Sharing this because there are so many useful links throughout the article and I still get mail asking me why I've written and shared posts on Pattabhi Jois' sexual abuse see my Ashtanga : Inappropriate Adjustments/Sexual abuse page (do the work, follow the links and read the posts/articles yourselves).
I do question the characterisation in this article of 'Ashtanga in crisis' though. Perhaps if Jois were still alive it might be a crisis.
Sharath still fills his Bikramesque gyms/halls on his world tours as well as the cavernous new shala in Mysore. He supposedly did address the abuse in a private conference with students, not a sufficient response clearly but he has, I've noticed this month, removed photos of his grandfather in the recent Stanford workshop as you can see from the photos going around (Giant photos of Sharath himself instead), Photos of Pattabhi Jois were also absent from the recent Bali workshop/tour I hear. Perhaps it's a start, perhaps he was pressured to do so, keep up the pressure.
Sharath is getting more and more students from Asia, is anyone translating these articles into different languages, Chinese for instance? I noticed Guy Donahaye and Eddie Stern's Guruji book has been translated here into Japanese but I doubt Guy's recent condemnation of the book has been translated.
http://yogamindmedicine.blogspot.com/2018/08/guruji-metoo.html
Eddie Stern, as far as I can tell, continues to stay silent in public, refusing to address the issue when interviewed but continuing to promote and host Sharath, as do Sonima and Kino in the US. Perhaps if everyone refused to promote and host Sharath on his world tours it might actually feel like a 'crisis' to him, leading him to address the issue publicly, a suitable statement on his website would be a beginning.
Some regular practitioners are still abusive online through social media but I'm seeing more intelligent, reasoned, discussion in comments to posts and hear that there is serious discussion taking place outside of social media from actual practitioners since this post by Genny Wilkinson-Priest back in Dec. 2017, one of the first regular, current and ongoing, and long term daily practitioners to speak up and out.
https://www.healthista.com/sexual-abuse-in-yoga-the-secret-we-cant-ignore/
More and more reflective articles are being written from inside the Ashtanga community since Genny's article, which is where any change/acknowledgement will likely come from. Critics writing from outside of the community seem to be mostly dismissed and ignored by those within the community.
https://livingashtanga.com/a-few-thoughts-on-yoga-and-disillusionment/
The main reason I don't see this as a crisis is because Ashtanga is ultimately about the practice of the practice.
Sue Sharath and the KPJAYI if you really feel you have to but all that will do is bring down the KPJAYI, not Ashtanga. Ashtanga exists on any free PDF you print off the internet and seek to practice with sincerity and commitment, following a handful of guidelines, and ideally with some good common sense. It’s gone beyond Mysore, the KPJAYI, authorized or unauthorized teachers, it’s gone beyond Shalas. Some of the best ashtanga I suspect is found in gyms and frankly living rooms and hallways and corners of kitchens and far far away I suspect from social media.
Jois was nothing to me, Sharath is nothing to me, Mysore nothing to me, adjustments and assists not relevant to me as a home practitioner, nor shalas for that matter. The well known teachers had already become irrelevant to me due to their constant self promotion long before Jois' abuse came more to light. The only aspect outside of my own practice that does feel relevant perhaps is the nebulous awareness of other daily practitioners of the discipline, whether home or shala. there is an affection there for practitioner's past, present and future, a kinship if you like based on the awareness of a shared practice, the work put in to establish (such) a discipline.
If I rejected Ashtanga for a time it was more from disappointment (frankly disgust) with much of the response of actual practitioners, but in the end it always comes back to the practice itself, I'll practice Ashtanga in the manner I choose if and when the practice itself, rather than anything else surrounding it feels appropriate, beneficial and relevant to me again as a discipline (and I admit to hearing the siren call of late).
The practice itself is the real 'Paramaguru'.
It's either helpful or it isn't.
"Some of you will have heard about the crisis engulfing the international Ashtanga community, concerning Pattabhi Jois (the founder and leader of Ashtanga Yoga, known as Guruji, who died in 2009), and the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI). But I know from conversations I have had that many of you are entirely unaware of it. I think it is essential that all those practising Ashtanga in the local yoga community are fully informed about this crisis and have enough information to draw some lessons from the whole sad affair"
I do question the characterisation in this article of 'Ashtanga in crisis' though. Perhaps if Jois were still alive it might be a crisis.
Sharath still fills his Bikramesque gyms/halls on his world tours as well as the cavernous new shala in Mysore. He supposedly did address the abuse in a private conference with students, not a sufficient response clearly but he has, I've noticed this month, removed photos of his grandfather in the recent Stanford workshop as you can see from the photos going around (Giant photos of Sharath himself instead), Photos of Pattabhi Jois were also absent from the recent Bali workshop/tour I hear. Perhaps it's a start, perhaps he was pressured to do so, keep up the pressure.
Sharath is getting more and more students from Asia, is anyone translating these articles into different languages, Chinese for instance? I noticed Guy Donahaye and Eddie Stern's Guruji book has been translated here into Japanese but I doubt Guy's recent condemnation of the book has been translated.
http://yogamindmedicine.blogspot.com/2018/08/guruji-metoo.html
Eddie Stern, as far as I can tell, continues to stay silent in public, refusing to address the issue when interviewed but continuing to promote and host Sharath, as do Sonima and Kino in the US. Perhaps if everyone refused to promote and host Sharath on his world tours it might actually feel like a 'crisis' to him, leading him to address the issue publicly, a suitable statement on his website would be a beginning.
Some regular practitioners are still abusive online through social media but I'm seeing more intelligent, reasoned, discussion in comments to posts and hear that there is serious discussion taking place outside of social media from actual practitioners since this post by Genny Wilkinson-Priest back in Dec. 2017, one of the first regular, current and ongoing, and long term daily practitioners to speak up and out.
https://www.healthista.com/sexual-abuse-in-yoga-the-secret-we-cant-ignore/
More and more reflective articles are being written from inside the Ashtanga community since Genny's article, which is where any change/acknowledgement will likely come from. Critics writing from outside of the community seem to be mostly dismissed and ignored by those within the community.
https://livingashtanga.com/a-few-thoughts-on-yoga-and-disillusionment/
The main reason I don't see this as a crisis is because Ashtanga is ultimately about the practice of the practice.
Sue Sharath and the KPJAYI if you really feel you have to but all that will do is bring down the KPJAYI, not Ashtanga. Ashtanga exists on any free PDF you print off the internet and seek to practice with sincerity and commitment, following a handful of guidelines, and ideally with some good common sense. It’s gone beyond Mysore, the KPJAYI, authorized or unauthorized teachers, it’s gone beyond Shalas. Some of the best ashtanga I suspect is found in gyms and frankly living rooms and hallways and corners of kitchens and far far away I suspect from social media.
Jois was nothing to me, Sharath is nothing to me, Mysore nothing to me, adjustments and assists not relevant to me as a home practitioner, nor shalas for that matter. The well known teachers had already become irrelevant to me due to their constant self promotion long before Jois' abuse came more to light. The only aspect outside of my own practice that does feel relevant perhaps is the nebulous awareness of other daily practitioners of the discipline, whether home or shala. there is an affection there for practitioner's past, present and future, a kinship if you like based on the awareness of a shared practice, the work put in to establish (such) a discipline.
If I rejected Ashtanga for a time it was more from disappointment (frankly disgust) with much of the response of actual practitioners, but in the end it always comes back to the practice itself, I'll practice Ashtanga in the manner I choose if and when the practice itself, rather than anything else surrounding it feels appropriate, beneficial and relevant to me again as a discipline (and I admit to hearing the siren call of late).
The practice itself is the real 'Paramaguru'.
It's either helpful or it isn't.