Finding Your Practice Rhythm: A Year-Round Approach to Ashtanga
Many of you have asked about structuring your practice around trips to Mysore—or more importantly, how to create sustainable training cycles when annual trips to India aren’t part of your reality. Let me share how I’ve applied basic athletic training principles to organize my own practice year, and how you might think about doing the same.
The Three-Phase Cycle
Think of your practice year in three natural phases, whether or not you’re planning a trip to Mysore:
Building Phase (Pre-Intensive Period)
Before any intensive practice period—whether that’s a trip to Mysore, a retreat, or simply a few months when your schedule allows for deeper commitment—spend time reinforcing your foundation. Focus on the postures you can do well, build core stability, and work on flexibility in a sustainable way. This isn’t about proving anything; it’s about preparing your body to receive more intensive work.
- Explore more about Integrating Ashtanga Practice with Strength and Conditioning
Intensive Phase (Peak Practice)
This is your period of deepened commitment. Maybe it’s three months in Mysore with daily Mysore-style practice. Maybe it’s a local intensive, or a stretch where you commit to practicing six days a week at home or at the studio. Whatever form it takes, this is when you’re pushing edges—physically, mentally, and in terms of consistency. You’re exploring what your practice can become when you show up with full attention.
- Learn more about Understanding Periodization – Structuring Training Over Time
Integration Phase (Deload and Recovery)
After intensity comes consolidation. Your body and nervous system need time to absorb what you’ve learned. Scale back the frequency or intensity. Practice restorative sequences. Let your system catch up to the changes you’ve initiated. This isn’t “doing less”—it’s honoring how adaptation actually works.
- Read about Applying Volume Training to Ashtanga Yoga
Why This Matters
Most practitioners don’t structure their practice at all—they just show up when they can and hope for progress. But our bodies respond to patterns of stress and recovery, whether we’re doing yoga or training for a marathon. By intentionally creating cycles, you’re working with your physiology rather than hoping it will magically keep up.
Practitioners who don’t anchor their practices around strength and conditioning principles often run into repetitive strain injuries—not because they aren’t trying hard enough, but sometimes precisely because they need to try harder to take time off and allow for proper recovery.
- Find insights on Injury-Proofing Your Ashtanga Practice
Making It Work for Your Life
The specific timing is up to you. Some practitioners align their intensive phases with seasons—maybe practicing more in winter when life is quieter, scaling back in summer. Others build around work schedules or family commitments. The principle remains the same: alternate between building, intensity, and recovery rather than trying to maintain the same level of effort year-round.
This is how you develop a practice that’s sustainable across decades, not just until your body says “enough.” It’s how you nourish yourself in harmony with your actual life circumstances, rather than fighting against them.