Pattabhi Jois: The Father of Ashtanga and Vinyasa

Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois , the creator of Ashtanga and Vinyasa.

K. Pattabhi Jois was born on July 26, 1915 in Kowshika (Karnataka, India) and died on May 18, 2009 in Mysore, at the age of 93. He is particularly known for being at the origin of Ashtanga Yoga and Vinyasa, dynamic yoga styles. He taught this art for many years, particularly in his school Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute, after being initiated by Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, another great yoga master . It was in the 1960s that this discipline spread to the West and the United States, named Power Yoga. Nothing predestined him to be a yoga teacher. However, he has become a key figure in the history of yoga .

His discovery of yoga during his childhood

In Pattabhi Jois ' family, no one practiced yoga. It was in 1927, when the yogi master was 12 years old, that he listened to Tirumalai Krishnamacharya's lecture at the Jubilee Hall in the city of Hassan. The next day, Jois had to disciple him. For the next two years, the future Ashtanga teacher practiced yoga every day in Kowshika, with his master Krishnamacharya. The man hid it from his family, performing the asana sequences before going to study.

During the year 1930, K. Pattabhi Jois left home in Mysore to learn Sanskrit with just 2 rupees. At the same time, his teacher Krishnamacharya left Hassan to teach in another village. In 1932, the two men met in Mysore. Then, Jois regularly followed his guru during his demonstrations at the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore (Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar). His teacher stayed with his pupil in the city till 1941 before moving to Madras.

Pattabhi Jois teaches Ashtanga Yoga

Pattabhi Jois did not leave Mysore. In 1937, he married Savitramma (also called Amma). The same year, he started teaching yoga at the Maharaja's Sanskrit College and became a professor in 1956. However, in the year 1948, with the support of his students, he and his wife bought a house in Lakshmipuram (Mysore) where they lived with their children Manju, Ramesh and Saraswathi.

It was in this same place that the yoga master created the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute after studying, among other things, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Upanishads. Jois left Sanskrit College in 1973 to teach only in his school. He had famous students such as Sting, Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow and he continued to transmit the practice of Ashtanga Yoga in Mysore until his death in 2009 at the age of 93.

The spread of Ashtanga Yoga

It was in 1964 that a man named André Van Lysebeth stayed two months with the yoga master who taught him the postures of Ashtanga Yoga . Subsequently, the disciple wrote the book I Learn Yoga mentioning his teacher and his address. Students began to come from the West to learn yoga. In 1974, Jois made his first trip to the West, more precisely to South America to give a speech at a yoga conference. In 1975, he went to California, to Encinitas, for four months, beginning the diffusion of Ashtanga in the United States.

The Legacy of Pattabhi Jois

Ashtanga Yoga is now transmitted by R. Sharat Jois, grandson of the master yogi . He was his disciple for 20 years. In the West, this style of yoga, practiced on a yoga mat , continues to spread thanks to teachers. That's not all, in 1958, Pattabhi Jois also wrote a book, entitled Yoga Mala and published in 1962.

Want to know more about Ashtanga Yoga ? Check out the article Ashtanga Yoga: A Dynamic Traditional Yoga on the Tayronalife blog.