Accessible Ashtanga: An All-Levels Guide to the Primary and Intermediate Series

by Kino MacGregor, Shanna Small (foreword)

​​A bold, much-needed guide for Ashtanga yoga practice, useful for all levels and illustrated with 250 color photos, by one of yoga’s best known and respected teachers, Kino MacGregor. This offers an updated, more accessible view of the traditional series, adapting it to serve a wider range of practitioners.​​Even experienced practitioners find the challenging style of Ashtanga Yoga to be daunting. Whether you’re a beginner, living in an unconventional yoga body, or need modifications for any reason, this book will make you feel empowered, inspired, and confident to make the adjustments and modifications that feel right for your body.      Kino posits that the Ashtanga Yoga method needs a systemwide reset and reevaluation to make it viable and beneficial to all students. She reframes the guru model and re-envisions the method in a way that will truly make Ashtanga available to all, while maintaining the integrity of the traditional teachings.      She also presents a brief theory of movement mechanics that can help prevent injury, optimize physical mobility, and tap into the natural intelligence of the body.    The practice section presents each of the poses of the Ashtanga Yoga Primary Series—plus some of the poses in the Ashtanga Yoga Second Series—in traditional, modified, accessible, and adaptive forms (including using blocks and a chair).     Not only will you see how to modify the pose, you will learn how best to work the pose for your unique need. Teachers will find plenty of reference material to update their teaching methodology.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health

240 pages, Paperback

Published August 27, 2024

Reviews

[Emily]

In this valuable new addition to inclusive fitness, MacGregor integrates her long history as a yoga practitioner with the work of body liberation, especially as its being yoked to yoga traditions by teachers including Dianne Bondy, Lashanna Small, and Jessamyn Stanley. MacGregor’s recognition that yoga can be made accessible for all bodies through student-centered approaches came from her own experience of knee replacement surgery, an experience that pushed her to think about what barriers—visible and invisible—have historically made Ashtanga’s benefits unavailable to people. The book begins with a paradigm shift that respects yoga’s history and its complex lineages while gracefully reshaping aspects of it, both in the shapes of bodies and the gestures (e.g., the use of words like namaste). With a shift away from conventions that have historically served as gatekeeping, she is able to turn to the poses with practicality and nuance. For new or physically limited students, MacGregor’s choice to illustrate herself in full sequences with models showing modifications might seem to center the “correct” version in ways that suggest a hierarchy of poses, but her inclusion of a significant number of versions of all of the poses still powerfully, visible shifts the narrative away from a version of yoga with correct poses and toward one that is highly individualized.

[Bev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kino is a world renowned Ashtanga instructor. I learnt the Ashtanga method from my son Sean. Since beginning my practise I have had 2 knee replacements, the return to yoga has been more difficult with the latest knee replacment as I do not have my son living at home to help! I therefore ordered this book, written by Kino, whom I am an enormous fan! It is beyond helpful to follow and I am enjoying the return to my practise with the help of Kino the ultimate professional!

[Lauren Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kino has done it again, this is a total must read for Ashtanga Yoga instructors. This is a beautifully done book. Great for beginners too!

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very important book for making ashtanga accessible for everyone. Good for injuries, and just to know different ways to do things.