Ashtanga Yoga Studio
Andrew Eppler
Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga · Norman, Oklahoma · Studying in Mysore since 1990
Ashtanga Yoga Studio opened in Norman in 1999. It was the first yoga studio in town, and I have taught here ever since.
I first went to Mysore in 1990 and have gone back most years since. My teacher there is Śrī B.N.S. Iyengar, who studied with Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya and with Pattabhi Jois, and who founded Śrī Pātañjala Yogaśālā at Parakāla Maṭha in 1984.
Practice was never the only reason to go.
I read the Bhagavad Gītā with Śrī U.Ve. Prof. M.A. Lakṣmīthāthāchārya Swami in Mysore over three and a half years. He was a Sanskrit scholar of the Nāthamuni Sampradāya, the line of teachers Śrī Kṛṣṇamācārya also belonged to. He died in 2021. What I wrote afterward about his life and that lineage is at The Origins of Mysore Yoga.
Andrew writes here · 1 of 3
One memory of Guruji, in your own words. A morning in the shala, something he said and what you made of it, the adjustment that took a year to receive properly. Three to six sentences.
This is the most valuable block on the page. It is the only thing here that nobody else could have written, and it is the reason a reader believes the rest of it.
The body is a vessel. Life is water. The soul is steam.
Śrī B.N.S. Iyengar
The record
Mysore and Norman
First trip to Mysore
I went to practice with Śrī B.N.S. Iyengar and stayed on to read with the Sanskrit scholars of that community. I have gone back most years since.
Ashtanga Yoga Studio, Norman
The first yoga studio in Norman, and still where I teach. Mysore-style practice in the mornings, led classes and workshops through the week.
The Mysore Yoga Conference
I started it so that senior Sanskrit scholars from Mysore and practitioners from abroad would be in the same room, reading the same page. About the conference
Mysore Yoga Traditions
I directed and produced the Mysore Yoga Traditions film, and built the Online Studies Program, where pandits from within the tradition teach the classical texts course by course. A second film, Kings and Yogis, is in production. Online Studies
In the room
How the practice is taught here
Mysore-style means you learn the sequence one posture at a time and practice it at your own pace, in a room with other people doing the same. Nobody calls the count. I come to you. On a first morning you will learn a few postures and go home, and that is enough.
Asana, breath, and philosophy are one subject here. The postures are what most people arrive for. Prāṇāyāma, the breath discipline, and mudrā, the internal seals, come once a practice is steady enough to carry them, and the text study runs alongside all of it, week by week.
Andrew writes here · 2 of 3
The thing you actually say to a new student, or the correction you find yourself making most often. Two or three sentences, in the words you would use standing in the room.
Photography
A record of the practice
I have carried a camera on every trip. Mysore, Melkote, Crete, Kyiv, Barcelona, and home in Oklahoma. The film came out of that habit.
Before any of this I spent my twenties performing magic on the street in India and Europe, and I have kept at it for thirty-five years.
Photographs by Andrew Eppler
Practical
Where and when
Mysore-style class, Norman
- Days [ ADD: mornings and times ]
- Where [ ADD: street address ]
- Drop-in [ ADD: $ ]
- Month [ ADD: $ ]
If you have never practiced this way before, write first and I will tell you what to expect.
ScheduleThe 200hr Ashtanga Training
- Where Norman and online
- Next dates [ ADD ]
- Cost [ ADD: total, then the actual monthly figure, e.g. $000 a month for 00 months ]
- To join [ ADD: short application, then deposit ]
Asana, the texts, time in the room teaching, and the disciplines that hold the whole thing together, studied as one course.
The 200hr TrainingIndia, January 12 to February 8, 2027
- Where Mysore and Melkote
- Length Four weeks
- Cost [ ADD: total, deposit, what is included and what is not ]
- To join [ ADD: application link ]
Practice in the morning, reading with the scholars in the afternoon, in the places the material comes from.
The India programAndrew writes here · 3 of 3 · the operational paragraph
What the days in India actually look like. Where people stay, what the food is, how long the taxi from Bangalore takes and roughly what it costs, what time the shala opens, what gets hard in the second week. Six to ten lines, and put the inconvenient parts in.
This is the block that makes the whole page credible, and it is the one I cannot draft for you, because none of it can be invented and a reader can tell.
Come practice
You are welcome to come and see for yourself.
If you have never done this before, write to me first and I will tell you what to expect. Otherwise come in the morning.