阿斯坦加 (流动瑜伽)

阿斯坦加瑜伽（又翻译做阿斯汤伽瑜珈，非指波颠阇利的，即瑜伽的八个肢体）是一种由于二十世纪推广的风格，常被宣传为中世纪哈达瑜伽的动态形式。Jois声称此系统是他从精神导师那里学来的。此风格充满活力，强调呼吸与动作的同步。每一个体式（asana）由称为的流畅动作衔接起来。

帕塔比于1948年创立了他的阿斯坦加瑜伽研究所。现今的教学风格称为“迈索尔自主练习（Mysore Style）”，以印度原始教学城市迈索命名。阿斯坦加瑜伽催生了多种的衍生风格。

## 教学方式

传统上，阿斯坦加瑜伽学员会背诵一套固定的体位法（asana）的顺序，并在无指导的情况下一起练习。教练带领的课程则是在帕塔比晚年才引入的。这类课程通常每周上两次，取代迈索尔自主练习课程。教师会带领学员练习，调整与协助体位，并同时引导所有学生完成一系列动作。

### 序列与系列

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阿斯坦加瑜伽的练习通常以五次拜日式（surya namaskara）A式与B式重复练习开始，接着是站立体式序列。练习者接着依序完成六大系列之一的体位，最后进行固定的结束动作序列。

六级序列分别为：

- 初级序列：Yoga chikitsa，“健康瑜伽”或“瑜伽疗法”，也有做“一级序列”
- 中级序列：：Nadishodhana，“筋络脉轮清洁”，也称作“次级序列”或“二级序列”
- 高级序列：Sthira bhaga，“神定”‘“入定”
- 高级序列A，或称作三级序列
- 高级序列B，或称作四级序列
- 高级序列C，或称作五级序列
- 高级序列D，或称作六级序列

阿斯坦加的课程体系最初只包含四个系列：初级、中级、高级序列A及高级序列B。五级序列称为“Rishi系列”，据帕塔比所说，只有当学员精通前四系列后才能练习此系列。

### Method of instruction

According to Pattabhi Jois's grandson R. Sharath Jois, practitioners should master each pose separately attempting the others that follow. However, Pattabhi Jois's son disagreed; in his view, students were occasionally allowed to practice the postures in a non-linear format.

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century a new generation of ashtanga vinyasa yoga teachers have embraced Sharath's rules, teaching in a linear style without variations. Practice typically takes place in a strict, Mysore style environment under the guidance of a Sharath-approved teacher. Workshops, detailed alignment instructions and strength-building exercises should not form part of the method, neither for the practitioner nor for the teacher. However, most teachers who claim to have been taught by Sharath do in practice employ the above methods, exercises and postures in their teaching.

## Principles

Ashtanga vinyasa yoga emphasizes certain key components, namely tristhana ("three places of action or attention", or the more physical aspects of poses) and vinyasa (which Sharath Jois defines as a system of breathing and movement).

### Tristhana

Tristhana means the three places of attention or action: breathing system (pranayama), posture (asana), and looking place . These are considered core concepts for ashtanga yoga practice, encompassing the three levels of purification: the body, nervous system, and the mind. They are supposed to be performed in conjunction with each other.

Each asana in ashtanga yoga is part of a set sequence, as described above. The stated purpose of the asanas is to increase the strength and flexibility of the body. Officially, the style is accompanied by very little alignment instruction. Breathing is ideally even and steady, in terms of the length of the inhalations and exhalations.

Drishti is the point where one focuses the eyes while practicing asana. In the ashtanga yoga method, there is a prescribed point of focus for every asana. There are nine drishtis: the nose, between the eyebrows, navel, thumb, hands, feet, up, right side and left side.

### Vinyasa

Vinyasas are flowing sequences of movements that connect each asana to the next. Additionally, modern vinyasa yoga coordinates the breath with the vinyasa transition movements between the asanas.

According to Sharath Jois, the purpose of vinyasas is to purify the blood, which is supposedly otherwise heated and contaminated by the practice of asanas.

#### Breath

Although ashtanga yoga keeps a general principle of steady and even inhalations and exhalations, the particulars of pranayama during the asana practice are debated.

In his book Yoga Mala, Pattabhi Jois recommends remaining in each posture for five to eight breaths, or else staying in each posture for as long as possible. Breathing instructions given are to do rechaka and puraka (to exhale and inhale) as much as possible. "It is sufficient, however, to breathe in and out five to eight times in each posture." In an interview regarding the length of the breath, Pattabhi Jois instructs practitioners to inhale for ten to fifteen seconds, and to exhale for ten to fifteen seconds. He goes on to clarify: "if your breath strength is possibly ten-second inhalations and exhalations, you do ten; fifteen seconds possible, you do fifteen. One hundred possible, you perform one hundred. Five is possible, you do five". His son Manju Jois also recommends taking more breaths in difficult postures.

Various influential figures have discussed the specific process of breathing in ashtanga vinyasa yoga. Pattabhi Jois recommended breathing fully and deeply with the mouth closed, although he did not specifically term this as ing. However, Manju Jois does, referring to a breathing style called dirgha rechaka puraka, meaning long, deep, slow exhalations and inhalations. "It should be dirgha... long, and like music. The sound is very important. You have to do the ujjayi pranayama". In late 2011, Sharath Jois stated that ujjayi breathing as such was not to be performed in the asana practice, but that asanas should be accompanied merely by deep breathing with sound. He reiterated this notion in a conference in 2013, stating: "You do normal breath, inhalation and exhalation with sound. Ujjayi breath is a type of pranayama. This is just normal breath with free flow".

As far as other types of pranayama are concerned, the consensus is that they should be practised after the asanas have been mastered. Pattabhi Jois originally taught pranayama to those practicing the second series and later changed his mind, teaching pranayama after the third series.

Sharath Jois later produced a series of videos teaching alternate nostril breathing to beginners. This pranayama practice was never taught to beginners by his grandfather and it is one of the many changes Sharath has made to the ashtanga yoga method of instruction.

#### Bandhas

```
are one of the three key elements of ashtanga vinyasa yoga, alongside breath and drishti. There are three principal bandhas which are considered internal body locks:
```

- Mula bandha or root lock at the pelvic floor (drawing in the perineum)
- Uddiyana bandha, drawing back the abdomen approximately two inches below the navel
- Jalandhara bandha, throat lock (achieved by lowering the chin slightly while raising the sternum).

Both Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Jois recommend practising mula and uddiyana bandha even when not practicing asanas. Pattabhi Jois explains: (translated quote) "You completely exhale, apply mula bandha and after inhaling you apply uddiyana bandha. Both bandhas are very important... After bandha practice, take your attention to the location where they are applied and maintain that attention at all times, while walking, talking, sleeping and when walk is finished. Always you control mula bandha".

Sharath Jois says: "Without bandhas, breathing will not be correct, and the asanas will give no benefit".

### Opening chant

Ashtanga practice is traditionally started with the following Sanskrit invocation to Patanjali:

Sanskrit｜Translation

vande gurūṇāṁ caraṇāravindesaṁdarśita-svātma-sukhāvabodheniḥśreyase jāṅ̇galikāyamānesaṁsāra-hālāhala-mohaśāntyai ābāhu puruṣākāraṁśaṅ̇kha-cakrāsi-dhāriṇamsahasra-śirasaṁ śvetampraṇamāmi patañjalim｜I bow to the feet of the gurus,The awakening happiness of one's own-self revealed,Beyond better, acting like the jungle physician,Pacifying delusion, the poison of Samsara.Taking the form of a man to the shoulders,Holding a conch, a discus, and a sword,One thousand heads white,To Patanjali, I salute.

and closes with the "mangala mantra" :

Sanskrit｜Translation

svasti prajābhyaḥ paripālayantāṁ nyāyena mārgeṇa mahīṁ mahīśāḥgo-brāhmaṇebhyaḥ śubham astu nityaṁ lokāḥ samastāḥ sukhino bhavantu｜May all be well with mankind,May the leaders of the Earth protect in every way by keeping to the right path.May there be goodness for those who know the Earth to be sacred. May all the worlds be happy.

## History

Pattabhi Jois claimed to have learned the system of ashtanga from Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who in turn claimed to have learned it from a supposed text called by the otherwise unknown author Vamama Rishi. This text was imparted to Krishnamacharya in the early 1900s by his Guru, Yogeshwara Ramamohana Brahmachari. Jois insists that the text described all of the asanas and vinyasas of the sequences of the ashtanga system. However, the text is said to have been eaten by ants so it is impossible to verify his assertions. Additionally, it is unusual that the text is not mentioned as a source in either of the books by Krishnamacharya, (1934) and Yogāsanagalu (c. 1941).

According to Manju Jois, the sequences of ashtanga yoga were created by Krishnamcharya. There is some evidence to support this in Yoga Makaranda, which lists nearly all the postures of the Pattabhi Jois primary series and several postures from the intermediate and advanced series, described with reference to vinyasa.

There is evidence that the ashtanga yoga series incorporates exercises used by Indian wrestlers and British gymnasts. Recent academic research details documentary evidence that physical journals in the early 20th century were full of the postural shapes that were very similar to Krishnamacharya's asana system. In particular, the flowing surya namaskara, which later became the basis of Krishnamacharya's Mysore style, was in the 1930s considered as exercise and not part of yoga; the two styles were at that time taught separately, in adjacent halls of the Mysore palace.

### Etymology

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Jois elided any distinction between his sequences of asanas and the eight-limbed ashtanga yoga (Sanskrit अष्टांग asht-anga, "eight limbs") of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The eight limbs of Patanjali's scheme are , , asana, pranayama, , , , and samadhi. It was Jois's belief that asana, the third limb, must be practiced first, and only after that could one master the other seven limbs. However, the name ashtanga in Jois's usage may, as yoga scholar suggests, derive from the old name of surya namaskar in the system of dand gymnastic exercises, which was named ashtang dand after one of the original postures in the sequence, (now replaced by ), in which eight body parts all touch the ground, rather than Patanjali's yoga.

### Tradition

There has been much debate over the term "traditional" as applied to ashtanga yoga. The founder's students noted that Jois freely modified the sequence to suit the practitioner. Some of the differences include the addition or subtraction of postures in the sequences, changes to the vinyasa (full and half vinyasa), and specific practice prescriptions to specific people.

Several changes to the practice have been made since its inception. Nancy Gilgoff, an early student, describes many differences in the way she was taught ashtanga to the way it is taught now. According to her experiences, some of the differences include: Pattabhi Jois originally left out seven postures in the standing sequence, but later assigned utthita hasta padangusthasana and ardha baddha padmottanasana before the intermediate series was given; , A and B, , and were not in the series at this point; and Jois did not give a vinyasa between the same poses on the different sides of the body or between variations on a pose (e.g., A, B, and C were done together, followed by a vinyasa. Likewise , upavishta konasana and supta konasana were also grouped together without a vinyasa between them, as were ubhaya padangusthasana and urdhva mukha paschimottanasana.

According to Gilgoff, Pattabhi Jois prescribed practising twice a day, primary and intermediate series, with no vinyasa between sides in , , , eka pada sirsasana, , and in the intermediate series. to parsva dhanurasana were done in a group, with a vinyasa only performed at the end. through also were done altogether. The same went for eka pada sirsasana through . The closing sequence included only mudrasana, padmasana, and , until the completion of the intermediate series when the remainder of the closing sequence was assigned. Urdhva dhanurasana and "drop-backs" were taught after the intermediate series. Gilgoff states that the original intermediate series included after karandavasana and ended with . She also notes that Pattabhi Jois added supta urdhva pada vajrasana as well as the seven headstands when another yogi asked for more; these eight postures were not part of the intermediate series prior to this.

## Power yoga spinoffs

Power yoga began in the 1990s via a "nearly simultaneous invention" by two students of K. Pattabhi Jois and similar forms led by other yoga teachers.

```
created what '''' calls "the original power yoga"<ref name="YJ def"></ref> in 1995.<ref></ref>
```

, who studied ashtanga yoga under K. Pattabhi Jois, and , a enthusiast, separately put their own spins on the style and provided its branding. Neither Baptiste's power yoga nor Kest's power yoga are synonymous with ashtanga yoga. In 1995, Pattabhi Jois wrote a letter to Yoga Journal expressing his disappointment at the association between his ashtanga yoga and the newly-coined power yoga, referring to it as "ignorant bodybuilding".

## Risk of injury

In an article published by The Economist, it was reported that "a good number of Mr Jois's students seemed constantly to be limping around with injured knees or backs because they had received his "adjustments", yanking them into Lotus, the splits, or a backbend". , one of Jois's students, indicates that "the adjustments were fairly ferocious". Injuries related to Jois's ashtanga yoga have been the subject of discussion in a Huffington Post article.

In 2008, yoga researchers in Europe published a survey of practitioners of ashtanga yoga that indicated that 62 percent of respondents had suffered at least one injury that lasted longer than one month. However, the survey lacked a control group (of similar people not subject to the treatment, such as people who had practised a different form of yoga), which limited its validity.

## 外部链接

- Ashtanga Yoga - Understanding the Method, Interview with Manju Pattabhi Jois, in English and German (2009)

## 基本资料

- 日语原文：阿斯坦加瑜伽
- 成立：1948年
- practice_emphases：动作间彼此流畅衔接。