ASHTANGA MYSORE-STYLE By Beverly Fredericks
Why was I going to India? The 20-hour flight from San Francisco to Madras offered plenty of time to reflect.
A year and a half ago I began to practice Ashtanga vinyasa yoga with the hope of finally ridding myself of a nagging pain in my left hip. Having practiced various forms of yoga for the last nine years with the same hope, I was amazed to find that the synchronized breathing and rigorous but balanced asanas of the Ashtanga vinyasa system created a heat within me that burned deep through to heal the stresses of 18 years of performance-focused training in dance and competitive gymnastics.
For a year and a half I sweated my way through classes two hours a day, six days a week. My teacher, Karen Haberman, had studied with both Tim Miller and Richard Freeman. The balanced strength and flexibility of her practice inspired me as I made my way through the first and second series again and again, finally beginning the third series. The power of the practice reshaped my body, calmed my nerves, and gave me moments of sustained bliss on a daily basis. So when Karen bought her one-way ticket to India to study with Ashtanga master K. Pattabhi Jois, leaving me with a videocassette of the third series and some of her winter clothingI panicked!
One of the enviable benefits of teaching freelance September through June is free summers. So I decided to follow Karen to India, at least for the summer, and find out what real Mysore-style yoga was like.
Before heading to the Marin Airporter, I laid out my tarot cards, immediately wishing I had not. Sorrow, futility, and disappointment in the near future, the cards predicted. It seemed I was flying straight into Kalis mouth. If the World hadn't been the final outcome card, I might have cashed in my ticket then and there.
So it was no great surprise when I came down with giardia my first week in India. Mid-July is monsoon season after all, a time when the micro-organisms in untreated water overflow keep many Indians from eating out for fear of intestinal complications.
After my purging phase was finished, I felt I had covered sorrow, disappointment, and futility quite thoroughly and was ready to move on. So I moved into a house near the Mysore zoo with some other yoga students. There, I could prepare my own meals without protozoan additives. I paid Mr. Uslam, my landlord, roughly $25 per month, which included visits from Hemma, who washed our clothes, floors, and bathrooms. I thought this sure evidence that I was on my way toward the World.
Every morning, I awoke at 5:00 a.m. to the sound of chanting amplified through a loudspeaker from the neighborhood mosque. Between 5:00 and 6:00 I prepared and sipped peppermint tea I had brought from home and did some preliminary wake-up stretches. By 6:00 I was on my bicycle, riding by women who scooped up cow dung and shaped it into patties to dry in a large open field, just as the sun rose majestically over the turrets of the Maharajas palace.
Mysore-style practice might seem chaotic to an uninitiated observer, with 12 people practicing different series of asanas at the very individual pace of their own inhalations and exhalations. Add to this the fact that the tiny room that holds all 12 seems meant for a maximum of eight, and you begin to envision the intertwining dance that is Mysore Ashtanga yoga.
K. Pattabhi Jois, lovingly referred to as Guruji by his students, circulates through the crowded room adjusting and admonishing. Why legs bending, bad man? Why forgetting Bakasana, bad lady? Fifty dollar fine. To Guruji, this seeming chaos is as orderly as a garden in bloom. Occasionally he is pleased with a students practice, which he tends to express less verbally than with a nod, a Yes, correct, or a Today better. All in all, however, there is very little talk in this room of bodies drenched in sweat. Far more prevalent is the euphony of ujjayi breath created by 12 yogis, all focused on allowing their audible breathing to guide their practice.
The tiny room attached to Gurujis home virtually vibrates with the energy and intention of its yogis. I often felt as if the energy in the room did my yoga for me. I found myself finishing first series in an hour, with plenty of energy left over for Gurujis intense back bending sequences, followed by the first eight asanas of third series; all this before beginning the Shoulderstand variations, Headstand, and other standard Ashtanga finishing poses.
At age 79, Gurujis own practice consists of pranayama and the Sanskrit chanting of the Upanishads. He continues to chant gently as he adjusts the mornings first group of students, who begin their practice with a Sanskrit chant at 5:00 a.m.
As each student finishes her practice, another begins in her place. Students waiting for a practice space crouch in the back of the room and watch until a space becomes available. I found this was a great opportunity to observe both varying styles of practice and Guruji in action. Karen and a couple of others were learning the amazing contortions of fourth series, a few more were learning third. Most of us were practicing the less spectacular but no less demanding first and second series.
Gurujis grandson Sharath begins his practice in the predawn dark at 4:15 a.m. At age 23 he is fast approaching the full Master of Ashtanga weekly practice, which consists of second series on Sunday, third series on Monday, fourth series on Tuesday, fifth series on Wednesday, sixth series on Thursday, and first series on Friday. (Saturdays are traditionally days of rest in Ashtanga.) Just before I left India, I watched him practice and snapped some photos. Besides bearing witness to a gaze so focused it could probably fry an egg, I was introduced to quite a number of asanas I didnt even know existed.
When Sharath finishes his practice he assists Guruji, adjusting students with a hand here, a foot there, the full weight of his body, or a word or two of advice. Sharaths adjustments are thorough and exact. And if his demeanor is somewhat more serious and self-contained than Gurujis, he is quick to return a smile for a smile. (It seems exceptional smiles run in the family.)
Because I am extremely flexible, I found some of both Gurujis and Sharaths adjustments rather frightening. I learned very quickly to be both clear and outspoken about how much adjustment was enough. No problem Guruji would smile his famous smile and move on to someone else, returning to remind me that forgetting to breath freely through difficulty was like sleeping through practice. Twenty-five dollar fine, bad lady.
Later, outside of practice, he would explain to me that the most important part of asana is the ujjayi breath medium length with equal inhalation and exhalation. It is what builds the internal fire, preventing injury. In an interview he granted me before I left India, Guruji also stressed the importance of tapas (mind control), bandhas (energy lifts) and drishtis (gazes). Though the short interview was informative, it left me with the distinct feeling that it will take a lot longer than one summer to dive into the deep reserves of this mans yogic knowledge.
Next July, Guruji will celebrate the passing of his 80th year. Many students coming, he tells the 26 students from 10 countries who gathered this year to celebrate his 79th birthday. Looking through the pictures from that celebration, I realize that our miniature yoga community not only spanned the globe, but also the generations. Though the average age of the five o'clockers (my nickname for the eager beavers who began their practice at 5:00 a.m.) was about 28, our youngest yogi, Ananda from Spain, was 10 when I left in August, and I met more than a few women in their 50s.
When I comment on the three to six hours he spends each day actively engaged with his students, Guruji smiles broadly. Teaching every day my strength increases. Two days no teaching10 years aging. He does admit, however, that he eventually plans to have his grandson Sharath take over for himbut not for at least five or six years. In the meantime, the two are planning a teaching trip to the U.S. during the summer of 1996.
Why had I come to India? By the end of my visit, some answers were coming: To meet this teacher of awareness, simplicity, and love in its largest sense. To meet this teacher of discipline tempered with a child-like lightness of heart. To continue on a path fragrant with jasmine and cow dung and blossoming with fresh challenge.
The picture I will leave you with is myself dropped back in the deep backbend of Urdhva Dhanurasana, with Guruji holding my waist so I wont fall on my head as I hold my right ankle and strain to grasp for my left. I clasp an ankle that seems to be in the right place but, I slowly realize, faces ...the...wrong ...direction.... Its Gurujis! We both laugh so hard we cry. Whole-hearted striving, total release, laughter, tears the World, at last.
Beverly Fredericks teaches yoga, gymnastics, and goddess spirituality in the San Francisco Bay area and beyond.
