Description

Ashtanga Yoga as taught by shri k. pattabhi jois Sri K. Pattabhi Jois has become a renowned name in the world of Yoga, but like his teacher Krishnamacharya, it is primarily his students that have brought attention to his name in reference to where they received their teaching from. Pattabhi Jois, now 92 years old, has been teaching yoga for seventy years, but it is primarily in the last ten years the world came to know about him, since all his Western students started to spread his teaching in various parts of the world. Today it is quite normal that more than 200 foreigners queue up at his house every month to learn the particular style of Yoga that he teaches. Whenever he travels the world, he receives the attention of a modern rock star, and hundreds of people willingly sign up for his simple courses wherever he goes. However, Pattabhi Jois’s life story is paved with struggles and demands, suffering and tragedies, but without ever losing faith in Yoga and the method he has been spreading. While teaching Yoga for 37 years at the Sanskrit College in Mysore, he was the lowest paid teacher and had no chance of supporting his family without extra work on the side. However, due to generous support from local people in the area, Pattabhi Jois was able to continue focusing on his teaching of Yoga and could therefore surrender his life to refining the teachings he received from his guru, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya.Pattabhi Jois was also one of the first students of Krishnamacharya. The two first met in Hassan, Karnataka in 1927 where Krishnamacharya was doing a Yoga demonstration in the Jubilee Hall. Pattabhi Jois became so overwhelmed by what he saw that the following day he approached Krishnamacharya for instruction. Although Krishnamacharya left him to practice on his own a few months later, their teacher-student relationship was to last for nearly thirty years. During this period, Pattabhi Jois had the great fortune of learning asana, pranayama and various aspects of Indian philosophy from T. Krishnamacharya, alias “The Grandfather of Modern Yoga.”At the age of fifteen, Pattabhi Jois had a keen interest to pursue Yoga and his Sanskrit studies further, so he therefore ran away from home and left his native village to secretly beg for admission at the Maharaja’s Sanskirt College in Mysore. Here he was reunited with Krishnamacharya, and they continued their close relationship until Krishnamacharya eventually departed for Madras in 1953.Pattabhi Jois was born on Guru Purnima (the full moon day in the month of Guru, which normally falls in July) in 1915 in the village of Kowshika, close to Hassan, in the Karnataka state. Since his first arrival in Mysore he went through exceeding difficulties. He knew neither friends nor relatives in the town, and was forced to beg for food during his first few years of staying there. Due to his little knowledge in Yoga, his luck eventually changed and he started doing demonstrations of Yoga at the College as well as visit the home of the Maharaja. Pattabhi Jois was eventually given the post of Yoga Teacher to the students at the Sanskrit College in 1937. He retained this post until 1973. While being a teacher he was also able to pursue his own studies and received a Vidvan degree (the equivalent of a Western MA degree) in Vedanta from the same college.Pattabhi Jois claims that the style of Yoga he teaches is exactly the same as what Krishnamacharya taught him. He openly admits that he has refined some of the sequences of postures given him by Krishnamacharya and grouped them into a clearer, systematic development of sequence. This he claims was something that took place after years of personal observation and experience from the practice, all for the sake of facilitating a greater opening in the body and paving the way for a more integrated experience of Yoga to take place. What is particular with the Ashtanga Yoga method taught by Pattabhi Jois is that the student is gradually led through a set sequence of postures step by step. Each student is first taught the sun salutations, which Pattabhi Jois claims is the very foundation to the practice. Then gradually the student will be introduced to new postures, but only if they display a level of proficiency in the basic movements of what they have been learning. Pattabhi Jois adamantly claims that the method he represents gradually will awaken a greater receptivity to spirit from within, but the primary steps are first to cleanse the body of its physical imbalances. He claims further it will serve no purpose for somebody to perform difficult postures unless their body/mind/nervous system has been prepared for it. Every beginner is therefore first introduced to the basic components of the practice constituting the sun salutations and standing postures. This is in order to prepare the body for the seated (asana) sequence to follow. What is further significant with this form of practice is that, in the beginning, it may appear extremely physically demanding because an intense inner heat may be produced, and the practitioner may equally be subject to a profuse level of sweating. This usually takes place in the early stages and is supposed to act as a cleansing mechanism for the body/mind/nervous system in order to free up imbalances from within and gradually awaken the body and mind to a greater receptivity of Yoga. This form of exercise is by far the most physically challenging of all the modern schools of Yoga, but Pattabhi Jois claims the goal is not physical but of a spiritual nature–that one therefore does not have to be to be an athlete to practice this method, but greater strength and flexibility is a natural outcome that will follow.According to this system, there are six different sequences of postures a person may learn, also known as “series.” They have an average of 25 asanas each. Only a handful of people in the world are proficient above the third level and have ever attempted any of the later sequences involving advanced contortionist exercises with deep backbends, twists and intense stretches having a radical impact on the organs and body/mind/nervous system. The policy at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute (AYRI), where Pattabhi Jois is the Director, is to slowly and gradually build up the capability of each student. Nobody is therefore taught advanced postures unless they have spent a minimum of 3 to 5 years consolidating the practice and showing a reasonable level of consistency and dedication. The final and penultimate sequences are both shrouded in a lot of mystery, particularly the last one, and only one living person in the world has been introduced to it–Sharath Rangaswamy, the grandson of Pattabhi Jois. According to hearsay, some of the “exercises” here involve stopping your own heartbeat and other extreme levels of physical control over the muscles as well as the inner organs