Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. November 18, 1888 – February 28, 1989 (aged 100)
A very happy modern YogaDork birthday to the “father of modern yoga” T. Krishnamacharya!
Not only did Sri T. Krishnamacharya aid in the revival of hatha yoga with his own teachings, he was the guru for many of the most influential teachers we still look to for wisdom today: BKS Iyengar, Sri K Pattabhi Jois, TKV Desikachar (his son), Indra Devi and the list goes on.
If you’ve practiced Ashtanga,vinyasa, Iyengar, Anusara, Acro or even gym power yoga, you have been privy to some of the teachings Krishnamacharya has passed down through his students, and their students, over the decades and through the continued evolution of modern yoga. Today we honor his legacy with a universal Ommmmm. Check out KYM.org to learn more about his life and teachings.
Namaste
Scroll down for images and vintage video reels.
Krishnamacharya’s Ashtanga Primary Series
Image via grimmly2007.blogspot.com
Related:
Story of Yoga in 5 Minutes (video)
Krishnamacharya Does Acro Yoga 1938 (video)
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Earlier…
D.K.V. Desikachar?
….really?
Wow – the videos are amazing! Thank you for sharing such rich history.
The correct spelling for “DVK Deiskachar” is “TKV Desikachar” (author of “The Heart of Yoga”).
BTW TKV Desikachar is not the author of Heart of Yoga, he did not write books.
Even though the intro by Indra Devi talks about it being a book.
In fact it is a redacted and heavily re-edited version of a 1976 publication of a transcript of a one month course in the US published and still available as ‘Religiousness in Yoga’.
Religiousness in Yoga: Lectures on Theory and Practice by the University Press of America,
a transcript of recordings of a one month Yoga Programme in Colgate University in 1976, published in 1980.
Unlike the later redacted edition, re-published in 1995 as the ‘Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice’, it captures the evolution of the retreat with the days lectures and Q & A dialogues as they alternated between ‘lectures on the principles and purposes of Yoga and discussions related to the practice of Yoga with special reference to the postures and the breathing techniques’.
TKV Desikachar, in his forward to the original version wrote:
“These lectures and discussions, printed words put before persons I might never meet,
are but reflections of that deeper result that grew out of a living face-to-face encounter.
Coming to learn of Yoga only through reading leaves much to be desired.
Yet, something worthwhile about Yoga might be shared through the medium of the printed word.”