 |
| http://www.sama-ashtanga.orghttp://www.sama-ashtanga.org |
Where are they now? (mostly) Recent Videos/interviews with students from 1993 Sri K. Pattabhi Jois led Yoga Works Ashtanga demonstrations
This was a look at the practitioners in early 80s Led class with Pattabhi Jois and included some relatively recent, decent length, videos of where they may be thought to be now, twenty odd years later and perhaps thirty to forty years after they first encountered Yoga. While hunting out recent videos I came across this extend Satsang with Chuck Miller Video.
One of the reasons I'm drawn to 'senior/longer serving' teachers/practitioners is the question 'What is it to have practiced for twenty, thirty years, even forty years, where may decades of practice take us, how does the relationship to practice change, and shift....
From Chuck Miller's Website Bio.
"In 1974 I found the book Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar. The Introduction was one of the most profound things I had ever read. I began working through the practices contained in there. they were laid out in weekly routines, with photos in a different part of the book and descriptions for how to do the postures in yet another place! Complicated!
The book became my constant companion, I had a special pocket for it in my backpack. It was complicated but I was motivated and after about 3 years I had managed to get to the recommended week 35 or so. I thought that I must be a very slow student! Years later talking to others who tried the same I found that actually I had done pretty well!
In 1980, intrigued that here was a man who had studied with the same teacher as Iyengar, I met Sri K Pattabhi Jois. When he asked me who my teacher was I replied "book." What book he asked. "Light on Yoga." Oh, you are Iyengar student! So he called me that for the first month as I began practicing Ashtanga Yoga. I continued with him intensively for many years and intermittently until his death.
In March of 1988 I got permission from Guru-ji to teach Primary Series and was pushed into the yoga room and began teaching Ashtanga Yoga. I taught in the same school, almost the same time for 17 years. Many of the students came for years and years. It was a great experience for me. I hope it was for them as well!
After selling the school and moving to Hawaii Island, "The Big Island," I began accepting invitations to teach in other cities around the world and continue to do that today".
Full Bio here http://www.sama-ashtanga.org/bio--chuck-miller.html
Notice the 'Info' dropdown menu on the top right. There are pages here on
Ethos
Practice
Chuck Miller/Bio
I hesitate to quote as it's so much better to read it all in context but these pages are buried away a little and I don't want you to miss them as I almost did,
So, some quotes from the above pages
Ethos
ethos: "A Greek word meaning Character that is used to describe the guide lines that characterize the beliefs of a community , nation or ideology. It is also used to describe the power that music has to influence its hearers' emotions, behaviours and even morals."
Practice:
Practices are great tools, primarily tools for Observation. They present us with an otherwise difficult to perceive view of ourselves. Who we are and how we relate to the world around us and to each other. They help to alter how we “Sit within Ourselves.” That is what the word “Asana” refers to, our "Seat."
Practice
Sama
Drishti means the place where the mind goes, as a result of where the eyes go! The place, from the yogic perspective, where the mind is to go is Inwards! Yoga is an introspective practice. We need to go in. We work from the known to the unknown, from the periphery to the center, to uncover the truth of who we are inside and then letting that express itself outwards.
Vinyasa
"I asked Guru-ji what the word Vinyasa meant in 1982, while he was teaching a 2 month Intensive in Austin, Texas.
(Photos here above are from that time and place!)
"Vinyasa is the Breathing System, he answered."
"...I went upstairs to thank Guru-ji one day after morning practice, maybe it was in 1984:
I had an experience of the continuity of the practice and wanted to share my thoughts with him. I told him that the breathmovements were like beads on a string, like a string of prayer beads, what in India is called a Mala.
He got excited and told me the name of his book was "Yoga Mala." It was as yet only available in very limited supply in his native language, Kannada. He pulled out a handwritten manuscript and let me make a copy. I thought maybe someone could translate it! (Eddy would go! Thanks!)"
Bio
See again the quote at the top of the blog taken from this page.