Native Yoga Toddcast

Andrew Eppler: Uncovering the Mysteries of Mysore and the True Roots of Ashtanga Yoga

• Todd Mclaughlin • Season 1 • Episode 244

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Andrew Eppler is a renowned yoga practitioner and documentarian with a deep-rooted connection to Ashtanga yoga. Having begun his yoga journey at the age of 14 under the guidance of his father, Andrew quickly became engrossed in the world of Mysore-style Ashtanga, which has profoundly shaped his life. Known for his insightful documentary "Mysore Yoga Traditions," Andrew has worked tirelessly to document and highlight the roots and evolution of yoga practices. He is also the driving force behind the Mysore Yoga conference, which invites practitioners to dive deeper into the cultural and practical aspects of yoga.

Visit Andrew here: https://www.mysoreyogatraditions.com/

Key Takeaways:

  • Andrew Eppler's yoga journey began at a young age, significantly influenced by his father's connections and the transformative practice of Ashtanga yoga.
  • The development and creation of Ashtanga yoga involve a rich tapestry of cultural, historical, and personal influences, with significant contributions from Indian royalty and yoga masters.
  • Andrew's documentary, "Mysore Yoga Traditions," seeks to uncover the mythical and historical roots of Ashtanga yoga, blending modern practice with ancient traditions.
  • Engaging with Sanskrit and understanding its numerical and musical intricacies is crucial in truly grasping the depths of yoga philosophy.

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Todd McLaughlin:

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. I'm your host, Todd McLaughlin, and today I am honored to be joined by Andrew Eppler. He's a longtime Ashtanga Yoga teacher. He's a documentary filmmaker, and he's also the founder of Ashtanga Yoga Studio in Norman, Oklahoma. Andrew has been deeply immersed in the Mysore yoga lineage for decades, studying and documenting the living traditions of yoga in India through his projects, the Mysore yoga traditions and the new documentary, he's working on kings and yogis. He's helping to preserve and share the history, philosophy and the cultural context of yoga as it has evolved in Mysore. And this episode, we explore Andrew's journey, his insights on balancing authenticity with accessibility and the deeper roots of yoga is evolution in India. Whoa, that's all I can say. Wow. I needed this. Thank you, Andrew, thank you incredible conversation. I'm so glad you are here. Thank you for your support. And I just want to thank all of all the wonderful people in this tradition for holding it down and passing it on. And here we are. Please go follow his work. Andrew's work on his website, mysoreyogatraditions.com he has some incredible things coming up opportunities to go to India and practice and study and learn also. You can study with him and the work that he does with gathering all these academics and yoga practitioners and philosophy teachers and Sanskrit masters and all these folks in India making accessible for us that are curious and want to learn more. So with all that being said, let's get to it. So excited to have this opportunity to both meet and speak with Andrew Eppler, Andrew, how are you doing today?

Andrew Eppler:

Doing great. Todd, thank you so much for having me today.

Todd McLaughlin:

Oh man, it's really an honor and a privilege, because I am a fan of your work. I have been following the work that you do. I very recently, finally got a chance to watch your incredible documentary, Mysore yoga traditions, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So I'm excited to have this chance to ask you some questions about your experience as a documentarian, but also as Ashtanga and or yoga practitioner for for decades now. Can you tell me a little bit about how your yoga journey began and what specifically, how, what led you specifically toward my sore and Ashtanga?

Andrew Eppler:

Well, when I was 14, a friend of my father's came to visit, and he was practicing Ashtanga Yoga, and he taught my father and I, and with my dad's sort of guidance, I stuck with it and eventually began to travel. And so I didn't even know anything about yoga. Ashtanga was all I knew for the first quite a few years of my experience with it. But I was very fortuitous, and it definitely shaped my my life to a certain extent. Wow, you were 14 when you took your first official yoga practice. Yeah, that's incredible. That's amazing. Did, um, did you grow up in, I understand you grew up in Oklahoma. Is that correct? I did right in the bible belt with all the crazies,

Todd McLaughlin:

I've had a chance to visit Oklahoma. Friend of mine owns a studio in Stillwater, Oklahoma and and so I guess I'm curious, how did you and your dad in Oklahoma? How did this situation occur, where somebody comes your house and is an ashtanga yoga practitioner. What's a little bit more of the backstory there?

Unknown:

Well, there is quite a long backstory. I don't know how much of that you want to get into, but my dad was one of the early hippies in Oklahoma, the first guy to show up with long hair, and so when he was, I don't know what age like 18 or 19? He He left Oklahoma hitchhiking with six cents in his pocket, made his way to Haight Ashbury, and eventually on to Hawaii, where he met Cliff Barber, who was our first teacher, and they had a long interaction, and my dad sort of helped Cliff find his way to a more spiritual lifestyle. And then Cliff went and studied with Nancy gilgoff and David Williams. And then later patabi Joyce and and he came back to visit, you know, years later, wow, I was really just a kid, and I didn't have any idea what I was getting into. In fact, I remember thinking that I really wanted to levitate. And I thought that if anything could get you there, probably yoga would would be a great choice.

Andrew Eppler:

Thus began my journey. Well, at age 14, how did you understand there was such a thing called levitation. Had you read Paramahansa yogananda's work? Was there a text that you came across? Did your dad say, Andrew, there's this idea called levitation. Do you remember how you well? Because when I think back, I remember one of the first potential glimpses that yoga had was watching the Addams Family of the Mr. Gomez doing a headstand. And I remember as a kid watching that black and white footage, going, What is he doing? What is that? You know, how's he doing that? And so I'm curious, how did you get that first more other little glimpses of this idea of something like even levitation?

Unknown:

Um, conversation. I'm trying to remember that's okay, all right. I was just curious if there's Yeah, yeah. My father was really into all kinds of different spiritual practices and esoteric philosophies, Eastern philosophies. He was also, you know, we kind of, we come from a line of Christian ministers, Nazarene ministries. And, whoa, I grew up with the Bible. And I mean, if you ask me, I am a Christian, I was like, I have a Christian name. I was born in this Christian culture, and I'm proud of that, actually. But

Andrew Eppler:

as far as first glimpses of esoteric ideology or thinking, I think it was just kind of a household thing. And I've also had a lifelong fascination with magic and anything which is apparently impossible, real or imagined, trick or miracle, whatever you know, that area has always fascinated me, and so I spent quite a few years trying to figure out how to levitate in all kinds of different ways. Well, that's so cool, man. I also grew up in a very Bible based family. I'm curious. Well, I remember thinking about Jesus hearing about miracle stories. I'm guessing that obviously played a little bit into your fascination with the potentiality of some of these concepts. Do you feel like that played a large role in your journey to India and curiosity with India culture,

Unknown:

to a degree? I mean, I did study magic in India extensively, and wow, learn about things like the mango tree that grows and the rope trick and some of these classical illusions that is famous for. I I always had a pull towards the idea that the inside world was more important than the outside world, and that somehow being happy had to do with your inside, the way you see life. And my parents were instrumental in that. I have a lot to thank my father and my mother for they were always very supportive of what was not really a typical trajectory for a young kid. You know, I went to India when I was 18, stayed, stayed gone for a year and a half. Of course, I'd miss my parents so so much, and ran my family, but I was on this adventure, and I, you know, I studied with bitami choice in 1990 and saw a bit of Europe, and made a bunch of friends all over the world and and that kind of, that was a big turning point. I missed my family so much, and I got home, and, of course, I was happy to see everybody, but I sort of looked around Oklahoma and I thought, oh. My God, where is this weird place? I shouldn't be stuck here. Really kind of wired me up to be very motivated to take every opportunity not to be stuck in Oklahoma. It took some decades to kind of become like at peace with Oklahoma. I love Oklahoma. Oklahoma is a wonderful place. Yes, every place is a wonderful place if you're in the right mind space. Yeah. And, if not everywhere, it's hell, so great. Yeah, I'm proud of my Oklahoma roots and my Christian upbringing and my culture as you know, crazy as it is to some people, I think we're all at an equal advantage or disadvantage, regardless of culture and

Andrew Eppler:

religion. And you know these kinds of ways that our life gets defined, at least at the outset, man, I love hearing this, because you're it's so true, huh? Like when you say we're at an equal advantage, no matter where we've been born into and whatever cultural background we have, most seekers we tend to in the outset, maybe in relation to the hero's journey, think there's got to be something better out there. Somewhere else, the grass has to be greener. There's got to be a more spiritual place to live. There has to be a place that will be easy to be who I am, or if I think I know who I am, there's got to be somewhere better. And then it almost leads us right back to where we started again. Like, you know, I think it's true. No, I wouldn't like to gloss over the fact that I I'm lucky to be born in a country that's not at war, at least not right now.

Unknown:

Thank you, Andrew, at least right, not right. I think I've shared the advantage of being from a first world country and having an opportunity to travel. And I want to express gratitude for those things, but it is so true that we, you know, we can see the dogma and hypocrisy and our own traditions very clearly, and then we see some other tradition with different customs and marks on the forehead and flowing clothes and all of this very exotic, seemingly exotic stuff about it. And we think, Oh, my God, these guys are like, that's so it. And I want to be like them. I'm going to change my name, I'm going to change my everything. And then we realize I'm the same dodo I was before. I just have a different name. Now,

Andrew Eppler:

still have a lot to work on under any name, under any guys. So, so I'm really all about just kind of being who we are and patient life as best we can. Beautifully said. Well said, you know your documentary Mysore, yoga traditions is phenomenal. I highly recommend everybody listening to check it out. Very easy to rent on Vimeo. We can go to your website. Just want to make sure I get the exact Mysore yoga traditions.com and you click the button and you watch it. It's really well done. So I'm I have a lot of questions for you, first, from the documentarian or documentary perspective, at what point in your life did you get a glimpse that you know what I want to document, I want to I want to highlight, and then all of the work that I'm guessing goes into camera, lighting, coordinating interviews, who to interview, how to make connections and inroads into the world, of getting people to Open up. What? Where did that start for you? How did, what was that kind of spark that got you curious?

Unknown:

Well, long story, I I started studying with BNS Iyengar in probably 95 and I always had this special connection with him, and it wasn't that I thought that somebody else's yoga wasn't as good. I just really loved this person and created a connection that I felt like you shouldn't get many shallow wells at some point you just I just felt that he had so much to teach me, and I loved the talks that we had, and it was very impactful. So anyway, at some point I had this crazy idea that I was going to invite him to Oklahoma, and he was going to teach at my yoga studio. And so I figured he would probably say no, but in the end, he said yes, and he came, wow. And long story there visas and logistics, etc. But I can imagine, I he was like 89 I think at the time, maybe 86 or seven. I can't remember, but late 80s, and it occurred to me that when this guy crosses over, when he dies, it would be a shame not to document all these teachings that he has. He's an encyclopedic mind, and he has this huge repertoire and worldview, etc. So I asked him if I could make a documentary about him, and he said no, and that he didn't want he was really not into self promotion. He's not he just teaches whoever comes. He's very averse to trying to put put himself out there. And I kept after him. And then on his 90th birthday, he finally agreed. I was able to get a letter to him, and and he agreed. And then so some friends of mine and I, students and friends Joey pause, and Bryce Delbridge and Joey's brother, Dallas was our videographer, and another, another dear friend called Kelly O'Rourke. They were the ones that kind of banded together with me and and we started. We bought tickets and gathered up some equipment and, and then he changed his mind at the last second and said, No, actually, I don't want to do we got together like, Okay, guys, what are we doing here? You know, if you want to bail out, you can, but so you're in India at this point, you already got to India. Have everything organized, and that's when you we were still in America. Still America, actually, okay, so it wasn't too late to cancel the tickets. And, you know, but a trip to India is a big deal for for us anyway, just to make the space in your life and come up with the resources and all that. It was never simple. So so we felt like the runway was clear, and we wanted to have this adventure no matter what, yes and yes be our teacher. And so we got there and he we couldn't even really mention the documentary. We kind of did, but Guruji is very fierce. And, you know, if you start trying to, I can understand, bring up something and ask him to do something like that. Could all get very tenuous. So the shortest version of it, we started looking for other people to interview and other voices and seeing what what we could find. And there was a moment where I went to see the principal of the Maharaja Sanskrit College, and we were going to go to his house, and one of my Indian friends took me. And I assumed it was going to be a like a white collar kind of professional academic person, but he was a swami and orange robes doing puja. And he asked me to put ghee on the ceremonial fire when he when he met me, and it was hot and hectic, and lots of people very crowded and chaotic. And so I did and and this little deity moved across a bowl of water, some deities floating in water, and one moved, and then he kind of picked it up, and he clapped his chest, and he said something in Sanskrit. And I didn't really understand what what the deal was, but he for him, that was an omen and and it meant that I was like the right person to to receive information, and that gave us access to the Maharaja Sanskrit college, to all of its professors, to the archive, the library, and also the ancient manuscripts that they have. Yes, wow, we we just hit the jackpot. Wow. Came across a bowl of water and like that.

Andrew Eppler:

That is so awesome. Andrew, oh my gosh, what a great story. So cool. Man, you're

Unknown:

so in terms of, you know, I mean, I just had a lot of questions at that point. I devoted a decent chunk of my life to yoga, and I wondered where it came from. And, you know, when I started, I was told it was 5000 years old. And then, you know, after some decade or two, books start coming out. Well, actually, it's really about 100 years old. That's really different. So what do you mean? And so I was just very fortunate in who I met, and we were able to get an interview with her highness, promoted Devi wadiard. Queen of Mysore at the time. That's cool seeing her. Yeah. And so the principal at the Maharajah is college, and other people who are very significant in my source Sanskrit scholar community. And what I sort of took from all that many things. So, of course, but Ashtanga vinyasa yoga was certainly made available and popular by the Joyce family and no questions, no questions. And in fact, to the best of my research, the series that we know and have practiced for decades was created by patapi Joyce, and if you look at his his syllabus for his four year course at the Maharaja sanctuary College, which he gave to a number of his early students. It has primary series for the first year, along with some text and some I don't think pranayama yet, but from the second year on, there are pranayama is introduced. And various texts, yoga, taravali, Bhagavad, Gita, Patanjali, sutras, Hatha, yoga, Pradipika, and I think some others, I don't want to say anything, I'm not totally certain of those. Those are there for sure. And so it was no different than the syllabus of any other subject taught in a university, and you have to have one of those. And that was it. So I think that one of the most endearing things, and I know not everybody is enamored with with this legacy, but he made this huge contribution to the work that he was doing, and never said anything about any of his own, his own contribution, like, again, for a Western person, if we make a contribution to a field, if we come up with something new, we want to put our name on it. We would like to copyright it. We want to draw as much attention to that as possible, and say, I am an innovator, and I've created this new thing, and I want everybody to know about it. And if you want to use it, you're welcome, but you have to pay me, or at least acknowledge me, etc. Indians just don't do that. They treasure pattern and lineage, and they very much want to belong to that lineage. And he never said a word, although he clearly did organize the postures in these orders and come up with this brilliant system that created a huge influence in all of modern yoga, really. If you start looking at, you know, vinyasa flow and Jivamukti and power yoga and all the kind of Ashtanga takeoffs. It was giant contributions. I appreciated that about him. Mysore is a big place in it's a big community. And what I as I continue to research more. It's been a center of yogic studies for hundreds of years, and it's how he's had this very high standard of academic excellence. And that's been supported through the wadi our kings down through the centuries, in fact, and they've had this long connection with the spiritual tradition that Krishnamacharya came from. You know, he was in Iyengar, and they follow vishustad Veda and the teachings of Ramadan. And so there's a really beautiful story to be told there. And my show yoga traditions was essentially about the early 19, early 1900s and just asking the people, what do you think about the way yoga is being taught and practiced today? And if you had a message to give to the world about what yoga is all about, what would you say? And yes, and we just learned a lot. Some of it was so over our head. Some of those guys would start talking about things that we didn't know anything about it. Yeah, took years to figure out actually.

Andrew Eppler:

Wow, I know, great point man, wow. Well, I mean, one of the take, one of the big takeaways for me Upon viewing it, is having been indoctrinated in Ashtanga Yoga, hearing the origin stories that float around. And one of them, like you said, first thing you hear is 5000 years. And then. Automatically, there'll be this assumption that the primary, second, third series of Ashtanga had been taught this way, in this order for, well, maybe back to some 1000s. We don't know exactly where. And so as you're interviewing different students of students, students of and, or students, third generation students of krishnamahacharya, hearing how there wasn't really a order to the syllabus beyond individuality for each person you know, like poses were just given and taught, and they maybe were structured differently for each person. And I feel like I've always heard that that Mr. BKs Iyengar was taught differently from pattabi Joyce and the order, maybe, but also the manner. But to hear how your research points that the origin was more of a individually orientated teaching method to how it has been structured. I just find really refreshing. I'm just grateful that you've taken the time to dig in and look for answers, because it feels like it puts a light on a situation where, when you're just kind of guessing and you've in, you hear myths and stories over time. You just kind of accept that that's exactly what it is. So to have you dig in like this and and obviously we could keep digging. And I love the fact that you're, you're bringing up, like, wow, it took a long time to decipher some of the things these guys were talking about. We we really aren't. You know, it took a while to understand, because cross culturally, there's a big divide often. So I mean, I just, I'm, I'm enamored and fascinated by by your work. That's so cool. What? What? What other sort of insights appeared? I mean, for me to actually, because one of the stories I heard from my teacher, Tim Miller, about the yoga karunta Is that, you know, is this mysterious text that existed, and then, you know, a couple of Tim would always joke around that, like, whenever we would get to a pose like kaputasana, He'd have us do a research pose of like a Virasana or a supta virasana, where you have your knees together, heels apart, lay back and kind of stretch your quads. And you joke around and say that, you know, the ants must have eaten the supta virasana part of the posture out of the sequence, you know. And and so you hear that, but to actually see the footage that you got of these, these leaves where all these Sanskrit slokas are written on, and how they're being preserved, and the challenge of preservation, needing to oil them so the ants don't need them. And to actually see that personally, for me, was like, Whoa. That is so amazing. That's so cool. What was some of your feeling when you were seeing those ancient manuscripts opened up in front of you had? What was the feeling that you got

Unknown:

when you saw that. Well, it was so impactful. They they will sometimes let you hold them in your hand. They're delicate and, well, there aren't really ants to eat them there. There's a kind of mite, and it makes little holes and and I have seen, you know, this, with my own eyes, and I've seen fragmented palm leaves that were just barely there, and, you know, you bump it wrong, and it's going to fall down in pieces. And in the idea that, like, Okay, we really love this yoga stuff, and we're just all about it, and we're ready to make our living doing it, and we're like, so yoga, yoga? Shouldn't we take care of the community and the culture that's kind of trying to hold on to its roots and and preserve the knowledge that they do have? Or are we really kind of more interested in branding and marketing a particular style of yoga postures, and all the kind of ramifications of that. Now to speak briefly on this question of the age of primary series, I don't believe that batavi Joyce was telling a boldface lie when he said that no one ever called him a liar, and what he meant, it's my it's my opinion. And you know, vinyasa is derived from Surya Namaskar, and when you do, when you do a vinyasa, it's obvious that you're doing a part of a Surya Namaskar. And Krishna Macharia comes from a religious background that worships the sun. And you know, in uraina is their primary deity and and the icon for Narayana is the sun. And when you look back textually, you. Can find nirayana and Surya. You know, you find all the rituals to Surya in the Rig Veda, and this idea of prostrating to the sun, this sashtanganamaskara, and the idea of doing mantras and movements with your body and creating these straight lines, these angles and triangles and and worshiping the sun. So that's all there. And when you and, of course, there are many kinds of Suriname scars, something doesn't, you know, get passed down for 1000s of years and stay exactly the same, you're going to, you're going to see, you know, variances, and the one that we do in Ashtanga Yoga, it's very modern, actually, but the concept that it comes from is old. And when you use that as the glue to stick together a whole system of exercise in one way of looking at it, it's 5000 years old, or as old as Rigveda. And you know you're gonna, I won't go into, you know, all the like, validation of dates and times. I just look at Wikipedia and say, well, whatever that says, It's not less than that, okay? But in that way, yeah, it's old and and in the context of yoga and the the philosophy of yoga, the point of why you're doing it, all of that is has some some antiquity to it. But of course, when it gets right down to primary series as we practice it, and how we're doing it, and even the context of like, I'm going to stop by the yoga studio on my way home from the office, and I'm going to work out for an hour and a half, and then I'm going to go home and I, don't know, watch Netflix or whatever it is that I do that's super modern. That's like, really new, really new, less than 100 years and prior to that, it was kind of a full time gig. You had to abandon your material life, and, you know, go off into it. So about the yoga kurunta, of course, it's the most sought after Indian manuscript, probably in the world, and talked about, maybe there is some other very important one that I'm not aware of, but certainly in Ashtanga Yoga, it's known. And why isn't that available? What in a culture of people that are trained to recite scripture with no variance for 1000s of years, using mantra and using these systems of chanting, they're all about preserving ancient knowledge. And then here's this one that kind of slipped through the slipped away, and thought a lot about that. And there was a there was a moment decades ago in Maui where patapi choice was sitting around with a bunch of people. And I think it was Richard Freeman or David Swinton, one of those early, early guys said, Guruji. What about the yoga Corona? Can you tell us about that? And how can we, you know, find it and read it. And patabi Joyce's wife, who's known as Amma, which I just means mother, of course, leans over and says, stop fooling him, you know. And everybody heard it. And so there, at that moment, there was a little uncertainty about this yoga Corona. I think, I think it existed. I I suspect that maybe he never really wanted to bring it out, because it doesn't have primary series in it. It's not going to validate what he, you know, taught everybody to do. And it's true that it may have been destroyed by insects. That that is a valid possibility. Someone said that it possibly got divided and passed around among the early students, because they also kind of use these things to to like worship, to put on their altar, and they they light incense in front of it. That that's another, another thing Yoga, you know, hathabyasapadati was this thing that was discovered by Jason birch, maybe 10 years ago. It was signed by karunta Ka, which could have been, you know, it may have been that the yoga karunta was simply the yoga of a guy called koranta, and Hatha just means Hatha Yoga manual and so. So there's some speculation there, but, but I spoke with Jason birch about this very nice guy, very great scholar, and he's continuing to. Look for the for the current so if he were completely convinced that he found it, I think he would keep looking, because he does a lot of work to go chase after these kinds of things. Yeah, that's so we may never know. Yes, we may never know, and maybe we don't need to, yeah, oh man, thank you, Andrew, you've really been

Andrew Eppler:

digging in and and looking, I love it, I don't. I personally don't. I mean, gosh, that just makes so much more sense. The to me, the idea that it was put together in a systematic form by pattavi Joyce based off of his experience. That just makes really good sense, it seems like, wouldn't? I mean, I hope I don't. I mean, I'm just want to be very respectful of culture and tradition, so I hope I don't tread on toes when I ask these kind of questions, although I know it can always push buttons, but I'm curious doesn't it seem like every person that would teach yoga to some degree or another would have to personalize it as much as they would need to try to preserve it? You know, like, in a way, like we learn stuff from our teachers, and then we have to practice it, and through our own practice, we make assessments and change based off of the changes that are going on, and therefore it evolves into its own kind of unique expression of our interpretation of it. So if it were to push buttons for someone to have to recognize that patabi Choice did that seems odd to me, because that's what I'm doing, but only naturally, only naturally because my body and my own suffering and my own challenges are causing me to have to really look at things differently than I did 1020, 30 years ago. So I What are your thoughts on this challenge of preserving antiquity and evolution of what's necessary. Currently,

Unknown:

I'm right there on the same page with you. Simply put. Krishnamacharya taught vinyasa flow and vinyasa krama, which is a very, very well known and understood concept in my sort everybody knows. And bithabi Joyce was doing demonstrations, and he, he needed to kind of fix it into a particular format. And and he, and he did a brilliant job, a brilliant job of that. That's my understanding anyway. Now, anything that I say could be wrong. There could be some new research that uncovers a different angle, I know, but this is the best that I know at this. At this point in my exploration of the subject, when we look at a stronger yoga or vinyasa. You know, let's just say vinyasa. You have to kind of take into account the context within which it was created. And as much as we would like to kind of think that it goes back forever and ever, it was actually created for a reason by a specific person who was asked to do a job. And, and I feel that the really under recognized party in Ashtanga history is the royal family. And so this king now, Wadi Krishna Raj, Wadi Yara was an amazing human being and, and when you look at all the stuff that this person did for his community and, and also, just as a yoga practitioner, he was a yogi, a king and a yogi. He wanted to bring this like warrior spirit, this, this strength and athletic prowess into the royal family, into the youth of the royal family, and into the community in general. So that was Krishna macharia's job show the world that India can compete with anybody else's physical culture. We can be strong, we can be flexible, we can do weightlifting and wrestling and any other thing. And, and, you know, there is a debate as to how much foreign exercise might have influenced this yoga and, and, I mean, I think it probably did, in the sense that he was competing with it. He he needed to show that he could make these granny Indian kids into the same kind of athletes that came from these other countries. So of course, he's looking at this, and I don't really know, but he came up with a recipe. And I do you know I'm studying. In yoga taravali right now with Dr Nagaraj Rao and you know my yoga traditions online studies program is an ongoing thing and very rewarding for me. And Sri Banda is there. He basically picked out some hatha yoga techniques, created some Mojo with his own tradition, with the sun salutations, threw in the bandhas, threw in the drishti, and made the race car of his career. That the fastest, coolest, most impressive, awesome system. You know, that was not for old people. It was not for, you know, fixing the broken. It was for exalting the youth and and, you know, when you look at the books that he wrote and the teachers that he trained and his overall life's contribution to yoga, you can see that Ashtanga Yoga is not the main part of that. It's a relatively small part. So for folks like me and you who are not 20, let's say, and you've been doing this for a long time, and you know, there are these, like almost a generation of burned out ashtangis, there's like, I did it. I'm broken. I can't even do half the stuff I used to. This system doesn't work. And, and I don't think that's really fair. It's, I think that you can take it in its essence, Banda's work, pranayama, and, and, you know, I mean, that's, that's another side of it, but, but there's a core structure of Ujjayi breathing and drishti and Banda and Surya Namaskar, and one breath per movement, vinyasa technique that I do think works for everybody. And, and I love primary series. Everything I do is based on primary series. It's like, if you know the multiplication tables, you're just better at math. And so Ashtanga people always look like they know what they're doing, because they do know what they're doing. They've done it over and over and over, and they know exactly what comes next. And that level of refinement is beautiful. And then, from a teacher's perspective, you, you've done it, I've done it, we've all done it. You stand up in front of the people and you're like, Well, the next thing in the series, no, no, they can't do that. Okay, let's skip that. And we we pull out what we think it's going to work under a given circumstance. But that foundation and structure is there. I mean, how many teachers all over the world are doing like a warm up, and then some kind of sun salutation, as much as they think the group can do, and then some standing postures and some sitting postures, and maybe a little inversion and finishing and shavasana, like this is, it's kind of a template that that really works well. It's not the only one, but it's a good one. So I really do find the authenticity and sacredness of of primary and Ashtanga Yoga exactly as you're saying. You know, we what should you just wreck your body to to uphold a tradition? I'm a traditional yogi. Your tradition is 100 years old. Dude. Like, it's not, you know, yes, worth breaking ourselves for.

Andrew Eppler:

Yeah, yes. Andrew, thank you. Thank you. So many questions before I go into a more philosophical question I'd like to hear about then the turn where B and S Iyengar your teacher, or, I'm sure you have lots of teachers, but your main teacher, one of your main teachers, was then did, because he does appear quite a bit in the documentary. So then he says, No, you start to okay, we're going to go. You get this incredible opportunity to meet all these folks with the Sanskrit College, and at some point then, how does, what's the next part of this part where Mr. Iyengar says, Wait, maybe. And you did it just delicately enough where there wasn't a tenuous situation and time, just kind of it, just it just happened. That's, I like, I don't know. I just find this little details.

Unknown:

Yeah, when you saw that we were doing interviews with other people and that and that he would just be a part of a larger project, he was comfortable with. That, yeah, he just didn't want to be the headline of the whole thing. And he felt it would be arrogant in some sense, in His way of understanding which which shines

Andrew Eppler:

that shines light to the fact of what you made mention about, you know, Tabby Joyce putting this together, but not necessarily wanting to sign his name on the line at the bottom. And, you know, in this cultural norm of a cultural respect that comes with, look, it's not about me. It's this is just, I'm just a person here in this lineage and or experience, which is fascinating. Have you what sort of, you know, when I started practicing a strong yoga, there was no YouTube, and then now it's like for you and I to be on here and publishing this conversation on YouTube. I didn't have to. I didn't sweat last night. I didn't my palms didn't sweat like it used to when I thought about putting a picture of myself on the internet. I just stressed about that. I thought I was gonna I was being sacrilegious, or I was defaming the culture. Or, who am I? I kind of had a I was, I was really appreciative of these Indian ideas of, it's not about me, you know, and so, but now I feel really comfortable. Do you feel the whole what has been your experience with comfortability, with putting yourself out there, and also still interfacing potentially with people in a cultural setting that are kind of like, I don't know about this. What is this person's intentions? What will this turn into? Well, I have crazy people knocking on my door, and you know, what? How do you Where are you at with all this?

Unknown:

Well, I think there's a middle path. There's there's a lot of good and bad about the internet and social media and all of this. And like you, I'm somebody creating content and putting it out there, and to pretend that we don't care if anyone notices, not really honest. Of course we do. And you know when you see the numbers of your podcast climbing, it feels good. You know, you feel like your hard work was recognized and people enjoyed what you put out there, and it enriched somebody's life, and they, you know, subscribed ultimately, but when the intention behind it is egotistical, when we're when we're, like, really attached to what other people think, rather than, Oh, I feel like I have some valid information for those who really would like to this, I'm going to put out there. What happens is, you know, it's a Karma Yoga perspective that that's that just basic, not what's in it for me, but what can I do to help? And I'm going to do that with sincerity and integrity and what comes of it. I don't know. I'm just doing it because I needed to do it, and with that attitude, I feel like it's all fine whenever, you know, I'm nervously glancing at Instagram to see how many likes my last post got, and I'm like, Oh, that's not something. That's not enough. I guess nobody cares. All this vibe. It's not yoga. It's just basic human junk that people have dealt with forever and as there's nothing special about it, nothing like so terrible about it, but it's not evolved. It's not yoga. We all, we all have, you know, to act like I don't have that in me somewhere. Is this not true? You know, I'm working on it, but not the part that I'm trying to grow bigger. So it's a digital world, and, you know, in the age of information, nobody believes anything, per se. It's like it's it's all so such information override. You can find out anything you ever wanted to know in two seconds and and then, but validating it is different, and you know, so, yes, you and I are doing the same thing. We're just trying to help well said, Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew Eppler:

In relation to I, what I really appreciated is the kind of synapse that you helped me form with seeing the like when you when you talked about the sun salutation and the antiquity of the vinyasa, the movement, and that being the core essence and and then the understanding of the Sanskrit language in terms of its mathematical nature, its geometric. Electrical aspects to it, which I'm still trying to understand more fully. I remember the first time I heard that idea. I thought a language and math, what you know, what I mean, like, I just never even contemplated that. And then, just now, you, earlier in our conversation today, you made mention of the same sequential order, like at this one point, it was codified into a, here's a here's a system, and then as a stronger yogi, practicing the system over and over again. And I love that you even just brought you just helped me connect. When you said the if I know my multiplication tables. I'm just better at math like that. For me, that visual of understanding that if I study the core components of the beginnings of really complex Math, Calculus, all these other things, I guess what I'm getting at. Can you help share a little bit of light that you've come to with understanding the connection between the Sanskrit language and what we're doing with our bodies and the movements of yoga, and how what kind of connections there are in relation to the mechanics of the language and the mechanics of the movement. Is it kind of the same thing? Is it one expression? Is it like one core that comes out, either through a sound vibration or we put it out into a physical manifestation? What what is? What is your insight into the connection of these components?

Unknown:

Well, I Yeah, Sanskrit is absolutely essential to understanding Indian thought and in terms of its numerology. Numerology is a big, big deal in India, and you know, they have their own like, there's a reason why there are 10 counts in the first sun salutation and 18 counts in the second salutation. And those were not arbitrary choices. There is a connection between Indian classical music and vinyasa. And so these counts and these timings, I think it probably has more to do with numerology and and things like jata and Tala and raga and concepts like that, but it was always supposed to be spoken in Sanskrit and and, as I understand Originally, the student was was supposed to stand in semi stithi, recite the posture and the number of vinyasas that it requires to enter the posture. Like, you know, for instance, most of the sitting postures in primary series, it takes eight vinyasas to get into it, assuming you don't have any trouble. So you raise your arms, one, you go down, two, and he'll head up. Three, and by the time you do a push up and sit down and take your foot and bind it into Ardha baddha Padma, or whatever it is, it's going to be eight. And that, that that concept of we're so precise that we know how many counts it takes to get into this, and we know exactly the name of it and everything about it, and we recite that each time we do it. This is a kind of a drill that's designed to create the sort of impressive practitioners that were required at the time. So there's a lot of ingredients, and we may not necessarily understand all of them, but one at one point kind of to digress a little bit. It was this king nawari Krishna rajwadiyar Who paid Krishna Macharia to teach what he taught, and, and, and it kind of goes back to this recipe for making very capable practitioners. And that's what the king wanted. That's what he asked for. And he also was the person who insisted that it be shared even openly with the community and to disregard the caste system. Because, you know, originally, it was only like for Brahmins and satrias, of course, are the king class. Kings are usually exatrias and then and then, but much more significantly, to teach it to women, because there is a story of, you know, Indra devi's mother with some French diplomat and and she was hanging out with the king of Mysore, and her young daughter wants to do yoga. And the king said, Well, I happen to have a. Wonderful yoga teacher, why don't you, you know, go study with him. And Krishna McSharry said, No, I can't touch this girl. I'm not supposed to come within 12 inches of this girl, and this is not for me. And the king said, no, no, you have to teach her. And and so. So the teaching of women, the teaching of everybody in the community, and the idea that this should be something to make youth blossom into amazing, capable athletes. That really came from the King, as far as I understand. And then so in my kind of thinking, Krishna Macharia is great, no doubt. But you it could be said that the father of modern yoga, the unknown father of modern yoga, is the king. Yeah,

Andrew Eppler:

you know, wow. And so segue into the fact that you're creating a part two documentary called I believe kings and yogis King have that right, correct? And so I wanted to watch that right away after I finished the other one. And it looks like you're close. It looks like, from the information on your website, you're close to releasing it. Can you turn not as close as we would,

Unknown:

what's what's the holding, what's holding? You can't do it without funding. I have to gather some resources to push it on through. I have most of what I need to make it and I thought that I was going to do it just in my spare time, you know, like I was just going to stay up a little late and spend a few hours each evening, and it didn't happen. I have a three year old daughter and I kind of had to deal with some other things I've got, like the core of it, and and kings and yogis, deals not so much with 19th century, but what was the sort of cultural context that all of this evolved out of and if, if we, if we are to have a Padam pada and any you know, like that term gets thrown around a lot, and it's not necessarily understood properly by everybody, but it means that which is passed down from generation to generation, fundamentally. And it can be bloodlines. It can be teachers to student, but there should be some ancient tradition, right? I mean, like we always thought that that had to be there, but, but actually, nobody knows what that is, or has any real clear like, if you, if you had to point to it, who would you point to? It's, it's a little murky, at least it has been for me, and I just wanted to share my research about that. So when we follow the postures, there's a lot of great books that have been done and great research, and we don't know how all these poses are. And there's the story of Krishnamacharya studying with this ramamohan brahmachari. We've all read it, but to my knowledge, nobody knows anything about this guy. They don't even know what language he speaks spoke. They it's not even totally clear where he was, somewhere in the Himalayas, maybe India, maybe Nepal, maybe Tibet. It just depends on what you read and and whatever, whoever he was, nobody knows about him, and so. So you can argue different things. You can say, well, yoga is ancient, and you know, starting about maybe the eighth or ninth century, you see it in temples and so on. But in the end, it's a big question mark when you try to follow the spiritual lineage that Krishnamacharya came from, and if you think of it as a spiritual practice, then it makes sense to follow the spiritual lineage. And if you think of it as just purely a physical practice, then it makes more sense to you want to know about the postures. And I mean, fair enough, we want to know about the postures first, because that's what we started with, and that's that's legit. But then if you go a bit further, this spiritual lineage is actually very easy to trace. And 1000 years ago, a little more, Ramanuja emerged onto the scene. He was part of an earlier para Sri vaishnavas, and he founded vishishtadvaita. He he appointed 74 priests and called him Ayan car the keeper of five rituals. Everybody in the world who has the name Iyengar can trace their ancestry back to one of those 74 guys. And many people, I think, who may not necessarily have Iyengar in their name, have that dead ancestry, and they're not necessarily related by blood, because there are 74 of them. And the ananthacharya line is the one that I'm studying under, and he was. One of the close people with Ramanuja and so. So like people like Dr Alwar and Lakshmi Todd Acharya, his father, who I studied with it for years before he passed, they can trace their ancestry from father to eldest son, back for 1000 years, to Ramanuja and and they've, they've kept this knowledge intact, passing it down in their family. And so when I figured that out, I was like, Well, guys, what's the knowledge? Tell me, like, how do I how can I start to learn about it? And even though I'm like, a kindergartner and you're a, you know, college professor, like, meet me where I'm at. Come on. What can I do to to learn? Yes, and it's, it's, you know, Lakshmi Todd Acharya. I didn't even know who he was. Actually, anybody whose name ends with char is in Acharya. That's not a it's a big deal. And but this guy made time to talk to me for three and a half years, like every week with no didn't ask for money and ask for anything. And, you know, sometimes he'd be busy, he'd be traveling. And it was only when he died that I, you know, Hawaii sent me a little pamphlet about his spiritual lineage, and I realized, Oh, my God, that's no wonder he was so busy. And it was very humbling for me. Wow. Ramanuja dug up this ancient deity called chelava Narayana, and installed it. He had a vision and went and dug up this ancient deity, this Narayana, chelave is beautiful, and they made chelava Narayana a temple in Melkote. I do a retreat there every year. And then 400 years ago, these wadiyar kings came down from dwaka, I believe, and they wanted to go to Melkote to see this deity and take its blessing. And then they had a dream, and they went to Mysore, and they conquered this Mahesh Sura, whose name Mysore comes from the name of this, this person that they defeated in battle, and they they saved a girl. There was a girl who's was of marriageable age, and her mother was Queen, and this Mahesh Sura was going to force her to marry him so he could have the kingdom. And the wadiyars stepped in and and defeated him. And one of them married this girl and and they say that when that first king died, as legend has it, a flash of light left his body and flew back to televan Narayana at the temple in Melkote. So from the very earliest history of the wadiyar dynasty in Mysore, there's been a strong connection with Milko day and with this lineage of yoga and spirituality practiced by krishnamacharya's line and and you know that there was this Saraswati library, one of the kings compiled all The philosophy from the whole region, and wanted to keep it safe and safeguard it. Another King wrote to Sri Todd Finiti, that's well known, that was, like, around the end of the 18th century, 122 yoga postures. There were hip kings doing stuff with yoga way before krishnamacharya's time. Yes, and so like, as it as a practitioner, and, you know, like, especially in light of Sharad passing, and everybody's grieving and a little unsure as to what, what next, you know and, and, you know, strong opinions, of course, and I don't want to step on any toes. Bless anybody who's got enough discipline to do their yoga. And I don't care whose student you are, what kind of flag we fly under, but the tradition of yoga in Mysore is old. It's very old, and it's beautiful and it's very rich, and to think that there's only one person who carried that, it's just not true. And historically, it's crystal clear that this is a community and a university and a royal family and a lineage of yoga that's been passed down. And this, you know, when you really start reading about all the different important people in the lineage, and like, there's a story of some Yogi from Melkote won a debate held by the king of Mysore at the time, and he won this debate, and he was given 26 villages. That's the Monday. District. It's full of iyengars, and it's right outside of Mysore, and still today they live there, you know, like the history of all this, how all this happened and this. So that's why kings and yogis, I want to tell that story and and just kind of celebrate the richness of the tradition. And, you know, the end of the day, I love yoga and Mysore, and I just feel like these people, you're so gracious, you're not going to out give. These guys, like, as soon as you show you're interested, and even just a little bit worthy of something, they are so giving and so kind, and then the only thing that gets you a little bit in trouble if you start turning around and arguing with them about dates and times and saying, No, you're lying about how old this is.

Andrew Eppler:

And I appreciate that so much. Good advice, good advice, like, go and learn, but don't start questioning the dates. That's

Unknown:

not goes forever. You know, by default, if you ask, yeah, how old is this? They'll, they'll just tell you, it's very, very old and and that's that's true always, in the same sense, that primary series is 5000 years old. If you look at the ingredients of it and the continuum of people who arrived at this in their mind, it's all very old.

Andrew Eppler:

Wow. Andrew, oh, thank you so much. Everything I learned so much today. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your passion and dedication. I mean, luckily, there's people like you and thank you. I really just feel gratitude right now. I don't know if I have any other questions for you. I have lots of other questions for you, but I think you gave so much, so much great information and helped me to see the the my yoga pictures gotten a little bit clearer and broader, broader and clearer at the same time.

Unknown:

Well, it's an honor to speak and thank you so much for for reaching out and and patiently waiting for me to find a time that I could talk and anytime, anytime I love to talk about yoga. Oh, man, thank you, Andrew. I look forward to a future conversation, and I really hope that listeners will be inspired and help with funding for your project and and continue it on, because it's, it's, I think, really open, enlightening. So thank you. Thank you, and I will mention briefly, please, I made that film my show yoga traditions, of course. And I had such a profound experience making it that I thought I should invite all my friends and whoever wants to come, and we should all just hang out with these guys. And so that's how my school yoga conference started. And we started bringing groups every year and inviting various scholars to come and give talks. And then that kind of emerged into this Melkote immersion. We found out of how amazing mal cote was. So of course, we go there, and this year we have a 200 hour immersion, which kind of includes everything. So I'm very much in I try to give people the opportunity to go to Mysore and experience this tradition firsthand. And I feel like that's like, no matter how much you read and talk, it's really important to actually go there and be in it at some point, if, if it's possible. So when is that? When is the date of the next conference? January, 19 through 28th. Used to conference my my 200 hour immersion starts on the 12th of January, and Mal cote immersion is the first through the eighth of February. So it's all coming up. Yeah, 2026, two months. Wow. Well, ah,

Andrew Eppler:

I want to go. I man, I just, I'm a little speechless, just because I'm so I just feel so excited right now. Thank you so much, Andrew, it's been a true pleasure, and I wish you the best. Thank you. Thank you. You're such a gracious host. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. So what did you think that was Andrew Epler, the founder of the Ashtanga yoga studio and the creator of the films the Mysore yoga tradition and the upcoming kings and yogis. I really hope that you enjoyed this conversation and that you gained a deeper appreciation. And for the living history of yoga and the teachers who keep these traditions alive. Remember, go visit Andrew on his website, Mysore yoga traditions to learn about his upcoming trainings and his documentary work. If you'd like to explore more yoga conversations and practices, head to our website at native yogacenter.com check out our full library of interviews here on this podcast, native yoga, Todd cast. You can find them on all the listening channels, Apple, Amazon, Spotify. Obviously you're hearing me now, so you found so you probably don't need to hear that all this. But nonetheless, thank you for your support. Thanks for tuning in, and until next time you know, keep practicing, keep learning and just keep sharing the yoga journey. All right, thank you. Namaste. Native yoga. Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement, I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com, and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time.

Unknown:

Well, you