Ashtanga*Ashtanga

Interview with Sharon Moon, an Austin Ashtanga Pioneer

It's hard to imagine what Ashtanga in Austin would be like without Sharon Moon. If you were looking for an Ashtanga class in the U.S. in the mid 1990s, you had to go to a major city or Hawaii. Times have changed here in Austin, and Sharon Moon has been a part of that. Rusty Nelson interviewed Sharon for the May edition of our newsletter:

What was your first exposure to Ashtanga Yoga? It was 1994. I had been doing martial arts for 12 years, and I had a bike wreck. I couldn't do martial arts any more, so I started doing tai chi and getting more into yoga. Then I read about Ashtanga in a Yoga Journal article about Duncan Wong. Just from reading the article, I knew I wanted to do Ashtanga. It combined the intensity of my martial arts with the spirituality of yoga. At that time, no one taught Ashtanga in Austin, and I figured I was going to have to go to New York or something. Then David Swenson moved to Austin with the intention of opening an Ashtanga studio. In preparation for that, he taught classes out of his house or in rented space. I took a workshop from him and signed up for classes immediately. At that time, this was around 1995, there were not many in Austin wanting to do Ashtanga, and he was being asked to travel around the world to teach. That was what he ended up doing. He came back and did his first teacher training ever, and I took it. I became the only person in town teaching Ashtanga. How did you attract students in those days? I spent the first two to three years paying to teach. I would rent space for classes, and often wouldn't have enough people in class to pay the rent. So I worked during the day and taught at night and weekends. I would get up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning, so I could do my practice and get to work. I started by hanging promotional flyers in places like Whole Foods. I slowly started to build up the number of students. During the first Southwest Yoga Conference in 1998, I helped organized the meetings for Austin yoga teachers. Part of the program was doing the first Free Day of Yoga (this special Austin tradition has been happening annually on Labor Day ever since). I had 55 people show up for Ashtanga on that first Free Day of Yoga. From that 55, there was a handful of people that came back, and they brought friends.

Another thing I did was offer informal classes at UT. I did these five week classes in the same format that I had originally learned from David Swenson. It met twice a week at UT and if I had 25 people, at least 10 would finish the classes and ask, "What do I do now." Of those 10, typically 5 would stick with the practice and become regular students of mine. I looked up one day and I had 35 people doing Ashtanga. What does your own Ashtanga practice mean to you? When I first read about it, I knew it was for me. You can't really read about it and know what that is, but I knew it was something for me. The first workshop I did, I fell in love with it. I struggled with some of the postures. I had done yoga for years, but my real focus was martial arts. I was not very flexible. I had been lifting weights 3 days a week and riding a bicycle 200 miles a week, so I was very muscle- bound. I could not bind in Marichyasana, but there were other aspects of it that quickly resonated with me. There was one class with David Swenson, where he had us do Sun Salutation B for 30 minutes. He did not say anything, he just kept counting. Stuff like that reminded me of my martial art training. I like what Guruji says, "Ashtanga burns away the poisons that surround the heart. These poisons are desire, anger, greed, delusion, envy and sloth. That is why it is so intense. This practice is intense for people who try to do it three, four, five or six days a week, but that is when you get the magic. You try to describe the magic and you can't. It is like describing how an apples tastes. You can't do it. You have to taste the apple." At the end of some classes I tell my students that if people could feel what we feel at the end of this practice, everybody out there would be doing Ashtanga. There are thousands of people around the world doing this practice. There is a reason those thousands of people do this yoga, this hard yoga. It gives something special back.

Sarah in the City!

Recently, Sarah Shufelt, Yoga Yoga staff and Yoga Yoga Teacher Training graduate, completed the first third of a 200-hour Ashtanga training program in New York City. We asked her to share some of her experiences.

A day in the life of an intensive Ashtanga training:

"Our classes were held at the Ashtanga Yoga Shala in the East Village. There were only five of us in the prgram--tiny by Yoga Yoga standards. We started out each day with a Mysore practice. This being NYC, the practice room at the Shala was small. I had to be careful not to knock the picture of Pattabhi Jois off the wall when I stretched my arms up in sun salutations. With the five of us and a teacher in there, it was a tight fit, but being close to my neighbor in class has never bothered me; in fact, I kind of like it. After Mysore we took a light lunch break, followed by a long led practice where we broke down the poses in more detail. In the afternoon we had lecture, and then, at last, rest." --Sarah

You might see Sarah observing your Ashtanga class as part of her training!

An Interpretation of the Opening Mantra

At the beginning of each class, we recite a Sanskrit mantra. For many us this exercise is done by rote without any sense of what the words means. Others of you may have read an English translation, but have had a difficult time connecting with the words. In an effort to make this opening ritual as meaningful as possible, we want to share with you a thought interpretation of the mantra from John Berlinsky. John is an Authorized Ashtanga Teacher based in Marin County, California. For those of you interested in learning more about John, click here.

Interpretation of Ashtanga Yoga Mantra, by John Berlinsky Ashtanga practice is traditionally begun with the recitation of the mantra. What we call the Ashtanga Mantra is really two shlokas from different sources. The first is a verse from the "Yoga Taravalli" by Sri Shankaracharya and the second verse is from a longer prayer to Patanjali. The Ashtanga mantra has been translated a number of times with various interpretations of the individual words. Instead of looking at the mantra as a literal translation of the Sanskrit, I see the mantra as an invocation and living part of our yoga practice. Many times we routinely recite the mantra before practice without really feeling a connection to it. Regarding the mantra as an invocation sets the tone and the intention of our practice. This provides a guide to experience our asana practice in a larger philosophical context - a context directly related to the Patanjali Yoga Sutras and the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. Click here for John's full interpretation.

Remember Miriam?

I know many of you remember an absolutedly delightful young lady, Miriam, who regularly attended ashtanga classes; before our very eyes she steadily developed a beautiful practice.  The summer after she graduated from high school, she spent two months in Mysore.   

Anyway...Miriam is having a great freshman year at Stanford, and continues to practice along with the hundreds of other things that freshman do. 

Ran across this great update on Miriam, found on http://www.livingmysore.com/.  I hope you enjoy.

Yoga is Good

More Yoga is Great

Rusty

Yoga for Life/David Williams

In the early 70's, David Williams was one of the first westerners to learn the Ashtanga Yoga System from Sri. K. Pantahbi Jois.  He has been practicing the yoga 5 to 6 days a week ever since--imagine practicing this yoga for over 35 years.  He has recently updated his website.  In addition to some extraordinary pictures, he eloquently talks about the virtue of patience in this practice and is living testimony to the value such a practice can offer over a lifetime. 

If you are interested in getting more perspective from David, check out this interview.

Sri. K Pattabhi Jois is Coming to the U.S.

For the past two years, Sri. K Pattabhi Jois has had to cancel trips to the US for health reasons.  He has been given a clearance by his doctors to travel to the US in late May for classes in Florida.  Click here for more information on this very special occasion!