hello.
Early last week, Ashtanga yogis around the world were deeply saddened by the news from the United States.
worldwide Ashtanga Yoga Inheritors and leaders of tradition, It was because of the news that teacher Sharat Joyce passed away from an acute heart attack while hiking. The shock was even greater because he was still young at the age of 53 and it happened suddenly while he was carrying out his overseas education schedule as usual.
Today I would like to tell you the story of R. Sharath Joyce.
A kid who wanted to play cricket
Sharat Joice was born in 1971 in Mysore, India.
However, I was born quite weak. It is said that he suffered from mononucleosis from the age of 4, and was bedridden for several months at the age of 11, suffering from rheumatic fever. When I was 13, I suffered a hernia and my joints and heart deteriorated. Although I have been practicing asanas little by little since the age of seven, it was not until I was nearly twenty that I began to properly assist my grandfather Pattavi Jois’ Ashtanga Yoga Institute.
As a kid, my friends played cricket on the street and I had to do yoga. So, after doing a couple of asanas in the shala, I would sneak out through the small door and play cricket. When my grandfather came looking for me, I would hide for a while and then come out later to play cricket. Sharath Joyce
In 1990, 19-year-old Sharat heads to his grandfather’s shala. Although he started out at the urging of his mother, Ashtanga soon changed his mindset. They say that they changed themselves by practicing six days a week. I started working seriously and passionately. According to the interview, at that time, only 20-25 students came directly to Mysore.
When I practiced Ashtanga yoga, my energy changed and my mind began to change. When I was young, I was angry and impulsive, but very slowly a change occurred within me.
However, after 1998, the number of students visiting Mysore began to increase explosively. I woke up a little after midnight, did personal training, participated in classes that started at 4 a.m., and worked as a training assistant right next to my grandfather. And so his second 20 years passed.
Inheriting the flame of Ashtanga
Meanwhile, Sharath became the only practitioner to complete the sixth series, the final stage of Ashtanga yoga. Grandfather and grandson Joyce spent several months a year teaching students who flocked to Mysore, and the rest of the time they traveled to cities around the world to conduct workshops. There were also celebrities like Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow..
In 2009, with the death of Pattabhi Jois, Sharath officially became the successor to Ashtanga Yoga. Now the future of Ashtanga yoga rests on his shoulders.
Sharat, who has been running his grandfather’s Ashtanga institute for 10 years with a huge sense of responsibility, faces a crisis. A series of #metoo scandals surrounding my grandfather in 2018 This exploded.
Soon, he will walk out of the research center named after his grandfather and start a new Ashtanga Yoga Center named after himself. He began training disciples independently. Although there was a big upheaval, the popularity of Ashtanga yoga remained strong, and more than 5,000 applications poured in every year for his center SYC, which can accommodate about 400 students.
In Sharat’s eyes, both ferocity and compassion are reflected. Practicing under his guidance is like walking the line between rigor and joy. Sharat Jois is the captain of the spiritual ship of Ashtanga Yoga. That’s why Sharath is dedicated to her family, students, and practice. I wake up at 12:45 p.m. to complete personal training before teaching, which runs from 4 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. When I asked him when he sleeps, he used to joke like this. “If you die, then why don’t you sleep?”
Of course, there are also negative reviews surrounding him.
Representative examples include the lukewarm attitude taken during the scandal and the expensive tour tickets. Injury issues that occur frequently in Ashtanga yoga, obsessive schedules, and the arrows of doubt about the Ashtanga yoga system itself, called ‘public figures and genealogy,’ were all directed at him.
Meanwhile, it is unclear what the future of Ashtanga yoga will be in his absence.
Flowers placed on the bench where he died @soyjosecarballal
Sharat said he always enjoyed spending time in nature and taking pictures of wild animals. So, overseas workshop schedules often included walking in the forest or the sea, or hiking.
After learning this fact, I feel that the fact that he passed away in nature was part of the ‘natural cycle’ that he always emphasized.
Let me tell you something that people don’t know about Mr. Sharat. There was something I really liked when I was training in Mysore. In the morning, a school bus arrives in front of Shala. When you hear your son calling for him, you stop teaching us and leave for a moment. He stands on the steps, smiles big, waves, tells us to have a good day at school, and then returns to teach us. I love the way his eyes light up when he talks about being a dad and his awe of wildlife and nature.
We conclude today’s letter by collecting and sharing some of the questions and answers from an interview with Sharath Joyce during her lifetime.
Q. When I practice asana, the thoughts that come to my mind sometimes prick me. “Not great, try harder…” Is this also just a process?
Yes, it’s definitely just a process. That means you are observing your thoughts, which is good because it means you are deeply involved in your asana practice. Floating things and unnecessary things do not enter your mind. So you focus more on performing asanas. So you are separated from all that unnecessary stuff.
(From the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali) When we say Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodhaha, it means getting rid of all the unnecessary thoughts that make your mind run here and there, here and there, constantly running here and there. This practice is one. You are thinking about your own body and mind. So, everything is a process that happens there.
Q. Why should we do yoga?
Everyone wants happiness and peace. Everyone wants to enjoy this life. And if you really want to enjoy this life, you need to be physically and mentally healthy. You have to be more active but also calmer. How do you get these things? You can get it by practicing asanas and practicing pranayama.
This is why we should practice yoga.
Q. What do you think about the increasingly global world of Ashtanga?
Yoga has no language. When hundreds of students practice in a shala, there is only one thing they have in common: practice. Everyone is doing the same practice, the same asana, and even knows which asana it is and which vinyasa it is. Doing the same asanas in the same order is a language that brings a lot of peace. These individual energies mix and mingle to create one gigantic energy body.
Water lilies, that’s the only language we share.
Q. You travel all over the world. Is there any difference between teaching in Mysore?
The trip is not about me, it is about teaching students and making people understand the method, and during that trip I just dedicate myself to the service of teaching students and spreading yoga.
I know that not everyone can come to Mysore, some cannot leave for work and have families. We also know that we will not be able to accept all students who apply to come to Mysore. Traveling is a way for me to connect with more people, teach yoga to more people, and spread the message of yoga. In Mysore it’s a bit more of a 1:1 style, but it’s the same Ashtanga yoga, just in a different location.
Q. Please give us some examples of how your training is reflected in your life.
Practicing yoga makes me a better person. Yoga is for life and wellness and makes me feel calmer. Life has many twists and turns with different colors that can distract your mind.
Yoga and sadhana calm the mind. If your mind is stable in any situation, your inner mind will not be shaken. You will handle every situation in a good way and take appropriate decisions.
Q. You often say, “It’s not me, it’s Yoga.” What does it mean?
I mean, literally, yoga is everything. Yoga is a superstar, I am not a superstar. Because, as you know, yoga is bigger than everyone. (…)
These days, everyone shouts ‘I, me, me’. But if you’re 100 feet above the Earth, no one can see you. You are invisible from space. Instead, I realize it. ah! There is something bigger than me. That is what we call in Indian philosophy Paramatma, the Supreme Soul. You are a very small soul in it. But if we practice hard, we can become a part of him.
Everyone ages, everyone dies, lives in this body and is reborn. This is the cycle of life. In India, it is called Punarapi Jananam and Punarapi Maranam. We are born and we die. We are born again and die again. Yogis do not want to get stuck in this cycle. So we practice to attain Moksha.
I am not an Ashtanga practitioner.
However, as a person who found comfort and joy in the unchanging sequence and breathing of Ashtanga, on the day when I signed up for a yoga class for the first time without knowing anything, on the day when I was particularly depressed after work, on the day when I practiced in a foreign country while smelling the scent of flowers, I feel wisdom. I am just grateful to the teachers who stood at every step of the way.
May the deceased rest in peace.
We send our deepest condolences to the many teachers and practitioners of Ashtanga yoga.
