What is advanced practice supposed to do? Make you receptive. Make you steady. Make you less of a main character. It’s the long game. It should leave you with empty hands and a willingness to help.
Instead, a slice of Ashtanga culture—especially around third and fourth series—has gotten quietly corrupted. Not “back in my day” nostalgia. Structural. When transmission becomes credentialing, the room fills with people who look impressive and don’t know how to support anyone.
Michael put it bluntly: it’s been “weaponized and commoditized and put through the extractive ringer.” Translation: advanced asana becomes status currency. Teachers and systems can start extracting years and money, and the payoff is a number. A series count. A résumé line.
And then you get the weird outcome: the people who “climbed up” didn’t learn how to hold the room. They can fold themselves into shapes. They can’t make space for someone else’s shaky breath. They can’t be trustworthy when things get real.
There are exceptions. Katie, for example, “makes a real effort” at community support. That’s the point. Not perfection. Effort. Attention. Actual care. The skill is not the posture. The skill is what you do with the posture once you come back to human scale.
So here’s the question that doesn’t go away: if you practiced fourth series but never learned how to serve, what exactly did you learn? Because the room doesn’t need another trophy. It needs someone who can stay, listen, and help.