The Origins of Modern Yoga- The Movie

I watched the film, The Breath of the Gods last night- a film by German Director Jan Schmidt-Garre screened in London. And it sold out for its entire run.

Schmidt-Garre wants to answer the question: is there one true yoga?

The film first tries to trace the origins of yoga and finds that although it is spoke about in ancient texts, it was not widely practised in India until the 20th century. And that Krishnamacharya, the 'grandfather' of yoga only died 24 years ago. He was the one who got yoga to be taught in Indian schools and who taught, amongst others, two great teachers, BKS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois. These two Gurus went on to shape yoga for the West and also for India and both put their unique stamps onto it. Jois or instance made yoga 'difficult and fast'. Iyengar goes against his Guru, who he feels largely ignored him and made him rip his hamstring which took 2 years to heal. But his Guru imposed on him that he would teach yoga to city dwellers, a Herculean task, in which he has arguably excelled.

The film has some brilliant lengthy interviews with these two as well as footage of their teachings, including teaching the film's Director. Iyengar in his studio in Pune and Jois in Mysore.
The film also has incredible archive footage of young Jois and Iyengar performing incredible yoga asanas as well as recreated footage of yogis performing to the Maharajah of Mysore as entertainment. Then there's footage of Krishnamacharya teaching his family yoga- with his children he does balancing asanas which resemble basic acroyoga poses (a form of yoga and acrobatics that I recently started). The Maharajah of Mysore was interested in yoga because of its physical benefits, for sport and fighting. It was the 1930s and coming up to Independence. Agility was much needed.

The film also delves into the basic question of : what is Yoga? As Jois says: Control is coming, otherwise this not yoga. Krishnamacharya's teachings were that Yoga leads to 3 things: physical health, mental health- perseverance and purity of thought - and concentration. He omitted talking about God when he went to the West, so as not to impose his religion. In India talking about God is a common thing, says his son, but not in the West.

Which begs the question: why are people in the West so interested in yoga? That is my question and everyone I asked at the screening replied: because they are searching for meaning. But for me, this doesn't fit, as most, but by no means all, yoga classes in the West are physical practices mainly. Of course yoga is a powerful practice and by doing asana-practice it can affect your physical and also mental health- and though the wider philosophy of yoga is not often explained in Western classes, it is perhaps the experience that speaks to the practitioner directly. They feel better both mentally and physically and it increases their concentration. Thereby imbibing the 3 main effects of yoga that Krishnamacharya taught.

As Iyengar says "Those who embraced yoga in the early days, they were maybe mentally disturbed or had quarrels with their parents...' This could be the key as to why it's so popular..?


Krishnamacharaya's children did not admit to the profession of their Father. It was not cool to practice yoga in the 1930s. How things have changed : today the number of people in the USA who practice some form of yoga has grown from 4 million (in 2001) to 20 million (in 2011)

source: Wikipedia

Yogic Friday Nights in London

One of my favourite ways to spend a Friday night is at a yoga evening. Last night I went to Shakti Shop, held by one of my favourite London teachers, Leila Sadeghee. She's a new teacher of mine, from the Anusara tradition.

Shakti Shop is held once a month at a beautiful private home in London and it was so  much fun! A group of about 14 people sat on their blocks around a fire and listened to Leila talk for the first 20 mins. We started off hearing about Buckminster Fuller (design guru, philosopher) and how he gave up everything from his 'default existence', that is a regular job, and focused instead on 'helping humankind'. He totally changed his life, despite having a young family. This resulted in him always somehow finding food and shelter for him and his family and becoming a well-known philosopher. This way he had a huge impact on the the way some of the world thinks.

For me, starting with some philosophy is a great way to focus yoga into being more than simple physical exercise. You learn something and can put some of this into practice in the class and then carry it with you afterwards. Leila  later talked about how we should try and keep humane feelings when we're on a packed Tube train, rather than going into our default thinking of finding people a nuisance, giving them some compassion.

Then we moved into asanas and some super deep hip openers! Wow they were intense but amazing, including Hanuman pose which I almost got fully for the first time of my life. I got over the fear that I would break myself, rip my muscles. According to Leila, if you focus on pushing both legs and really are aware of the stretch, you won't do yourself damage.

This type of work went on for about 2.5 hours and we were getting spacey as stuff emerged from the depths of our hips and our imaginations opened up. We ended with meditation and relaxation. Finally we 'met' everyone in the room one to one by shaking hands or hugging them which though sounds super hippy, was very powerful. Human respect.

This was followed by some yummy dinner and wine. Hip openers, good music, meaningful conversation with new people and sensual yummy delights. What else is life about?