Krishnamacharya's Mysore Yoga students 1941 Yoga demonstration photos

Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888 – 1989) est considéré comme le père du renouveau du yoga. Il est à l'origine du Yoga contemporain. Il était Indien, professeur de yoga, médecin ayurvédique et universitaire de renom. Homme d'une grande érudition, il fut le professeur de yoga du Maharaja de Mysore entre 1928 et 1950. Krishnamacharya a suivi l'enseignement de Brahmachari  dans l'Himalaya au Tibet pendant 7 ans jusqu' en 1918, date à laquelle il est rentré à Mysore.

Krishnamacharya compte parmi ses élèves les yogi les plus influents du XXième siècle. Son fils T.K.V. Desikachar né en 1938 est à l'origine du Viniyoga. Son beau-frère B.K.S. Iyengar né en 1918 est l'auteur de multiples ouvrages dont l'ouvrage de référence "Lumière sur le yoga" et il est le créateur du Yoga Iyengar. Parmi les élèves de Krishnamacharya il faut aussi citer Indra Devi (1900-2002) et A. G. Mohan né en 1945 et Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (26 Juillet 1915 – 18 Mai 2009) à l'origine du Yoga Ashtânga.

Vous trouverez ci joint un extrait d'un article de 1941 dans life magazine tel que mentionné dans le blog d Anthony Grim Hall. A sa lecture on mesure l' importance de  l'évolution et de la progression du yoga en occident depuis à peine 3/4 de siècle! 

Loïc

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Krishnamacharya's Mysore Yoga students 1941 Yoga demonstration photos.

grimmly2007.blogspot.com

Anthony Grim Hall

In 1941 Life magazine featured a demonstration of Yoga in Mysore by Krishnamacharya's students. photos by Wallace Kirkland.

1941 was also the year Krishnamacharya published his 'original' Ashtanga vinyasa book Yogasanagalu (Mysore 1941) which includes the table of asana divided into three groups, Primary, Middle and Proficient.  The translation of the book is now complete and is available from my Free Downloads page.

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/p/free-downloads.html

 "These pictures present a catalogue of 20 of the countless contorted postures by which the soul of an Indian yogi seeks to escape from the mortal imprisonment of it's human body. They show yoga not in the side-show of a bearded street fakir, but as practiced in it's pure form by lithe young devotees of an ancient and honourable religion. This is the second set of pictures to be published from the hundreds taken by LIFE Photographer Wallace Kirkland on a sixth-month expedition into the strange museum of human achievement and eccentricity that is India ( The first set was Photographer Kirkland's call on the Viceroy of India Life January 27.)

Yoga via Aryan family connections, is the present word for the English word "Yoga" and means just that. Yoga seeks to yoke the soul of the individual to the all-pervading soul of the universe. This beatitude is achieved only after death by one who during life has thoroughly extinguished the essential will to live. It may be tasted before death in the ecstatic trance which a practiced yogi can achieve by a lifetime of physical and mental discipline. Unlike other Hindu cults, yoga postulates no mere ascetic subjugation of the body to the yearning of the soul. It's catalogue of contortions is best understood as exercises which seek to make the body healthy, serene and free from disease and disorder that distract the soul with carnal concerns.

The yogi shown here were photographed at the school in Mysore which received liberal support of the Sri Krishnaraja Narasimharaja Wodeyar Bahuder Maharaja of Mysore and india's greatest prince. Demonstrated are advanced postures, such as few yogi today take the time to master. They are assumed in calm, deliberate fashion, held for long intervals. Each pose is thought to bestow it's own special benefit, but the general result is a physique as well toned as any US athlete's. They give also the most extraordinary control over both the voluntary and involuntary musculature. A typical example is the control of the diaphragm, by which a yogi can reduce respiration from about 1,100 an hour to 70 and, with the help of mental discipline, attain blissful trance union with the soul of the universe." Life Magazine (22nd February 1941).

Notice the reference to the long stays in asana and the slowing of the breath

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/…/krishnamacharyas-mysore-yo…

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/…/krishnamacharyas-mysore-yo…

Krishnamacharya's Mysore Yoga students 1941 Yoga demonstration photos