A practitioner asks a simple question in the r/ashtanga subreddit: when coming forward for salabhasana A in Intermediate series, do you inhale in downdog first, then exhale into chaturanga? Or something else?
The replies were a firing squad of certainty. One teacher cited a 2014 Tim Miller training. Another pointed to Lino Miele’s book as the “authoritative source.” A third referenced Sharath Jois’s specific instruction to “bloom” on an inhale from a hovering Chaturanga.
Nobody agreed. Everyone was certain. And in that certainty, we find the great irony of the modern shala: the attempt to impose local determinism on a system that is, by its very nature, underdetermined.
The Illusion of the “One Way”
In classical physics, local determinism suggests that if you know the starting conditions, there is only one possible outcome. High-pressure yoga environments love this idea. They want you to believe that the lineage is a perfect machine—that if you put in the “correct” breath, you get the “correct” yoga.
But as the Reddit thread proves, the vinyasa count is actually a state of underdetermination. The “evidence” (the books, the videos, the oral memories) isn’t enough to constrain a single, objective answer. When the system doesn’t provide the answer, the “correct” way becomes a judgment call based on power, language, and which version of the “game of telephone” you happened to join.
Fine-Grained Indeterminism
When we zoom in to the “fine-grained level”—the micro-seconds between a Down Dog and a transition—we encounter local indeterminism. At this scale, multiple answers are equally valid because the system simply cannot account for the vast variability of human lungs, limb lengths, and heart rates.
If you run into a teacher who refuses to honor this indeterminism—who insists their way is the only way despite the glaring lack of consensus among the masters—be wary. They aren’t defending the tradition; they are defending a power structure. They are trying to turn the breath into a metronome to keep you in sync with the group, rather than in sync with yourself.
The Intra-action of Practice
The most “postmodern” take in the thread came from a user who noted that what matters is a “smooth breath” and “not rushing.” This shifts the focus from an interaction (where a separate “student” tries to follow a separate “rule”) to an intra-action.
As Karen Barad suggests, properties don’t exist before they interact. In this view, the “correct” breath doesn’t exist in a 2014 notebook or a Lino Miele diagram. It emerges within the practice. The “teacher,” the “student,” and the “yoga” are entangled phenomena that define each other in the moment of the movement.
Svadhyaya Over Subjugation
The tradition is living, which means it’s messy. Pattabhi Jois wasn’t encoding universal laws; he was responding to the person in front of him. That was intra-determinism in its purest form—a reality co-created by two people in a room, not a static rulebook.
When we argue over whether it’s trini or panca, we’ve left the mat and entered the world of subjectivism and perspectivism. But the cure isn’t more gatekeeping; it’s more Svadhyaya (self-study).
The breath you take is the right one if it keeps you connected. The tradition you follow is the right one if it brings you closer to your own autonomy. And the teacher you trust is the right one if they have the humility to admit that at a fine-grained level, the only person who can truly hear your breath is you.