Ashtanga & The Honor of Teaching Mysore

It is a privilege and an honor to teach Ashtanga in the Mysore style.

There are so many things you could do other than yoga at 6 or 7 a.m. --- chief among them sleeping, checking Facebook, or checking Facebook in bed.

Although now I suppose it's Instagram.

As a Mysore-style teacher, I pass along the techniques of Ashtanga, and then help you apply them through the sequences. The tradition of sequences as it is maintained in Mysore, India, and at studios around the world are molds into which we pour our efforts, our intentions, our breath and our gaze.

The sequences are specific and concrete boundaries and limitations. They often have a logic and consistency to them, but sometimes they are arbitrary and/or utilitarian.

Regardless of intent and logic, the structure and the tradition exist as a means of limiting and restraining our efforts. We practice specific poses in a very specific order, with every single breath-body movement regulated. It is these very, very clear boundaries that provide fertile ground for greater freedom.

To establish a clear boundary, to separate this from that --- these asanas, in this order and not another, at this time of day, not any of the other times, and in this place --- all these distinctions serve to create a perspective, a drishti.

We adopt the techniques and the sequences, and therefore we take on a drishti, or gazing point. This drishti, this gazing point, gives rise to important questions of meaning. What does this practice mean to me, to you, to others? Is it the same? Different? Does this question of meaning change with time? What do I want out of this? What does it all mean? 

Hot on the heels of questions of meaning come questions of value. Drishti gives rise to both meaning and value. This practice is clearly meaningful to me --- why? How is it meaningful? How does it help me understand what is and is not worthwhile to me --- on and off the mat?

Zoom in on the Ashtanga shapes and sequences and they prove malleable, adaptable, scalable. We don't bow down and worship the shapes and their interlocking sequences (or the gifted people who perform them beautifully), rather we use them to establish our own drishti, and perhaps to bow to something profound in ourselves.

The shapes and sequences can, should, and will be adapted to the needs of those practicing them --- if you've got steel rods in your knees, degenerative discs in your back, or a necrotic hip --- it's clear to me that the asanas but not the practice should be addressed to that individual person.

From this perspective, a misalignment or ignorance of (willful or otherwise) current Ashtanga tradition is not a problem, a hassle, or an inconvenience. As Mysore students you are not problems, hassles or inconveniences. Ashtanga does not have heretics or apostates. 

As a teacher in the Mysore room, it is my responsibility to initiate a dialogue to explain clearly why we choose to follow the Ashtanga tradition in this manner, and why we think it is meaningful. And I think it is important as a teacher to listen and to hear the person's response.

To simply ape Guruji (P. Jois) and shout, "Not correct," or --- worse yet --- to say, "Because that's the way they do it in Mysore," or "That's the way it's always been done," shifts yoga from practice to religion. And as comforting and tempting as that may be, we are yogis --- we should ask the hard questions of ourselves, our relationships, and indeed our own experiences of reality. We do not blindly follow.

So I continue to be grateful that each and every one of you chooses to wake up early to come and contemplate your own discomfort. It's an opportunity for you to help me understand the practice I do. It's my hope that I'm able to add some sliver of nuance and flavor to yours.