[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.13.0″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_margin=”-46px||||false|false” inline_fonts=”Arial” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
The yoga style that I have been practicing for 13 years and teaching for 11 is nowadays known worldwide as Ashtanga Yoga. I fell in love with this style from the very start. Initially, the name was not important to me. However, \u00a0I later started to question why this yoga style had this name and whether it was correct, in the sense of \u201eNomen est omen\u201c.<\/p>\n
Let me summarize the answers that I found right away:<\/p>\n
To start at the origin of the association between the terms \u201eashtanga\u201c and \u201eyoga\u201c, we shall jump back in time to a past long gone.<\/p>\n
From a historical perspective, yoga is a spiritual path, a philosophy that dates back 2,500 years and more. Its goal was the disciplining of the mind to reach liberation from the attachment to the material world.<\/p>\n
To discipline the mind, the ancient seers recommended several techniques, e.g., purification, strict obedience to specific rules, breathing exercises, and intensive contemplation and meditation.<\/p>\n
The list of techniques to be practiced by a spiritual seeker varied. Some traditions named six elements (also called \u201elimbs\u201c), others seven, and again others fifteen. The most known list today contains eight limbs.<\/p>\n
This specific list of eight elements is the origin of the term \u201eashtanga\u201c (a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga<\/em> in precise transliteration from Sanskrit):<\/p>\n \u201eeight limbs\u201c (a\u1e63\u1e6da <\/em>= eight, a\u1e45ga <\/em>= limb).<\/p>\n \u00a0[Short comment on pronunciation: the pronunciation rules in Sanskrit require that the short \/a\/ at the end of a\u1e63\u1e6da <\/em>and the short \/a\/ at the beginning of a\u1e45ga<\/em> merge to a long \/\u0101\/ (pronounced like the English \u201crather\u201d) when both words follow one another. If you want to be even more precise, you will put the tongue upward to the hard palate behind your upper teeth when you pronounce the s and the t with the dot below them, e.g., \u1e63 <\/em>and \u1e6d<\/em>. This way of putting the tongue is called \u201eretroflex\u201c. The \u1e45 <\/em>is pronounced backward, towards the throat, just like \u201eHon<\/strong>g Kon<\/strong>g\u201c, a so-called \u201eguttural\u201c \/n\/.]<\/p>\n The term a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45ga<\/em> became known primarily through the yogas\u016btra<\/em> of Pata\u00f1jali, a text that dates back to the 3rd or 4th<\/sup> century CE. However, Pata\u00f1jali did not invent the term. Instead, he compiled the then-available knowledge on yoga in a brilliant way. Therefore, the term itself must be older.<\/p>\n Pata\u00f1jali defines yoga as a condition in which one experiences total tranquility. The goal is the liberation of consciousness from the attachment to the material world (kaivalya<\/em>).<\/p>\n In four chapters with almost 200 succinct verses (also called s\u016btra<\/em>), Pata\u00f1jali describes how someone can reach this ambitious goal.<\/p>\n One of the essential tools is the path of the eight limbs<\/strong>. Pata\u00f1jali\u2019s definition in the 29th s\u016btra <\/em>is as follows:<\/p>\n \u201dThe eight limbs are social rules [yama<\/em>], rules for oneself [niyama<\/em>], postures [\u0101sana<\/em>], breath control [pr\u0101<\/em>\u1e47<\/em>\u0101y\u0101m\u0101<\/em>], withdrawal of the senses [praty\u0101h\u0101ra<\/em>], concentration [dh\u0101ra\u1e47a<\/em>], contemplation [dhy\u0101na<\/em>] and meditative absorption [sam\u0101dhi\u1e25<\/em>].\u201c (my translation)<\/p>\n At this point, I do not intend to cover the individual limbs in detail (other blogs will follow).<\/p>\n What is essential at this point is that postures [\u0101sana<\/em>]- which today, at least in the western world, seem to be the centerpiece of yoga practice – are mentioned by Pata\u00f1jali in just three s\u016btra <\/em>(of a total of 195).<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/ashtanga-yoga-plus.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/8fold-path-e1601537637993.png” title_text=”8fold path” align=”center” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.13.0″ _module_preset=”default” module_alignment=”center” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.13.0″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”12px” custom_margin=”-21px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n Chart courtesy of Martina Vogt<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.13.0″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_margin=”-46px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n The focus on physical activities came up much later, about a thousand years<\/strong> after Pata\u00f1jali. It resulted from the conviction that the body itself offers access to liberation from the material world.<\/p>\n As of the 13th<\/sup> and 14th<\/sup> centuries, this approach focused on cleansing techniques, and particular postures became known as Hatha Yoga (which verbatim can mean \u201cyoga of force\u201c).<\/p>\n To understand the later \u201ebranding\u201c of the yoga style \u201eAshtanga Yoga\u201c, it is important to know that from the perspective of many of the Indian seers, Hatha Yoga was the more \u201cprimitive\u201d or \u201cbasic\u201d form of yoga, more a tool to get started on the path.<\/p>\n Some of the texts mention this explicitly:<\/p>\n The royal approach is a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45gayoga<\/em>, the yoga for the mind (it was sometimes even called king\u2019s yoga, Raja Yoga). So who is not ready for this royal path has to get by with Hatha Yoga until he has developed further.<\/p>\n In addition, in the Middle Ages, Hatha Yogis were seen as sinister figures whom one could not trust. Thus, even today, a mother in India may tell her child: \u201dIf you do not behave, the yogi will come and get you.\u201d<\/p>\n Therefore, it is no surprise that most of the ashrams and yoga shalas put themselves under the roof of a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45gayoga<\/em>. By doing so, they did not describe a particular style of \u0101sana<\/em> practice. The message was:<\/p>\n \u201dWe are offering more than body-oriented yoga practice. We are offering the royal path.\u201c<\/p>\n Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888 – 1989), who is often named the father of modern yoga, was also very interested in the yogas\u016btra<\/em>. Nevertheless, the style that he taught over the decades used a postural approach in the tradition of Hatha Yoga.<\/p>\n One of the main contributions of Krishnamacharya to the way of performing postures [\u0101sana<\/em>] was the conscious coordination between the postures and the breath. This approach is called \u201dviny\u0101sa<\/em>\u201c, which can mean \u201corder, connection, composition\u201d in English.<\/p>\n One of Krishnamacharya\u2019s students in Mysuru (at that time named Mysore) was Sri K. Patthabi Jois (1915 – 2009). Since the 1930s, Jois developed an individual yoga style based on the postures taught to him by Krishnamacharya and on the viny\u0101sa<\/em> approach.<\/p>\n Special features of the style developed by Patthabi Jois are:<\/p>\n After years of practice, this style can facilitate a meditative approach to practicing, in the sense of a movement meditation. Nevertheless, due to the increasing difficulty of the \u0101sana<\/em>, it remains physically challenging.<\/p>\n Initially, Jois did not give his style a particular name. It was just \u201cyoga\u201d, in the tradition of a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45gayoga<\/em>. Back then, a local yoga teacher in Mysore did not need a more specific \u201dbranding\u201c.<\/p>\n His shala<\/em> (a room in his house for teaching yoga) was just called \u201eAshtanga Yoga Niyalam\u201c, i.e., \u201dresidence of Ashtanga Yoga\u201c (my translation). The slightly blurry picture at the top shows the sign at the door. It was taken about 50 years ago.<\/p>\n This name was no pretension or even usurpation by Jois. On the contrary, it would have been seen as pretentious had he given it his name, for instance.<\/p>\n Many other\u00a0shala <\/em>would also teach under the umbrella of Ashtanga Yoga, even though their concrete style of yoga would be quite different.<\/p>\n Then something unexpected happened: the specific yoga style developed by Jois found its way into the world, initially to the US and then around the entire globe.<\/p>\nThe a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45gayoga <\/em>of Pata\u00f1jali<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Focus on the physical body in yoga only for around 800 years – the development of Hatha Yoga<\/h3>\n
Modern Yoga of Krishnamacharya<\/h3>\n
The style taught by Patthabi Jois<\/h3>\n
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One of many yoga styles that see themselves in the tradition of the a\u1e63\u1e6d\u0101\u1e45gayoga <\/em>of Pata\u00f1jali<\/h3>\n
The yoga style taught by Patthabi Jois goes international<\/h3>\n