Real ashtanga Yoga

[Guest guest]

Guruji teaches what he calls "real" or "original"

Ashtanga Yoga. By this he means yoga as described by

Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. One aspect of this is

Asana.<br><br>The asana system Guruji teaches originates as far as

we can tell with Sri Krishnamacharya. Sri K. spent

seven years with his guru in Tibet and during this time

he learned 1000 of the 6000 asanas his guru

knew.<br><br>While in North India Krishnamacharya learned the Yoga

Korunta - yoga is an aural tradition, and as we

understand, later found a written version of the text in

Calcutta. This was a text on yoga philosophy and practice

which it seems contained elements of Vinyasa. Guruji

never saw this text, but K brought back fragments which

he had copied to Mysore.<br><br>As far as we can

tell Krishnamacharya created the sequences we know of

as Ashtanga Yoga and taught them to Pattabhi Jois -

who was instructed to teach the system without

altering it.<br><br>When I first started learning the

Primary Series I was told of the origins lying in the

Yoga Korunta. This seems not to be true. Ater

extensive questioning of guruji and his senior teachers it

seems most likely the systems were invented by

Krishnamacharya - though no one knows for sure.<br><br>...and it

is not important. The important thing is that it

works. However, without proper instruction you are going

to miss something. Some people will be happy to have

a print of an original painting and treat it as

real, or to sit at home and look at pictures of foreign

places on TV and imagine thsat they have been

there.<br><br>This is the kind of illusion our materialistic society

breeds. Real yoga is not exercise - real yoga is imparted

intimately between teacher and student. Real yoga is subtle

and refined and cannot be broadcast via multimedia or

even books. These media can only give you a hint, but

not the reality.

[Guest guest]

Good points, Guy. And I agree that it's not

terribly important(ezcept from a scholarly point of view)

whether or not K got the series from the yoga korunta or

from other sources including his own mind.<br><br>What

is important is that we not get hung up on the idea

that the series go way back into antiquity with very

few changes along the way. Not that we should feel

free to do anything we want and call it ashtanga

vinyasa yoga, but just so that we can be more easygoing

with one another.<br><br>From his biography it appears

that throughout his life K was a remarkably creative

yogi, very interested in adapting yoga practices to the

circumstances in which he found himself at a given time. But he

also came out of a tradition in which you don't take

credit for your work, but instead try to assign credit

to your teachers, or their teachers, etc., the

further back in the lineage the better. [How different in

the modern academic mileau, where we trumpet every

little advance in journals, fight about "priority" of

discovery, and so on.]<br><br>So I have no problem with the

idea that K made up the yoga korunta, or else

interpreted it very creatively, not in order to deceive

anyone concerning the authenticity of the vinyasa system

but more out of humility. I would like to think his

motive was similar in the case of the yoga

rahasya.<br><br>As you say, the point is that it works.<br><br>Peace

and Good,<br>Homer

[Guest guest]

There is no indication that Krishnamacharya made

up the Yoga Korunta - nor that he made up the Yoga

Rahasya. The former he learned as we know both from

Pattabhi Jois and his son Desikachar - i dont think we

should suggest that he lied about this. The latter he

received in a trance.<br><br>I dont think that the fact

Krishnamacharya, with his profound knowledge, was able to create a

system like this, means we have any qualification to

alter it, or to create our own sequences - whatever we

want to call them.