Ashtanga Yoga Classes Southampton

Ashtanga has been around since the middle of the 20th century and has its roots in the city of Mysore [now Mysuru]  in India.

Ashtangas story begins with the teacher Krishnamacharya.

Krishnamacharya was significant in the development of modern postural yoga in the mid-20th century. He was the first yoga teacher to link postures together and to flow between them thus taking the emphasis away from the more internal aspects of yoga.

He was based at the palace in Mysore – now Mysuru where he taught yoga to the prince, his family and guests. He and his students also demonstrated poses.

The prince was keen on yoga and meditation but also in common with many people at the time who were also interested in keeping fit – Scandinavian gymnastics [a series of synchronised movements invented by Ling], military drills and bodybuilding.

So in one part of the palace, there were people meditating and elsewhere there were people carrying out a coordinated keep-fit regime.

They met somewhere in the middle and Ashtanga and vinyasa flow were born. You can certainly see the similarities if you look at Surya Namaskar As and how similar they are to Burpees.

Krishnamacharya had other famous students who went on to develop their own styles of yoga – Indra Devi, BKS Iyengar, Desikachar and AG Mohan.

Constituent Parts

There are 6 series of postures in total – primary, intermediate, and then advanced ABC and D. The series get progressively more difficult. The first is said to be for students, the second for teachers and the remaining 4 for demonstration purposes only.

They all consist of

1. Opening chant

2. sun salutations of which there are 2 styles Surya Namaskar A and Surya Namaskar B.
A is to get the body moving and B is to heat the body and get the heart and breathing going

3. standing postures

4. Closing Sequence

5. Closing chant

6. Savasansa 

The only difference between them is the sequence between the standing and the closing which changes depending on the series.

The Primary Series is called Yoga Chikitsa – or yoga therapy “It is a healing process of cleansing and toning for the body mind and senses “- David Swenson. It consists of forward folds, twists, balances and some hip openings.

The Intermediate Series is called Nadi Shodana – or nerve cleansing. It is called this as the focus is on backbends and we have many nerves in our spine. We move into deeper hip openers – legs behind the head for example, and more inversions and headstand variations.

My teacher says that once you have 6 months of regular and consistent primary series experience you should start to add the intermediate series as it balances your practice. Other more traditional teachers may have different requirements before teaching an intermediate student series.

Postures are held for 5 breaths although there are some exceptions in the closing sequence where poses are kept for 8 or 10 breaths.

Methods of teaching Ashtanga Yoga

Traditionally Ashtanga was taught -with one teacher and one or a small number of students receiving individual attention and only being given the next posture when they had mastered the previous one. 

The students would work through the sequence at their own pace. This method is called self-practice or “Mysore” style. Ashtanga started to become very popular, and the class sizes got too big to cope with the demands of that method.

A new method was developed – a led class where the teacher leads all the students through the postures at the same time – more like the group classes we have today.

Each class begins and ends with a chant in Sanskrit.

Ashtanga teachers do not practice the sequence with the class unlike many other styles of yoga although we may demonstrate certain poses.

We either do a counted class where we count each movement each inhale and exhale in Sanskrit and count the 5 breaths in English or we do a full talk-through or a bit of both.

Traditionally it is practised 6 days a week – initially with Saturday off. There is nothing significant in this day. Most practitioners honour one day off a week but not always the Saturday. The important thing is to keep the day off regularly. We also do not practice Ashtanga on moon days when there is a full or new moon but having said that however a lot of people will do something – gentle restorative, meditation, pranayama etc.

For more information on the Opening and Closing Ashtanga chants, read my article here.