Ashtanga shala

Janu Sirsasana A taught you the shape: one leg long, one knee folded out, the torso draped over the straight leg. Variations B and C keep that shape and change one thing only — what the bent leg does underneath you. That single change is enough to make both of them feel like new postures, and it is also where beginners most often ask too much of a knee, an ankle or a set of toes. Janu Sirsasana - chest reaching along the straight leg, both sitting bones settling down What are Janu Sirsasana B and C? Janu means knee, sirsa means head — head-to-knee pose. The name describes an intention rather than a requirement: the head travels toward the shin of the extended leg, and whether it ever arrives is beside the point. In the Ashtanga Primary Series these three variations come one after another, right leg then left leg each time, and together they form the first long study of an asymmetric seat. In A, the bent foot simply rests against the inner thigh. In B, you sit on that heel. In ...

Janu Sirsasana A is the moment the seated sequence stops being symmetrical for good. Paschimottanasana folded you forward over two long legs, and Triang Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottanasana asked you to stay level while one knee folded behind you. Now the bent leg turns the other way — outward, into the open — and you fold over the leg that is still long. It is the first of three head-to-knee variations, and the shape you build here is the one the other two depend on. Janu Sirsasana - bent knee open at about ninety degrees, both hands clasping the extended foot What is Janu Sirsasana A? Janu means knee, sirsa means head, asana means seat or posture: head-to-knee pose. The name describes the finished picture rather than the work, which is a little misleading, because beginners who chase the head often lose the part of the pose that matters. What you are really building is a long fold over one straight leg while the other hip opens outward and stays heavy on the floor. Practiti...

After the lotus-based fold of the previous posture, the Primary Series gives you something that looks simpler and turns out to be quietly demanding: one leg stretched forward, the other folded back beside the hip. Triang Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottanasana is where most beginners discover that a forward fold can be ruined long before the hands reach the foot. Here is the shape, the one prop that changes everything, and how to keep the bent knee out of trouble. Triang Mukha Ekapada Paschimottanasana - one shin folded back beside the hip, both sitting bones pressing down evenly What is Triang Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottanasana? The name is long but it is simply a description. Tri is three, anga is limb, mukha is face, eka pada is one foot or one leg, and paschimottanasana is the intense stretch of the back body — literally the "west side" of the body, the whole line from heels to skull. Put together, the title points at three parts of the folded leg — knee, shin and foot...

The seated sequence has taught you three things so far: how to sit honestly in Dandasana , how to fold from the hips in Paschimottanasana , and how to undo that fold in Purvattanasana . The fourth seated posture asks for something genuinely new. Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana puts one foot into half lotus, folds you over the other leg, and sends one arm behind your back to catch that lotus foot. It is also the first posture in the Primary Series where the honest answer for a lot of beginners is "not yet" — and knowing that is part of learning it. Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana - right foot high in the left hip crease, right hand binding behind the back What the name is telling you Ardha means half. Baddha means bound. Padma means lotus. Paschimottanasana is the intense stretch of the west — the whole back body, from heels to the base of the skull. Put together: the half-bound-lotus intense western stretch. Every word in the name is a piece of the instru...

For three long rounds you have been folding forward. Your hamstrings have been complaining, your spine has been rounding toward your shins, and the whole front of your body has been quietly closing. Then the count says inhale , your hands go behind your hips, and you lift into the opposite shape entirely. That shape is Purvattanasana, and it is the first place in the Ashtanga Primary Series where the practice openly teaches you a habit that matters more than any single posture: what goes one way must, shortly afterwards, go the other. Purvattanasana - hips lifted, legs straight and together, chest opening toward the ceiling What is Purvattanasana? The name is built from three pieces. Purva means east, or front. Tan means to stretch or extend intensely. Asana is the seat or posture. So Purvattanasana is the intense stretch of the east side of the body — and the east side is the front, because the traditional practitioner faces the rising sun. The pose you have just left, Pasch...

After the long standing sequence, the practice sits down — and the first thing it asks you to do is fold. Paschimottanasana is the seated forward fold that opens the Primary Series proper, and almost every seated posture that follows borrows its logic. Learn to fold well here and the next twenty poses become far less mysterious. Paschimottanasana - spine long, chest reaching toward the shins rather than the head reaching toward the knees What is Paschimottanasana? The name breaks into three pieces. Paschima means west, uttana means intense stretch, and asana means posture — so, literally, "intense stretch of the west." In the older texts the practitioner faces the rising sun, which makes the front of the body the east side and the whole back line — calves, hamstrings, the sheet of fascia along the spine, the neck — the west. That is exactly what this pose lengthens: not the hamstrings alone, but the entire back of you, from heels to skull. Practitioners commonly d...