The BARPS® method of Asana is devised by Navtej Johar, a long time yoga practitioner in the tradition of the Krishnamacharya tradition, as well as a Bharatanatyam dancer. Asana within this method involves the progressive application of five fundamental principles, i.e., mindful bracing of the body against the floor; finely calibrated alignment of limbs and rotation of joints relative to the specificity of bracing, so as to easefully foster poise in the body, and subsequently in breath and attention; the eventual aim being to equip the practitioner to self-regulate a satisfying and spacious embodiment of the asana with autonomy. BARPS is an acronym of these five progressive steps, namely bracing, alignment, rotation, poise and satisfying-spaciousness.   It is a keywords driven practice, where the keywords serve as reminders for awareness to stay clear of the body’s ambitions informed by external norms.

As opposed to instruction, the keyword methodology helps tap into the innate knowledge of the body; each keyword is serves to shepherd awareness back to the body, to know it as a source of innate knowledge. BARPS, therefore, views asana not only as a shape but also a portal to the innate intelligences of the body. One distinctive factor of BARPS is that it views the body to be not only made of bones, muscles, fluids, organs, breath, intelligence etc, but also equally made up of words. The sensation of each word, image, texture, cadence, pitch that exists in the universe is seeded in the body; making the body a “responsive body”. Therefore, suggestion through word and image is integral to this practice for containing the body-mind in a state of immersion that is sensorially reposeful and cognitively resonant. As the practice grows, it continues to spawn more keywords. Some keywords that have emerged to further augment the practice are: buoyancy, bewilderment, appetite, availability, adhikaar/autonomy, reciprocity, resolve, respite, pause, precarity, perineum-awareness, pukaar, sukha, singular-attention, slack-and-stretch and so on.

Why BARPS? The purpose of BARPS is to effectively unburden the body from the normative “ideas” of the body, i.e., moralistic, capitalist, nationalist and even cosmetic; because each of these ideas are constructs that are categorically dismissive and controlling of the body.  For BARPS, the sensorial body is source—and that too a revelatory one, and not resource, or worse still, an instrument in the service of an ideal. BARPS is a means to insulate the body from body-dismissive ideas and place the body autonomously at the centre of embodied practice.   The BARPS Method is firmly rooted in theory. It adheres primarily to the philosophy of Samkhya and then follows various streams of teaching which are further spawned out of this philosophy, namely, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Abhinavagupta’s Pramarthsara—that builds on the Samkhya model to create a base for Trika philosophy, and Svatmarama’s Hatha Pradipika.

The Various Components of the One Year TTC in BARPS Practice: The practice component will be designed to first build the foundation for immersion in the practice, and then proceed to unfold the conceptual frameworks that serve as the underpinnings of this practice.   Weekly Online Practice: Navtej Johar will lead two weekly sessions in the BARPS method each week; participants will be required to attend both or at least one of these weekly sessions. The first module will also include one weekly session, “Introduction to the BARPS Method of Asana”, led by the Team in which the participants will be familiarized with the key concepts of Keywords based practice. This session will be mandatory for all to attend. Weekend Workshop: Each module will include one online weekend-workshop that will elaborate on principles and methodologies underlying the designing and sequencing of the BARPS practice. Biyearly Offline Retreat: Twice through the course of the one year program, participants will be required to meet in person for a weeklong retreat focused on teaching tools and hands-on practice of the BARPS method. The venue of the retreat will be shared in advance; the summer retreat will be in the hills of Kangra, HP, while in the winter we will meet in the planes of Northern India. Theory: The theory component will focus on texts and critical discourses that have informed the BARPS Methodology. Module 1: Samkhyakarika, by Iswara Krishna, a 4th century text. This course will be co-taught by Pandit Rishiraj Pathak and Navtej Johar. The philosophy of Samkhya is the foundation of Patanjali Yoga and thus critical to its understanding. In this module, we will read the Sanskrit text, verse-by-verse, and then elaborate on it to build a detailed framework of this materialist philosophy that is singularly focused on mindful-embodiment. No prior knowledge in Sanskrit is required to join.

Module 2: Parmarthsara, by Abhinavagupta, a 10th century Kashmir Shaiva (Trika) text The Parmarthasara, authored by Abhinavagupta, further elaborates on the Samkhya model from a Kashmir Shaiva or Tantra perspective that by default renders the body both imaginative and poetic. This text is important to the keywords methodology of BARPS. Module 3: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras & the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Swami Svatmarama. The two texts studied in detail over the first two modules both respectively offer the theoretical basis for the practice of Yoga, as delineated in the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, and that of Hatha Yoga, the rules of which are laid down in the Hatha Pradipika  jointly, these two texts are important to understand both the energetic and physical particularities of asana practice. Module 4: Modern Yoga This last module will comprise of readings by a number of modern scholars and practitioners devoted to Yoga Studies. These readings will be curated to identify and acknowledge the shifts in perspective that caused us to view and present both the body as well as our embodied traditions within the modern body-dismissive frameworks introduced to us by the colonizer.

Evaluation: Class participation (Attendance) Journaling and weekly reflections Mid-term paper – Short essay End-term – Research paper based on reflections Designing and facilitation of one sequence in the BARPS method Requirements: The BARPS Method of Asana TTC is open to all participants who have prior experience in some yoga asana practice, be it in any tradition. The course will involve rigorous engagement with texts, so will require an inclination towards theory.  The sessions will primarily be led in English. Though all the listed texts are in Sanskrit, participants are not required to be familiar with Sanskrit.                                                       *********
Fee Breakup BARPS Method of Asana — Teacher Training Course Description INR USD Total fee for TTC in the BARPS Method of Asana ₹220,000 $2,500 Registration fee ₹36,000 $450 Module 1 ₹38,000 $425 Module 2 (with seven days retreat) ₹54,000 $600 Module 3 ₹38,000 $425 Module 4 (with seven day retreat) ₹54,000 $600 5% discount if total fee is paid at beginning of course ₹11,000 $150 Monthly fee for those who don't wish to pay quarterly ₹17,000 $190
BARPS TTC Application Form 2026-27