Posts by Juls
Ashtanga Inspiration
Four months ago, I began teaching a new led class at BTY. Instead of Intro to Ashtanga, I opted to call it Ashtanga Inspired Yoga. I wanted to get aways from using “Intro” in the name as I felt it would send the message that the class was only for beginners. I imagined my class would loosely follow the set ashtanga sequences but that on some weeks I might insert a little more creative sequencing to throw in a little intermediate series or possibly invite a pose or two from the advanced series.
After teaching mysore only for all these years, I was a little unsure how I was going to like teaching an hour long led class. I thrive on teaching in the mysore room and I love my students. But over the past few months, a core set of Ashtanga Inspired Yoga students return week after week. As I get to know these new students I draw inspiration from their practice, questions, and even the curiosity a few have expressed about a particular pose. In my own personal practice, I explore new ways of inhabiting a pose. I play around with ways to insert a pose from beyond the half-way mark of primary series into the first half of the sequence. I am inspired to have fun on my mat. For this, for my students (old and new), I am inspired. More than that, I am grateful.
Intro to Mysore Style Ashtanga Yoga (4-week course)
UPCOMING WORKSHOP
Intro to Mysore Style Ashtanga Yoga
Saturdays: March 15, 22, 29 and April 5, 2025, 12:30 – 2:00 pm
I am excited to announce that I will be teaching another Introduction to Mysore course, as I did in January of 2021. The 1.5 hour workshop-style sessions of this 4-week course will occur on Saturday afternoons at Breathe Together Yoga. Students will learn the various aspects of Ashtanga Yoga, including posture, breathing, and dristhi, which create the basis for practice as a moving meditation.
We will start by learning the elements of Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) forms A and B. These sequences are the foundation of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and establish the basic form and flow of the greater series of postures. Building on this foundation, students will be introduced to the standing, some of the seated, as well as the finishing postures. During each session, students will be led through the postures and then they will be asked to perform the postures on their own.
This 4-week introductory course includes 3 weeks of unlimited access to the Ashtanga classes (mysore style and led practice) at Breathe Together Yoga (March 16-April 5). More details below as well as on on the BTY website.
MYSORE SESSIONS:
Students will be encouraged to join the morning mysore sessions (Sun – Thurs) where they will practice self-paced with the mysore community. In this mysore-style practice, students have time to break down, investigate, and repeat postures. These sessions are included in the price of the course.
LED PRACTICE:
Once a week, there is a traditional Led Primary class (Fri) where practitioners practice the poses as they have learned them at the pace of the traditional sanskrit count. It is in this weekly led practice helps reinforce the sequence, and helps the practitioner create steadiness within their practice. This “led” primary series, as taught at BTY, is open to all levels and will have modifications given throughout.
Navigating Injury and other Challenges
During the past few years, I have prioritized strength training in an effort to mitigate age-related decline (e.g. loss of lean muscle and bone density). While I don’t think of myself as a powerlifter, I have shifted away from using the machines for the bulk of my training sessions. [Pun intended] Squatting, deadlifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, and moving in complex ways challenges my body, forces me to work through muscle imbalances, and is kind of empowering.
Meanwhile, back on the mat, my yoga practice continues to evolve, albeit not as I would have thought it would. Three years ago, at the peak of the pandemic, I was happily making my way through Sthira Bhaga (aka third series). Then life started happening. A fractured foot, sprained ankle, shoulder injury, fractured finger, contused hamstring attachment after a clumbsy fall walking in my garage. None of these occurring “from” my strength training or my yoga practice but certainly impacting them. And my ability to bounce back has not been as quick as it was in my twenties and thirties.
As a result, I have had to find ways to support my practice while allowing my body to heal. While it has been quite humbling, I have learned a lot about myself and the practice in the process. Learning where to back off, or “let go,” while finding other areas where I can extract more from the poses. This self-study is a rather cool component of the practice.
I invite you to notice for yourself if/when you have a set back. Are you able to find ways to support your growth even when you are healing, or do you need help figuring out a path forward? If the latter is the case, I’m here for you. See the schedule page for my availablity.
The Joy of Acknowledgement
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to see someone else’s progress but how hard it is to recognize your own? As a yoga teacher, I always try to point out the progress I see my students making. It may be something as subtle as a deeper but more relaxed breath — which translates to huge strides down the road. Possibly, it is something more obvious, like being able to balance on their hands in one of the many arm balancing poses.
Believe it or not, the students don’t always seem to acknowledge the progress no matter how obvious it may be. Sometimes, I take a photo to show them the progress I am observing. I did this for one our mysore students this week, pointing out the lovely lines in her trikonasana and utthita parsvokonasana. If they do finally achieve a goal – such as finally getting their foot behind their head in eka pada sirsasana – they are disappointed that they have to hold it in place or it flies off like it’s spring-loaded.
Quite honestly, I am guilty of this myself. Over the last year, my practice has suffered from a number of compounding ailments including finger fractures and shoulder instablity. My focus has been on the struggle to improve but without a lot of notice taken on the steps forward, only the backward shifts that naturally occur in the effort.
Like this new leaf on my monstera plant, new growth is beautiful. Sometimes, these new leaves go unnoticed for a bit as they hide behind the others. But, oh how I love to welcome the newbies into my practice space. They really make me smile.
Back to the topic of yoga: Although somewhat unconsciously, my efforts in not becoming attached to any success have translated to blindfolding me to any progress made in this regard. I think I feared (or maybe expected) that I would lose it again in the next days, weeks, or months. There’s been a lot of that.
In the beginning, this may have been thought to be non-attachment but I now think that the failure to celebrate the successes has lead to less joy in my yoga practice. And I really need JOY right now. I mean, in addition to the joy of seeing new leaves on my plants.
For this reason, I plan to resurect the habit of daily entries in my yoga journal in the month of May with a focus on listing out some wins each day. In the past, regular journalling about my yoga practice has served as a nice way to highlight emerging injuries and track them back seemingly subtle to modifications or added poses. This month, I hope to be able to pay a bit more attention to little steps of progress as well as the coming and going of poses as I continue to work on healing from the injuries of the past year. Currently, I am calling this exercise the Joy of Acknowledgement.
I invite you to do the same and/or share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
Okay Enough
As the date got closer to my longtime plans to return to practice with Manju Jois and Greg Tebb at the No Stress Shala (aka Manju’s garage), I became apprehensive about going. Although we are taught not to judge our practice as good or bad, I find myself disappointed in the limitations of my body more often than not. In truth, Manju doesn’t care what my practice looks like. He is there to provide a supportive environment for therapeutic yoga. If anything, I really should have been thinking of going to see Manju as a MUST. I have just been a bit stuck.
All of the ailments of 2023, (the right shoulder, elbow & finger, left hip, and SI joint) had been improving. I had dedicated a lot of time and resources to the recovery and stablization efforts. As a result, I was having to modify a lot less often than before. Still, I was apprehensive. Of course, there was no need to be worried.
After our first night at the Comfort Inn (previously the Quality Inn), Eva deemed the accomodations as “okay enough”. We each had a bed, the rooms each had a locking door, and we might not have even known that the sheriff was paying a visit to the room a few doors down from us if we hadn’t left while they were there. The term “okay enough” would be brought up many times during the week — keeping us light hearted and amused. And I would walk into the “no stress shala” with the notion that my asana practice was indeed “okay enough”.
The thing is, once I shifted to being “okay enough”, all my judgement melted away. If I messed up, I laughed at myself. I allowed others to encourage and compliment me without second-guessing. I had fun and let the Manju magic do it’s thing.
The week went by way too fast. Our days at the shala were filled with asana practice, followed by pranyama, chanting, and yummy home-cooked vegetarian meals. We learned new ways to assist others’ in many different asanas.
During the rest of the time in lovely Encinitas, CA. we:
- drank LOTS of coffee,
- laughed a whole lot,
- hiked,
- visited Eva’s handstand coach,
- saw the sea lions in San Diego,
- window-shopped & people-watched,
- basked in the sun,
- wadded through large puddles of rain,
- and ate and ate and ate (even dessert, thanks to Shelly’s encouragement).
All in all, the trip was just what I needed. It was “okay enough” and so much more, of course.