Who was Sharath Jois? Ashtanga Yoga heir and trainer to celebs such as Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow passes away at 53
Renowned yoga guru R. Sharath Jois died on Monday, November 11 at approximately 3 p.m. local time in Virginia, US, at the age of 53. The news of his passing was reported by the Hindu on November 12. He was in the midst of a tour in the United States when he passed away after collapsing during a hike.
As per the same source, Jois was supposed to return to his hometown in India to begin teaching a fresh class sometime in December.
He was reportedly a professor at the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia. He posted a video of his yoga lesson to Instagram on the day of his untimely death, with a caption that read:
“ASHTANGA YOGA Special Course.”
Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, K. Pattabhi Jois, R. Sharath Jois taught, practiced, and was a lineage holder of Ashtanga Yoga. In Mysore, India, he oversaw the Sharath Yoga Center as its director. Last month, Sharath Jois departed Mysore to embark on a yoga teaching tour across the United States.
He was also scheduled to visit San Antonio, Texas, between November 16 and 20, and would also be taking classes in Mysore, Sydney, and Dubai in the upcoming months. Additionally, he also taught A-list celebrities like Madonna and actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
Sharath Jois began practicing yoga with his grandfather when he was 19 years old
Born in Mysore on September 29, 1971, Sharath Jois was born into a family committed to Ashtanga yoga practice, preservation, and instruction, as his grandpa had learned from his master, T. Krishnamacharya. He studied the art under his grandfather, the late yoga guru K Pattabhi Jois. He became one of the most influential yoga teachers in the world and is currently the lineage bearer of Ashtanga yoga.
Having been exposed to yoga from birth, Jois started doing asanas casually at the age of 7 and kept going until he was 14. After 5 years, he formally started studying Ashtanga yoga with his grandfather. Around the same time, he also started helping his grandfather in the yoga shala.
He then started working as Pattabhi Jois's full-time assistant. Since then, Jois spent a considerable amount of time studying yoga with his grandfather, both experimentally and theoretically. In the meantime, he had also earned a diploma in electronics before pursuing a career in yoga.
He worked with students of different body types and spent many hours watching his grandfather teach, which gave him an understanding of how to deal with individual variances.
Together with his grandfather, Sharath Jois began teaching Ashtanga yoga internationally in the 1990s. He eventually became the director of his grandfather’s institute in 2007. To ensure that the Ashtanga method was being taught, he organized a summer teachers' school for authorized and certified practitioners in an effort to carry on the yogic tradition.
After the course, on Saturdays, Jois hosted conferences to go over key facets of the theory and practice as well as to answer any queries or worries students might have about the practice. Later, in 2019, Sharath Jois established the Sharath Yoga Center.
Sharath is recognized for having popularized Ashtanga yoga and honoring his grandfather’s legacy after he passed away in 2009. According to the local Indian newspaper Star of Mysore’s September 27, 2017 edition, the guru's yoga breathing technique even attracted the attention of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In a 2017 CNN interview, the former presidential candidate emphasized how Alternate Nostril Breathing, also known as Nadi Shodhana Pranayama, helped her deal with the stress of losing the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump in a healthy way.
As per NY Times’s November 12 report, while visiting the university's Charlottesville campus, Sharath Jois had a heart attack on a hiking route and passed away. He is survived by his mother Saraswathi Jois, father Rangaswamy, wife Shruti Jois, and two children, son Sambhav Jois and daughter Shraddha Jois.