Marian Garfinkel


Marian Garfinkel is an early researcher in the field of complementary medicine, showing that yoga could be used to treat and possibly cure a variety of hand injuries resulting from repetitive use. She studied with B. K. S. Iyengar for over 40 years, making annual trips to yoga centers in India, France, California and Michigan. As a result of her contact with Iyengar, she and her former husband Marvin Garfinkel is credited with inspiring the sculptor Robert Engman to create the sculpture After Iyengar, currently on display at the Morris Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC.

Life

Garfinkel grew up in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the youngest of four children. She married Marvin Garfinkel in 1962, and settled at Cobble Court in 1974.
Following the award of her degree, Dr. Garfinkel assumed teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University.
In 2016, Garfinkel's extensive archives regarding B. K. S. Iyengar were donated to the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States.
Garfinkel is a senior certified Iyengar teacher who was a student of B. K. S. Iyengar between 1976, when she first met him in Ann Arbor, MI, and his death in 2014.

Research

In 1994 Garfinkel was the lead author of a study that showed that yoga could be used for treatment of osteoarthritis of the hands, and in 1998, Garfinkel was lead author of a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrating the yoga could be used to relieve the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. At the time of the article's publication, Garfinkel was in India, studying with Iyengar. On her return from India, she discovered over 900 e-mail messages in her inbox, many from people who were eager to see if she could help them. In 2000, she published an article co-authored with H. Ralph Schumacher, Jr. presenting the ability of Yoga to cure a variety of rheumatic diseases.