Ashtanga yoga

Ashtanga yoga, in its modern form, is a vigorous system in which the same fixed sequence of postures is practised in the same order every session, each posture linked to the next by a set movement on the breath, traditionally six mornings a week.

Two clarifications, because the word carries two meanings and the confusion is constant. Ashtanga in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras means the eight limbs, the whole eightfold path of yoga, of which posture is one limb. Ashtanga as a class on a timetable means the physical system taught in Mysore by Pattabhi Jois through the second half of the twentieth century. The second meaning is what this page is about, and the school itself takes its name from the first.

What makes it unlike almost every other class you can attend is that the sequence does not change. You do not arrive wondering what today will be. That fixedness is either the best or the worst thing about it depending entirely on your temperament, and there is very little middle ground among the people who try it.

The first sequence, the primary series, is called Yoga Chikitsa, meaning yoga therapy. A full led primary series takes about ninety minutes and runs in a fixed order.

• Opening. A short chant, then five rounds of one form of Surya Namaskar and five of a second, longer form. That alone is more sun salutation than most classes contain in total.
• Standing sequence. Forward bends, triangle variations, twists and one legged balances, in an unvarying order, five breaths each.
• Seated sequence. The long middle of the practice, dominated by forward bends, with a linking vinyasa of plank, lowering, upward dog and downward dog performed between almost every posture. This is where the repetition load on the shoulders comes from.
• Finishing sequence. Backbending, then shoulderstand and headstand work, then a seated close and a long rest.

The linking vinyasa is the defining feature and the one nobody warns beginners about. Performed between the seated postures, it can mean lowering from plank forty or more times in a session. That is a serious amount of repeated shoulder work, more than most upper body training sessions contain, and it is the source of a large share of the injuries this system is known for.

Most ashtanga is not taught by a teacher at the front demonstrating. It is taught Mysore style, which is the most interesting teaching format in modern yoga and is badly explained almost everywhere.

In a Mysore room, everybody practises the same sequence but each person is at a different point in it, moving at their own pace, in silence. The teacher walks between mats, adjusting one person, giving another the next posture, holding a third back. You are given new postures one at a time, when the teacher judges you ready, and not before. A beginner might spend the first weeks doing only the sun salutations and the closing postures, which takes twenty five minutes, and that is a complete practice for that person at that time.

This is, structurally, a very good way to teach, and it is much closer to how yoga was historically transmitted than a led class is. It also produces something rare: practitioners who genuinely know their own practice and can do it alone in a hotel room, because they have never once followed anybody. Whatever my reservations about the physical demands of the system, the Mysore format is the thing I would steal from it if I were designing a school from scratch.

Very hard, physically, and this should be said plainly rather than softened. The pace, the heat and the repeated weight bearing put it well above the intensity of a slow held practice. Measured energy cost in traditional hatha postures mostly sits between one and two metabolic equivalents, which is gentle activity; flowing practice of the ashtanga type sits in the range that counts as moderate intensity exercise, and a full primary series is a substantial workout by any definition.

The injury record is the honest reservation. The main patterns are hamstring attachment strain from the volume of deep forward bending, shoulder trouble from the repeated lowering, wrist pain from the load, and lower back irritation from the deep backbends late in the sequence. None of this is inevitable, and much of it comes from two features of the culture rather than the postures: the traditional reluctance to use props, and the pressure to progress through the series. A good teacher removes both of those problems. A poor one amplifies them.

Research on the system is thin and mostly small. A randomised trial of a twelve week Ashtanga Vinyasa programme in Portuguese air force trainee pilots reported within group improvements in general health, grip strength and lung function measures, which is worth knowing and is a small study of a specific population. It is not a basis for claiming this style is better than any other, and I would be cautious of anybody who tells you it is.

This is the style with the clearest yes and no answers of any on this site.

• You like structure, repetition and measurable progress, and you already have a strong body. Ashtanga, Mysore style, with a teacher who lets you take years over the series.
• You travel and want a practice you can do anywhere without a video. Ashtanga. Nothing else gives you this as reliably.
• You are over fifty, stiff, or coming back to movement. Not ashtanga, or not yet. Start with a held practice and consider it in a year if you still want to.
• You have a shoulder, wrist, hamstring or lower back problem. Not ashtanga. The volume of loading in the linking movements is the specific issue.
• You want variety, or you get bored easily. Not ashtanga. The sequence never changes and that is the point.
• You want the fitness without the risk profile. A led vinyasa class with a teacher who corrects, or hatha plus running. See hatha vs vinyasa for that comparison.

My verdict. I admire this system and I would not send most of my students to it. What I admire is the seriousness, the Mysore teaching format, and the fact that it produces people with a real daily practice rather than a class attendance habit. What I will not defend is a tradition that historically treated props as a weakness and pushed people through a fixed order regardless of the body in front of it, and the pattern of hamstring attachment pain that comes out of rooms like that is well enough known to have given me a settled view about it. If you are twenty five, strong and drawn to it, go. If you are fifty and stiff and drawn to it, go and watch a Mysore room first, then come back to me in a year when you can hold a standing posture for a minute without your knee collapsing inward, and I will tell you honestly whether I think you are ready.

Ashtanga is not taught here. The classes here are not labelled by style at all: the hour covers asana, pranayama and relaxation, taught slowly, and there is no Mysore room, no set series and no expectation of a daily attendance.

That means this page cannot sell you anything, which is a good position from which to write about a style. It also means I am describing a system I have watched from outside rather than one I have practised daily. I have taken that into account in what is written above and I would rather say it than let you assume otherwise.

If the appeal of ashtanga for you is the discipline of a fixed daily practice, that is available without the physical risk. A short, unchanging home sequence practised every morning does the same psychological work: the seven day beginner plan is built on exactly that principle, and the Surya Namaskar page gives you the one sequence that ashtanga itself opens with. If it is the intensity you want, that is a different conversation and an honest one to have with a good local ashtanga teacher.

The primary series is a fixed list, and knowing the first part of it tells you most of what you need to decide.

It opens with five rounds of Surya Namaskar in one form and five in another, which is already more sun salutations than most people have done in a month. Adho Mukha Svanasana appears dozens of times as a transition rather than a pose, Uttanasana and Trikonasana arrive in the standing block, and the seated block is built around Paschimottanasana and its variations. The closing sequence includes Sarvangasana, Halasana, Matsyasana and Sirsasana, in that order, every single time.

That closing list is the reason I am careful about recommending this to anybody over forty or to anyone with a neck. Four of those five appear in the avoid lists on yoga for beginners over 40 and yoga for neck and shoulder pain. The breath used throughout is Ujjayi, and it is the part of the method that transfers usefully to any other class.