Celebrity yoga guru Sharath Jois who taught Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow dies suddenly aged 53
A famous yoga instructor who taught stars such as Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow has died suddenly at the age of 53.
R. Sharath Jois, a fitness instructor who had a legion of celebrity clients, died Monday in Virginia, The Hindu has reported.
His cause of death has not been announced; he is survived by his wife and two children.
Jois’ grandfather K. Pattabhi Jois was known for popularizing ashtanga yoga, and he began helping his grandfather teach it when he was only 19 years old.
He became director of the Sharath Yoga Center in Mysore, India, in 2007, when his grandfather became too old to run the school.
A famous yoga instructor who taught stars like Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow has died suddenly at the age of 53
In recent years he began teaching his practices in the US to a slew of stars, including Madonna, Gwyneth and Sting.
He had embarked on a yoga teaching tour across America in October and was in Virginia for one of the tour stops when he tragically died.
On the day of his death, he shared images of a class he taught at the University of Virginia’s Contemplative Sciences Center.
He was going to San Antonio, Texas this weekend; he also had workshops planned in Mysuru, Sydney and Dubai in the coming months.
The yoga instructor talked about working with A-listers Times of India back in 2006.
He said at the time: “Whether it’s Madonna, Sting or Gwyneth, once they’ve signed up for the classes, they’ve been very disciplined.
“In class, they are just like any other student, minus the stardom and celebrity status.”
He recalled that Goop’s founder “walked into his classroom in New York, just to check it out,” and immediately “got hooked.”
R. Sharath Jois, a fitness instructor who gained a legion of celebrity clients, died in Virginia on Monday, The Hindu reported.
His cause of death has not been announced; he is survived by his wife and two children
He had embarked on a yoga teaching tour across America in October and was in Virginia for one of the tour stops when he tragically died.
As for Madonna, Jois said she had been learning ashtanga yoga for more than a decade and was in the “advanced series, the toughest of them all” at the time of the interview.
“No matter how high we go in life, it’s important to stay grounded and respect your roots,” he added.
‘Only you can help yourself. Yoga does just that: it helps you find inner peace. It goes beyond cutting fat.’
Ashtanga yoga is one of the most popular forms of yoga and focuses on a vigorous physical practice that involves a series of postures linked with breathing to form a continuous sequence. YogaBasics.com.
Joïs said LA Yoga that the practice is as much ‘spiritual’ as it is ‘physical’, and that his teachings aim to integrate both.
‘In [some forms of] modern yoga, it is mainly acrobatics. No one knows where they breathe in, where they breathe out, how the posture helps our body and mind,” he said.
‘They don’t know how our breathing helps our body, nervous system and mind. But this is very important.
‘Yoga is becoming popular all over the world, but few people have understood yoga properly, who have gone to the roots of yoga.’