Ashtanga, Embodiment and Complex Systems: Reflections during my years of practice with Sharath Jois (2014-2024)

In this deeply intimate collection of essays, Iain Grysak opens the doors to his inner world, chronicling a decade of profound physical and spiritual metamorphosis. From his fervent desire to experience the magic of Mysore alongside his late teacher, Sharath Jois, to the humid, silent pre-dawn hours of his Balinese shala, the author writes with rare vulnerability and raw authenticity.Steering far clear of the superficiality of modern yoga culture, Iain invites us on a magnificent journey into the very heart of flesh and breath. Through the poetry of animism and the wondrous reality of our material existence, the Ashtanga practice ceases to be a mere physical discipline and becomes, instead, a visceral communion with the Earth. By teaching us how to embrace discomfort and adversity with an open heart, this vibrant work offers a profound testament to the transformative power of the practice—whispering a luminous promise of hope, radical autonomy, and positive evolution for our shared humanity."e;A remarkable and sensitive book that weaves together a rich narrative about the embodied experience. Drawing on diverse resources from yoga to vipassana, systems theory, biology, psychology, environmental science, and phenomenology, Iain offers a nuanced exploration of what it means to be human."e;—Andrew Alexander Davis, Professor of Philosophy, Belmont University