Author:
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 6, 2009
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pattabhi-jois/472378/
Introduction: Pattabhi Jois, a yoga teacher,
died on May 18th aged 93
One sure sign that yoga has entered the mainstream
of Western society, or at least the urbane bits of it, is that its practitioners
have splintered into separate and sometimes competitive tribes. In spas, resorts
and studios from Byron Bay, Australia to Big Sur, California, and wherever
else one might expect Priuses on the roads and organic kale on the tables,
the question is less likely to be "Do you do yoga?" than simply
"Ashtanga or Iyengar?"
If the answer is Ashtanga, that has everything
to do with Pattabhi Jois-"Guruji", as his disciples called him.
The word Ashtanga, "eight limbs", originally meant the eight stages
yogis must traverse to reach enlightenment, only one of which, asana or "postures",
is the sort of thing Westerners associate with yoga. But used in Mr Jois's
way, which is how most Westerners understand it now, Ashtanga meant stretching,
balancing and swinging to the relentless rhythm set by a little, smiling,
potbellied man in an undershirt and Calvin Klein shorts, crying "Ekam,
inhale! dve, exhale! trini, inhale! catavari, exhale!", until every member
of the class was breathing like Darth Vader and running with rivers of sweat.
