Power Yoga

Doug Swenson in Forearm Stand at AgeLess Yoga in St Cloud, MN

Power yoga is the child of Astanga Yoga. Ashtanga Yoga, as we know it now in America, was jointly founded by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, and his teacher, T. Krishnamacharya. The story behind it is that the postures, and way of sequencing the postures, was based on a crumbling manuscript, known as the Yoga Karunta, which was found in the Calcutta University Library.

Pattabhi Jois organized all of the postures, sequencing and philosophy of doing them into a system which he called Ashtanga Yoga.  As yoga students in the west used his system, some of them began to change the sequencing of the postures from the fixed system developed by Pattabhi Jois, and this more ‘free form’ way of doing yoga in an Asthtanga-like way became known as Power Yoga.

Pictured here in the process of getting into a yoga posture known as the forearm stand is Doug Swenson, taken from a November 7th, 2011 workshop at AgeLess Yoga. Doug, his brother David Swenson and Larry Shultz are three of my main yoga teachers in Astanga Yoga and Power Yoga.  All three studied extensively and directly with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

- Richard Chandler