R. Sharath Jois

When he was 19 years old, his mother told him that he should begin assisting his grandfather in the yoga shala, as there were many students, and his grandfather was not a young man anymore. From that time, he became Pattabhi Jois’s full-time assistant. It was during these years that Sharath’s devotion to the practice deepened and he began to intuit its transformative power.

In attempts to continue the yoga lineage, he holds a teachers' course in the summer for authorized and certified practitioners to ensure the Ashtanga method is being taught in the spirit of the tradition and with respect to the lineage of yoga gurus who have kept the practice alive - Rama Mohan Bramachari, T. Krishnamacharya, and his grandfather. Jois was honoured at a celebration thrown following the completion of one of the teacher’s courses in 2014. During this course, Sharath reminded his students of the importance of teaching "from the heart".

Following in the spirit of his late grandfather, Jois holds conferences on Saturdays after led classes to discuss important aspects of the practice, theory, and to address any questions or concerns that students may have concerning the practice. Jois reiterates, that to receive full benefits of the practice, one should practice intentionally with the 4 D’s in mind - devotion, dedication, determination, and discipline.

In 2019, Jois rebranded and renamed the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) in Mysore as Sharath Yoga Centre. The same year, he publicly acknowledged his grandfather K. Pattabhi Jois's sexual abuse of pupils, apologising to the students who had experienced this trauma and encouraging them to forgive his grandfather. "It brings me immense pain that I also witnessed him giving improper adjustments", Sharath wrote.

In 2007 when Pattabhi Jois was not in good health and unable to teach any longer, Sharath became director of the Institute. He has steadily grown into his role as director of KPJAYI and as the seniormost authority on the practice, having studied and practiced all six series with his grandfather. His style of teaching and presence in the shala has been described by a senior student as a balance of strictness and compassion.

Jois began traveling internationally with his grandfather in the 1990s to teach Ashtanga yoga. They felt it was imperative to travel and teach an authentic system of yoga in the West where yoga was becoming increasingly popular and being taught in non-traditional ways. In efforts to maintain the integrity and tradition of the practice, he continues to travel and teach worldwide.

R. Sharath Jois (born Rangaswamy Sharath on 29 September 1971) is a teacher, practitioner and lineage holder (paramaguru) of Ashtanga Yoga, in the tradition of his grandfather K. Pattabhi Jois. He is the director of the K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) in Mysore, India.

Jois was born on 29 September 1971 in Mysore India to Saraswati Rangaswamy, daughter of K. Pattabhi Jois. Jois was born into a family dedicated to the practice, preservation and teaching of Ashtanga yoga as his grandfather had learned from his teacher, T. Krishnamacharya. Jois, being exposed to yoga since birth, began practicing asanas informally around seven years old and continued non-committally until age 14. At the age of 19, he began formal study of the Ashtanga yoga system with his grandfather and is the lineage holder of Ashtanga yoga today.

Jois' grandfather, K. Pattabhi Jois, began studying yoga with T. Krishnamacharya at the age of 12, in 1927, and continued his formal study with his teacher until 1954. Pattabhi Jois spent more than 70 years of his life dedicated to practicing and teaching Ashtanga yoga. He established the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute, his first yoga school, in his home in Lakshmipuram in 1948. To accommodate the increasing number of students coming to study, he opened a new school in Gokulam in 2002.