Book review : 21 Things to know before starting an ashtanga practice ...plus Blogs 3rd Birthday

Before I talk about Claudia's book, I wanted to mention that this is my blogs 3rd anniversary.

Happy Birthday Blog, it's been fun

...and a big thank you too to all the readers and commenter's, supporters and critics as well as to those of you who have sent me email's with questions and encouragement over the last three years. I really do feel the experience of writing it has benefited my practice and highly recommend it, particularly for the home ashtangi.

Here's my very first post entitled, Jumping back from when the blog was called Ashtanga Jump back.

Birthday's, anniversaries, seem inevitably to bring some reflection, perhaps a certain wistfulness and an urge to return to basics, to beginnings.

Perhaps it's time for some consolidation and refinement.

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In celebration though here's a review I've been saving up of something rather charming.

There is one thing I wish I'd known before I started practicing Ashtanga but it's not in Claudia's book, I looked. I'll tell you what that is later. 

Anyone who's stuck with my blog over the years has probably figured out that I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Ashtanga ( for hate read, frustration and irritation), every now and again I tend to bang my head against it. It was during one of these ...more negative periods that Claudia brought out her book and I immediately switched over to feelin' the love again as a result of reading it, it reminded me why I love the practice.

Claudia's own passion for the practice is infectious, it's on almost every page. Yet despite that passion there's also an openness that I respect immensely. As a blogger herself Claudia's come up against questions and criticisms regarding the practice both on her own blog and those on which she contributes through comments. She's aware of what makes people uncomfortable or perhaps suspicious at times and is always respectful in her response, she is constantly exploring the practice and trying to understand it a little more herself. 

In the book that translates as respect for her readers.

She doesn't just throw information about the practice at you, she invites you in, she doesn't avoid the difficult questions, she often struggles with them too. Her book is a guide to pretty much everything surrounding the practice ( and more besides ) but she's also a fellow traveller, she wants to share her view of the practice but her curiosity comes through, she wants to hear yours too.

The last section is called...

'Keep in touch'

Claudia shares.

The book is personal, she's telling you why she chose to practice Ashtanga, (that's pretty much the title of Chapter four).

'I will never preach or try to convince anyone of anything, but I can tell you some of the reasons why I came into ashtanga, why it has worked for me and how it continues to work.' p39

One of my favourite things about the book is an in-joke, I didn't get right a way. The book's title relates to a blog post Claudia wrote a while back and it's the title of chapter three, on a hunch I took another look at the contents, page, yep, there are also twenty-one chapters. 

Claudia loves lists.

For example

Chapter six : 3 specific cases in which yoga helped me personally

Chapter seven : 15 unusual benefits of yoga

Chapter fourteen : 9 lame excuses that keep people away from yoga

Chapter sixteen 19 suggestions to improve your yoga practice

Chapter twenty-one : 32 unusual ways to love ourselves.

Notice too that none of those chapters mention Ashtanga in the title. Claudia practices Ashtanga but I would argue her book is relevant to any style of yoga in fact it might be said it's a book about taking more control of your life

Chapter 18 : A few ways to practice yoga when we're off the mat.

Notice she says when we're off the mat, she's not preachy.

This is not a practice manual, you wont find the ashtanga sequences laid out but If you're an Ashtangi then your going to want this book, it has, for example, one of the best guides around to making the leap and visit Mysore, India where the Ashtanga style began, command Central if you will.

Chapter ten: An Ashtanga yoga guide to Mysore

Which talks about Accommodation, transportation, food, supermarkets, bookstores, sightseeing just about everything.

But we also have...

Chapter eleven : Adventures of a beginner in Mysore

This is an hilarious account written by Claudia's husband relating his first experience of visiting ( being dragged along) to Mysore to practice ashtanga for the first time. This was a guest post on Claudia's blog, here James gets a guest chapter.

There's also a chapter on the Saturday, rest day practice, the oil bath.

It's a wonderful little book and Claudia has made a free pdf copy available on her blog,  however your going to want it in book form, in fact your probably going to want several copies as your sure to be passing them on to all your friends who ask you about this strange bouncing up and down on mats we do and are tempted to give it a try.

That said, in a couple of years your probably going to find several battered and well thumbed copies laying around your local shalas as well as in Mysore itself. 

Have a LOOK INSIDE on Amazon

There's also a kindle version.

I said at the beginning of this post that there is one thing I wish I'd known before I started practicing Ashtanga that isn't Claudia's book, here it is

22. Once you practice Ashtanga for a while you'll find it almost impossible to settle on practicing anything else.

That's not in there but Claudia's book helped me to understand a little of why that is.