Mysore vs. Led Ashtanga Classes at Yoga East

We have been in the process of changing all of our Ashtanga classes to conform to the requirements for Ashtanga classes established by our teacher, K. Pattabhi Jois (1915-2009). The reasons for the changes are obvious to students who regularly attend Mysore-style classes. Students who don't practice Ashtanga or who don't attend Mysore-style classes, or who have never been to Mysore, India to study are likely to be puzzled by the changes. Before I went to Mysore in 1999, I couldn't envision Mysore-style instruction or understand why it was such an important teaching and practice method.

I'm writing this article to explain more about the authentic Ashtanga system and why we at Yoga East in Louisville, Kentucky, of all places, are incredibly fortunate to be one of the few yoga schools in the world that has a well-established Mysore program.

First of all, many people don't know or have not heard of K. Pattabhi Jois or his illustrious teacher, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, so I'll begin with them. Krishnamacharya began teaching yoga in the Mysore, India area in 1924. Krishnamacharya's student and patron was Krishnaraja Wodeyar, the Maharaja of Mysore, and the yoga classes were held at the Jagan Mohan Palace. In 1927 K. Pattabhi Jois, then 13 years old, saw Krishnamacharya give a yoga demonstration in the town of Hassan, near his village of Kaushika. Jois asked to be accepted as a student and began learning Ashtanga Yoga primary series the next day from Krishnamacharya. Later, Krishnmacharya married Namagiriamma, the older sister of B.K.S. Iyengar, and Iyengar also began learning yoga from Krishnamacharya as a teenager. Both Iyengar yoga and Ashtanga yoga originated with the teachings of Krishnamacharya. Krishnamacharya's yoga school closed in 1955 and he moved to Chennai. Mr. Iyengar was already teaching yoga independently in Pune, near Bombay, and Pattabhi Jois was teaching at the Mysore Sanskrit College.

When Pattabhi Jois retired from teaching at the Sanskrit College in 1973, he devoted himself to teaching Ashtanga Yoga at his yoga shala (school), the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute. Classes were taught at his home in the Lakshmipuram neighborhood in the city of Mysore, which is where I met him and his assistant and grandson, Sharath, in 1999. In 2002 he opened a larger school in Gokulum, a suburb of Mysore, and eight students from Kentucky attended the grand opening: Kim Esteran, Terry King, Kari Nolan, Rob Burns, Kellye Johnson, Dean Holt and Kris McClanahan from Lexington, and me. There were more students from Kentucky than any other state in the U.S. after New York and California. We invited Sharath to visit Louisville to teach classes, and amazingly, he agreed to come next year, 2003. Sharath taught classes for two weeks at Holiday Manor and every morning there were 50-60 students packed into the class, including some students who had never done yoga before, and students from New York and California. They heard a yoga teacher from India was here, and they came.

I had heard of Ashtanga Yoga in 1995 and began teaching classes in 1995 or 1996. At first I called them "Power Yoga" and they met one or two days a week. I met David Swenson in 1998 and Tim Miller in 1999. By the time I went to Mysore in 1999 we had Ashtanga classes three days a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. After I returned from Mysore in 1999 I added afternoon classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but all classes were led. When I returned home from Mysore in 2002 I decided to begin daily Mysore-style class at Yoga East so that we could prepare for Sharath's visit. Up to then, all Ashtanga classes we offered were led classes.

From 2002 on, I began visiting Mysore every year to study yoga with Mr. Jois. In 1999 I stayed there for three months. From 2002-2008 I stayed a month on each visit. Being gone from my family and the yoga studios for a month each year is very difficult and created lots of challenges. In more recent years it's been easier, thanks to cell phones and the internet. The support of the Mysore students has helped to make this possible. I think all the Mysore students understand the importance of having a teacher who knows the Mysore-style system.

In the Ashtanga Yoga system, no teacher training programs are recognized. Mr. Jois always used to say, "Our teacher training program is twenty years long." The only way to receive Mr. Jois's permission to teach was to keep attending classes in Mysore until Mr. Jois recognized by the proficiency of your practice that you had developed the necessary dedication to the method of Ashtanga Yoga. I think it takes twenty years to really understand the intelligence of this yoga system, and with each visit I would "get it" more and more. I also had more opportunity to talk to Sharath, Mr. Jois and other Ashtanga teachers. In 2004, after four visits to Mysore, Mr. Jois gave me authorization to teach Primary series, a great honor. In 2008 I learned that I was being invited to participate in a special program for already-authorized teachers in which we would learn aspects of the Ashtanga tradition that Mr. Jois wanted to impart to us. When I was first there in 1999, Mr. Jois mentioned his desire to offer a teacher training classes for teachers who were already authorized so that he could pass on the authentic tradition of Ashtanga Yoga. Sadly, Mr. Jois passed away shortly before the program was to have been held, and it was taught instead by Sharath who wanted to give us the experience he'd had - of teaching under the eye of his teacher.  Those of us who were in the class were fortunate to have the experience of teaching in the shala under Sharath's eye, and of learning the authentic tradition that Guruji wanted us to know. Two years later, I'm still assimilating the experiences of that program and my experiences in Mysore with Pattabhi Jois, Sharath and Saraswathi.

Both Pattabhi Jois, Saraswathi and Sharath have repeatedly emphasized the importance of Mysore-style instruction given by a qualified teacher. In most led classes, all students are taken through the same poses at a group pace. There is little or no time for the teacher to give adjustments, make corrections, or offer advice to individual students. Many Ashtanga classes are taught by teachers who have never been to Mysore, never met Pattabhi Jois, and never been in a Mysore-style class, which is unfortunate. 

Here at Yoga East, we offer both morning and afternoon Mysore classes. Only a few yoga studios in the world are able to do that. Our Mysore program has world-wide recongition in the Ashtanga comuunity, and two other authorized teachers have come out of our program - Karen Cairns and Shae Bryant.  Over twenty-five students from Kentucky have been to Mysore. Kentucky students have a high reputation in the Ashtanga community and are treated with great respect in Mysore, as those students who have been there can attest.  Later this year several Yoga East students are planning to go to Mysore.

I hope that more students will take the opportunity to experience this amazing yoga tradition, here in Louisville and in India.