from a comment on Matthew Sweeney's article at Boodies place
http://qoftheev.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/this-is-the-best-article-ive-read-on-ashtanga-yoga-in-ages/#comment-2366
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| from Yoga Makaranda, Supta hasta paddangusthasana vinyasa |
"Glad you liked the post/article Boodie. Hope it helps you find some peace in your practice again, miss you practicing Ashtanga. For me, though I explore it's innate adaptability and flexibility, I still rely on Ashtanga's essential framework for some order and discipline in the exploration/development of my own practice.
Nice to have Matthew say what we no doubt end up working out for ourselves sooner or later. Really hope the young teachers Mysore is turning out are smart enough to see it too sooner rather than later, hopefully there are enough of those who learnt the practice under the earlier senior teachers to go around and give some guidance and inspiration. And of course we have the internet, and the ever increasing smart and savvy home practitioners who learnt from books and DVD's and the internet ( we get to push back a little occasionally) and their own common sense, hard to be too dogmatic these days (and after the Guruji book especially and all the variation in how everyone was originally taught in there).
And of course Jois himself adapted what he was taught, went to Krishnamacharya himself with a new order of postures ( when he started teaching at the Sanskrit college), according to Eddie, for the OK.
Wish he hadn't dumbed it down/simplified it all so much ( the asanas, mudras, breath, drishti, pranayama, meditation) but there's an argument, a thin, one that it's for the best in the beginning.
Again, according to Eddie, Jois said that Krishnamacharya taught a 'mountain of asana' which make me wonder if he ever REALLY 'got it' himself, he was young I suppose. But if we look at Yoga Makaranda we see that Krishnamacharya was teaching Vinyasa Krama even back then but when your young you just want to jump and jump.
If your going to call something 'Ashtanga' you don't get dictate what it is or isn't. Be like coming up with a new team game and deciding on calling it 'Sport' and getting frustrated when everyone brings in all these elements of practice from the sporting tradition rather than following your new and regularly updated/changing rules as you try out this and then that. So for the best perhaps, this way we get to explore it's richness more, would have been even more dogmatic had he called it Jois Yoga.
According to Manju he adapted it all a lot in his earlier teaching, all seemed to become a little more fixed in his later years. But then he didn't keep up with his own teachers later teaching it seems so I guess we can ignore or question his too.
Always bothers me that he stopped his own asana practice in his later years rather than adapt his own practice, you see Krishnamacharya still doing his practice into his 90's, Iyengar too, hmmm".
grimmmly
Love how Claudia puts it in her comment on my earlier post
"In my experience, the deviation from the strict tradition, the need to modify, the need to find what works eventually happens for all of us... it is the alchemy that happens when the practice as dictated becomes our own practice, when we begin to see certain fruits and trust our own instincts.
It does NOT mean we abandon tradition but rather that we stem from it, we ground in it and grow through it, and blossom into our own flower. Our own expression".