A bold, much-needed guide for Ashtanga yoga practice, useful for all levels and illustrated with 250 color photos, by one of yoga’s best known and respected teachers, Kino MacGregor.
This offers an updated, more accessible view of the traditional series, adapting it to serve a wider range of practitioners.Even experienced practitioners find the challenging style of Ashtanga Yoga to be daunting. Whether you’re a beginner, living in an unconventional yoga body, or need modifications for any reason, this book will make you feel empowered, inspired, and confident to make the adjustments and modifications that feel right for your body. Kino posits that the Ashtanga Yoga method needs a systemwide reset and reevaluation to make it viable and beneficial to all students. She reframes the guru model and re-envisions the method in a way that will truly make Ashtanga available to all, while maintaining the integrity of the traditional teachings.
She also presents a brief theory of movement mechanics that can help prevent injury, optimize physical mobility, and tap into the natural intelligence of the body. The practice section presents each of the poses of the Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series—plus some of the poses in the Ashtanga Yoga Second Series—in traditional, modified, accessible, and adaptive forms (including using blocks and a chair). Not only will you see how to modify the pose, you will learn how best to work the pose for your unique need. Teachers will find plenty of reference material to update their teaching methodology.
"Ashtanga Yoga is a physically challenging style of yoga, which even experienced practitioners can find daunting. Kino MacGregor has re-envisioned this strong and beneficial practice to make it accessible to everyone. Whether you're a beginner, living in a bigger body, or need modifications for any reason, this book will make you feel empowered, inspired, and confident that you have the tools to make the adjustments and modifications that feel right for your body. Complete with a breakdown of some of the key elements of the Ashtanga Yoga method presented with the beginner student in mind, Kino makes the philosophy of Ashtanga Yoga more relatable to practitioners and teachers of all levels. She also presents a brief theory of movement mechanics that can help prevent injury, optimize physical mobility and tap into the natural intelligence of the body"--