching that touches on the
essentials of the human being. In the early1960’s, the BKS Iyengar Yoga Institute was
founded in Paris. In the1980s, it became the Institut Supérieur Aplomb (ISA).