23/03/2024
Nancy Gilgoff
From her website:
“Nancy began practicing Ashtanga Yoga in 1973 with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, in Mysore, India. When Nancy asked Jois how she should teach, he told her to “teach the way I taught you…”
Nancy was, as far as I knew, the first Western woman to be taught the ashtanga series by Pattabhi Jois. (although she always told me to say she was ‘ONE of the first woman..’).
She arrived in Mysore in her early twenties for the first time. She hAD traveled overland with David Williams her then partner on a bus departing from the legendary Pudding Shop in Istanbul through Afghanistan.
At the time; suffering chronic migraines
and not in strong health, she told me that Jois adapted (and held her in most of the asanas) of the Primary and Intermediate series until she built up her health. After a few months, she left with *her version* of the two series.
The way in which ashtanga was practices then has been chronicled in her highly important article (discussed in the link below) ‘ashtanga yoga as it was’.
Over the years she has been a invaluable balancing voice in contrast to a more idealised and rigid approach to practice, maintaining (and passing on) a more pragmatic approach - as she said she learnt it; light, fun, and undogmatic.
We got to practice and host Nancy on a number of occasions. What struck me most at these times, was simply working with a uniquely kind, open, and supportive human being.
You will be sadly missed but never forgotten within the ashtanga community.
