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Lino Miele - Personal Biography

Lino Miele's initial interest in yoga dates back to the early 1980s. It was Tina Pizzimenti who introduced him to yoga and later inspired him to travel to India in search of a guru. On their trip to India in 1988, Lino met his guru, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois ("Guruji"), and thus began a long-term, teacher-student relationship.

Lino became a devout Ashtanga yoga student while maintaining his work as a technical director in a theatre. In 1993, he created the Federation of Astanga Yoga Centres with a few other dedicated students. Lino's passion for the practice and curiosity for really understanding the vinyasa system led him to research and write a manuscript under the guidance of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. The final manuscript contained the profound study of the exact vinyasa in the first and intermediate series, and upon Guruji's request, it was published under the title Astanga Yoga Book in 1994. Shortly thereafter, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois acknowledged Lino for his personal research on the vinyasa method and his many years of apprenticeship by giving him the certificate to teach (1994). Although certified, Lino kept going back to study with Guruji in Mysore. In 1996, Lino finished his second book, the result of his study of the advanced A and B series, which was finally published in 2012 [Ashtanga Yoga: The Yoga of Breath: I, II, III, IV Series].

The same year, Guruji told Lino to give yoga demonstrations back home. Lino gave yoga demonstrations first in Italy and then in other European cities. Little by little, he started traveling and teaching workshops. To celebrate Sri K. Pattabhi Jois's 60th anniversary of teaching in 1998, Lino produced a commemorative calender showing photos of Guruji with his closest family members. In 1999, Lino produced a video demonstrating the full form of the first series to provide a visual understanding of the vinyasa system. Two years later a second video followed (2001), where Gwendoline Hunt and Lino performed the full form of the intermediate and advanced A series. In 2008, the Astanga Yoga School of Rome produced a new primary series video in which Lino demonstrates the daily practice of the first series and which also includes extracts of him teaching. In 2009, the Ashtanga Yoga School of Buenos Aires produced a documentary of Lino's 2008 workshop in Buenos Aires. In 2015, Ashtanga Yoga Stuttgart produced a documentary of Lino's 2014 workshop in Stuttgart, Germany.

Over the years, Lino has also produced a number of posters, the very first being a tribute to his guru called A Yogi's Life (1995), a collage of vintage photos where every member of the Jois family is represented doing an asana. The second poster (2000) is with Sharath doing the primary and intermediate series, and the third poster (2007) is with Lino himself doing the advanced A series. In 2015, he produced a new primary and intermediate series poster.

Lino is the founder of six Astanga Yoga Schools in Helsinki (1997), Rome (2000), Copenhagen (2000), Milano (2009), Buenos Aires (2009) and Tallinn (2010) which he visits annually and where he holds workshops and summer retreats. The longest workshop takes place in Lino's centre in Kovalam Beach, where he teaches for two months every year. Lino has now been touring and teaching for more than a decade. He is loved, respected and renowned for his uncompromising way of passing on the traditional Ashtanga yoga method.