According to Sanatana Dharma, or Hinduism, time is perceived to be cycling through 4 different epochs, or yugas. We are in the final epoch: Kali Yuga, the material age. In the great Indian epic The Mahabharata, believed to have originated around 3000 B.C., the sage Vyasa says, “In the Kali Yuga, the duties of the respective order disappear, and men become afflicted by inequity.”
As humans, we often lose touch with our higher selves, our subtle selves, our spiritual selves. Our minds can be distracted and confused. We spend our time following various desires, obtaining one thing after the next trying to satiate ourselves, but still, we’re frequently unsatisfied and be lacking that connection to our true selves.
Yoga is a path and set of practices that give us the tools to reopen that divine connection. I constantly stray from the path, but my curiosity and the benefits of my practice get me back on track again and again.
I love traveling to India to train with my yoga teacher, Sharath Jois, who’s established his yoga shala (school), Sharath Yoga Centre, in India’s iconic city of Mysore. This is the origin of Mysore yoga, an ancient and highly personal practice in which students learn movements and sequences at their own pace under the guidance of a specially trained teacher.
I have studied with Sharath Jois in India for six and a half months in total across five separate trips. These trips have included a half-month journey through Northern India into the Himalayas, two trips to the current shala, and two trips to his grandfather’s shala, KPJAYI. Prior to studying with him, I visited India two other times and have done numerous week-long workshops with him here in the U.S. Needless to say, India and this wonderful teacher hold a huge place in my heart.
“Students are not supposed to ask for authorization from Sharath Jois; rather, they should wait for him to offer it.”
The majority of yoga students go to Mysore, India, to become authorized to teach Ashtanga Yoga by Sharath Jois himself. See, in Ashtanga Yoga, unlike other disciplines of yoga, there is no yoga teacher training. One is only authorized to teach a portion of the system of Ashtanga once they have received Sharath Jois’ blessing, along with a piece of paper to prove it. Worldwide, there are 685 authorized teachers, 136 of whom are here in the U.S. Two of us, Sammy Brown and I, reside in Utah and work at Front Yoga Shalas. The Front is the only place in Utah with an authorized Ashtanga Yoga program.
Sharath Jois generally teaches twice a year for a few months at a time. Depending on how many students show up for the month, the shala groups them by practice start time. In January, 130 students were split into five batches with starting times between 4:30a – 8a. In February, we had roughly 250 students, with batches starting as late as 8:30a.
These students come from all over the world: India, Iran, Egypt, UAE, Taiwan, China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, England, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, the Americas, and more. Ordinarily, there may be around 300 students, but amid a pandemic with many countries having strict laws and bureaucracy surrounding travel, there were fewer this year.
Sharath Jois is a great teacher that many want to practice under because he grew up surrounded by yoga, learning from a young age to be both a student and teacher from his grandfather who was also a yoga guru. He is very disciplined himself, waking up at midnight to begin his own practice before he teaches. Sharath Jois is also very aware and present with his students, has a gift of helping people into asanas that are very difficult for them to do by themselves, and has a very sharp wit and sense of humor.
Students are not supposed to ask for authorization from Sharath Jois; rather, they should wait for him to offer it. So, prospective teachers of Ashtanga return year after year in hopes of receiving authorization. Often it takes three to eight years. The minimum amount of time one can study at the shala is a month and the max tends to be three months per year.
This is the method—it’s not your typical 200-hour teacher training. People train for years as a student, then possibly get authorized and can become an apprentice if they so choose, assisting Sharath Jois at the shala. There are quite a few authorized people who don’t teach much, if at all—some just love to visit Mysore to be with Sharath Jois and work on their personal practice. Not everyone there wants to be a teacher, and yet they may still be authorized to teach.
Here at The Front, we offer Intro to Mysore classes four days a week at at our SLC and South Main locations, as well as full Mysore classes most days at SLC. Led Primary Series is recommended for more advanced Mysore practitioners, and Ashtanga Exploration is available at South Main.
Dive into Sarah Jane’s full description of her time in Mysore on her personal blog here. To learn more about our yoga program here in Utah, follow The Front Yoga on Instagram and find upcoming yoga classes at any of our locations here!
