In the yoga bums' paradise of Mysore, India, where everyone has a guru, Jennifer Keegan meets a different kind of yoga master, who is hosting a retreat on Clare Island next month
Mysore, in southern India, is a pastel-coloured provincial city famous for its roses and maharaja's palace. Unexpectedly, perhaps, it also hosts an annual invasion of foreign yoga fanatics. A kind of yogic Mecca, Mysore primarily attracts practitioners of a strenuous form of yoga known as astanga, who come to pay homage to their 88-year-old guru, Pattabhi Jois. Although barely known in India, Jois is almost a celebrity in the West. For those not into the foot-kissing celebrity-guru experience, or simply not able for the full-on physicality of astanga, there are other, lesser-known teachers, most of them quietly tucked into leafy suburban corners of Mysore.
Funnily enough, Indians generally are about as interested in yoga as we might be in putting on Aran jumpers and dancing at the crossroads. Attending one of the "other" teachers has an underground feel, especially when the masses are attending the fashionable Jois family club up the road, where Pattabhi teaches with his grandson Sharath.
On my visit to Mysore, I choose another teacher and another course: Yogacharya - or yoga master - Venkatesh's three-week general posture course. Venkatesh teaches from a couple of simple rooms that double as children's classrooms when he is not using them. He calls it Atmavikasa Centre of Yogic Sciences; atmavikasa translates as exploration of the self. Over 20 years he has developed a system of yoga postures using his slight self as a physical and mental guinea pig. The bendability of his body is extraordinary to behold, but he focuses on the spiritual. His teaching, to a liberal western mind, is very formal, perhaps even a little stern.
When we sign up we are each given an extremely large T-shirt - it will come down to my knees - that forms part of our uniform, along with ankle-length pants (modesty being of paramount importance in traditional India). We are told to come back after the weekend for our first class. Clutching our cellophane-wrapped T-shirts and feeling mildly apprehensive, we head off into chaotic, suffocating traffic. The city of roses and sandalwood does not always smell of roses.
Over the weekend I arrange to meet an Irishwoman, Fionnuala Power, for sweet tea in the suburb of Saraswathipuram, where Venkatesh teaches. A former ballerina - she used to teach dance in Dublin - Power now practises and teaches astanga yoga in London. She came to Mysore initially to be at the source of astanga yoga and to study with Guruji, as Jois is known by his followers, and Sharath.
"I came for a full-on physical experience, which I fully expected and enjoyed," she says, "but I was completely surprised and confused by the cool scene that went with it. The mental attitude of a lot of the practitioners seemed to miss the whole point of yoga as I understood it. The challenges are very physical, which is fine, but then people seemed to get caught up in just the physicality of it and didn't explore beyond that, and then it becomes about the body and looking good."
A visit to the swimming pool at a local four-star hotel, the Southern Star, appears to confirm this. Ultra-skinny girls with stringy arms and i-Pods, and men with taut, oiled muscles, are draped languidly over plastic loungers. It's so cool it's scary. The vibe is more Los Angeles than India. "Because I also found that I couldn't stomach the guru thing," Power says, "I started looking for something else. The whole point of yoga is to broaden your horizons, not curtail them. Following Pattabhi Jois is too mainstream for me."
On a previous visit she went to a talk by the then little-known Venkatesh. He rubbished the idea of guru adulation and spoke about your guru being within yourself, and about yoga uncovering that inner wisdom. Power signed up.
The following Monday, at 10am, we arrive, as agreed, in the regulation T-shirts, to find that two of us are having private tuition before being admitted to the general class. Venkatesh takes his teaching seriously, in good old-fashioned Indian style. He works us hard, in a simple but precise way. His adjustments are verbal. He does not touch or "adjust" you physically, and you are not allowed to touch him. "Watch your breathings," he says charmingly, between poses.
After two days we are ready to join his early-morning class. He limits numbers to 10. When we learn that we have to be there for a 5.10am start, we move from a favourite, quirky city-centre hotel to a place nearer Venkatesh's shala, or school. Every minute will count at that time of the morning.
Venkatesh was born into a wealthy family, but it lost everything. As a young man he was under pressure to fulfil his filial duties and support the family. He studied economics, and got a degree, but decided that teaching yoga was more important, against everyone's advice. He met Hema, his wife, when she came to his class as a 12-year-old. She shared his passion for yoga, but when they wanted to marry, when she turned 16, their families initially resisted. Now they run the centre together. Hema teaches morning classes for Indians - Indians and foreigners are kept separate - and takes popular one-on-one philosophy sessions. As a couple they appear to have a vision that they have followed determinedly, sacrificing to some degree personal and family life.
And the rest of us sacrifice sleep. Getting up at 4.40am and driving by motorbike through the dark and very cold streets is painful. The only person out is a tubby man jogging ultra-slowly along the empty dual carriageway in his bare feet.
Venkatesh, however, is full of vitality, having been up since 3.45am, and with his own yoga practice already under his belt. The 10 students each have totally different levels of ability, yet he is able to teach us simultaneously. He moves around the room but always seems to be behind you, like a bird on your shoulder, talking you deeper into your posture, pecking at you with a mixture of kindness and firmness. At times he makes you hold the postures for what seems like an age. Your focus goes straight into your mind, because with that level of discomfort, as you stand on one leg, there is nowhere else to go.
Then, at last, it is all over. As the first birds make themselves heard outside the windows, and the sky changes from black to silver grey, it is time for "corpse", or our final, relaxation pose. Half of us drift into semi-comatose states, and usually someone snores. This is followed by traditional closing chants. Venkatesh sings with the crystal clear voice of a bird. The rest of us sound like hogs rising from early-morning pens. Sugary chai, at the tea stall around the corner, is well earned.
Venkatesh got into yoga by default. When he was 13 a friend dragged him along to a class, and Vankatesh surprised everyone by being able to do all the advanced postures effortlessly. Gifted with a natural flexibility, he started teaching informally. His passion for yoga grew, and he practised for up to eight hours a day. In his relentless exploration of the effects of postures on muscles, he came to understand the body fully, but he felt that something was still missing.
Venkatesh explains that his approach when he was younger was very physical and somewhat showy, and in spite of all the hours of practice he was still suffering from restlessness and stress and pains in his body. He eventually realised that he was pushing his body beyond its limits. He decided to start from scratch. "It was important to relax my mind and try to practise yoga from the mind and not from the body. I had to change my mindset and watch the body without noticing my body as such . . . to simply merge my mind with the posture itself. And that's what made the difference."
Venkatesh and Hema will be bringing their unique style of teaching to Ireland nextmonth, on their first visit to the western world, when they hold a five-day retreat on Clare Island, Co Mayo, for seasoned practitioners of yoga, and an open-to-all weekend workshop in Dublin.
Christophe and Ciara Mouze, who run the yoga centre on Clare Island, invited Venkatesh and Hema after attending their classes in Mysore. "I think yoga has a good foothold here now in Ireland, and the audience is ready for someone like Venkatesh," Christophe says. "His set sequenced vinyasa system is really good. It is great for beginners, as it sets out a clear system for them to practise. Once you are more experienced you can devise your own system, but, even then, he really influenced what I was already practising." What about Venkatesh's sternness and formality? Christophe jokes: "I guess that's just part of the package. At the end of the day that's what you get with a traditional Indian master."
Self-exploration is perhaps what has made the difference in Venkatesh's teaching. He has put himself through the grind instead of simply parroting somebody else's teaching.
Yogacharya Venkatesh's website is www.atmavikasa.com. The Clare Island retreat begins on August 19th (call 098-25412); the Dublin weekend workshop, which Jennifer Keegan is organising, runs from August 25th to 27th (01-4537386). See www.yoga-ireland. com/events.htm