Krishnamacharya

Whatever the exact details about the beginnings of the vinyasa method of yoga (and they are very hazy), there is no doubt that yoga and Sanskrit scholar, Krishnamacharya, was pivotal. It was he, who, drawing on gymnastic influences,  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 continual, flowing movements, 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, as did another of Krishnamacharya’s students, Iyengar. Interestingly, it is yet another of his students, Ramaswami, who claims to be teaching in the way Krishnamacharya intended), first agreed to teach ashtanga vinyasa to non-Indians. We wont get bogged down in the ideology behind ‘ashtanga’ here – and make no mistake, it comes with it’s own stuctured philosophy – suffice to say, that ‘ashtanga’ has become shorthand for what, in reality should be dubbed ‘ashtanga vinyasa’. Western souls on the road to Asian ‘enlightenment’ (whatever that means) 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.

In a climate where more and more people are investigating the ‘alternative’ and the ‘complementary’, and where the health of the body and mind, is, once again, high on the list of a larger number of people’s priorities, vinyasa yoga addresses it all. Not only is it a far-reaching and never-ending discipline in it’s own right, it is the perfect complement to any other form of exercise, sport or practice.