Conscious Choice: Eight Limbs and Your Limbs

March 2001

Eight Limbs and Your Limbs

The Practice of Ashtanga Yoga

by Jonn Salovaara

You may have noticed the buzz flying around your health club, your health-care practitioner’s office, or even your place of worship: "I’m going to my power yoga class," says the woman next to you, with pride. "She’s learning Ashtanga," murmurs the man next to her, with admiration in his voice. Power yoga? Isn’t that an oxymoron? And how can Ashtanga be both authentic, powerful — and new?

Ashtanga, literally, means eight limbs. According to the Ashtanga Yoga Web site, these limbs are: yama (moral observance), niyama (inner integrity), asana (posture), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (sensory withdrawal), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (contemplation). Each of them is an integral part of the practice, which is a holistic approach to yoga as a means to both physical and spiritual growth.

There’s some confusion about the difference between power yoga and Ashtanga yoga. Power yoga is a particular interpretation described in a 1995 book of that name by American Beryl Bender Birch, of the Ashtanga practice taught by K. Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, India. After his own teacher shared the teachings with him, eighty-five-year-old Jois translated this teaching from a Sanskrit manuscript that had been written on now-disintegrated banana leaves. He has been putting it into practice for over seventy years.

In her August 14 New Yorker article on Jois, Rebecca Mead suggests that he isn’t too happy about Birch making big book money from "his" system. Be that as it may, Jois himself has become a yoga guru to the stars (including Gwyneth Paltrow) as well as to ever-increasing numbers of yoga teachers, many of them Americans, who both visit Jois in his Mysore studio and welcome him on his rare visits stateside. These teachers in turn feed the ever-growing demand for Ashtanga yoga instruction in the United States.

Why that demand? Partly because of the exertion required, Ashtanga is more like exercise, as Americans perceive it, than many other forms of yoga. And the yoga "boom," as Mead describes it, "is an extension of the health boom of the past two decades: for efficiency-oriented Americans, a workout that can double as a spiritual exercise, and even triple as a substitute for going to the shrink, is understandably appealing." Ashtanga, definitely a workout, seems to fit the other parts of this demanding bill as well, at least when taken as a whole.

Indeed, one yoga teacher I spoke to mentioned Ashtanga practitioners who were able to "throw away their Prozac." It sounds almost Biblical, and reminded me of the injunctions by Jesus to the people he healed. This same teacher commented that "Ashtanga appeals to people who are looking for a good workout and who’ve had enough of health clubs and aerobics. It also has spiritual benefits. It’s designed to quiet the mind."

Leslie Riley is an instructor who has been teaching yoga for years, both at the DePaul theater school and in the community. She describes Ashtanga yoga as a series of poses that flow from one into the next. "It’s like a sequence of sun salutations, quite rigorous and challenging." Ashtanga, according to Riley, increases your heart rate, which is not the focus of Iyengar, the type of hatha yoga that Riley herself teaches.

Riley goes on to confirm that yoga in general has taken off in the last ten years, really coming out of the "alternative" closet. Riley rejoices in the increased presence of yoga while expressing some concern for maintaining high standards of instruction. Whether or not the spiritual and psychological benefits of Ashtanga are coming through in the United States, one thing is clear. More and more people are turning to it as a preferred form of strenuous physical activity.

But what is Ashtanga really about? According to Jim Lal-Tabak, a hatha yoga instructor who has studied Ashtanga, in ancient times the sequences of poses that make up Ashtanga were intended as a form of yoga especially suited to young people. As you got older, your practice of yoga would change. Ashtanga sequences are athletic and movement-oriented, requiring strength, flexibility, and brisk movement. "The idea," says Lal-Tabak, "is to heat the body, to cook it."

There are in fact six progressions of poses. Suddha Weixler, an Art Institute professor who has studied with Jois and who is the director of the N.U. Yoga center in Chicago, explains that the primary series is about cleansing the body; the next sequence — the intermediate — is about cleansing the nerve channels.

What is most commonly taught as Ashtanga in the United States are these first two progressions, the first a forward bend sequence and the second a back bending sequence, both including some inversions (that’s headstands). You warm up first with standing poses and then go through the series, ending with relaxation poses. To offer some idea of the difficulty of learning these sequences, Weixler comments that it can take up to five years to master the first series and he estimates that only 2 percent of students complete the second series.

The remaining four advanced progressions, presumably for yogis and apprentice yogis, purify the nervous system and detoxify muscles and organs.

Weixler notes that a big part of Ashtanga is the synchronization of the breathing with the movement from one pose into the next. He goes on to stress the spiritual/psychological benefits of practicing Ashtanga. "The asanas (poses) are basically a purification process. It’s really about being able to meditate and to sit quietly after the exercises. It’s not just about sweating but about becoming the best kind of person you can be. Ashtanga enables the student to become whole. It’s really a process of awakening and becoming mindful and aware."

Where, exactly does Ashtanga come from? As a boy, K. Pattabhi Jois studied with the Sanskrit scholar Krishnamacharya in Mysore. Texts that Krishnamacharya shared with Pattabhi Jois described the sequence of poses Jois prescribes. Having translated this information from the Sanskrit (now published in English in his Yoga Mala) Jois has been practicing the sequences and teaching them since he was twelve years old.

Krishnamacharya served as a mentor to two other students, his own son and B.K.S. Iyengar, both of whom also went on to found "schools" of yoga. Each school uses a different method, though the asanas are similar in each. According to Weixler, Jois’s Ashtanga yoga is the most traditional of the three schools. Iyengar, for example, more commonly makes use of "props," blocks and belts, to help students assume more difficult poses, although some Ashtanga studios make use of props as well.

Apart from the emphasis on movement and strenuous physical activity, Ashtanga differs from other types of yoga in its emphasis on the mula bandha, or root lock, and the uddayana bandha, or drawing in of lower abdominals. Both of these require the conscious tightening of certain muscles in the body. Other types of yoga might practice these exercises as well but students would do them while seated in poses, and at a later stage of learning.

Ashtanga practitioners do these locks right away because they create heat in the body. According to Lal-Tabak, the locks also prevent the energy generated in the practice of Ashtanga "from blasting up the spinal cord." Ashtanga students try to do these bandhas while engaged in the actual sequence of exercises, though Weixler comments that it takes great concentration to hold the bandhas even for ten minutes in a two-hour class. There is also a special kind of rasping breath that is typically taught in Ashtanga classes.

Pattabhi Jois, according to Weixler, says that Ashtanga is for everyone. Weixler has students who are in their sixties and seventies and he himself is fifty. Still, he admits, the more typical Ashtanga student is a young person who is very fit. For those who are less ready, however, it is possible to start out slowly, say with five or six of the forty-two poses in the first sequence.

Lal-Tabak agrees that, though originally intended for younger people, today Ashtanga appeals to a wide range of ages, up into old age. He refers to the strength, flexibility, endurance, and heating of the body as possible benefits of the practice. Other teachers have claimed that it can "cure" depression. In any case, mastering difficult poses can give students confidence that they take out of the studio with them. If taken as they are meant to be taken, the exercises are a great preparation for meditation and the pursuit of wholeness.

Lal-Tabak cautions, however, that the practice is best for bigger, thicker-boned people who like action. He says other body types can be destabilized by Ashtanga. In fact, everyone I spoke to for this article agreed that there’s a risk of injury for those who are not doing Ashtanga right. It’s important to learn one pose in the sequence before moving on to the next. People who move too quickly in Ashtanga also risk hurting themselves.

This is where the teacher comes in. In the Ashtanga class I observed, the instructor did many of the exercises as an example for the class, but also went around the class to assist individuals. She placed her hands on the students, helping them lift a leg a little higher, bend at the waist a little more, or achieve better alignment of the knee over the ankle. Before attempting Ashtanga, it’s a good idea to have a grounding in the basic yoga poses, with maybe more than a couple of beginning classes, although you may find an Ashtanga teacher who will help you from a more basic starting point. Still, if you’re considering an Ashtanga class for yourself, it’s a good idea to visit it and assess the instructor. Ask yourself if this is a kind person — someone who will give you the help and patience you may very well need — while challenging you at the same time.

The pace in the class I observed was a far cry from the frenetic pace of a dancercise class, say, but the pretzel-like twists, as well as the sweat pouring off faces, indicated a workout that was a real test of strength, flexibility, and concentration. Developing those virtues can only help in the search for wholeness.

Resources

The official Ashtanga Yoga Web site lists "certified" teachers worldwide. Currently none in Illinois are certified, although that doesn’t prevent many from teaching Ashtanga yoga or some derivative form. To be certified one must be a direct student of Jois in Mysore (minimum ten years) and have completed the advanced "A" section, according to a certified school in Cornwall, England. One may teach if "blessed" by Jois. This also requires direct study in Mysore (at least three times) and completion of the primary and intermediate series. However, to be listed on the official Web site one must "teach Ashtanga Yoga in the traditional format. The traditional format consists of daily classes in the Mysore style in correct sequential order and without deviation from the traditional form of the asanas as taught by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois at the Astanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, South India" (www.ashtanga.com). A direct student of Jois who has studied at least one month in Mysore may pass on the method to beginners, but then is expected to refer the beginner to a recognized teacher.

There are two teachers in Chicago who are "blessed" by Jois:

Suddha Weixler, N.U. Yoga Center, 773-327-3650

Amy Beth Treciokas, Priya Yoga, 312-664-1547

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