Sunday, 31 December 2017

2017 My year in posts

Note: See updates under December for links to three 2018 post on authorisation

I probably moved the furthest from Ashtanga I've ever been this year, trimming my practice down to just ten postures in my Proficient Primary posts early in the year, treating those ten asana somewhat as mudras before later reintroducing most of the Standing sequence. Throughout the year I focussed more and more on Simon Borg Olivier's teaching, making my asana practice safer, more beneficial perhaps, and explored in more depth Simon's Spinal sequence such that at one point, towards the end of the year, I moved all the way over into Qi Gong.

I still begin my practice with a five to ten minute version of Simon's Spinal (Qi gong/yoga) sequence but have ended the year settling back into a reasonably standard Ashtanga, it may be a Krishnamacharya, Manju Jois and Richard Freeman inspired, Simon Borg-Olivier informed, slightly Vinyasa Krama modified, soft, slow, half Primary/half Second Series Ashtanga Yoga practice.....but Ashtanga all the same...., after all these years it's just comforting. I don't tend to jump back between sides and will tend to focus on one asana or another, staying longer, introducing kumbhaka, treating them as mudras (see my Proficient Primary page), that Mingus approach to practice I used to talk about (I'll find the link).

The year ended on a sour note with Mary Taylor's article on Pattabhi Joi's 'adjustments', we'd suspected as much of course but this article clarified things, as did some of the responses and ongoing discussion (Thankfully that’s happening more in house now than via the ambulance chasers). Perhaps Guru Purnima will be more circumspect this year although I doubt it, the systems of power and authority remain, reenforced with title. My own post is mostly just links, to those it sadly happened to or to those who were actually there, I edited out the rising fury that was triggered at one point and decided to let the articles and responses speak for themselves.

My practice has always been a home practice. I tend to say I learned from books, DVDs..., YouTube etc. but that’s just being provocative, truth be told I worked my asana out on my own through daily practice, going on generally contradictory hints and suggestions....., just as we all do ultimately. No adjustments or assists sought, no guru's or teachers looked to, just daily practice, it stands up well on it's own I find. We can look back to Krishnamacharya's early texts, Yoga Makaranda  (Mysore 1931) and Yogasanagalu (Mysore 1934) and find the practice pretty much as Pattabhi Jois passed it along to his students. 

Krishnamacharya suggested that we should look to our own traditions, for me that tends to be Greece and Rome rather than India., Greek and Latin rather than Sanskrit.


Fire festival on the other side of Lake Biwa



Meanwhile, on our side of the lake....









Hiked to the top of the mountains, looking down on our beach

meanwhile down below, the paddy fields were being (intentionally) flooded







our swallows 





Started working nights for three month
















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Reviews 2017


Previous years
Final words

Q: Did you create your own sequence?

A: NO! I didn’t ‘create’ my own individual sequence, I'm a little horrified at the suggestion (thus this update to clarify), certainly not in the sense of trying to develop my own style or teach a new sequence ( I don't teach). Pattabhi Jois mentioned in Yoga Mala that after fifty you can adapt the practice as you wish, choose the asana you find most beneficial along with how you wish to practice them. But that was ALWAYS Krishnamacharya‘s way, throughout his teaching 'career', the asana were not, it seems, fixed in a set sequence. Why wait until you are fifty.

Even though I spent a little time with Ramaswami (Vinyasa Krama), I always seemed to settle back into Ashtanga, the shape of the practice I had become most familiar with, comfortable with. I would adapt the practice, perhaps, take a more 'vinyasa krama' approach, add some extra preparation postures or more advanced versions, developments, but the shape of the practice was basically the same, it was always, to my mind at least, still Ashtanga.

As I explored, in practice for a couple of years, Krishnamacharya's old Mysore texts (following the line by line  close reading module on Ramaswami's TT) I spent longer in certain asana, exploring Krishnamacharya‘s kumbhaka options. That took more time so I cut out asana, reducing my practice down to to ten key asana from the Ashtanga series, a Rishi series if you like ( Pattabhi Jois had mentioned a Rishi series idea to David and Nancy in the 70s, choosing ten postures and practicing them for longer, 25-50 breaths each).

In blog posts I referred to that as 'Proficient Primary', not to promote my own series but rather to indicate that you didn't need to practice 'Advanced asana' to have an advanced practice, you could practice primary series in an 'Advanced' way, or rather in a more proficient way, not only in how we approached our alignment but in how we worked with the breath, with drishti. If you could only do half primary or just a few seated (perhaps in a chair), even just the supine postures you could have an advanced/proficient practice, no deep backbends, arm balances, headstands necessary.

I tended to still do most of Ashtanga standing before moving into those ten asana. Recently I explored some of Simon Borg-Olivier's spinal movements before moving into my asana and finished with some handstand variations to go into asana 'hands free' (to avoid pulling limbs into postures), but it still feels like Ashtanga to me, I personally can still see the shape but it was perhaps the furthest I moved away from straight by the book Ashtanga. It was always about my own home practice, adapting the practice to my needs and what I sought to explore in practice, never to teach to anyone else. Were I to teach (and I have NO intention to do so) it would be to encourage somebody in their own home practice. I feel strongly that a good teacher has NO students, or very few, who will move on to their own personal practice (this of course doesn't mean you can't hold a room, in which case you are not necessarily a teacher but perhaps merely a facilitator - Note: I have no intention to hold a room either).

Personally I feel we should drop the whole Parampara, guru, teacher/student model altogether and let the practice do the work. Be a facilitator, a resource, that a practitioner can reach out to if and when they so choose. The only to time to impose ourselves perhaps is to offer safer practice options, the practice will take us deeper on it's own.

In the end I settled back into a pretty standard approach to Ashtanga because ultimately I found that practice I had worked with for ten years, comforting, just comforting. Now I just do a quick (depending on time) Simon Borg-Olivier style spinal warm up before move into a pretty regular Ashtanga Primary plus a little 2nd, just picking one or two asana a practice to stay longer and explore the kumbhaka options?

Ashtanga is just comforting for me, no doubt because I’ve practiced it for so long now (actually, ten years is not so long), even though I may have explored it through adapting and modifying over the years. I think the potential to adapt the practice to our needs is built into the practice, it was always Krishnamacharya‘s intention. Jois lost his way a little perhaps when he introduced Led classes (madness to try and rush 80 to 300 students into Marichiyasana D on the count) and made it more and more fixed (although we might understand  if not agree with his argument for doing so). Sharath, no doubt, just tries to continue what he saw as his grandfathers legacy but perhaps really we should be going back to early Ashtanga (Manju?) or even further, to Krishnamacharya himself, we have Krishnamacharya's early texts. Pattabhi Jois may have lost his way in more ways than one, when I see video of his led advanced class in the garage on YouTube, his adjustments, on those who clearly aren’t ready for Advanced (possibly not even 2nd) are frankly insane.

Pattabhi Jois didn't invent the Ashtanga vinyasa approach to practicing asana. The instructions for practicing the asana, the drishti, the vinyasa count...., it is all in his teacher Krishnamacharya's early text Yoga Makaranda (Mysore 1934). In Krishnamacharya's Yogasanagalu (Mysore1941) we even find the asana mostly in the order Jois presented them for his four year Sanskrit college course. Pattabhi Jois merely passed along his teacher's teaching. We can question how he passed it along, how he taught, how he behaved without that necessarily questioning what it was he was teaching, the practice stands up on it's own - we can question it separately and we should. We can question Pattabhi Jois' adjustments, how extreme as well as how sexually abusive they were  at times, we can question the introduction of Led classes, how practice was speeded up to accommodate a fixed practice, how kumbhaka was lost along the way, how flexible Krishnamacharya seems to have been in his approach by contrast, we can question Pattabhi Jois' judgement. But even if we remove Pattabhi Jois from the equation altogether we still have Krishnamacharya's texts, the vinyasa, a shape/framework to practice, if not a set sequence (though the asana is presented in almost the same order as Jois, Krishnamacharya seems to have resisted teaching the asana as fixed sequences), we still have the practice as well as encouragement to explore the practice and adapt it to our own needs and preferences.

However much it may be tempting, given the allegations of sexual abuse, to airbrush Pattabhi Jois out the timeline altogether, I recognise I wouldn't have this practice that I'm so grateful for had he not opened his doors, with such generosity, to those early teachers and taught tirelessly for decades. In brushing over Jois we also brush over those who's trust was abused by him and the dynamics, the environment and power structures that allowed it to happen and that are still in place however much we may feel that Sharath, for example, would never behave in the same way. It would also ignore those whose lives were, they feel, transformed for the good through his teaching.

Krishnamacharya stressed that the practice of asana should be explored on a grounding of the yama/niyama, the moral code (and most if not all cultures no doubt have their own 'version' as well as contemplative traditions and worthy texts - there is no actual need to run off to India), the moral code comes first and foremost as well as accompanying our practice to help us avoid losing our way, to be there to fall back on when we slip (and Patanjali reminds us that we will constantly), to support our practice and what arises out of it. The asana too, for Krishnamacharya, is always in the context of pranayama and pratyahara, it is always a meditative and spiritual practice of radical enquiry in which, for Krishnamacharya, and he would hope for us, God or at least Love is sought. 

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Thank you A. (for referring to the community as family) it's helpful. Like many home practitioners I often wonder what, if anything, this list, the recent allegations, or the lesser perhaps Ashtanga debate of the day, has to do with me as a home practitioner, why do I feel so....invested. But that's it, it feels like family, however extended. We all do this same practice in our own way, in our homes, our corners our practice rooms or hallways but have all felt perhaps, at one time or another, somewhat connected, on a Friday perhaps when most around the world are practicing Primary ( we conveniently forget about the time difference). And don't we take delight in and for friends who visit Mysore for the first time or become authorised, however much it doesn't seem to concern us because we know it means so much to them. And thus we are equally hurt and dismayed perhaps when and if they are taken off that same list. The waves in Mysore often..., occasionally, ripple through our own practice, put us off our stride, off our breath. Though the wider family shouldn't perhaps concern us, it does, on occasions, seem to help ground us. For many, that centre might be a senior teacher or not so senior, authorised or not, that we may never have met other than perhaps on a workshop or through a book or video, rather than the actual Jois family, depending on which teacher perhaps first inspired us.
This practice often feels absurd, how we often ground or build our lives around it. The wider community, the senior teachers, the Jois family...., Mysore the place, whether going there interests us or not, can make the practice seem a little less nonsensical at those times when the practice doesn't quite seem to justify itself alone. The abuse in the past affects us, the discord in the Jois family affects us, Sharath's current behaviour with the list affects us, the latter perhaps because the list feels like a family register and he shouldn't get to screw with it, nobody should..., like those old lineage charts because whether being on it or not interests us we are connected to many who are, however far removed. However much of a prodigal son (or daughter) I may feel, we're related, connected by those same or similar movements we make on a bit of cotton or rubber or both, each day or most days. And I may have little interest in Mysore today, whether the place or a room but perhaps one day...., perhaps one day I may happen to find comfort and warmth in one of those rooms, I have in the past, I no doubt shall again. We remember and tell tales of those big family arguments on family get togethers, holidays, and so easily forget those other times when family was peaceful, accepting and nourishing even if only felt from afar.
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Wednesday, 20 December 2017

Learning the 'Original' Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga

This has been sitting in draft for some time, finally finished it off.

To reclaim the 'original' Ashtanga vinyasa yoga we need just two texts, published and provided freely by the Mysore Palace (free downloads of both texts on my free download page above)

Yoga Makaranda (Mysore 1934)

 Yogasanagalu (Mysore 1941)

Both texts were written by Pattabhi Jois' teacher T. Krishnamacharya


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I say 'original' but really we have no idea if Krishnamacharya invented his approach to asana or carried it on from his teacher who possibly received it from his own teacher turn indeed or from an old text, the 'Yoga Korunta'. Krishnamacharya said he received it from his teacher and going by reports ( by Pattabhi Jois 1924) of an early demonstration Krishnamacharya was supposedly jumping from asana to asana shortly after he says he left his teacher. Anyone who 'jumps through' will tell you it takes a couple of years perhaps to become accomplished at it. It seems likely to me that Krishnamacharya received much if not all of his approach to asana from his teacher. However Krishnamacharya's texts are our earliest Primary sources other than possibly the texts he refers to in his bibliographies.
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Yoga Makaranda provides us with instruction on how to practice asana. It's basically how we already practice them in Ashtanga, Pattabhi Jois replicated the instruction format in his book Yoga Mala.

There are three significant differences however.

- Yoga Makaranda contains full vinyasa as does Yoga Mala, these days we tend to practice half vinyasa, jumping straight through between asana and sides of an asana rather than coming back to standing each time.

- Kumbhaka: Yoga Makaranda tends to indicate holding the breath in after the inhalation or out after the exhalation depending on the asana. This might be considered optional. We can skip it altogether and continue to practice without it as most do now, employ it on certain asana, employ it while taking less breaths in an asana or employ it on every asana but practice less asana, perhaps half a series.

- Yoga Makaranda contains a selection of asana, Primary Intermediate and Advanced asana and not in any particular order. See the second text Yogasanagalu.

Yogasanagalu includes a table of asana, three groups of asana, Primary Middle and Proficient. The asana in the table corresponds to lesser and greater degrees to Pattabhi Jois' Primary, Intermediate and Advanced Ashtanga series. Jois' Primary series follows quite closely the order the asana are presented in Krishnamacharya's Yogasanagalu table, the Middle group in  the Yogasangalu will be quite familiar to those who practice Jois' Intermediate series, the Proficient group is completely different, just a collection of advanced asana although we can see from the 1938 Mysore demonstration video that Krishnamacharya was teaching the asana found in Jois' later advanced series.

- It appears that Krishnamacharya didn't tend to follow a strict sequence and took a more flexible approach

- Krishnamacharya did include surynamaskara before moving on to standing asana.


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As ashtanga grew in popularity Pattabhi Jois' presentation of his teacher's teaching become more strictly codified. It's a convenient approach.

However, we can reclaim Krishnamacharya's Original Ashtanga whenever we wish by freely downloading the original texts.

If we want to look to authority then we have only to look to those texts, we have no need to go to India, to Mysore or to practice with any members of the Jois family, the original, texts, the practice, is freely available.


 On looking for a teacher.

Teacher's authorised by the Jois family have tended to practice the method daily for a number of years, as such they can be an excellent resource, they can occasionally however  be perhaps too strictly aligned with the approach as they were taught it at a particular time.

Update: Sharath has taken control of the KPJAYI list and is authorising and de-authorising, certifying and decertifying as he sees fit on shifting criteria. Teachers who have spent thousands of dollars going to Mysore again and again, paying thousands more for the actual authorisation certificate as well promising to return regularly and continue paying fees for a month or more as well as perhaps 'offering' to assist for free in the shala are having their authorisation revoked resulting in a possible loss of livelihood as they return their authorisation certificate. Likewise several teachers who have gone on to pay shala fees in Mysore over twenty years or more, as well as thousands more to be certified on top of their authorisation are also having their certification revoked for not showing loyalty. As all authorised and certified teachers are asked to sign yet another Authorisation Code, many have no idea if they will remain on the list one month to the next.

See my post Authorisation 1980s to present.

Many of those de-authorised and decertified teachers are still on the 'other 'list of Ashtanga teachers held by Ashtanga.com. These teachers have gone onto the list at the written recommendation of senior teachers, a fairer system perhaps that holds in trust the lineage of the practice in a meaningful way.

There are other Ashtanga teachers who have never been to Mysore, are not authorised by the family and not on either list but have nevertheless practiced daily for a number of years, as long perhaps as some of those certified by the Jois family. They often, but not always, can have a more flexible approach to the practice.

There are other yoga teacher who also happen to teach Ashtanga, they may have practiced several styles and have less commitment to Ashtanga, they can still be an excellent resource for learning the series however.

The ideal perhaps is a teacher who has practiced the Ashtanga method for a large number of years but is also flexible to the needs of the student rather than preserving a shifting ideal of the practice. More important than any of the above is perhaps a teacher with good anatomy and physiological awareness who is unlikely to harm you or bring you to harm yourself in anyway. There is no evidence as far as I can tell that that Sharath, Saraswati, Manju, Pattabhi Jois or Krishnamacharya ever opened an anatomy book in their lives, Iyengar however surely did, to what degree he took it into account is another matter.

Personally I mostly learned my Ashtanga from books, videos, dvds, YouTube and finally a close reading of Krishnamacharya's texts. (I did however, later attend Srivatsa Ramaswami's TT as well as workshops and trainings with Manju and Richard Freeman as well as spend three months at Kristina Karitinou's wonderful shala in Rethymno Crete).

There is then no need of authorisation, of traveling to Mysore, of lineage and parampara. We have the original texts that explain the practice, stage of breath by stage of breath (Yoga Makaranada and Yogasangalu see above). Learn the Primary asana where we will, in a sequence if we wish (It's a convenient approach) but deepen our understanding through exploring the texts. But all that is really required to deepen the practice is to actually practice it, daily if possible, that is where the learning and any transformation actually takes place.

Krishnamacharya was clear, we look to our own traditions, our own texts, pray in our our holy tongues, for me I take that to  imply looking to Greece and Rome, to Greek and Latin.

Patanjali and the Gita will do us no harm however, they all say the same thing after all.

Krishnamacharya was clear on one point, the practice goes hand in hand with a moral code of behaviour, they support each other. For Krishnamacharya that was the Yama/Niyama, we can look to our own tradition, mostly it involves treading kindly and lightly and looking inwards to look outwards.

Should we learn the count?

It can be beneficial, it gives us something to focus on rather than myriad distractions that float through the mind. However the tyranny of the count probably can be blamed for many an ashtanga injury as we try to throw ourselves into an asana on the count.

It's important to remember that the count can be paused anywhere we wish and then taken up again. So, for example, in Marichiyasana D we might pause the count at the bind and take extra breaths while we  take as much time as we require to bind safely before taking the count back up again, likewise when unbinding.

It can be useful to learn the count in your native tongue first. Just count the stages of the breath, start with the sun salutation A then later count through B and so on adding on asana until you can count through the whole practice. By counting in your own tongue you will quickly see the patterns, how similar movements happen on the same count.

At some point you will see that there are a couple of inconsistency in the ashtanga system, an extra uncounted inhalation seems to be taken occasionally, this doesn't happen often but can be confusing, most can't agree on why this happens, a quirk of the system.

If you wish to learn the sanskrit count, start with Sury A then with Sury B, that will give you most of the sanskrit numbers you need for most of the asana. I have a post on learning the Sanskrit count here.

One approach to learning the Ashtanga Sanskrit Vinyasa Count..... Sanskrit Numbers and Vinyasa chart with states of asana indicated plus 'meaning of asana'

The Ashtanga Vinyasa Count: How it actually works - A Love Letter

Once you've learned the count and practiced that way for a time forget it and just worry about the breath..... and then forget that too.




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