AshtangaNews Ashtanga Yoga Matters (as taught by Sri K Pattabhi Jois)

We Cannot Help But Be Seen

Govinda Kai has added so many photos of Guruji to his Flickr stream lately! I didn’t even see many of them on AshtangaNews’ Flickr sidebar.

This photo is from Guruji’s 91st birthday. Click on the photo to see more…and don’t forget to explore around.

From his photo set, A Visit to Kowshika, Govinda writes: “A special trip was made to the small town where Guruji grew up in called Kowshika to honor the death anniversary of Guruji’s late wife.”

Guruji’s Childhood Home

It took a lot of time and effort to establish the Mysore-Style program at the Yoga Is Youthfulness studio, but we have been rewarded more than I could have ever imagined. In this post, I’d like to share how it all came together at our yoga studio.

In a prior post, I outlined some of the the challenges of setting up a Mysore-Style Ashtanga program.

Mysore class at YiY (photo by Antonia)

Anne Finstad and I were lucky to have Joseph Hentz‘ full approval (and later, his wife Sabina’s) when we embarked on starting a Mysore-Style program at Yoga Is Youthfulness in Mountain View, California (that’s 40 miles south of San Francisco - where Google is also based). It really helped that he was (and is) a dedicated Ashtangi. I think it would be difficult to set up such an intensive program at a studio where the owner did not at least practice Ashtanga yoga.

To get a better picture of how our program progressed over the years, I went back to our old studio schedules (a great way to see the evolution of any yoga studio). Here’s a rough timeline:

• 1999: YiY Grand Opening. Straight away there’s an Ashtanga flavour to this studio: 4 out of 18 classes were Ashtanga led evening classes. The dominating style at YiY at this point is Bikram.
• Sometime in 2000: we started off with an unguided Ashtanga self-practice group 4-5 times a week at 6:15 in the morning ($5 donation). Without the led classes I think it would have been difficult to get this going. We had a handful of regulars at this point, practicing 3-5 times a week. A self-practice group is a good seed for a Mysore-Style program.
• December 2001: First Mysore-Style class introduced (Friday). It took a while to make the jump to teaching Mysore-Style, as we did not have any role models (the nearest other class was 40 miles aways).
• September 2002: twice a week (Friday and Sunday). From that point on, the Sunday class has been our best attended class, when we’ve consistently broken attendance records.
• January 2003: 4 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday). We took advantage of the “January Effect” and New’s Year resolutions to double our classes. I think it’s very important to introduce new classes during busy periods, just to get them going.
• November 2003: 5 times a week (no Tuesdays). Up to this point if we had 10 students a day it was considered a busy day. It had been two years since we had started the program, and there were still days at this point when we were wondering whether we were doing the right thing and whether it would work. We were just short of a “full” 6 day a week Mysore program.
• July 2004: 6 times a week. The impetus to commit to a full program came as a result of a month-long 6-day-a-week Mysore-Style workshop. The previous month, we were fortunate to have Dominic Corigliano (a Certified teacher) come to teach a month long Mysore workshop at our studio. This was a first for us: a lot of students who were practicing 2 to 3 times a week took this opportunity to try out daily practice, and as happens often, got hooked. After Dom left, there was no way we could go back to anything less than 6 days a week! We also added a led Friday Primary Series class as it is done in Mysore India.

Lino Miele teaching a workshop at our studio in 2003

Anne made 3 trips to Mysore during those first 5 years (I had twins so my movements were constrained…), and every time she came back it energized every one and took our program to the next level. Particularly memorable was her trip at beginning of 2004, when she took 3 students with her. They all blogged about their experience and it became required reading for our entire community.

Anne’s Mysore experiences and studying with Guruji and Sharath greatly influenced what we did at YiY, in subtle and not so subtle ways:

• Introducing a Friday led class was important to convey the pacing of the practice and for all the students to learn the vinyasa count. I taught the class and tried to model it on the led classes taught by Pattabhi Jois.
• We tried emulate how postures were given in Mysore. How and when postures are given to students can make or break a Mysore-Style program, and Anne’s experience was invaluable in that area.

Anne Finstad and her friend auntie in Mysore, India

• Through being in Mysore, Anne had met with some of the most renowned teachers in the world. Thanks to her contacts we were able to invite Christine Hoar, Kirsten & Mitchell, Dominic & Saisha, David Roche and more.
• Anne’s dedication and commitment to the practice was the cornerstone of the program.

Another YiY Mysore snippet (photo by Antonia)

There was another ingredient which was essential to the success of the program: the flourishing of a “Mysore community” outside the class. Through innumerable potluck dinners and brunchs, video viewings, sutra discussions, chai-making classes and the like, a tightly-knit community has emerged. You can see its virtual expression on MorningMysore.com, the community’s website.

a potential contributor with Guruji?

To continue the great series by KJS, Lori and Philippe about Guruji’s 2006 World Tour, I’d like to ask AshtangaNews’ readers who can attend the Guruji’s World Tour in Europe in August to contribute write-ups of their experiences. (Interested Ashtangis can get in touch with Philippe via info @ ashtanganews.com.)

The World Tour 2006 posts have been some of our most popular posts and it’d be great to continue the series with some insightful commentary or cool photos!

(All of our World Tour 2006 posts can be found here.)

The dates and locations for the European tour are:

• France in Aix Les Bains: August 6, 7, 8, 10 & 11, Led Primary


Astanga Yoga School of Copenhagen

• Denmark in Copenhagen: August 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, Led Primary
• Finland in Helsinki: August 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, Led Primary and Half Primary and August 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, Led Primary and Intermediate. Details here.

Ashtanga.com has details for each location.

from Astanga Yoga School, Helsinki

We all know that yoga, including Ashtanga yoga, is good for us. But how good?

As it turns out, not sooo good. Physiologically at least, asana practice provides only “mild to moderate” physiological benefits. What do you think, Ashtangis?

For me, I’d agree. Here are the results from a study I conducted during a recent Mysore-style class:

• My heart rate averaged 104 beats per minute and I was in my heart rate zone for only 14 minutes in a 75 minute practice (through Navasana). I burned 104 calories.
• During my traditional exercise program of 45 minutes cardiovascular training and 15 minutes exercising, my average heart rate is 135 and I burn 300 calories.

Sally E. Blank from Washington State University Spokane conducted a real scientific study (of Iyengar yogis - I know what you’re thinking) recently and categorized yoga as “mild to moderate intensity exercise without evidence of a sustained cardiopulmonary stimulus“.

The study is one of the few I’ve seen that actually quantifies the physiological benefits of any form of yoga, and I think it’s pretty interesting. Some of its findings include:

• In a 90-minute practice, the participants burned 100-200 calories.
• Participants were in a fitness heart range for 11-60 minutes in a 90-minute practice (or 55-85% of maximum heart rate).
• Standing asana, inversions and back bends (pushing up to back bends) resulted in the larger physiological response than seated or supine asana.
• Backbend and Warrior postures resulted in the highest heart rates.
• Alignment affected the participants’ ability to maintain backbend with perfect alignment resulting in holding backbend for 90-120 seconds while malaligned backbenders only held the posture for 60 seconds.
• Poor alignment raised blood pressure in many postures, but especially in backbend.

Some of the conclusions of the study were:

• “The general cardiorespiratory responses to asanas were similar to changes observed in subjects who perform weight lifting circuit exercise.”

• “This volume of exercise meets the current public health recommendations for physical activity that provides substantial benefits for reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and improved cardiovascular fitness for sedentary adults.”
• “Steady state heart rate was not sustained for a minimum of 10 minutes during the yoga practice.”
• “Moderate to strenuous yoga vinyasa and jumpings would be expected to promote cardiovascular endurance if the practice was sufficiently long. To achieve optimal cardiorespiratory benefits, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends that exercise include 20-60 minutes of large muscle rhythmic and dynamic activity with a minimum of 10 minutes of activity per session.”
• “Based on this evidence, yoga asanas can be fully integrated into western approaches to exercise prescription for healthy, rehabilitating, and diseased populations. “

The participants in the study were all women, aged 36-49 with a weekly practice of 4-9 hours per week and had practiced Iyengar for 2-16 years. In the study, the yoginis held poses for up to 5 minutes (with no vinyasa between poses). The yoginis did 24 postures over about 1-1/2 hours and were considered “intermediate” level practitioners.

The study also noted that at least 16.5 million people in the United States practice yoga and 77.1% are women.

Physiological Responses To Iyengar Yoga Performed By Trained Practitioners by Sally E. Blank at Washington State University Spokane was published in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Exercise Physiology.

Thank you to Kelly McGonigal, a yoga therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, for her exhaustive list of studies on the benefit of yoga.

And to SeaOfClouds for the heart photos.

And, Ashtangis, don’t forget to get your cardio in!

So Many Flowers
from Govinda Kai

Sri K. Pattabhis Jois’ birthday is on the first full moon of July, Guru Purnima day. This means this Tuesday is his 91st birthday!

Every time I practice Ashtanga, I dedicate my practice to someone significant to me (sometimes myself).

In honor of his birthday, I’ll be dedicating my practice to Guruji, so I thought I’d give AshtangaNews’ readers a heads up in case you want to do the same.

Guruji’s birthday happens to fall on a Moon Day this year, which is why I mention Guruji’s birthday so early.

Happy Birthday, Guruji!

You might also be interested in checking out Govinda Kai’s great selection of photos of Guruji’s 90th birthday extravaganza.

Mysore-style Ashtanga

With the occasion of Tracy’s post on the benefits of learning Ashtanga yoga in a Mysore-style setting, I thought I might share a few observations on what it takes to set up a Mysore program at a yoga studio. Anne Finstad and I went through this experience at the Yoga is Youthfulness studio starting in December 2001 with one class a week. This humble beginning has blossomed into a six-day a week program with more than 20 students attending daily.

Several factors make starting a Mysore-style Ashtanga program more challenging than a traditional, teacher-led yoga class, be it Iyengar, Anusara, Bikram or Vinyasa:

• It’s best to practice Mysore-style Ashtanga in the morning: there are many reasons why Pattabhi Jois’ classes start before dawn (more on this in another post), and that can be a big hurdle to overcome. Our classes were always starting around 6:30 in the morning, and at first it took a lot to convince prospective students to get up early to practice.
• The class is silent: Most students are used to a teacher leading the class verbally, so the silence of a Mysore-style class can be very intimidating. Most teacher-student settings we are familiar with, such as school, college, music lessons, and sports coaching, involve a lot of verbal exchange of information. In a Mysore-style class, a lot of information is passed on via the teacher actually putting the student into a posture, so it is much more of an experiential learning, and thus it feels a bit strange to many students.
• There is no clear starting point: This looms especially large for people who have never tried yoga and may wonder “what do I do in a silent class? I don’t know how to do anything.” A similar objection I hear from experienced students is, “but I don’t know the sequence, so I don’t think I am ready.” I’ve spent a lot of time convincing Mysore-style newbies to try it. The bright side is that once they experience one class, they’re usually hooked.
• There is no clear start or end time: A student can walk in at any time as long as there is enough time left in the class to finish her practice. Newer students who have shorter practices may finish in less than an hour and say “but I have paid for 1.5 hours of yoga”. Eventually, these students may take the entire 2-3 hours of the practice time.
• Students are given postures and asked to stop at a point determined by the teacher: the Mysore-style setting requires the students to closely follow the teacher’s directions, perhaps more than is customary in other teacher-student relationships. This can be bruising on the student’s ego and a factor in some students leaving the class. It also requires the teachers, if there is more than one, to confer about appropriate posture at which to stop a student.
• It takes place nearly every day (apart from Saturdays and Moon Days in some studios): students most often start doing yoga once or twice a week. Doing it up to 6 times a week is a big commitment and is foreign to most student’s idea of “doing yoga”. It is also a huge commitment for the teachers.
• There needs to be a certain population density near the studio: I have heard of quite a few stories of very experienced teachers tyring to establish a Mysore-style program in population centers of 10,000 or even 50,000 and giving up (the one exception I can think of is John Scott in Penzance, Cornwall, United Kingdom with a population 20,000, but that is John Scott after all). At Yoga is Youthfulness in the San Francisco Bay Area, we were lucky to have 2-3 million people within a half-hour drive.
• Most importantly, you need to have an experienced teacher: nowadays a teacher should be authorized to teach by Sri K Pattabhi Jois (see the criteria for authorization on Ashtanga.com). Usually that takes a solid practice of at least 5 years.

So, with all these hurdles, setting up a Mysore-style Ashtanga program is not the easiest thing to do. It could take one to two years before the program is “profitable”, meaning more than 10 students daily. This implies there must be strong backing from the studio owner to stick it out during the lean period.

We were fortunate to have the full backing of a committed studio owner, Joseph Hentz (thank you, Joseph!). The alternative is to open your own studio, which, of course, carries its own costs and risks.

My next post will be about how the Mysore-style Ashtanga program at Yoga is Youthfulness blossomed over a five-year period into a wonderful community of committed practitioners.

Five years later, a crowded Mysore-style class at Yoga is Youthfulness