[haltingproblem]

The bizarre thing is western interpretations of Yoga focus so much on Mysore Ashtanga style. I have studied with other schools of Yoga and there are literally hundreds of lineages. It is like insisting Chicken Tikka masala and Naan are sole representations of authentic Indian food because that is what we experience in the west. Most Indian Yoga practitioners have never heard of Pratabbi Jois and Mysore Ashtanga but westerners keep holding them up as some epitome of Yoga.

The insistence that sun salutations are a innovation is again bizarre as there are sutras devoted to sun saluations. In many families, children are taught sun salutations by their parents and grandparents as ancestral traditions.

Even if you grant that modern forms of doing Yoga are an innovation inspired by calisthenics, why did that innovation come from European calisthenics when India has dozens of ancient arts like kalaripayattu that are practiced in Calisthenic sequences?