For thirty-five years, the practice has asked the same thing of me, every morning. It is asking it of you, too — if not yet, then soon enough.
This year-long program is an invitation into what the practice actually is, beneath the postures. The Ashtanga primary series, taught with care. Prāṇāyāma, taught slowly and in sequence. The classical literature — the Yoga Sūtras, the Bhagavad Gītā, the Sāṅkhya Kārikā — read closely with Sanskrit scholars from Mysore, the way these texts have always been read in the lineage.
I have been running this program for over fifteen years. What I keep noticing is that the people who finish the year well are not the most flexible or the most experienced. They are the ones who arrive willing to be students again.
— Andrew
The adjustment methods we teach are a collection of time-tested techniques, developed and refined across more than forty years of daily practice. They are practical, specific, and unique to this lineage — and they cannot be learned from a screen. They are the reason this program is held in person.
This program is not assembled from books and weekends abroad. It is the product of a long, ongoing relationship with Sanskrit scholars and senior practitioners in Mysore, India — most directly with Sri BNS Iyengar, with the late Swami M. A. Alwar, and with the Samskriti Foundation.
We don't only study this tradition — we actively help carry it forward. We organize the Mysore Yoga Conference, produced the documentary Mysore Yoga Traditions, and run an Online Studies Program that brings the teachings of Mysore scholars to a wider audience. The research is ongoing, and this training is connected to all of it.
You won't leave this year repeating slogans. You'll leave with the literacy to read the tradition for yourself, for the rest of your life.
Read about the paramparā →
I have practiced and taught Ashtanga Vinyāsa Yoga for over thirty-five years, and have been running this 200-hour intensive for more than fifteen of them. I founded the Mysore Yoga Conference and the Online Studies Program, and directed the documentary Mysore Yoga Traditions — a film built from in-depth interviews with the scholars, elders, and practitioners who hold the practice in its place of origin.
What you'll find in my classroom is a heavy emphasis on hands-on adjustment work — a set of methods developed over four decades and unique to this lineage. There is no hurry, and also no place to hide.
The year is taught alongside my wife Mila and a small circle of long-term students, each carrying one of the threads — bodywork, anatomy, chanting, philosophy — according to their own years inside it.
The rhythm is monthly. Each weekend rotates through one of three threads — methodology, body, philosophy — so each returns to you three times across the year, each pass deeper than the last.
Sessions you miss can be joined live on Zoom or made up from the archive, so the year holds even when life doesn't.
Additional weekends to follow through the fall. Dates are generally mid-month but vary with holidays and travel.
Not a curriculum to complete and forget, but a vocabulary you carry into the rest of your practice.
The Ashtanga primary series, learned slowly and well: the vinyāsa count, the Sanskrit names, the geometry of each āsana, and the discipline of clean transitions. Heavy emphasis throughout on hands-on adjustment work — methods refined over forty years and unique to this lineage.
Anatomy as it actually meets the practice — joints, fascia, breath. The body as the first instrument of yoga, and a teacher about how to keep it useful for fifty years. Traditional Thai bodywork is taught as a complementary healing art, with practical sessions throughout the year.
The classical texts read with Sanskrit scholars from Mysore — not as inspirational quotes, but as the philosophical literature they actually are. What Patañjali says, and what later commentators added. What's ancient, what's modern, and how the threads actually connect.
A working studio in the heart of Norman. Walking distance to coffee, food, and quiet. Where most weekends are held.
A quiet retreat property south of Norman. Simple lodging and camping for trainees at $30 a night. Some weekends move out here when the season allows it.
The program is offered three ways, so the year is possible for those who can find their way to it.
Paid in full at the start of the year. The full curriculum, the online archive, personal mentorship, and final certification.
Six hundred down, then $275 paid at each training weekend. Same year, same teaching, paid as it unfolds.
Attend one weekend with no obligation to the full year. A way to know whether this is yours before committing to it.
Graduates of previous cohorts are welcome to return at any future weekend for $150. The optional final oral examination with Swami M. A. Alwar — at an auspicious $108 — may be taken at the end of the year, in person or remotely.
The year isn't for everyone, and a year is a long time to spend on something that isn't yours. I'd rather have an honest conversation before you commit. I answer my own email.