Thursday, 10 April 2014

Clifford Sweatte's 1985 Guruji Led 'Advanced A' in a Hawiian garage video

A couple of months back I posted...

Clifford Sweatte VIDEO: Pattabhi Jois' led Intermediate series Ashtanga 1989 Larger class, Mixed ages and abilities from Clifford Sweatte

Clifford left a comment on that post mentioning another video of Advanced A shot in a garage that he was hoping to post in the spring.

"This spring another Advanced A video that has never been published will be posted to our website. It is similar to the intermediate video in that our small group didn’t know video cameras would greet us that day in a garage in Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii".

Meanwhile, Kristina Karitinou found a video among an old box of Derek Ireland's things, supposedly he was sent this video by friends. I posted that video last month on this post

Stories tell that Guruji would put press into your abdomen to check you were engaging uddiyana bandha, here he is doing the same during padmasana

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Advanced A Ashtanga class in a garage in LA (1989?)

Last week Clifford posted his video, cut into five segments, and it's been doing the rounds already, it's the same as that posted by Kristina's but watching it now the quality is clearly better, Derek's video was a copy of course. I speculated 1989? in the title, same as Clifford's Intermediate series video, Clifford in his comment below says it was shot in 1985 (around the same time as the Derek Ireland TV spot posted yesterday).

I just received a comment from Clifford, and look, there is perhaps another video floating around shot in San Francisco, anyone have a copy?

Anthony:

Almost certain this (the Advanced A that Kristina posted) was shot in 1985 and yes, this is the Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii garage I mentioned to you, hot stuff!. Guruji was on a two year cycle in those days between trips to the USA and the next Advanced A video is 1987 (www.pranaairways.com).

He began traveling more that year, I remember a session in San Francisco being his only original student mixed with a large group of Iyengar students, wish I could locate that video! He also was in Santa Cruz and in Santa Barbara at Ganga White's and Tracey Rich's White Lotus Foundation that fall.

Thank you for sharing his teaching with so many,

Clifford Sweatte
@Prana Airways

Update: Post on the video from from Eddie Sterne's
Brooklyn Yoga Club

"And Now We Know Who Was In That Advanced 'A' Video…

Posted on April 2, 2014

Special big up to Christine Hoar of Bristol Yoga for providing the year, location and names of the students practicing in the third series video that was recently posted by Kristina Karitinou on YouTube (and in our last post here).

From Christine’s email:

for what it’s worth….the folks in the video are:

brad ramsey
clifford sweatte
chuck miller
sandy harrington
stephanie gilgoff (nancy’s sister)
helena berg
lynne heiman (ricky’s wife)

you can see ricky come in at about 1:45 into the video, chatting with guruji.

it is circa 1985. and was filmed in ricky’s garage in kona, hawaii.

It’s worth a lot, thank you Christine. And as for your closing query…

love the outfits…think i’m going to get me some white tights and a new leotard!

… maybe I’ll go back to purple speedos… but most likely maybe not."