Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series with R Sharath was created with the intention of showing an actual Yoga Practice, not a staged or edited event. When Sharath and I originally discussed the concept of an Ashtanga Yoga Video our intention was to convey the essence of Pattabhi Jois’s Ashtanga Yoga, continuous movement and the breath driving a ‘no-nonsense’ practice. We wanted to show the strengths of the practice rather than the individual.
Ashtanga Yoga primary series with R. Sharath is a continuously filmed, three camera, practice DVD. Mary Wigmore and Caroline Laskow (Set Direction), and Ku-Ling (Cinematography), all of whom also made Ashtanga NY ( ), did an incredible job with camera setup and lighting.
I love the colors, rich and beautiful. I brought along my Sony 900 Series for the side sequences and a Canon for the stills. You can see all three cameras in the three scene sequences.
I edited the video and created the DVD menu in Mysore with graphic art assistance from Saskia Vidler. Saisha (my partner) and I rented a top floor, four story, light-filled condo in Gokulam. There are a few extra shots, like an overhead and a few close ups, to flesh out the content.
I also designed the DVD menu so you can view each asana individually. This DVD took four years of effort. Sharath was patient through it all.
Sharath could have easily done handstands throughout this DVD. He also has an extremely flexible lower back (great backbends). Yet he chose to simply, elegantly, and honestly do the Primary Series.
It is a refreshing video that truly represents the practice of Pattabhi Jois’s Ashtanga Yoga. Here there is no glorification based on an individual’s physical strengths.
Yoga videos are often formulaic, outside sets like a travel video, Yogis showing their best “take” at each Asana, makeup, often times a coach standing nearby correcting out of camera, on set.
That is one style, yet it deviates from Ashtanga Yoga’s most important strengths. Breaking down Ashtanga, detailing it, takes away from the continuity of movement that is Ashtanga. Pattabhi Jois doesn’t talk much in his practice room in Mysore.
Ashtanga is not talking, it is doing!
Copyright 2006 by R. Sharath and Dominic Corigliano
Posted by tracy on April 27, 2006 @ 4:31 pm In a prior post, we highlighted Flickr user, .
Using super useful , we ve discovered that another user has posted .
Enjoy!
Except lazy people.
Lazy people can’t practice yoga.
That quote was from R. Sharath Rangaswamy, Sri K.
Pattabhis Jois grandson, in the documentary, .
This 60-minute documentary about Ashtanga yoga is a must-see for Ashtangis. It s not a practice DVD.
Rather, presents the story of the Ashtanga practice and Sri K. Pattabhis Jois along with a handful of New York Ashtangis, including some quite famous ones, describing what the practice is and what they get out of it.
I was not too impressed with the talking New York heads take on Ashtanga.
After all, what Pattabhis Jois always says is practice and all is coming. We don t talk about Ashtanga; we do it. (Plus, I d like to know who those people are.
)
For me, the value of this film is in the tangible and direct footage of Pattabhis Jois, Sharath Rangaswamy and their families, the light in the practice room during the World Tour and the juxtaposition of scenes from 9-11 versus the gathering of Ashtangis in the Puck Building.
Ashtanga, NY also provides some excellent footage of R. Sharath Rangaswamy practicing.
This is truly special (as Philippe describes in his ).
Guruji assists an Ashtangi in Ashtanga, NY
Three times while watching this film, I wrote in my notes: smile. If practicing Ashtanga can make me smile with the authenticity and warmth of Guruji, Saraswati and Sharath s smiles, then I want to practice and help spread that smile all over the place (my thinking being that if it makes me feel this happy, then it must make everyone else feel that happy, too).
The scenes of World Tour practice starting with the dark room and then the sun rising higher in and Guruji s calling out the postures really brought back memories of the World Tour for me. I could really feel the sun rising in those scenes. I wonder if other Ashtangis feel the same?
But the really big impact of this film which surprisingly felt even bigger on my second viewing was the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, right in the middle of this month-long stop in the World Tour and on Saraswati s birthday. The juxtaposition of scenes from Saraswati s birthday, the bombing and the practice was really powerful. Despite the tragedy, Guruji carried on with the World Tour.
But the Tour was changed and it s this part of the film including talk from the New York Ashtangis that really makes the film.
Fierce and compassionate
Sri K. Pattabhis Jois in Ashtanga, NY
One other lovely bit about this movie is the music.
A great score performed by guitarist, Chris Cunningham, and percussionist, George Javori. The music really adds to the experience!
recently made its wonderful article 3 Gurus, 48 Questions: Matching Interviews with Sri T.
K.V. Desikachar, Sri B.
K.S. Iyengar Sri K.
Pattabhi Jois . The article is an in-depth interview of the three living yoga masters conducted by over a period of months in Madras, Mysore and Pune.
Alexander asked the same questions of all three gurus, but their answers were wildly different.
These differences highlight each guru s unique approach to yoga and teaching.
The connection between the three gurus is , their legendary teacher. Each has a very different relationship to him:
Did Krishnamacharya teach everybody the same way?
What was the most important thing Krishnamacharya taught you?
Iyengar: What he taught me was only a few asanas. That seed was what he gave me and I developed it as well as I could.
Pattabhi Jois: When he left for Madras he told me, Make this yoga method the work of your life.
What are the criteria to become a good yoga teacher?
Desikachar: Faith in God.
Iyengar: One has to work really hard and show the qualities of sincerity, honesty, and virtue.
Pattabhi Jois: Be a dedicated student for many years before you even start to think about teaching.
What is your personal yoga practice like these days?
Iyengar: I will not boast. Everybody will tell you that I am still practicing. I do my [meditational practice] and still do the postures.
I do all the postures you see in Light on Yoga and do them every day.
Pattabhi Jois: I continue to practice and recite the for an hour and a half to two hours every day.
But as you can see from the photo, he s made up with Pattabhi Jois since.
This article is such a rich and valuable record that I cannot possibly do it justice here. If you want to find about more about how yoga came to the West and what its foremost teachers think of it, is a must-read.
So much material came out of these interviews that the work is being expanded into a book.
We re looking forward it! Posted by tracy on April 22, 2006 @ 2:18 am Normally we like to talk about, well, Ashtanga. Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga to be precise.
Sometimes, it’s nice to look at the bigger picture, and in this post, we invite you to look at an India that s maybe a little different from the one that many foreigners – and possibly because of the practice, Ashtangis moreso than others - usually think of when they think India.
As an example, as of today, Flickr had 244,575 photos tagged India, and the photos on the first several pages of those deemed , depict that ancient, sometimes decrepit, thoroughly unmodern, yet warm and colorful world that is stereotypical India.
A few of the 244,575 photos tagged India on Flickr
India, however, is a lot more like the U.
S. than you might think. Fareed Zakaria wrote that about India in in the March 6, 2006 issue of Newsweek:
…India, one of the poorest countries in the world, looks strikingly similar to the world s wealthiest country, the United States of America.
In both places, society has triumphed over the state.
The country might have several Silicon Valleys, but it also has three Nigerias within it, more than 300 million people living on less than a dollar a day. India is home to 40 percent of the world s poor…
But that is the familiar India, the India of poverty and disease.
The India of the future contains all this but also something new. You can feel the change even in the midst of the slums.
Definitely take a look at , and take a look at some photos of India that are a little different from the usual fare at AshtangaNews.
(Thank you to Bala for pointing out this story to us.)
Sri K. Pattabhis Jois turned 90 on July 21, 2005.
This was a big deal. We ve highlighted photos from Guruji s birthday in the and in the posts.
What I really like about Govinda s photos is that he captures a wide variety of guests and truly shows us how big an event this was.
Extra special thanks to , an Ashtanga yoga teacher in Japan, for this great photo set.
Here are just a few of Govinda s pictures from Guruji’s 90th birthday celebration. The captions are his.
released a DVD of practicing the Ashtanga Primary Series in March 2006 ( ). [Also, dont miss , the DVD s producer. -Ed.
]
Sharath is described on the cover as the foremost teacher of Ashtanga yoga today and the grandson of the founder of Ashtanga yoga, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois .
The production value of this film is very high - it was shot at Eddie Stern s New York Shala, in a simple yet soothing space.
The editing by is flawless, with multiple cameras displayed only when necessary and smooth transitions between postures. The menu to navigate to a particular posture is intuitive and highly practical. Sharath did the voice over, counting vinyasas and calling out asanas.
However, the real value of this DVD lies in the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the most advanced Ashtanga Yoga practitioner in the world practicing the Primary Series. I have practiced the Primary Series probably more than a thousand times, and have seen others, from beginners to 20-year senior teachers practice it countless times. And yet Sharath s practice had a quality to it that I had not seen before.
It took me a while to pin this down and express in in words. Needless to say, outwardly Sharath s practice feels weightless, as if gravity was an afterthought. But I had seen this before - s DVD comes to mind, embodied in the slow-motion jumpbacks.
Was it the complete control of the (internal locks)? s video is also a masterful aspect of this. Perhaps the way in which very difficult asanas seem totally effortless?
s Advanced Series DVD is a perfect example.
Finally it came to me - the sense of presence. Even after having done this practice a few thousand times, and repeating asanas which for him must be child s play, it feels as if Sharath is completely present in the moment, as if he is practicing for the first time.
He is fully aware without being self-aware.
More remarkably, this awareness is constant from asana to asana, from the simplest to the most challenging. There is no trace of self-consciousness in Sharath s practice, no ego, no analyzing rational mind.
There is only the practice. Surely, this is the essence of yoga, something we are all aspiring to.
There are a few welcome and intimate glimpses that Sharath is also human - his fiddling with his shorts, or readjusting his hand grip after rolling up from , or even grabbing his feet after lifting them in (instead of floating the feet up while still holding onto them).
Catching details like these is oddly reassuring.
[Dominic kindly shared some with us, too. -Ed.
] Russell, an Ashtangi who s been living and practicing in Mysore since January 2004, writes an informative blog, where he talks not only about his practice at and living in Mysore, but also about setting up a law business there.
The blog is well written and a joy to follow. Many Ashtangis write about their struggle with setbacks in their practice.
Russell gives a refreshing perspective on that:
A few months from now, my practice might fall apart again, requiring me to start over. So what? Would I complain because after a CD is finished playing, and I put it in later to listen to it again, it is the same music?
Recently, Russell opened an office of his law firm in the United States in Mysore. I really like this post ( ) which describes the process in great detail. Russell has found a way to help some people in Mysore, without hurting his colleagues in the U.
S. Russell writes:
On the subject of this new Mysore company, I’m realizing that at least there is service that can be done. For one thing, rather than splitting up families, we’re reuniting them
We’ll also be helping to raise the local wage rates and standard of living, as we hire away people from other companies who don’t pay as well Although some locals have told us we are crazy to do the following, we are also going to be giving employees shares in the company.
Not a radical concept in the West these days, but here it seems unheard of.
Russell has also posted a LOT of photos - of AYRI, Mysore and his home there. Just a few of his photos follow.
Thank you, Russell!
Mukta Hasta Sirsasana B, AYRI
The conclusion (according to Nancy): It s okay for kids up to 12 years old as long as they don t do headstands.
, one of the first American Ashtangis based on Maui, in a workshop in Munich (October 2002)
Fine for small kids to play with asanas - although no headstands before the age of 12 as the bones of the skull aren t completely fused yet.
Not so good for adolescents circa 14 to 17 - the bones are growing faster than the muscles, joints are unstable, stretching can be very uncomfortable unpleasant.
Her daughter (now 19) does yoga but normally chooses to go to another teacher.
generously wrote out his notes from this workshop, and they are full of nuggets not related to kids as well, a great resource for all of us.
Thank you, Alan! Alan s thoughts:
Having gone through the finishing sequence at one of Lino s workshops with Lino s six year old son Oliver and my friend Günther s nine year old son Alex playing next to me, I completely agree.
We like Navasana!
Kids in Japan courtesy of
Looks like I ll have the opportunity to create a class for kids - grade school. I m SO excited about sharing yoga with them. Does anyone have any advice and experience to share?
Diane There were dozens of replies, ranging kids should not do yoga to yoga is the best thing for kids . If you have a Yahoo login, you can follow the whole discussion .
in Goa, India publishes a regular and essential email newsletter, the famous Noticeboard.
It typically consists of more than 50 announcements (not all of them are related to Ashtanga yoga).
[Purple Valley has changed its website and the Noticeboard is no longer there, though you can sign up for an . The photos on the new site are good.
- Ed.]
Here are examples of some of the notices in the latest Noticeboard (no. 61):
(Corpse Pose) Savasana is a pose of total relaxation making it one of the most challenging asanas.
It s always fun to read the Noticeboard and to find the gems hidden within it. I wonder when AshtangaNews.com will be announced?
We highlighted Purple Valley, the many Ashtanga teachers who conduct workshops there and Goa in .
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