The Primary Series is the basic practice of Ashtanga Yoga. It includes 48 postures with a very wide range of movements. The postures range from basic to challenging, and you are not expected to be able to do them all the first time. It’s good to learn things slowly, a little at a time. So if you are new to this class, please remember that you do not have to do everything in the class, but you can try as much as you like. If you already have some yoga experience and want to try it out, feel free to join in and do as much as is comfortable for you.
This series is called Yoga Chikitsā. It’s a healing sequence of yoga developed by Siri K. Pattabhi Jois, from Mysore India, who learned directly from Sri T. Krishnamacharya. This technique can help us to clean our physical, energetic, and mental bodies, bringing peace, health, and happiness to ourselves and to others. This technique uses a specific sequence of asanas which are linked with a breathing technique called Sama Vrtti Ujjayi Pranayama. All of this is learned following the method of Vinyasa, which is a step by step approach. This helps us to cultivate complete presence in our practice and daily life.
Ashtanga Yoga is a structured and dynamic form of practicing yoga postures that can have wonderful effects on the body, mind and spirit and enthusiasm and effort are encouraged in yoga, because challenging yourself is a good thing. We just have to be careful to monitor our energy levels and awareness, because the goal of yoga is to become a more conscious person.
Our aim is to offer you a safe place to learn this technique, in a kindly and supportive way, whatever your age, physical condition or previous experience is.