Krishnamacharya

Ashtanga vinyasa is a form of yoga with roots thousands of years old, but it was ‘re-shaped’ into ashtanga vinyasa yoga in the 1930s by yoga and Sanskrit scholar, Krishnamacharya, who reportedly stumbled across an ancient manuscript, the ‘Yoga Korunta’, which, when deciphered, revealed a yoga very different from it’s many cousins.

Drawing on gymnastic influences, Krishnamacharya developed a strong, dynamic, aerobic and fast moving form, which was more explosive than the traditional, gentle, meditative archetype most people think of as ‘yoga’ – often referred to as ‘hatha’. Relying on a particular, powerful breathing technique (’ujjayi’ – literally, ‘ upwardly victorious’), the engagement of ‘bandhas’ (seals or locks – abdominal and perenial), ‘drishti’ (gaze point) and linking the postures with a continual, flowing movement, it’s not long before practitioners build up an intense heat and subsequent, oily sweat, literally de-toxing as they go. The marriage of breath and movement is the essence of ‘vinyasa’ and the key to the practice.

Perhaps it was this more ‘physical’ approach that drew Westerners to the form in the early 1970s when one of Krishnamacharya’s students, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (who added his own interpretation to the form), first agreed to teach ashtanga vinyasa to non-Indians. Western souls on the road to Asian enlightenment found themselves drawn to a yoga that not only offered insights into the ‘inner self’, but a mighty work-out to boot!

Sri K Patthabbi Jois

Through Jois’s teachings, the word continued to spread around the world. Thus, the West’s adoption of the form was sealed. Suddenly, here was a huge cross-section of the public sampling a potential life-enhancing discipline.

Of course, the stamina-building, body-sculpting and flexibility improving qualities of ashtanga vinyasa are only three dimensions of this multi-faceted form. Not only is it life-long, non-dogmatic, non-competitive discipline, the philosophy behind it is all-embracing, advocating a benevolent attitude and promoting a gentle peace of mind.

‘Ashtanga’ literally translates as ‘eight-limbed’, refering to the eight righteous paths one should strive to follow throughout one’s life, as suggested by the Indian philosopher, Patanjali some 2,000 years ago in his seminal yoga work, the Yoga Sutras.

In a climate where more and more people are investigating the ‘alternative’ and the ‘complementary’, and where the health of the body, as well as that of the spirit and mind, is, once again, high on the list of a larger number of people’s priorities, ashtanga vinyasa addresses it all. Not only is it a complete and far-reaching discipline in it’s own right, it is the perfect complement to any other form of exercise, sport or practice.