Beginning a yoga practice can feel daunting. There are many articles out there that will tell you what to expect from different styles of yoga, what to wear, what to bring, etc, but I’d like to focus a little more specifically on things that new students should be taught when starting a Mysore-style Ashanga practice. My hope is that I teach in such a way that students who have come to a few classes with me will hear all of these things explicitly, as well as absorb them implicitly-- so this post is a way for me to organize my thoughts as well as to share them with others (including teachers who want their students to have a good experience and stay safe, and folks who are not “new” but nonetheless need to hear this).
The practice that you learn on your first day is a full and complete practice that you can always come back to.
If you are new to Ashtanga, on your first day in a Mysore room you will likely do the following: a number of sun salutations, either just the “A” version or both the “A” and “B” versions, then a couple of seated, cross-legged finishing postures, and then ten minutes of rest on your back. That’s it! Depending on various factors, the teacher might have you do a bit more. But it will likely be a “short” practice, maybe 20-30 minutes, with lots of repetition, If you were to do JUST THIS, every day for the rest of your life, my friend, your yoga practice would be valid and good. Now, usually we learn more than this. Our practice expands, we learn more poses, we spend more time on the mat. Great! But often with more learning comes more forgetting, and we forget that this first day when we were doing “just” sun salutations we were also practicing yoga. We start thinking that if we don’t do the whole A-Z of poses that it’s not worth it to do anything, or if we go through a period in our life where A-Z is not possible, that we are not really doing yoga. If we take some time during an injury or parenting small children or a busy time at work to do just A, B and C, then we can’t really call what we’re doing Ashtanga. I firmly disagree with this, as do maaany (most? all?) of my Mysore-teaching colleagues. Doing all the poses is not what classifies this practice as yoga, or as Ashtanga yoga. Your internal focus, the practice of concentration, the quality of attention to the sensation in your body-- these all contribute on a much deeper level to the question of “what is yoga?”So even after you’ve learned more, if you go back to doing less for a day or a week or a year or a decade, you don’t need to renounce your self-identification (if this is important to you-- that’s a topic for another day) as an Ashtangi.
2. Your teacher is human
There is something sacred about the teacher-student relationship. I try to honor it as a teacher and I have deep gratitude for it as a student. But the flaw in the system is that when you are trying to be a good student and trust the teacher and practice with devotion it’s easy to forget that your teacher (yes, yours) is, in fact, a human being with biases and desires and an ego. For those of you just beginning, this sounds really blatantly obvious, doesn’t it? SOAK IN THE OBVIOUSNESS. Learn this well, right now, so you don’t have to re-learn it later. Your teacher is not omniscient, they are not omnipotent, they are not always right. Choosing a teacher is a whole other subject, but once you’ve chosen one you trust to teach you something, stay awake in the relationship, ask questions when you need clarification, communicate when something’s not working for you. I love it when students ask me “why?” questions. If I ever am tempted to answer “because that’s the method” it makes me check myself and dig a little deeper, and isn’t that good for everyone -- you, me, the other students too?
3. “Listen to your body” is a really hard, vague directive to follow. Try this instead.
Don’t do it if it hurts. Now, that’s still oversimplified, but it’s a great step one. Yoga is not supposed to cause pain. It helps us to tolerate discomfort, yes, but it is a misinterpretation to think that if we push through painful positions we will somehow come out the other side a better yogi. Nope-- you’ll come out the other side an injured yogi. The Yoga Sutras say heyam dukham anagatam, or, future suffering is to be avoided. While Patanjali likely was not referring to backbends, it’s still a lesson worth internalizing. What the practice of yoga does for us is helps us to observe the pain or suffering or turmoil (and here we could be talking about your physical body or your mind, both types of pain are real) and react appropriately to it. Coming out of a pose that is causing pain is a very appropriate reaction. And if you’re not sure what’s pain and what’s discomfort, that discernment will come with time. Come out of the pose for now. If your teacher is worth their salt they’ll be able to help you navigate modifications or work-arounds that will help.
4. Don’t learn yoga from random people on the internet.
Back in the day, it was the Ashtanga EZ-Board. Now you can take your pick: Reddit threads, the Ashtanga Home Practitioners group on facebook, et cetera et cetera. As long as there have been people with opinions, bad advice has been given. This is not to pooh-pooh the internet itself-- it can be a wonderful tool-- or to imply that no good teacher gives advice on the internet-- plenty do! But it’s hard to discern the good over all the noise, especially if you are asking a question you truly don’t know the answer to. If you ask a random group of folks “How should I modify my practice when I’m pregnant?” you’ll hear everything from “don’t practice at all because you might miscarry!” to “I did third series my whole pregnancy and now my baby goes to Harvard.” Usually, the answer to a yoga-related question (other than, say, what new yoga mat should I get? What pants won’t ride up in supta kurmasana?-- go ahead and crowdsource those) involves a lot more nuance than a facebook comment will allow, and you’d do well to find a teacher-- whom you have vetted-- and ask her directly. And if you HAVE a teacher you trust but she has given you an answer you don’t like, have a conversation with her, rather than looking on facebook for an answer you like better. The result: deeper learning, less confusion.
5. Strive for continuity, rather than perfection.
It’s a common story: a new student falls in love with Ashtanga. “This is my kind of yoga!” they excitedly proclaim. “I’m going to practice every single day.” The honeymoon phase of the practice is so lovely, and practitioners at this stage are sincere and inspiring. I love watching this stage unfold, but when I see someone in the throes of the honeymoon stage I always make sure to remind them of the following:
This is meant to be a lifelong practice. It is absolutely fine to enjoy practice and soak up the thrills you get from learning a new posture, feeling your body breathe in new ways, experiencing a new kind of calm in your mind. But if you stick with it (and I hope you do!) you will not feel ecstatic every time you practice. You might get bored. You might feel stiff sometimes. Your mind might race and refuse to settle. This method does not follow a linear progression of stiff to open, crazy to calm, weak to strong. Ups and downs are inevitable. So if this practice resonates with you, know that IF you can use it now-- tomorrow-- six months from now-- to create equanimity when unfavorable conditions apply in a small way, like you’re feeling tired or your neck is stiff, then it will sustain you when you go through big life upsets.
How do you create equanimity? By making the decision (and it IS a decision, not a goal) to practice regularly (have a number in mind), no matter the conditions. Practice when you’re tired-- see how it feels, skip postures if you need to. Practice when you’re injured-- change anything that causes pain so it doesn’t cause pain. Practice when you’re sad-- give yourself permission to spend extra time in an asana that feels good, simply because it feels good and you deserve that. If you strive for perfection every day, you will miss out on opportunities to truly nurture yourself. Looking back at the continuity of a regular practice is, frankly, way better than looking back at a sporadic practice where you really nailed that handstand every single time. Ten years ago, my mother passed away and I was wrecked. My yoga practice was my sustenance during that time. I had a hard time talking about the loss, even to people I cared about. Because I had already laid the foundation of years of daily practice, though, it wasn’t even a question that I would continue. It was so very healing for me to have the space of an hour or two each day when all I had to do was move and breathe. I have no idea now what poses I was focusing on during that time, or how well I did them, or if I skipped things, or if I missed a day or two. The continuity was there, and it was absolutely due to a decision I made early on that regular practice was more important to me than perfect practice.
If you see some themes emerging in these points, then you’re starting to pick up what I’m putting down. Enjoy your practice. Trust yourself. Be in relationship with your teachers. Know that if you want this practice with you for the long haul, that decision is entirely in your hands.