Our first retreat of the 2012-2013 season will be hosted by Krista Shirley and Elise Espat, an Ashtanga Adventure! We wanted to find out more about Krista, Ashtanga, and the Mysore teaching method. Get excited, their retreat will surely prove to be an amazing experience!
Xinalani: Thanks for
taking the time to do this interview with us and allowing our readers to learn
more about you and your upcoming yoga retreat. Tell us
a little about how you found your practice.
How did it all start for you?
Krista: It all started
at a World Gym in Altamonte Springs, Florida my junior year in College. I decided to try a new yoga class that
appealed to me because it appeared to be quite a challenge. It was a modified led Ashtanga Yoga class and
I loved it. After a couple of weeks of
classes at the gym, my teacher introduced me to Winter Park Yoga where she
practiced each day and where they taught traditional Ashtanga Yoga in the
Mysore method. I committed to come six
days a week for one month and then I was totally hooked. The transformations I went through mentally,
spiritually and physically were truly life changing. The rest is history…I eventually started
teaching this method because I live it each day and it seemed a natural
progression for me to share this passion with the world. I love waking up each day and doing my
practice, then teaching this practice to others. I feel truly blessed in this life to have
this yoga to help me be the best me I can be, and to be able to do what I love
for a living.
Xinalani: You teach
Ashtanga Yoga. Can you tell us about
this particular style of yoga?
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Krista: Ashtanga Yoga is a 5,000 year old discipline that explores, develops, and
integrates the body, mind and spirit. Ashtanga Yoga purifies the body, the
nervous system, the internal organs, and the mind through the use of vinyasa
(breath with movement), asana (physical postures), deep breathing, and drishti
(looking place or gaze). Practicing Yoga Asanas purifies the body and
strengthens and gives flexibility to the body. Performing deep breathing
purifies the nervous system. Drishti is the place where you look while
performing asanas, or postures in order for you to concentrate on one specific
place; also helps to stretch the eyes. The goal of incorporating drishti to
your practice is for purification and stabilization of the mind. Daily practice
of Ashtanga Yoga promotes weight loss, vitality, mental clarity, stress
reduction, deep relaxation, and overall health and wellness to the
practitioner. Our beloved Guru, Shri K.
Pattabhi Jois was the modern father of this yoga method and taught students
from around the world in his home in Mysore, India until his passing in
2009. Now Guruji’s grandson Sharath is
the primary lineage keeper of this yoga method and is my and Elise’s
teacher.
Xinalani: How do Ashtanga and Mysore yoga
relate to one another?
Krista: Mysore is a specific way to teach the
Ashtanga Yoga method. Ashtanga Yoga is a
specific ‘yoga style’ that consists of breathing, bandhas, drishti and a
specific sequence of postures that make up the primary, intermediate, 3, 4, 5,
and 6 series. This ‘yoga style’ can be
taught in a led setting or a mysore setting. In a led setting a teacher will verbally guide an entire class from
start to finish (Surya Namaskara A to final rest). Students must start at the same time, move at
the same pace, and end together. Unlike
led classes, mysore classes are very unique, very individualized, and truly the
absolute best way to learn and practice yoga. This
unique method of instruction is suitable for beginners as well as longtime
practitioners because every student is taught individually. In other words,
each student is given a one-on-one lesson in a group setting in order that he
or she can progress through the Ashtanga Yoga series’ at their own pace and
according to his or her individual needs.
Timings are also flexible so people can come to their mat when it works
for them and are not mandated to get to their local studio by a specific
time. For example most mysore rooms will
have a morning program from 6am to 10am, for example, and students can
literally show up and start their practice anytime between 6am and 9:00am as
long as they finish practice by 10am.
This allows students flexibility in their schedule, and helps in the
natural functionality of the mysore room because different students need help
with different asanas and the spread out timing allows teachers the ability to
help all students when they need help – if it were a led class one teacher
could not help 20 students in drop backs in a timely manner but in a mysore
room he/she can.
This is the way that yoga is taught by our
teachers, Shri K. Pattabhi Jois and R. Sharath Jois in Mysore, India and why it
has come to be known as “Mysore Style” teaching. For more information on
Ashtanga Yoga please visit www.kpjayi.org
Xinalani: In the fitness world,
experts often say you need to change up your workout in order to constantly
challenge your muscles in new ways so they don’t become accustomed to the same
movements. Why is Ashtanga different,
even though you follow the same series repeatedly?
Krista: I’ll try to answer your
question from a purely physical perspective:
In Ashtanga Yoga asana practice you do repeat the exact same series of
postures in the primary series until you master those asanas (postures) – until
you are indeed accustomed to the movements and your body has not only
physically mastered the ability to do the movements with grace but also
mastered breathing fluidly without strain while doing the postures with
grace. This is not cross training, this
is yoga and one of our goals is to steady the body by training the body and
breath so that we can then work to steady the mind. But it takes a long time for a person doing
the Ashtanga Primary Series 6 days per week to truly master that series and be
ready to move onto the next. During that
period of working towards mastery the student is doing the same sequence each
day struggling to find balance and agility, stamina, control, coordination,
build strength and flexibility and much more.
And over time, doing the practice consistently, for a long period of
time, without break, a student will eventually become master over those
movements that make up the primary series – as that is part of the
process. If we took the approach of the
general fitness world, we would never master any yoga postures– to me there is
little benefit in that. While physical
fitness is certainly a benefit of yoga practice, it is only one of many – the
process should take us deeper and deeper, not keep us on the surface level. But please don’t mistake me, this asana
practice is an intense physical challenge.
Once a student does master primary series he or she will slowly build up
second series postures and later 3rd and so on, and each series is
progressively more challenging and demanding on the body. One thing that really makes this yoga method
unique, even for fitness buffs, is that the student can gauge their own
progress in their practice each day – as they get deeper into postures, attain
more balance and flexibility they can see that on the mat because they are
repeating the same sequence over and over until it is ‘mastered’ so that their
body and mind is ready to embark on the next series of asanas to continue to
challenge their body, mind and spirit.
Xinalani: Is there space for
creativity in an Asthanga practice?
Krista: Absolutely!
I can guarantee that not one day is ever the same on your mat. Let’s say you are working to master primary
and have three poses left in the sequence.
Sunday-Friday you do your practice exactly the same each day, but on
Sunday you focus on keeping with the Vinyasa count, Monday you are extremely
tired and move much slower than the count and holding postures a few extra
breathes, Tuesday you are short on time so you have to leave out your final
three seated postures before moving to finishing, Wednesday your mind is all
over the map thinking about a deadline at work and you are not very focused on
asana but you show up and do anyway, on Thursday you are totally connected with
your breath and bandhas and nothing in the world can distract you in practice
and you attain a true moving meditation session on your mat, and Friday your
teacher leads your class through primary series with proper Vinyasa count and
you end in final rest with your eyes closed, clothes drenched in sweat, smiling
knowing tomorrow is a rest day. Every
single day is different and YOU make it what it is. You put in the effort or you don’t, show up
and do or you don’t, allow the distractions in the room or in your head to
affect your practice or not, go to classes outside your local studio when
traveling or chose to roll out your mat in your hotel room…While Ashtanga yoga
does not allow for creativity in sequencing of postures in the series, that
doesn’t mean the practitioner cannot be creative within the structure of the
sequence in each series. If Ashtanga did
allow creativity of sequencing, then it would no longer be Ashtanga Yoga – it
would be power yoga or flow yoga or power flow yoga or Vinyasa or any of the
many names people have made up in recent years to describe their own creative
diversion from this traditional Ashtanga yoga method. In Ashtanga yoga the creativity comes from
within you. Each day is a blank canvas
and you get to color it how you wish. I see my practice exactly the same way –
my Ashtanga yoga practice is my canvas – I get on my mat and take my prescribed
practice and the outcome of that practice is totally up to me – the lessons I
learn, the stuff I release the thoughts I have or don’t have…New styles of yoga
that ‘mix things up’ remind me of today’s toys for children. Toys today are so detailed and so intricate
there is little room for creative freedom on the part of the child. Today’s yoga classes are so mixed up
and flavored with this and that, there is little room for yoga practitioners to
go deep within themselves to have their own creative experience. Simple is best – allows more room for growth,
change, transformation and joy.
Xinalani: Each year
you go back to Mysore, India to practice and learn. What are some of the more valuable bits you
have taken away from your recent trips?
Krista: Ha, funny
question for me personally because my most recent trip with my son (then 1 and
a half), and the trip before I was six months pregnant with Kaiden. Regardless of my condition, I can say with
certainty that India is a magical motherland that feeds your soul and each trip
I make fills me to the brim with adventure, mystery, struggle, joy and
faith.
I return to
India each year to study with my teachers at the Krishna Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga
Yoga institute to ensure my practice is progressing under the correct
path. Doing my practice alone at home
all year, it is a true gift to get to return to Mysore and ‘check in’ with
Sharath for a few months, to be a student only, to surrender to India, allow
myself to be vulnerable, and to soak in all that India has to teach me.
The valuable
bits truly are the ones words cannot describe.
Taking yourself out of your comfort zone, putting your faith and trust
into a practice such as this, allowing yourself to be open to learn from every
single interaction and experience – these are the things that make each trip so
special. Be it India, Mexico, Morocco
or anywhere on this globe that you consider an adventure or something on your
bucket list, something that excites you or moves you – remember life is short
and you deserve to live it to the fullest.
So whatever it is you wish to experience, wherever it is you wish to
travel – do it now! You might just learn
something along the way!
Xinalani: You and Elise Espat will
be holding a yoga retreat at Xinalani this fall. How did you two meet? What makes you two a good match to lead a
retreat together?
Krista: Elise and I met
in the fall of 2007 in Mysore, India. We
were both studying at the Krishna Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute in
Mysore with Guruji, Sharath and Saraswathi.
When I met Elise I loved her spirit.
We hung out that year in Mysore, have stayed in touch through the years,
and have met up when we can in India, New York and California. We cherish our friendship with one another,
enjoy the chances we have to see one another, practice and learn together, and
we both love travel and adventure. So
when Elise came up with the idea of doing a retreat together I was totally on
board. This will be our first of many
retreats together because we know it will be a week full of fun, adventure,
hard work, dedicated practice, relaxation, and exploration. We both love this practice, are both deeply
dedicated to our teachers and this lineage, both own our own yoga schools, both
work hard, play hard, and practice with devotion. We enjoy adventure, challenges, problem
solving, and fun; we work well together and care deeply for each other and I
know our retreat participants will benefit tremendously from our
co-contributions as well as our individual ones. I am very excited about this week at Xinalani
with Elise and am eager to share our friendship and passion for this yoga with
our group.
Krista: ADVENTURE! We will start each day with our Ashtanga Yoga
practice followed by chanting. We will
then enjoy a wholesome group breakfast.
Participants will enjoy some free time to relax, explore, read or rest
until lunch at 1:30pm. After lunch each
day Elise and I will facilitate excursions for the group from body boarding,
kayaking, shopping, mule rides, swimming with the dolphins, trekking and
snorkeling. These excursions are
optional so participants can join in or do their own thing. The group will reconvene back on resort
property at 5pm for meditation, chanting, lectures and much more and we will
end each day with a group dinner at 7:30pm.
After a week of
yoga and adventure with me and Elise at Xinalani, our group will leave with
some stellar memories, new friendships, and a new found or re-discovered love
for travel and adventure!
Xinalani: What
advice would you give from your own personal experience to our readers?
Krista: Don’t ever look
back wishing you had done something…Do…and do without regret…even if the
outcome is not what you envision, the experience is wisdom gained to carry
forward to the next opportunity…So DO and by doing you will live your life to
the fullest.
Xinalani: Is there anything you
wish to share with our readers that we have not covered?
Krista: Define your life by your
actions, not your words :)
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