I shared on our Teacher Training Facebook Page, a post about a letter Mr. Jois wrote criticizing the term "power yoga".
I didn't post that to criticize any form or style of yoga. After all, we used to call our Ashtanga classes "Power Yoga". I posted it so that our teachers and teacher training students are informed of Pattabhi Jois's point of view. Similarly, B.K.S. Iyengar once wrote,
Mr. Iyengar goes on to define the term "vinyasa", as used by Krishnamacharya and still used in the Ashtanga Yoga system of K. Pattabhi Jois, in which the asana movements are performed in a precise order (nyasa - to place; vi - to place in a precise and sequential order) and this refers to the counting system of Ashtanga Yoga.
This is why Yoga East prefers not to use the names "vinyasa yoga" and "power yoga" for what is taught here. Those terms have been criticized by the main teachers of the yoga systems we practice. Is it respectful to continue to use those terms?
I remember when Pattabhi Jois's letter appeared in Yoga Journal, and it made me stop and think about what I was teaching. That was when I realized it was important to go to Mysore to study with Mr. Jois if I was going to continue to teach Ashtanga Yoga. Meeting him, Saraswathi and Sharath changed my understanding of yoga, my yoga practice, my teaching and my life.
I know that there are many yoga teachers and students who are not interested in going to India, and
who also see no reason to study and practice the tradition. The current trend in yoga seems to be to do whatever you want and call it "yoga". Once I heard a teacher say, "If it feels good, it's yoga."
Mr. Jois was once asked his opinion about hot yoga and other forms of modern yoga, and he answered, "Let those yogas be there. I am teaching this yoga." He knew that you have to have a predisposition for this path in order to follow it. People have to be at their present level of understanding, and no one can make anyone else change their mind or way of thinking about something. You can only change your own mind.
I didn't post that to criticize any form or style of yoga. After all, we used to call our Ashtanga classes "Power Yoga". I posted it so that our teachers and teacher training students are informed of Pattabhi Jois's point of view. Similarly, B.K.S. Iyengar once wrote,
"Yoga is one. So is asana but people give it different names and forms. Nothing like vinyasa yoga existed for Ashtanga Yoga and it is unfair to name yoga as vinyasa yoga. I am sorry for the doubts that have risen in the minds of the students of yoga. Do not make yoga a cheap product for sale under various names and brands. I, being a pupil of my guru, learnt yoga as did his other pupils. He never referred to the vinyasa practice as vinyasa yoga."
(B.K.S. Iyengar, Astadala Yogamala, Vol. 2, Allied Publishers, 2001)
Mr. Iyengar goes on to define the term "vinyasa", as used by Krishnamacharya and still used in the Ashtanga Yoga system of K. Pattabhi Jois, in which the asana movements are performed in a precise order (nyasa - to place; vi - to place in a precise and sequential order) and this refers to the counting system of Ashtanga Yoga.
This is why Yoga East prefers not to use the names "vinyasa yoga" and "power yoga" for what is taught here. Those terms have been criticized by the main teachers of the yoga systems we practice. Is it respectful to continue to use those terms?
I remember when Pattabhi Jois's letter appeared in Yoga Journal, and it made me stop and think about what I was teaching. That was when I realized it was important to go to Mysore to study with Mr. Jois if I was going to continue to teach Ashtanga Yoga. Meeting him, Saraswathi and Sharath changed my understanding of yoga, my yoga practice, my teaching and my life.
I know that there are many yoga teachers and students who are not interested in going to India, and
who also see no reason to study and practice the tradition. The current trend in yoga seems to be to do whatever you want and call it "yoga". Once I heard a teacher say, "If it feels good, it's yoga."
Mr. Jois was once asked his opinion about hot yoga and other forms of modern yoga, and he answered, "Let those yogas be there. I am teaching this yoga." He knew that you have to have a predisposition for this path in order to follow it. People have to be at their present level of understanding, and no one can make anyone else change their mind or way of thinking about something. You can only change your own mind.
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