K. Pattabhi Jois 'Authorized Level 2' teachers are able to teach up to where they learned in intermediate series. Certified teachers have learned the third series and beyond and are able to teach accordingly. His first trip to the West was in 1974 to South America, to deliver a lecture in Sanskrit at an international yoga conference. In 1975 he stayed for four months in Encinitas, California, marking the beginning of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in the US. He had said on many occasions that only twenty or thirty students practiced Ashtanga Yoga in America then, but, 'gradually, gradually, in twenty years, it will
Ashtanga vinyasa yoga six series are: Earlier practitioners of the style report that originally there were four series on the Ashtanga syllabus: Primary, Intermediate, Advanced A, and Advanced B. A fifth series of sorts was the "Rishi series", which Guruji said could be done once a practitioner had "mastered" these four. According to Sharath Jois, one must master poses before being given permission to attempt any others that follow. However, Manju Jois disagrees. According to Manju's accounts of his father's instruction, Pattabhi Jois also occasionally allowed students to practice in a non linear format. Many of Pattahbhi Jois' students now teach their Mysore