How Ashtanga Yoga Challenges Your Body & Mind
The way the series of Ashtanga Yoga are structured, is “levels”, even though I don’t like to call them levels. There are Primary Series that work on the foundation. These series help you to access the body in angle that you’ve never encountered maybe in other types of physical activities and sports, if you prefer to call it that way.
After you reach a certain point when your body and your mind are ready to be challenged a bit more, then you can move on to the Intermediate Series. Which for example work a lot on addressing your intention to the heart opening, a really very deep hip opening, and even start working more on the strength of your arms.
And then the third, the Advanced Series move even more on the strength of your arms and so on. There is always a way to be challenged.
But what I mostly love about this practice, is that I feel as it brings you a lot of humility. So every time you think you’re like: “Oh, I can do this already!” and you realize you encounter something new, and it makes you feel, as: “Ok, I still have so much to learn. I have so much more to experience.”
And that’s only the physical aspect. But then as more as you get into yoga, you’re facing your ego. That’s the biggest humbling experience – look at ourselves and understand how attached we are to the image that we have of ourselves.
Yoga Teacher – Alit Bar Sadeh
