AshtangaNews Ashtanga Yoga Matters (as taught by Sri K Pattabhi Jois)

Four thoughtful Ashtangis writing and posting photos in one Mysore blog? Sound too good to be true? Well, it’s not.

If you want to get four perspectives about practicing at AYRI in Mysore, India at once, this is the blog to read.

Anne Finstad, a long-time friend of ours and dedicated Ashtangi, has been writing wonderfully about practice and her trips to Mysore for a few years.

In early 2004, Anne and three students from Yoga Is Youthfulness went to practice at AYRI. Even though I didn’t know any of them at the time, Anne, Einar, Daniel & Khalid gave me a real insight into what Mysore is like through their warm style, informative posts and great pictures. Every new post was greatly anticipated - I was hanging onto their every word.

Here’s are some of my favorite photos from the blog (by Daniel):

Daniel writes: This is a camel a man was walking near my house.

A fruit called chikus (not potatoes)

Now (January 2006), Anne is back in Mysore and she’s started a fascinating new blog.

Ashtangis don’t practice yoga on Moon Days, also known to muggles as the days of the full moon and the new moon. There are usually two Moon Days in a month, and they are a welcome rest when you have a six-day-a-week practice.

Tim Miller published both a schedule of Moon Days for the current year as well as a very good explanation of why we don’t practice on Moon Days on his site.

To summarize Tim, because people are about 70% water, the phases of the moon affect us, just like they do the tides. The full moon and the new moon have the strongest influence on our energy:

Practicing Ashtanga Yoga over time makes us more attuned to natural cycles. Observing moon days is one way to recognize and honor the rhythms of nature so we can live in greater harmony with it.

According to astronomers, this is an “exact” full moon, or the moment when the moon is 100% full.

Want to really plan ahead? Use this schedule of moon days that spans the next several years.

If you have a website, you can add the neat little tool in the right sidebar of AshtangaNews.com to your webpage, too.

New York 2000

With Sri K. Pattabhis Jois’ 2006 Ashtanga World Tour coming up, here are some favorite photos of past Ashtanga World Tours:

New York 2003

• London 2001

• San Francisco 2002
• London 2003
• New York 2000
• New York 2003
• Los Angeles 2002

(By the way, I took the San Francisco 2002 photos.)

Unfortunately, these days it’s getting harder to take photos of the World Tour as permission is rarely granted.

As a bonus, here are two films about Ashtanga yoga which include footage of Ashtanga World Tour stops:

• Ashtanga, NY takes place during the New York stop in 2001. Highly Recommended.
• World Tour 2000 takes place in Maui.

Ashtanga.com has a great list tour photo links in the ashtangi album.

We also wrote about the 2006 Ashtanga World Tour in a prior post.

London 2001

A sea of Downward Dogs
2002 Ashtanga World Tour, San Francisco

Something about practicing with all those Ashtangis in classes led by with Guruji, Saraswati and Sharath at the 2002 Ashtanga World Tour really stuck with me & I highly recommend that all Ashtangis experience this, if you have the chance.

For 2006, the Ashtanga World Tour cities and dates are:

March 5-9 in London,
March 12-23 in San Francisco and
March 26-April 7 in New York city.

The 2006 tour is shorter than prior years, which stopped in more places, such as Los Angeles and Hawaii. At every tour, there is a persistent rumor that it is the last World Tour. Hopefully, this is not the case as we cherish Guruji’s presence.

More photos from Ashtanga World Tours can be found here.

Thank you, Guruji.
San Francisco 2002

Here is a little secret for San Franciscans: if you take the Half-Primary class, which will probably follow the Full Primary class, you can come early and sit upstairs and watch. Be very quiet while you’re up there, so you don’t wreck the secret for future Ashtanga World Tour-ists. You do have to get up extra early in the morning, but I did it a few times and I really enjoyed watching all those great students practicing together.

Ashtanga yoga is probably the best represented style of yoga on the Internet; this may have to do with the types of personalities it attracts… Here is an overview of Ashtanga Yoga resources on the web:

Sri K. Pattabhis Jois’ Ashtanga Yoga Reseach Institute in Mysore, India is the official website of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and the Ashtanga vinyasa system.
This is the place to go first.

Sharath Rangaswamy, Pattabhis Jois’ grandson and the Assistant Director of AYRI, also has a website. Here you can find information about practicing with Sharath, his workshops and bio. I think it’s definitely one of the best looking websites about Ashtanga.

Ashtanga.com: the main resource for authorized and certified teachers and their classes and workshops. Also, has a good selection of articles plus has an online store with a well-picked selection of Ashtanga products.

Arjuna in Vasisthasana

For sets of photos of the Ashtanga series (1st through 4th), we like AshtangaYoga.info, the site of German teacher Arjuna.






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Ashtangi.net features many, many blogs from Ashtanga students. In particular, many students practicing in Mysore, India write blogs here. Useful, if you’re thinking of going to Mysore.

I like the writings of a couple particularly thoughtful Ashtangis: Alan Little and Ross Settles. We’ve linked to other blogs we like on our blogroll (in the sidebar to the right).

For online groups, two Yahoo groups have very large membership, so that’s where we go: AshtangaYoga and Shala.

And, finally, there’s AshtangaNews.com!