Ashtanga Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
/Dear Yogis
I love teaching Ashtanga. Friday and Saturday morning classes are so joyous. Interesting that before he died, the head and the global epicentre of the Ashtanga movement Sharath Jois was making changes to the sequence and calling it ‘The Active Series’ to make it more accessible.
Lots of us have been doing this for years. It is interesting how Ashtanga got the reputation of being strict and unforgiving. I’ve practiced with strict teachers, one who told the whole class we were ‘doing it wrong’. I’ve practiced with teachers who showed their disappointment. I’ve practiced with a teacher who made a catty comment about my practice. What a waste of time! It’s a joyous practice and everyone should feel welcome.
Ashtanga has changed through the years and spawned all types of yoga. Rocket came from Larry Shultz who wanted to make Ashtanga more accessible. Power yoga came from Beryl Bender Birch who needed to adapt the practice for New York Runners and Bryan Kest who wanted to empower his students, hence his use of the name Power Yoga.
And, thank heavens yoga does change with the times otherwise, in order to practice, we would be gypsies, circus performers and vagabonds, perhaps naked and smeared with funeral ashes, perhaps contorting our bodies for money, debauched, smoking ganja and eating opium!
Don’t do that! Move with the times!
Classes
OK, the sticky subject of class price. I haven’t changed my class prices since the beginning of my home studio in 2015. Now, I think a small increase is justified.
1. Online, I have charged one ticket per household but that will change to one price per yogi. (That was a legacy of lockdown when my online classes started as free classes).
2. In-person classes will go from £10.50 to £12
3. Online will go from £5.50 to £6.50
Monday and Tuesday = Stretchy class at 7.00pm – this is the popular one
Wednesday = Sun Salutations, Strengthen & Stretch at 7.00pm – this is the new one
Friday morning = Ashtanga at 8.30-9.30am – this is the one that pushes you
Saturday morning = Ashtanga at 8.30 – 10.00am – this is the longer one
Yoga in The News
The New York Times has: The Decade That Changed Fitness Forever. ‘Yoga wasn’t new to the American public in 1972. Devotees of the Indian spiritual practice had been trying to sell Westerners on its health and beauty benefits for decades through books and small group classes. And yet, even when the Beatles retreated to an ashram in the late ’60s seeking transcendence, most Americans still saw yoga as something for hippies and Eastern mystics. But thanks in part to photos of the Fab Four in Nehru jackets, many Americans started getting into Indian spiritual practices — and moved from yoga as an exercise for the soul to one primarily for the body.’
The Belfast News Letter has: Free yoga classes on National Iyengar Yoga Day. ‘On Saturday, January 18 yoga teachers across the UK and Ireland will be holding free taster classes and events to celebrate National Iyengar Yoga Day and are encouraging people who are completely new to Iyengar yoga to give it a try.’ (Iyengar Yoga London is here.)
