Ashtanga Yoga School Raleigh

One of the lessons Ashtanga teaches us is that the practice is not about mastering a posture—it’s about staying with the process.

Come practice.

✨ Early Bird Registration closes tomorrow
✨ Spots are limited

If you’ve been thinking about joining us, now’s the time😊

October 1–5 | AYR
Come practice, explore, learn, and deepen your understanding of the body and the Ashtanga practice.

🔗 Register now—link in bio.

Our mentorship students are taking everything they’ve learned since the beginning of the year and putting it into practice in the Mysore room. 🧘‍♀️

Before practice, each student receives specific guidance on what they’ll be working on and practicing. They’re given the time and space to explore, refine, and repeat until they feel confident and can execute it with understanding and intention.

This is where the practice becomes the teacher and learning becomes practice—and practice becomes experience. 🙏

Join us this October as we welcome back David Keil to Ashtanga Yoga Raleigh for an amazing 5 days.

David is yoga educator, anatomy expert, and long-time Ashtanga practitioner known for making complex anatomical concepts accessible to yoga students.

He feels that Ashtanga Yoga is more than practicing a set series of postures in a particular order. Considering the methodology and philosophy that provides the structure of the Ashtanga practice is critical to deepening one’s practice and developing one’s ability to teach. It is from this place that we will dive into the details of practice and explore the context of the Ashtanga Yoga method.

In this intensive, David will share the knowledge he has acquired since 1999 from his practice and studies of the Ashtanga Yoga system. David’s perspective on the practice is informed by multiple trips to Mysore which have led to his authorization to teach the system by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and R. Sharath Jois.

Early Bird Registration opens August 19th.
🔗 in bio for more info

Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates:

The reality is the posture never ends, it just shifts from one form to the next, one lesson to the next, one opportunity to the next. We remain life’s student whether we are inhaling or exhaling, in a relationship or out of one, saving the world or looking for a temp job. The posture never ends.
I am in the poster when look into my wife’s eyes, and I am in the posture when I look into my waiter’s eyes. Both are holy interactions. The illusion is that there is separation, levels of importance, beginnings and endings. Yoga brings us to the understanding that the posture never ends.

The posture never ends—it simply changes form. Every moment, relationship, challenge, and interaction is part of our practice. Yoga reminds us that there is no hierarchy or separation between “important” and “ordinary” moments; every interaction is an opportunity to be present, learn, and connect 🧘‍♀️🕉️

Just a reminder - Friday is a Full Moon , so there is no Open Practice or Mysore Friday morning.

Join us instead for Guided Moon Sequence.

Every single practice starts the same way — Surya Namaskar A. It doesn’t matter if you are starting Primary Series or practice Advanced B. Doesn’t matter if yesterday’s practice was strong or if you fell out of every balance. Doesn’t matter if you missed a week, a month, a year. You still begin with breath, with the first sun salutation, with the same humble first step.

That’s the quiet teaching underneath the whole practice: you don’t get to skip to where you left off. You begin again. Every time. And somehow that’s not defeat — it’s the whole point.

Off the mat, it’s the same. You don’t need a new year, a Monday, or a clean slate to start over. You just need today — and a willingness to begin, however many times it takes.

Yesterday our mentorship student led us the stand portion of Primary Series.
Learning the led primary count in anchors the entire practice to a precise breathing movement rhythm and all the mentorship students have been working hard on this.

The count:
✨helps synchronize the breath and movement
✨deepens the focus
✨shows out habits-rushing or slowing down in challenging postures (or ones we may not like) or getting tired.
✨continues to uphold the tradition & maintain the lineage.

Great job Melissa!!!

Breathe. Move. Practice. 🔥