15) Completed my 100th Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice at Home

I completed my formal 100th Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice at home on Fri 20 May 2011 . Though my informal introduction to Ashtanga started in year 2004 itself but the enthusiasm did not last long at that time as I was more keen on strengthening my Sivananda Style of Yoga practice especially after I finished my Advanced Yoga Teachers training in 2004 .

After 2004 it was in July 2010 that I restarted exploration to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and started doing it in bits and pieces watching you tube videos etc and I took the formal step of Learning Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga from Louise Ellis in Sept/Oct 2010 in Rishikesh .So I consider the month of Oct 2010   to be my starting point  of  formal Initiation to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga .For more details about this refer my earlier blogs about how I came to Ashtanga Vinyasa practice .Though I used to record my daily Ashtanga Practice , it was never done in a very formal way and hence from Nov 1 , 2010 onwards I started to formally document my Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice and from Nov 2010- May 2011 i.e nearly after 7 months I have completed 100 Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice sessions .I am not daily practicing Ashtanga and my current Yoga Practice is a combination Of Ashtanga Vinyasa , Sivananda Style Hatha Yoga , Iyengar Style Hatha Yoga and Pranayama practice and I intend to keep it like that for some more months before I do a complete Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice .
My Ashtanga Vinaysa Practice so far :
In the first 100 practice sessions , my ashtanga vinyasa practice was of the following format :
Surya Namaskar A-5 , B-5
All standing sequences
Sitting poses up to Navasan ( I used to do Vinyasas only between postures but not between sides )
Conluding postures .
Savasan

In the above schedule I used to do Manadatory Surya Namaskar and all the standing poses and also do the concluding poses . Sitting poses I did not do much and even when I did ,I did not do the Vinyasa in between sides and just did between the poses .

Reason for going slow in my ashtanga Vinyasa practice :
When I started my Ashtanga Vinyasa practice under Louse Ellis in Oct 2010 I was yet to fully recover from my severe ankle injury that I had in April 2010 and as Ashtanga Vinyasa practice involved lot of jumps I was very keen not to aggravate my ankle injury and  hence went slow .Also since I came from the Sivananda Style of Classical Hatha Yoga which was totally different to the way Ashtnaga Vinyasa Yoga was practiced I had a tough time coming to terms with these changes .By the way I wish to point out that I still love the Sivananda Style of Hatha Yoga practice and I still keep in touch with it as I find it very relaxing and sometimes I do it in evening to have a more relaxed sleep at night.

Future of my Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice :
I have no blue print or time frame for my Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga practice .I just want to enjoy my daily practice without injuring myself and I am following my own route of building my own Ashtanga Vinyasa practice which differs slightly from the way  it is being currently followed at AYRI .This is my own research in to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and while I do keep Guruji's/Sharath's  class format as the standard refernce I am willing to have my own approach to master the primay series first and then the other series .So things like going to Mysore to practice in the shala under gudiance of Sharath , getting Ashtanga Certification from AYRI etc etc are not on my current agenda . Might be it will change after few months and I am open to any changes that comes its way.

14) Questions regarding the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Practice

I am writing this post after going through the blog post of another blogger Claudia who had written about a similar topic in her blog titled "New Changes in the Primary Series of Ashtanga" . If one looks at the Ashtanaga Vinyasa Yoga format one can see to it that it was never a static one and had been evolving over the times . These days there is lot of confusion in Ashtanga Circles regarding the following questions :

1) When to start secondary series ? Should one wait till the primary series is over and then start secondary or should one start practicing secondary along with primary ?

2) How many times Surya Namaskar A,B ? Is it :5,5, 3,3,5,3 ?

3) Should one practice Vinaysa between the sides or just between the postures ?

4) Some postures that were in the past in Primary series is not here now and some that were not in past are included now in the series and which is the right approach ?

5) Should one practice a mini series as given by David Swenson in case there is less time or should one strictly stick to the classical ashtanga sequence without changing the Order ?

6) Should one wait for mastering a posture before going to the next one or should one just continue to practice a set sequence without bothering about whether one masters a particular posture or not ?

7) Should one use props or modified positions as given by David Swenson or should one avoid props of any kind ?

8) When should one start Pranayama?

and like this I can go on and on regarding the type of questions that exist with regard to the Ashtanga Vinaysa Sequence and every senior teacher of Ashtanga Vinyasa will have their own answers to these questions and no 2 teachers may speak in the same way .This is because each teacher had his or her own back ground before coming to Guruji  ( some totally new to Yoga , some had been through other styles like Sivananda , Iyengar etc ) and some came in 70s when there were very few foreigners , some came in 80s when little more foreigners came and some in 90s when Ashtanga was getting more popular and the classes at Mysore become more crowded and for each person Guruji's approach differed  .My own Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Louise Ellis said to me that  when she started Ashtanga in 1990s said that Guruji after starting   primary  with her quickly put her in to  secondary as she had previously 20 years experience in Sivananda as well as Iyengar Yoga .So there is no standard answer to any of the questions listed above .It all depends upon one's previous yoga back ground , one's  flexibility and fitness levels and one's own commitment to the path of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga .

My feeling is that one should not go to either extremes while practicing Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  i.e never be too fanatical about the tradition  that you blindly do the practice without applying common sense and also never disrespect the tradition by doing things as per your own whims and wishes in the name of creativity(i.e mixing various styles in to Ashtanga )  or so called listening to one's body ( not everyone is competent to do this ) . Either extreme approach is dangerous and will lead to either injury or frustration later .

Ashtanga Vinayasa Yoga is a form of serious yoga practice and one will not get answers to all the questions by few days or few weeks of practice or by attending various workshops  and one must have a minimum commitment of 10 years of daily dedicated practice to understand all its subtle aspects .

So to start with it does not matter whether one follows the David Swenson's approach , Sharath's approach , Richar Freeman's Approach , John Scott's approach etc etc as long as one keeps a daily commitment to the Ashtanga practice and go slowly and steadily , use the modifications/props when required and later drop  it all together when you reach a stage where you can do the entire  practice on your own effortlessly using the proper co-ordination of breath , drishtis , bandhas and movement .

So that should be the goal : i.e an effortless practice of the entire series with the proper co-ordination of breath , drishtis , bandhas and to achieve this goal one must go slowly but steadily keeping the above points (i.e breath , drishtis , bandhas ) in focus during the practice without getting side tracked on other asana related issues which I feel is minor in nature and of not any serious importance . Many people in an eagerness to master the series go about practicing the series with the focus on asanas and on the jumps more( where there is lot of  counter opinions )   without giving importance to the other aspects of the practice : breath , drishtis , bandhas ( where there is very less controversy )which are  very much vital to the understanding of the complete Ashtanga Vinaysa Yoga practice as a whole .

So while the outer forms of the Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice may vary with time but its essence i.e co-ordinated practice with  breath , drishtis and bandhas will always remain same and hence one should  not get side tracked with these minor issues regarding asanas and jumps  and learn to focus on the broader integrated practice and reap the benefits of the Complete Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga practice . This is the essence of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Practice according to all leading Ashtanga Teachers right from Krishnamacharya ,Guruji up to Sharath  now .

13) My First Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Teacher - Louise Ellis

Today i.e 4th April is the birthday of Louise Ellis my first Ashtanga Vinayasa Yoga Teacher and I dedicate this blog post to her .Kindly go through my blog post "No:10) My first Mysore Ashtanga Yoga Class experience " regarding how I started my Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey with Louise Ellis .
Though my training with Louise Ellis was a short one but I consider it very valuable and treat it as a form of formal initiation for me for my Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey . I wanted to get initiated in to my Ashtanga practice only through Louise Ellis because I was  from a Sivananda Background and she also started her Yoga journey first with  the Sivananda system and Rishikesh being the place where Swami Sivanananda( my first Yoga Guru )  started his spiritual mission , I wanted my formal Ashtanga Inititaion to be at Rishikesh instead of at Mysore .
I am right now maintaining my own personal Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice at my own home and happy doing that .If time and situation permits I may go for further studies with Louise Ellis at Rishikesh or go to Mysore to study under Sharath or Saraswathi .The beauty of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  is that it teaches you to be self reliant and develop your own inner discipline and that is what I am doing right now i.e focusing on developing my own daily dedicated Ashtanga Vinyasa practice .Since I come from a different yogic background ( i.e Sivananda Style ) , I am finding it quite challenging to adapt to the  Ashtanga Vinyasa style and hence going bit slow but steady in my Ashtanga Vinaysa practice and do not want to rush through as I believe that rushing through will result in injury and moreover we have the time tested saying "Slow and steady wins the race " and I follow that  principle for my own Ashtanga practice.
I am very much thankful to Louise Ellis for being the first  teacher  to formally initiate me in to the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  practice and pray the almighty to bless her with long life , good health and abundant prosperity to keep inspiring many people around the world to take up the practice of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and in the process help heal the world.

More about Louise Ellis :
Louise Ellis has been a practitioner of yoga for 40 years and has been teaching for 35. She began studying in Mysore with her Guru Sri K Pattabhi Jois in 1993 and is one of the few women to have been certified by him to teach the Ashtanga Vinyasa system. Having started out with the study of traditional hatha yoga, pranayama and philosophy under Swami Vishnudevanda in 1971, her background includes several diverse yoga systems in which she has both practiced and taught. Her individualized approach to teaching centers on the development of pratyahara and ease in daily practice through the use of breath, dristhi and an attitude of surrender and bhakti. She maintains a dedicated daily practice and continues to travel  extensively in India and around the world to teach. American by birth she is currently based in Rishikesh, India, where she  offers an ongoing Mysore program.

For more details about Louise Ellis and her classes refer her website :
http://www.ashtangacenter.com/index.html

12) My Various Blogs

Here is a list of the various blogs that I have created right from 2006 up till now . They reflect the various interests that I have and how those interests kept evolving over the last few years  .I am not active on all the blogs and right now focused more on My Ashtanga Blog ( http://myashtangajournal.blogspot.com/) as right now that is what keeping me occupied more and it will be like this for the next few more years . However I do keep updating other blogs as and when I have some interesting information to be shared in those blogs .

This post is basically to let people know my varied interests and how it kept evolved over a period of time and what prompted me to start new blogs and also to know what my current interest is .

http://dailyspiritualmessage.blogspot.com/
1)Spiritual Messages related to Nonduality
This site deals with spiritual quotes and messages from various Spiritual Masters like Swami Sivananda , Swami Vishnu devananda , Osho , Eckhart Tolle , Ramana Maharishi , J .Krishnamurthy ,Papaji , Vernon Howard , Atmananda Krishna Menon , Jean Klein etc .Most of the quotes and teachings here reflect non dual teachings

This was my first ever blog that I started in 2006 when I took to blogging and it had a mixture of yoga and Vedanta related messages ( non dual messages ) but since I felt  the messages of yoga and vedanta conflict with each other ( as yoga involves effort and practice and considers mind to be real and  vedanta involves no practices and considers mind itself to be a non entity ) I decided to start a separate yoga blog ( eyogateacher.blogspot.com ) for my yoga related messages and kept this blog only to deal with pure non dual teachings .

http://eyogateacher.blogspot.com/
2)My Yoga Blog
This blog presents a collection of my thoughts ,views related to Classical Hatha  Yoga and related topics like Diet ,Meditation,Fitness ,Health ,Relaxation ,Breathing and anything to do with improving physical and mental health .

This was my first yoga blog that I started as a Sivananda Yoga Teacher and was started mainly to distinguish my yoga messages from the non dual messages given by me in the other blog ( dailyspiritualmessage.blogspot.com ) . As I am now practicing ashtanga I did not want to confuse my Ashtanga experience in this  normal yoga blog and  started a separate blog for my ashtanga experience ( myashtangajournal.blogspot.com ) and this blog will continue to have articles / matter related to the Sivananda Style of Classical Hatha Yoga and  other health related topics like diet , relaxation , meditation ,  etc .Though I am currently  learning Ashtanga , I continue to be involved in the teaching of Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga and hence this will contain articles related to Classical Hatha Yoga from time to time .
Note : up to Post 50. this blog had a sort of structured and one dimensional approach of just sharing about Classical Yoga ( Sivananda Style ) but from post 51 onwards this blog is taking an unstructured and multi dimensional approach and deals with issues related to not only yoga but other things happening in my life as well in society .So keep this in mind when you go through the blog .I have explained the intentions behind this new approach in my blog post No.53) A New Approach to this blog .

http://movementtherapies.blogspot.com/
3)Movement Therapies
This blog is to share information about the various Movement therapies like Alexander Technique , Feldenkrais Method , Pilates ,Tai Chi , Continuum movement,Ideokinesis, Hellerwork etc .
This blog I started in year 2010  when I was deeply in quest of addressing some issues of injury related to my lower back ( in 2009 ) and ankle ( in 2010 ) and  while I started it with Pilates , it went to Tai Chi and then I came across various movement therapies and felt that it is high time I start a blog  exclusively for the same and while I am not active in this as I am right now buys with my Ashtanga Vinayasa Yoga but definitely this is a blog I will get active in due course as I believe that each movement therapy has some excellent way to address  our injuries and provide healing .

http://livingaconsciouslife.blogspot.com/
4)Living a Conscious Life
The aim of this blog is to help those seeking to live a Conscious life ( a life in present )point out the best available resources(teachers, sayings , book /cd /DVD review , retreats , courses etc) with regard to Conscious Living from sources world over .
This is again a sort of extension of my Non Dual blog and right now not very active as I still continue to share messages related to non duality in my first blog ( i.e dailyspiritualmessage.blogspot.com ) but will keep this blog updated as and when I get some interesting inputs .

http://myashtangajournal.blogspot.com/
5)My Ashtanga Journal
This blog describes my Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Journey .

This is my most recent and currently active blog . As I am new to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  and wanted to document my  Ashtanga experiences exclusively I created this separate blog and this blog will be active as Ashtanga Vinaysa Yoga  is my current activity and will remain so for the next few years .

11) Moving from One Yoga System to Another to be a complete Movement Teacher

Some of my friends who are Certified  Sivananda  Yoga teachers were surprised to see me starting a new blog  related to my Ashtanga Vinaysa Journey and my new interest in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  .There is a reason for their surprise as I have been associated with the Sivananda System for more than 10 years and have completed all their 3 levels of Certifications i.e TTC ( Teachers Training Course ) , ATTC ( Advanced Teachers Training Course ) and SI ( Sadhana Intensive ) .I told them that I have elaborated very well in my earlier postings about this transition from one Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and that this transition is only for my own personal sadhana and to enrich myself with another system which I will start teaching at a later date when I feel competent to do so and that I still continue to teach the Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga . I still  believe that the Sivananda System  is the best starting point for any one to start their yoga journey and also the best system for those busy house holders and professionals who have less time to spare for their yoga practice on a weekly basis and who need a simple and straight forward method to do yoga to keep their body fit and mind calm .

Also I wish to point out that I never believe in hopping one yoga style to another just like that and I made a transition from Sivananda to Ashtanga only after investing 10 years in the Sivananda System and also after completing all their 3 levels of training and that gave me lot of insights regarding its positive points as well as some of its limitations and my transition to Ashtanga  was  to only to overcome the limitations that are in the Sivananda System to make myself a more complete teacher .Here I wish to point out that neither Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga  is free of limitations .All Yoga styles have some limitations in one form or the other and no system can completely address all sections of the population for all of its needs . It does not matter whether it is Sivananda , Iyengar , Ashtanga or Bikram .All Yoga Schools have their own pluses as well as their own limitations and as a Yoga Teacher I feel that I need to equip myself with as many variety  of styles as possible to address  the needs of various types of students .So I will not just stop with Ashtanga but will continue to learn Yin Yoga , Restorative Yoga and why only Yoga , I plan to learn other movement therapies like Pilates , Tai Chi , Feldenkrais Method ,Undulation method etc and be a complete Movement  Teacher /Therapist and I know that this cant be done in a year or two and it involves a life time of learning and I am prepared for the same .I love learning and I am very curious about various Movement therapies beyond Yoga as I believe that the human body is very complex as well as mysterious and no single yoga style can help address the needs of all the people .I am saying this because I found even great Yoga Teachers like BKS Iyengar ,Krishnamacharya  could not solve the problems of people due to their rigid "my method is right "approach  and that resulted in students going to other teachers / other movement systems to have their problems solved . Today many of the Popular Yoga Systems have become institutionalized and hence to maintain the purity of their institutions / teachings they need to be rigid with they teach and I accept that . That is why I never pointed out the limitations of the Sivananda System when I was a student / teacher there and I will never point out the limitations of the Ashtanga Vinyasa System while I am learning the same now . As I am only an individual and not representing any System / Institution I feel quite free to pursue learning  as many styles as possible , of course learning and digesting one at a time and not gobbling all at one go and I want to be known as a Complete Movement Teacher .I believe that best starting point for any healing is to start with the body , more specifically through body movement and that was why Yoga was popular in the last century but now as our lifestyles have changed a lot  and we encounter different form of problems both in the body and mind and sometimes the problem in the body is due to a problem in mind and vice versa and sometimes it is due to both and hence in such cases as a Yoga teacher I feel that I need to have as many tools at my disposal to understand the problem of a person and suggest a suitable remedy  . Before I conclude I give an real life  example as to why I want to have this multi dimensional  approach .

Everyone knows that Krishnamacharya was a great Yoga teacher and he himself had various skills like asanas , pranayama ,mantras , ayurveda etc to treat a person and did cure the ailment of many people who came to him but once the great rebel spiritual teacher U.G.Krishnamurti came to him for treatment regarding some mysterious energy flow in his body that was causing him discomfort and Krishnamacharya was employing alll his yoga skills in treating U.G.Krishnamurti and making him do various asanas but it did not have any positive effect on U.G and U.G got frustrated and left Krishnamacharya as he felt that Asanas wont do him any good and  tried doing tai chi to get some relief .

In another case BKS Iyengar was teaching J Krishnamurti ( JK ) and JK did not like his rigid approach to asanas and preferred the gentler style of Desikachar for his yoga practice and Vanda Scravelli who was herself a very dedicated BKS Iyengar Practitioner /teacher  finally quit the Iyengar System as she felt it was all wrong and while she was grateful to BKS Iyengar for putting her on the path of Yoga ,she felt that time had come to discover her own approach to Yoga and she developed her own unstructured approach to Yoga and did not want it to be named as any style though it is popularly referred to as Scravelli Yoga by her students .

I am giving the examples of Krishnamacharya as well as BKS Iyengar not to belittle them ( in fact I hold both of them in very high respect ) but to point out as to how even great yoga teachers like them could not address the needs of all the people who came to them . So let us not be rigid in our approach to yoga and adopt a flexible approach to it without compromising the discipline .

10) My first Mysore Ashtanga Yoga Class experience

When I first started to investigate about Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga after completing my Sivananda Advanced Yoga Teachers Training Course ( ATTC ) in 2004 , I came across Louise Ellis through the net .It was quite an accident that I came across her name at the ashtanga.com site and when I went through her website I was thrilled that she too had a back ground at the Sivananda System and had done the Sivananda Yoga Teachers Training Course (TTC ) in 1971 directly under its founder Swami Vishnu devananda .Soon I was in touch with her through emails /chats but could never meet her directly until September 2010 . As my interest in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga was not very great in 2004 I dropped it and started to focus on the Sivananda System of Classical Hatha Yoga itself .  But in 2010 after I completed the Sivananda Sadhana Intensive Course ( SI) in Jan 2010 for the second time ( I did the first one in Jan 2009 ) ,I decided that it is time to move ahead of the Sivananda System and came across Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in Summer of 2010 .I have detailed in my earlier blog post  titled "2 How my Ashtanga Vinayasa Yoga practice began " about this journey .

So in the summer of 2010 when I started seriously getting interested in the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga I decided to learn it myself using Books , DVD's as there was  no proper Ashtanga Shala in my City ,Chennai .In fact in India itself there is no proper Ashtanga Shala except the one of Pattabhi Joise  in Mysore run now by Sharath and Saraswathi .Of course there are few others in Mysore and other places but those are being run by people not directly Certified by Pattabhi Joise . So as a first step I got the relevant books related Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga like David Swenson's Ashtanga Yoga Manual ,Gregor Maehle's Ashtanga Yoga books ( both Primary as well as Intermediate series ) , downloaded the Ashtanga Surya Namaskar A,B Charts as well the entire Primary series Charts from the internet , downloaded David Swenson's Primary series videos from you tube and started learning on my own and practicing the same . As there is a wonderful online ashtanga community on the net  ( and some even maintaining detailed blogs of their practice right from the start ) I could very much connect with the way many people have started their ashtanga journey ,the challenges they faced etc etc .

Once I got bit familiar with the Ashtanga Surya Namaskar A,B and the standing poses I felt the need for a guided audio practice and got hold of Sharath's Ashtanga Primary Audio CD (Available from the site ashtanga.com ) and started to practice the same . It felt as though Sharath was personally instructing me . Though my practice was only up to the completion of the standing sequences ,I felt that I have got a good start as far as my ashtanga vinyasa practice was concerned .It took me a while to get used to this Ashtanga Vinyasa Practice as I come from a different style whose sequence and method are very much different from that of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and whose style I have been practicing for more than  10 years . Even though I was happy with my personal  Ashtanga Vinaysa practice I felt the need for a direct initiation of the practice under a proper certified ashtanga vinyasa teacher  as I felt that while books , DVDs ,CDs can give you knowledge , inspiration and instructions they cant give you the energy of a live teacher . So while I was probing over how to solve this problem of finding a proper live ashtanga teacher to initiate my Ashtanga Journey I came across again Louise Ellis and got to know from her website that she is giving her Mysore style ashtanga classes in Rishikesh from September - December 2010 . This was like a spiritual call to me as Rishikesh in the land of Yoga where my first spiritual Guru Swami Sivananda started his Global spiritual mission and since Louise Ellis also started her Yoga journey with Sivananda Tradition in 1971 ,I felt that nothing better can be than having my first proper ashtanga initiation at Rishikesh ,the land of Yoga under a senior Ashtanga Vinyasa Teacher  who also has a Sivananda background .So I immediately booked my ticket as well as the hotel reservations to Rishikesh for end of september 2010 and luckily a friend of mine also wanted to join me ( though he was not interested in practicing ashtyanga yoga and  he wanted to just have a spiritual break in Rishikesh ) .Luckily for me the flight was available at very cheap rates and the hotel was also not expensive( I stayed at Hotel Narayan Kunj , Swarg Ashram , near Ram Jhula Rishikesh ) and  since it was being shared by my friend  I have to pay only half the rate and I felt like things were all falling in place . As I was visiting North India itself after a gap of 14 years and Rishikesh after 19 years and I was full of excitement .I sent an email to Louise Ellis informing my confirmation of my trip to Rishikesh to take her classes .

Once I landed in Rishikesh on Mon 27 September 2010 evening ,the first thing that I did was to  visit the Holy Ganges river and wash my hands ,legs and sprinkle few drops of the holy ganges water  on my head as a symbolic holy bath and then  visited  the Samadhi Shrine of my spiritual Guru Swami Sivananda at Divine Life Society to receive his blessings before starting my Ashtanga Vinyasa Journey . When I came back to the hotel I got in touch with Louise Ellis over her cell and informed her of my arrival and she told me to come for class the next day at 7 a.m at the Yoga Hall at  the Divine  Ganga Cottage near Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh .

I went half an hour early and when Louise Ellis came I informed her about my lack of real life  training in Ashtanga and she told me not to be worried about the same and just relax as this was a Mysore class and there is absolutely no pressure on me to be intimidated by other's performance .She handed out to me a photo copy of Ashtanga Primary series sheet as well as the copy of Ashtanga Prayer sheet .

The class started it at 7 a.m ( Tue 28 September 2010 ) with the Ashtanga Prayer and after that everyone started to do their own self practice and I started doing on my own Ashtanga Surya Namaskar A-5 rounds and B - 5 rounds and Louise Ellis was watching me over and she said they were correct and after that she demonstrated one by one each of the Standing Sequence and asked me to do the same . I had no problem in doing most of them except  Utthita Hast Padangushtasana ( Upright Hand to Big Toe Posture )  .After the standing poses were over , she introduced  to me one by one  the basic sitting poses  along with the Vinyasyas between the sides as well as between the postures up  to Navasan and said  that for any beginner to Ashtanga Vinyasa practice Navasan is the stopping point and after that one can continue with the concluding postures.For me the sitting postures some were easy and some were challenging  and it was quite a new challenging experience for me doing the Vinyasas between the sides as well as between  the postures  and finally  and I did the concluding postures on my own  and I got wonderful adjustments from Louise Ellis for Paschimottasana( Intense Western Stretch )  and Urdhva Padmasana ( Upwards Lotus Posture ) .The concluding postures were not a great difficulty for me as I am used to head stand , shoulder stand , halasan etc as part of the Sivananda Asana routine .Then I had a very good final relaxation for  10 mts .The entire session lasted 90 mts and I concluded around 8.30 a.m and she told me that this will up my regular practice for the next few months and I need to master all the postures up to Navsan before proceeding to the other postures in the primary series .
So this was my first ever real life Mysore Ashtanga practice in a Shala under a real life teacher and happy that I got my formal Ashtanga Initiation under Louise Ellis and I can never forget this first ever Mysore Ashtanga Class experience  on Tue 28 September 2010 at Rishikesh  under Louise Ellis and I consider that date to be my date of formal initiation in to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga .

9) Yoga Beyond the Mat

While most of us are aware of the type of yoga to be done on the mat but when it comes to practicing Yoga beyond the mat many of us are confused as to how it should be done . Some consider Yoga to be just what is being done on the Mat and nothing more than that . So when someone says that they are practicing Yoga they mean that they are practicing Yoga on the Mat and nothing more than that and they evaluate themselves as to how far they have progressed in Yoga by how many postures they have learnt , how long they can hold the postures , how many rounds of Surya Namaskar they can do , whether they can stand upside down in Headstand or  do advanced balancing postures like Peacock ( Mayur Asan)  , Scorpion , Crow etc . Some measure their yogic life by how many time a week they practice Yoga , how many times a week they take sattvic food , how many times they meditate , how many yoga sutras or Bhagavad Gita verses they have mastered  etc etc .First of all we must understand that Yoga means joining or integrating and hence when we say that we are practicing yoga we need to include in it all aspects of our life and not just confine it to yoga on the mat .While Yoga on the Mat is the very visible part of this journey ,there is a larger invisible yogic journey that is happening beyond the mat but since it does not have a structure like Ashtanga , Iyengar , Sivananda ,Anusara etc it is never discussed much and many do not know what it means to practice yoga beyond the mat . Yoga beyond the mat varies from person to person and situation to situation and there can be no standard yardstick for the same .Take for example the topic on Being Honest or Truthful . While we need to be honest and truthful in our speech most of the time but there are circumstances where we need to lie ,say for example your friend/family member  is seriously ill and admitted in the hospital and while the Doctor says to you personally that he/she will not be alive for long but request you not to reveal the same to the patient , you must not say No No I practice honesty in my speech and if the patient asks me what they Doctor is saying ,I will reveal to him the truth that he will not live for long . This is the most cruel way of practicing Honesty or truth in speech .So in each and every situation in life we need to weight the pros and cons and act accordingly and there is no standard rule for everyone /every situation .While scriptures like Bhagavad Gita , Yoga Sutras talk about Good /Bad , right /wrong ,standard set of universal values  like Yamas ,Niyamas etc etc but kindly note that  life is no black and white where all things are either all  black or  all white and there are hundreds of shades of grey between them and it is these  grey situations that are tricky and need to be handled and no scripture can come to your Guidance under these grey circumstances .So what is to be done under these circumstances ? There is no easy answer but Sages of the past have given 2 tools to be used when we are confronted with a difficult situation :

1) Put yourself in the shoes of the other person and see what you would do in a similar situation 

2) Introspect yourself as to your  motive behind doing anything i.e are u doing it for some seeking some rewards ( monetary or otherwise ) , are u doing it to seek love , approval or appreciation from the other .

 Putting urself in to the  shoes of the other person and verifying whether you are doing anything for selfish reasons will help you un condition your mind and give your more mental space and this extra mental space will help you get the necessary clarity to take proper decisions appropriate to the situation . But this is easily said than done as the mind has been conditioned  for centuries to think in terms of what benefit it will get directly or indirectly and suddenly asking it to revert to an unselfish situation will not work so easily .But all said and done this is the only way we can see things for clear as they are and not what we want it to be .

While the entire yoga market is flooded with Books and DVDs related to yoga postures only few are related to practicing yoga beyond the mat and I found the following 2 books very good ( links given above ):

1) Bringing Yoga to Life : The Everyday practice of Enlightened Living by Donna Farhi 

 2) Living your Yoga : Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life by Judith Lasater

Both Donna Farhi and Judith Lasater are seasoned yoga practitioners and teachers and have a rich experience of  not only yoga in general but life itself in particular and the wisdom accumulated by them in their many years of teaching yoga to people from various walks of life in various countries world over  are very much reflected in both these books and  I suggest every serious Yoga practitioner / teacher  to have these books as a guiding tool in their yoga journey as many of the tricky situations we encounter in our yogic life either as a practitioner / teacher have been already encountered by them before and they have given their own insights as to how they have handled them .