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

With the close of 2006 this is a good opportunity to review what happened last year in Ashtanga Yoga.

2006 for Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

This was a very active year, especially for Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and his family. At 91, he is not appearing to slow down!

Guruji by Govinda Kai
Thank you, Govinda,
for your many contributions to AN

• January: Meeting with B.K.S. Iyengar
• March: World Tour Part 1 in London, San Francisco and New York
• July: 91st Birthday Party
• August: World Tour Part 2 in France, Finland and Denmark
• November: News of the new shala opening in Florida

2006 in Ashtanga Products

A new book about Ashtanga used to appear every few years. This year we had two, plus two DVDs.

Mysore practice at YiY from the Morning Mysore 2007 Calendar
by Antonia

• January: Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy book by Gregor Maehle
• March: a new film, Guru
• March: Sharath’s Primary Series DVD
• March: Mystore Style photo book by Graeme Montgomery
• November: Morning Mysore 2007 Calendar

2006 for Ashtanga teaching

The teaching and practice of Ashtanga yoga continued to flourish, as evidenced by:

Shanghai from dinoo

• the record numbers of student going to Mysore, India to study with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute,
• record numbers of new teachers and Ashtanga schools listed on Ashtanga.com, and
• the surge of interest in Ashtanga in Asia, especially Japan

2006 for Ashtanga on the web

As the growth in traffic and new technologies on the internet continues, so do Ashtanga cyber-resources. Here’s a selection:

• photos tagged Ashtanga on Flickr.com exploded
• the number of photos of the different Ashtanga series grew

The #1 Interestingness result for Ashtanga on Flickr
This photo features Lisa Hill and was taken by milopeng from Chicago, Illinois.

Throughout the year, old regulars continued their excellent work: Ashtanga.com providing official information, Ashtangi.net with its ever expanding collection of Ashtanga blogs, AYRI.org getting a new look, and Sharath’s tres cool site.

We’re looking forward to sharing more great photos
like this one from MasTaPiannis

And let’s not forget the new kid on the block, AshtangaNews.com… If we’ve missed anything, please let us know.

Thank you to everyone who’s contributed to AshtangaNews - especially our writers - Govinda Kai, Lori, KJS, Jinn, Tara, Lisa and Wendy - and everyone who’s shared story ideas with us - particularly Bala, commented on and read AshtangaNews!

In observance of Thanksgiving here in the U.S., what is your own personal sweet little nugget of grace?

As in this, from Ashtangi, Yoga Gumbo:

Later, in Sirsasana, I managed to lift enough with my arms and shoulders so that there was absolutely no weight on my head. I would say my skull was about ½ inch off the ground. I had the weirdest sensation of gravity being reversed, as if I were hanging by my arms from the ceiling rather than pressing with my arms into the floor. I felt like I had superhero gravity-defying powers! I was Levitating Headstand Woman! I know that this is the “correct” way to do headstand in ashtanga, but I have had a love/hate relationship with this pose for the past few months – lots of fear surrounding Sirsasana for me – so this was truly a sweet little nugget of grace for me to savor.

Souls Skyward from Govinda Kai
taken at the San Francisco stop of the Ashtanga World Tour 2006

In a peculiar circumstance, we have the opportunity to revisit the concept of asteya that Alan Little introduced in our post about the Krishnmacharya and Iyengar videos on YouTube (non-stealing for those of you not fluent in Sanskrit).

It seems that Drishti’s June 2006 newsletter (89k PDF version here) features an article that is eerily similar to Philippe’s - ahem - original article that he thought of all by himself where he compares yoga styles using Google Trends. Remember that one? It was published on May 15, 2006.

I hope Disney doesn’t
come after us!
(from FreilingerFamily
via Flickr)

I don’t mind others copying and altering our ideas, but it would be nice to be credited for coming up with the ideas, and that is not the case in this newsletter. I have to say, I am a little irritated. Ashtanga is primarily about being a kinder person and developing greater magnanimity, and that’s obviously my challenge even as I write this post.

Perhaps we need to move our Creative Commons license a little higher on the page?

Some of the unfortunate details:

• Philippe compares yoga, pilates, meditation and stretching, while Drishti compares yoga, pilates, aerobics and exercise.
• Philippe compares Ashtanga, Bikram, Iyengar, vinyasa and Anusara, while Drishti compares Ashtanga, Bikram, Iyengar, Anusara and Kundalini.
• Philippe compares yoga to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Angelina and Beatles, while Drishti does not compare any style of yoga to any celebrities. Where’s their sense of humor?

Drishti draws surprisingly similar conclusions - specifically the New Year’s effect and the appearance of Anusara in 2005. Ahem.

I suspect people are actually searching on Grumpy, the dwarf.

I do feel compelled to mention that for those of you who like YogaBeans! (our May 1 post is here), Drishti’s June newsletter does contain a little bio of its creator, Elastigirl, which you can read in the PDF linked above.

So to continue the storm in the teacup, am I right in thinking this may be an incident of “asteya”? If not, how would you characterize it?

This time it’s for real on BikramYoga.com

[See the original April Fool's joke for a full navelgazing effect. -Ed.]

[Note: Bikram removed the link as of April 15. -Ed.}