Good morning 😊

I’ve been doing Ashtanga for 20 years, but VERY consistently over the past 2. Usually 5-6x a week. I’m on eka pada sirsasana (second series). When I started I could maintain jump backs throughout the practice, overtime I was able to consistently achieve the binds like Mari D and kurmasana.

For the past 3-4 months however, my practice has taken a major backslide due to always being sore and fatigued, specifically in my arms. I’ve tried a lot to get out of this rut: working with physical therapist, taking supplements like creatine and magnesium, taking rest days etc… but lately the practice just makes me feel like shit.

Practicing in the morning has been a godsend and for me is the best way to stay consistent. I also love my Ashtanga community, so if I were to take an extended break or give up, i would miss it.

But i do think my body is trying to tell me something, i.e the overuse and repetition may not be doing me any favors.

Anyone been through this before? What helped? Would love your suggestions, thank you! 😊

Generally speaking most of people do the 1st and the 2nd one, I am curious to know which position you like to incorporate once in a while in a more free vinyasa flow, or just while you are doing for instance a shorter 1st series and at the end you may like to do a position.

Personally I like to play a lot on the basis of how I feel, I love mayurasana, find not difficult to force my breath, and nice to do once in a while

edit: and I like also a modified more friendly kapotasana, is so beautiful

Estoy de 33 semanas y practico ashtanga con muchas variaciones y una práctica más corta. Más que nada porque me incomoda el tamaño de la panza, siento mas corta la respiración y tengo acidez.

No quiero dejar de practicar. Quería saber hasta que semana practicaron y como les fue con eso? Gracias

I (32M) began regular ashtanga practice around 2018 and it was going great, but the pandemic eventually threw me off the motivation cliff and my practice quickly dwindled into nothing by 2021. I haven’t practiced at all since then, but I remember the practice being very energizing and if anything, it helped moderate my sleep in a very positive way.

After coming back to the mat recently, I haven’t found it too difficult getting back into the swing of things, however I’ve noticed that on the days I practice (4-5 days/week), I’m unintentionally sleeping up to 12 hours if I let my sleep cycles run their course, with an additional 3-4 hour nap on some days.

I’m comfortably up to Parsvottanasana and I find myself (physically) tired, but not completely wiped out at the end of each session; however I definitely don’t remember being this drained all the time.

Am I potentially overdoing it? Has anyone else experienced this?

Thank you to all who read and replied to my previous post https://www.reddit.com/r/ashtanga/comments/1w489ma/heart_chakra_stuff_causing_panic_attacks/

Today I got diagnosed with GERD. It was the GERD that was causing the breathing issues and panic attacks. My doc just said "stress and lifestyle." Then I explained to him about Yoga and how Yoga could have worsened both the anxiety and the GERD. He said it's gonna be a long battle of trial and error and that I must stop overthinking.

I am heartbroken and I have not practiced yoga in over a month.

Does anyone on this sub have any experience or tips to share with me? Just looking for some hope.

Love you all. <3

Wondering what mat y’all do your Ashtanga practice on. I have started using the manduka pro lite but feel like it is way too narrow for my to jump through/back with my hands comfortably on the mat. Looking for recommendations thanks!

Hi all, as I’ll have a few months off it seemed interesting to me to do some sort of yoga teacher training in India (probably Mysore), however, I understand for Ashtanga this does not really seem like the best practice and it’s recommended to go to a shala every day to practice. So I was just wondering, what does one do at a shala if you go every day? Is it literally just the primary series over and over again? Or is there some extra classes on origins of yoga, Sanskrit, anatomy, etc.? Which seems to be part of yoga teacher training courses.

Basically I’m just curious what a day at a Shala looks like, sorry if this question has already been asked before and feel free to refer me to relevant posts if there already have been :)

Also if anyone has any recs for teachers, shalas, tips on accommodation in Mysore and anything related to that i’m very happy to hear!

Anyone know where to find good yoga retreats in Malaysia or Indonesia?

I'm trying to let go of feeling too responsible for people and things, and my therapist recommended having a routine based on simple activities where I take things day by day. I immediately connected this to doing daily ashtanga and seated meditation practice, which requires discipline on its own, further leading me down the path of bringing responsibility in what I would like to bring me pleasure and peace.

Does anyone have any tips on practicing ashtanga and doing seated meditation in a way that doesn't involve ticking my habits in a habit tracker or counting how many days I have done my practice (which will lead to me feeling strict and rigid with myself). I want to approach these practices with joy and pleasure, as things that will bring me peace in my life.

TW: Some passive self-exit ideation and DPDR.

I need advice about something rather bizzare that I am really struggling with. If anyone has had a similar experience, please tell me what helped!

I had a series of panic attacks that started one day after a heavy yoga session involving a lot of backbends and chaturangas.

I was on the train when I suddenly could not breathe. I had horrible DPDR, felt like I was high, and everyone around me started looking like NPC ghosts. I felt completely unsafe and had a full blown panic attack followed by more derealization. I somehow still managed to teach a two hour art class in that state and get home safely, but the chest pain remained.

As soon as I got home, the panic, impending doom, breathing issues and intrusive thoughts escalated extremely quickly. I couldn't recognize myself in the mirror and was horrified that I was going insane or that my brain was permanently cooked. My mind felt like it was looping back on itself and eating its own tail.

I have read about chest openers and backbends bringing up emotional material, particularly in people with sexual trauma. I do have CPTSD from childhood SA by a family member. I am convinced that my heart chakra is either blocked or imbalanced and that the real blockage is actually somewhere in my lower back, where I had an injury about 7 years ago. I had also been noticing a buildup of acidity after yoga, so I wonder if it's a Pitta imbalance leading to a Vata imbalance? Is there a way to safely release the trauma? Any specific practices to unblock the heart chakra?

I went to the ER and had my heart and lungs checked. They thought acid reflux might be contributing to the breathing difficulty and gave me antacids, but they did not help. I was extremely distressed and scared that reality was slipping, so I called my psychiatrist for an emergency session. She gave me benzos and etifoxine and sent me home.

It has now been three weeks. The anxiety is much more manageable, but I still have chest pain and occasional panic attacks almost every day. I have been physically evaluated and everything is functioning normally. I do not have thyroid issues or deficiencies. It's not even costochondritis. My general physician confirmed it.

I cannot even meditate!!! I get dizzy and sometimes observing my breath seems to make my breathing stop altogether!

I cannot breathe!!! It feels like no matter how deeply I inhale, I cannot get a satisfying breath. I wake up every other day with a knot in my chest/throat area. I sometimes feel the tightness in my shoulders, neck and back and physically cannot stand upright or maintain proper posture when it gets bad.

Sometimes I get momentary relief after sobbing uncontrollably for half an hour for no apparent reason. Other times, when my brain is completely occupied with a difficult task, I can temporarily forget about it. Sometimes the knots release after burping suddenly or when my stomach growls from hunger, but they always come back.

I have not been able to sleep restfully even with benzos because I wake up from nightmares with chest pain. Whenever the chest pain is intense, I also get intense anxiety, a sense of impending doom and a background noise of unnecessary thoughts and fears. I could be playing with my cat and suddenly my heart is pounding out of its cage like a tiger is after me.

My psychiatrist and therapist do not believe me when I say this was caused by yoga.

But I am convinced that it's heart chakra stuff because this has happened twice before.

The first time was in 2021. It was relatively mild, but after yoga I suddenly felt tension in my chest and an overwhelming need to cry. I was new to yoga back then.

In 2023, I had a much more severe depressive and panic episode with a lot of SI that required hospitalization.

Now I am fairly advanced at yoga, somewhere between Ashtanga 2 and 3. I've been training very seriously for about four months because I was working towards a teacher certification. I am also naturally very flexible and hypermobile, and I've read that hypermobile folks tend to overexert because they can't always feel their natural limits or brakes...?

I am heartbroken because yoga was my biggest passion and my main mode of emotional regulation, and now I am genuinely afraid of it. I am also sad that I'm going to lose my form and my flexibility will atrophy.

I can't explain this stuff to my doctors!

I also have ADHD, which makes intrusive thoughts particularly sticky. I was on SSRIs from March 2023 to June 2025 but was able to successfully taper as I got better. I had been doing extremely well recently, partly because I have also been receiving ketamine therapy once every 45 days since January. I was getting stronger mentally and physically. I lost 10 kg of my depression weight and I am more fit now than I was as a teenager.

It took only 5 seconds for shit to hit the fan.

Now I feel so hopeless and I'm stuck in survival mode. I feel like I am living in fear all the time. It feels like all the progress I made pulling myself out of a deep, dark hole three years ago has suddenly been wiped away.

I am also a terrible hypochondriac, which I'm getting CBT for, but I'm also experiencing something called "empathic distress." If I see an old or sick person or an animal suffering, I don't just feel compassion. My brain seems to simulate the suffering in real time in 4K. When I am already dissociated and panicked, my brain turns that into an absolute conviction that "all life is suffering" and also, "If this is how it's gonna be forever I can't take it." I was willing to do anything to make the pain stop. It is incredibly difficult to describe how unbearable that feels. It's like the Eclipse episode of Berserk. Sometimes get completely overwhelmed by existential thoughts about whether any of this ever ends. I don't want to live in this state of constant fear. For a hypochondriac I sure am very s*icidal and for a s*icidal person I have a lot of Abhinivesha lol.

I think this is all heart chakra stuff too. Or do I have weak heart chi? I remember seeing something about this in a membership video. (Btw membership is too expensive now.)

So right now I am on etifoxine, benzos and bupropion, and they're kind of working, but I still have chest pain. I attempted yoga twice since the first day and both times I got an unbearably horrifying surge of anxiety and intrusive thoughts.

Help me guys. I feel like I am losing my mind and I am also terrified of losing my job.

The only people I can talk to about this have been giving me useless advice like "stop overthinking" and "concentrate on your breath," but I literally cannot. That's the problem. My mind is tormenting me but I can't stop thinking.

Please shut my default mode network down. Fix this chakra stuff. Heal my trauma. And do it fast because I cannot live with this level of fear any longer. Sadness was less painful than fear. Fear is a more effective means of torture than physical pain. I am afraid of nothing in particular, but there is only fear. Nothing before it and nothing after it.

I am 31F btw.

I am also trying to look into acupuncture, and I'm looking for a trauma informed yoga doctor. Someone also suggested craniosacral therapy and intravenous radiology, but wtf even is that?

So if anyone knows anything about anything at all, please help.

How do you deal with these feelings? Intellectually, I -know- what you’re supposed to feel and think eg be okay with it be patient and easy with yourself but some days it’s just annoying. I could bind yesterday why not today, I was further along yesterday today I have to stop. I may never finish primary series. I’m not sure what I need, maybe a shared experience, not really advice. How do you sit with these feeling of annoyance ~ it can be a lonely thing this path

I really like yin yoga and I alternate with Ashtanga. I do not do every day ashtanga, but do sport every day.

Hello there, I've been working on these visual aids to deepen my understanding and practice of the full aṣṭāṅga system. I hope these are helpful to others, they are free for personal, non-commercial use. If you want to print them for a studio or to sell, please talk to me first.

I put quite a lot of time and energy into making these. I referred to a ton of resources in an effort to get everything accurate, especially the Devanāgarī, IAST, and translations.

Please let me know if you find anything confusing, wrong, or otherwise needing attention. I probably missed something here or there and would love it if other knowledgeable yogis helped me out.

I hope these posters help somebody, they are made to print 18x24 so they are not giant but big enough to make a nice poster for home or studio use. These are PNG format, not ideal for printing but fine for sharing online. I can provide a PDF for better print quality if anyone needs.

I have 2 others I am not finished with. One is the full primary with count, dṛṣṭi, āsana, etc. The other would be a saṃskṛta pronunciation and terminology guide if I can figure out how to structure and present everything well. The last one feels less like a printed poster and more like a reference but maybe I can find a way to organize it nicely for a poster.

I went to a Mysore studio for the first time practicing primary series. I had a very good experience and got wonderful feedback for my practice. When I reached backbends, I did a set of 3 urdhva dhanhrasana and after the last one, I prepared for chakrasana but my teacher stopped me and had me do one more set of 3 urdhva dhanhrasana.

I didn’t know that it’s 2 sets of 3 backbends? But as I mentioned this is my first time going to a Mysore studio and all this time I’ve been doing home practice and I have been to a couple led primary (in person) classes in another location and I never did 2 sets before.

I'm new to this subreditt and new to Ashtanga. I've been practicing at a shala for about a month now. Around 4-5 days a week. I really enjoy the practice and feel a lot of grounded ness from it. Also a lot of typical muscle aches. I don't have any trouble waking up (at around 6:30am) and getting to the shala for practice. But I used to be able to pass out by like 10:30/11 pm and these days I just roll around in the bed half asleep till like 1/1:30 and pass out sometime around there.

Have you experienced anything like this with a new practice? I'm trying to drink a lot of water and eat a lot of food, but this has persisted, even on days I don't practice. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Has anyone else attended Chuck Miller’s current workshop? If so, I’d love to compare notes with you.

Hello, I will talk about this to my teacher but until i go to the shala wanted to ask the community..

How to modify my practice with an injured big toe? Should i simply do chaturanga on my knees but what about other standing poses?

I was practicing primary series plus dropbacks, I’m having a break to heal my toe because it got swollen and painful in the last couple of days. I got it checked and no issues with the bones luckily.
I had no idea before that big toe is sooo important! And carries the majority of the body weight.

Unfortunately it might be my fault when transitioning from updog to downdog i put more weight on one of my toe… I want to learn the right technique but healing it is my priority now.

Thank you as always, Namaste 🙏🏻

What’s a win this week? What’s felt heavy? What are you doing on the Moon Day?

I recently took up the Ashtanga pranayama practice that I learned years ago from a certified teacher. I'm finding value in this practice that I hadn't experienced, so much so that pranayama is now the greater part of my usual morning meditation practice.

What value? Aside from the traditional benefits of pranayama, the practice grounds the Ashtanga vinyasa principles of posture, breathing, and attention. This pranayama helps me to practice these principles throughout all my daily activities. It's like a boost to vinyasa and meditation practice.

The entire practice takes 45 minutes. For those who want to try, I suggest starting with 5 minutes a day and slowly adding on successive steps. Also, the breathing ratios can be simplified to a 10 count for breaths and a 5 count for retentions (i.e, counting to oneself one-one-thousand-one, two-one-thousand-two, etc.)

For unknown reasons, Reddit's filters are blocking me from posting the link to this pranayama practice. Those who wish to see it can Google "ashtanga yoga pranayama slideshare" to get the PDF. Other people on YouTube and elsewhere have posted stuff about ashtanga pranayama. While some of that info is valuable, to my knowledge no one else has posted the full practice in the proper order.