Ashtanga shala

After Extended Triangle teaches you to hinge and reach, Extended Side Angle asks for something harder: a bent front knee, a straight line from heel to fingertips, and a back foot that has to stay glued to the mat while everything else stretches away from it. This is the pose in the standing sequence where "grounding" stops being an abstract cue and becomes something you can actually feel. Utthita Parsvakonasana - front knee bent to ankle line, torso extended over the front leg, top arm reaching over the ear, back foot pressed flat and turned in What is Utthita Parsvakonasana? Utthita means extended, parsva means side or flank, and kona means angle. Put together, Utthita Parsvakonasana is the "extended side angle pose" — a standing lunge that opens the entire side body, from the outer ankle of the back leg all the way through the fingertips of the top arm. Where Trikonasana keeps both legs straight, Parsvakonasana bends the front knee, which changes almost e...

Yesterday, in Utthita Trikonasana, you learned that the triangle is built from the legs up. Today the Primary Series asks something new of you: Parivrtta Trikonasana, the Revolved Triangle, is the first twist in the entire practice — and the first pose that asks you to twist and balance at the same time. It is honest, humbling, and wonderfully clarifying, because it will show you exactly where your practice is today. Parivrtta Trikonasana - torso revolved over the front leg, opposite hand reaching toward the floor What Is Parivrtta Trikonasana? The name breaks down simply: parivrtta means revolved, trikona means triangle, and asana means posture. So this is the same triangle you built yesterday, turned inside out. Instead of opening the chest toward the ceiling, you rotate it across the front leg, so that the opposite hand reaches down toward the front foot while the same-side arm rises toward the sky. Twists like this one ask the spine to rotate evenly through its whole...

After the two forward folds, the practice turns sideways. Padangusthasana and Padahastasana asked you to go down; Trikonasana asks you to go out — and that small change is where a lot of students quietly lose the thread. In a morning room full of practitioners you can hear it happen. The ujjayi that was steady through the folds turns thin and short the moment the hand starts hunting for the toe. So let me say the useful thing first. The triangle is not a pose about reaching your foot. It is a pose about staying long while you turn. Utthita Trikonasana — the chest stays open as the torso turns. How you get in, breath by breath From samasthiti, inhale and step or lightly hop the feet apart, arms opening to the sides at shoulder height. The distance is roughly one leg-length — in the traditional measure, the right hand should be able to find the right foot without the ribs collapsing. Turn the right foot out ninety degrees, and turn the left foot very slightly in. Both heels stay g...

Last time we stayed with Padangusthasana, the first standing fold, where you catch the big toes. Today its twin, Padahastasana — pada (foot), hasta (hand): hand-under-foot pose. In the counted practice these two are really one long conversation with the back of your legs, and you do not stand all the way up in the middle of it. You come up only to the head-up position, slide the hands under the feet, and fold again. Most students meet the second fold expecting it to be easier. It is the same shape, after all, only three inches lower. It rarely is. Padahastasana — the palms face up beneath the soles, toes at the wrist creases. How to enter it, breath by breath From the fold of Padangusthasana, inhale and come to the head-up position: arms straight, chest forward, the front of the body long, gaze ahead. Exhale and release the toes; slide each hand under the corresponding foot, palm turned up, so the toes come to rest at the wrist creases. Then exhale deeper into the fold — cro...

The sun salutations warmed you up. Now the practice starts asking questions. Padangusthasana is the first pose of the standing sequence and the first time the Primary Series looks directly at your hamstrings — with no momentum to hide behind and nowhere to rush. Padangusthasana - big toes hooked by the first two fingers, elbows drawing out to the sides. What is Padangusthasana? Pada means foot, angustha means big toe, asana means posture — Big Toe Pose. The name is literal: you hook your big toes with your fingers and fold. It is the plainest instruction in the whole Primary Series, and it is the pose where most practitioners first meet the honest state of the back of their legs. Its job in the sequence is to lengthen the hamstrings and calm the nervous system after the heat of Surya Namaskara. Folding forward with the head below the heart settles the breath, and everything that follows in the standing sequence — the triangles, the side angles, the wide-legged folds — assum...

By the time you finish the sun salutations, your practice has really only cleared its throat. Surya Namaskara A and B warm the body and set the breath running; the standing sequence is where that heat gets shaped into a posture practice. Everything the Primary Series will later ask of you on the floor — an open hamstring, a rotating spine, a steady gaze, bandhas that hold without gripping — is first taught here, standing, where you can still see what you are doing. I tell newer students to think of the standing poses as the alphabet. They are not a warm-up to be rushed through on the way to the "real" poses. If your standing sequence is sloppy, everything downstream inherits that sloppiness. The First Fold: Padangusthasana From samasthiti you step or hop the feet to hip distance, hook the big toes, and fold. It looks simple. It is where most people first meet their hamstrings honestly. Padangusthasana — the first standing fold, big toes hooked by two fingers. The breath...

Every practice begins and ends here, and almost nobody sees it. Students walk to the top of the mat, put their feet together, and are already thinking about the first inhale. Samasthiti lasts about one second for them. In my own practice it is the pose I return to most often when something has gone wrong — when the shoulders have crept up, when the breath has turned shallow, when I have started doing yoga instead of practicing it. Sama means equal, sthiti means standing or steadiness. Equal standing. It sounds like nothing. It is the whole practice compressed into one shape. Samasthiti — equal standing, at the top of the mat. What Samasthiti Actually Asks Big toes touching, heels very slightly apart. Weight spread across four points of each foot: the base of the big toe, the base of the little toe, and both sides of the heel. Most people stand with the weight sunk into the outer heels; you will feel this the moment you look for it. From there the work moves upward. Lift the arch...

Yesterday I wrote about Surya Namaskara A, the first sequence you will ever learn. Today we come to its older sibling. If A teaches you the grammar of the practice — one breath, one movement, the steady sound of ujjayi — then Surya Namaskara B is the first time the practice looks you in the eye and asks: can you keep that grammar when it gets hard? Most mornings in the shala, I can tell where a student is in their salutations without looking up. The breath during A is long and almost leisurely. Somewhere in the third round of B, it shortens. That shortening is the whole lesson. B is not about the new postures. It is about keeping the breath you built in A while your legs are burning. What Changes in B Surya Namaskara B is counted in seventeen vinyasas, and it adds two postures you have not met before. The first is Utkatasana — often translated as chair pose, though the word really means something closer to "fierce" or "powerful" posture. Instead of reaching up...

Walk into any Ashtanga room in the world at six in the morning and you will see the same thing: bodies folding and rising in quiet rhythm, breath loud as ocean waves. What they are doing is Surya Namaskara A — Sun Salutation A — and it is the first sequence every Ashtanga practitioner learns. It is also, in a real sense, the last one you ever master. Samasthiti - where every sun salutation begins and ends. Nine movements, nine breaths Surya Namaskara A is a loop of nine vinyasas, each married to one breath: Ekam (one) — inhale, arms rise overhead, gaze to the thumbs Dve (two) — exhale, fold forward over the legs Trini (three) — inhale, lift the chest halfway, spine long Catvari (four) — exhale, step or jump back and lower into Chaturanga Panca (five) — inhale, roll over the toes into Upward Dog Sat (six) — exhale, press back into Downward Dog, and stay for five breaths Sapta (seven) — inhale, step or jump the feet between the hands, chest half-lifted Astau (...

Urdhva Hastasana - the first movement of the first sequence This is the last post before we begin moving. Everything so far has been the frame — breath , bandhas, gaze , the counted method , and a plan for practicing at home. From here the blog changes character: one pose at a time, in the exact order of the Ashtanga Primary Series, day after day. Today explains how that works and how to get the most out of it. How the series is built The posts follow the Primary Series in its traditional order, and they build on each other deliberately: Posts 1–8: the foundations. The ones you have just read. They cover the things every pose assumes you already know. Posts 9–10: the sun salutations. Surya Namaskara A and B — the sequences you repeat at the start of every single practice, forever. The standing sequence. Beginning with the first standing forward fold and running through the standing poses to the warriors. The seated sequence. The long middle of the Primary Series, from ...

Baddha Padmasana - the seated posture the closing mantra is chanted from Every traditional Ashtanga practice opens with a chant and closes with another. If you have only ever practiced at home, you may have watched a video, heard thirty seconds of Sanskrit you did not understand, and quietly wondered whether you were supposed to be joining in. Today we clear that up: what the mantras say, why they are there, and what to do if chanting is not for you. What the opening mantra is The opening mantra is chanted once, standing at the top of the mat with the palms together, before the first sun salutation. It has two parts. The first part is an invocation to the teachers of the yoga tradition — a line of thanks addressed to those who passed the practice down, describing them as removing the "poison of conditioned existence," the ordinary fog of habit and reactivity that yoga is meant to clear. It is, in plain terms, a thank-you note to your teachers and their teachers. Th...

Samasthiti - where every practice begins Over the last five posts we built the inner method of Ashtanga: the Ujjayi breath , the bandhas, drishti, and the counted vinyasa system . Today we get practical. You have the method — now you need a place, a time, and an honest plan you will actually keep. The space: smaller than you think You need room for a mat, plus enough clearance overhead to raise your arms and enough behind you to step back into a lunge. That is roughly two metres by one. It does not need to be a dedicated room, a beautiful room, or a tidy room. A cleared patch of living-room floor is a complete Ashtanga studio. Two things matter more than size. First, a floor that does not slide — a mat on carpet shifts under you in downward dog, so a hard floor is better if you have one. Second, somewhere you can leave the mat, or at least somewhere the mat is easy to fetch. The distance between "I should practice" and "I am on the mat" is the single bigges...

Vinyasa — one breath, one movement, in a fixed and counted order So far in this series we've built the invisible toolkit of Ashtanga: the Ujjayi breath, the bandhas, and drishti. Today we meet the system that ties them all together and gives Ashtanga its unmistakable rhythm: vinyasa, the rule that every movement in the practice is linked to a breath — and every breath has a number. Of everything I have absorbed in my years on the mat, this counted structure is what I would keep if I could keep only one thing. What does vinyasa mean? Vinyasa is usually translated as "to place in a special way." In the Ashtanga method it means something quite precise: each posture is entered and exited through a fixed series of movements, and each of those movements is assigned to either an inhale or an exhale. Nothing is improvised. When you step your feet apart, that happens on a breath. When you fold forward, that happens on a breath. When you jump back and roll through to face the s...

Drishti — the eyes come home, and the mind settles behind them Over the last three posts we built the inner toolkit of Ashtanga: the map of the practice, the Ujjayi breath, and the bandhas. Today we add the last piece, and the one you can actually see from the outside: drishti, the gazing point. Ask why experienced practitioners look so calm mid-practice, and this is a large part of the answer — their eyes have somewhere to be. It is also the technique I underestimated longest in my own practice. What is drishti? Drishti is a Sanskrit word meaning "sight" or "gaze." In Ashtanga, every posture comes with an assigned point for the eyes to rest on — the tip of the nose, the thumb, the navel, and so on. The gaze is soft, not a stare: eyes relaxed, focus gentle, the point simply a home base the eyes return to. Why does this matter? Because the eyes lead the mind. When your gaze wanders around the room — to the clock, the window, your neighbor's mat — your attent...

The bandhas: a hum in the deep core, not a shout So far in this series we have mapped what Ashtanga yoga is and learned the Ujjayi breath that powers it. Today we meet the practice's most misunderstood idea: the bandhas, usually translated as "locks." Together with the breath, they are what make an Ashtanga practice feel light instead of heavy — and after long practice with them, I can promise the beginner's version is far simpler than the mystique suggests. What is a bandha? The Sanskrit word bandha means "to bind" or "to hold." In the traditional texts, bandhas are described as energetic seals that contain and direct prana, the life force. On the mat, you can think of them in a more practical way: they are subtle, sustained muscular engagements deep in the core of the body that protect your lower back, connect your breath to your movement, and make you lighter on your hands and feet. Ashtanga uses two of them throughout the entire practice: M...