I’ve been doing ashtanga for a few weeks now, as I’m sure some of you know from my last post. It’s been doing wonders for me as far as calming my mind and releasing tension and stress.
However, the postures themselves don’t seem to be getting much easier. Should I continue doing my best and slowly but surely, I’ll become more flexible? I understand such endeavours take time and commitment of course, I just haven’t really noticed any progress since I’ve started.
Hi,
We must understand that each body is as different as each individual. I have seen it many times in my years in yoga. One person might gain strenght and flexibilty within a few months of starting yoga and for another it might take years before something significant happens.
The biggest disfavour we can do to ourselves in yoga is to look around in a class and to compare yourself with others and think look at this or that one, they started with me and they can do already this or that. Yoga is not about other people in the class, it is about you and working patiently with what you got.
Then, the hardest thing to do is to accept that you cannot do all the asanas in yoga. That in itself is a great lesson if we can learn from it. 
LAst thing, sometimes the progress is on a level that we can’t see, remember yoga works on many other and deeper levels of your being as well.
[QUOTE=Summer Fromance;10187]I’ve been doing ashtanga for a few weeks now, as I’m sure some of you know from my last post. It’s been doing wonders for me as far as calming my mind and releasing tension and stress.
However, the postures themselves don’t seem to be getting much easier. Should I continue doing my best and slowly but surely, I’ll become more flexible? I understand such endeavours take time and commitment of course, I just haven’t really noticed any progress since I’ve started.[/QUOTE]
when the mind becomes calmer and more flexible the body will follow, since you say the mind is becoming calmer have faith that in time the body will follow. Personally for me if my mind was calm I would care little about the body
Presume the poses do not get any “easier” then decide how you would like to proceed.
Many people seem drawn to “styles” such as ashtanga or bikram. Where the sequence is set in stone and not flexible.
This may not be appropriate for you - or it might not be appropriate for you every day. The drawback to any group class is that it will not be taught specifically for you and your needs at that moment. However a qualified teacher - teaching without a set sequence will be able to adapt the sequence and the postures, to the time of day, and needs of some students of the class.
It would not be surprising if you as an individual require a different set of preparatory poses or counterposes for any of the poses in the ashtanga sequence.
Vic
from my experience in the ashtanga primary sequence, each asana builds on the previous asana and provides counter poses along the way (some counter poses come in the form of the vinyasa). i would never say that the ashtanga primary series is a ‘complete practice’, but it has many elements of a complete practice and encourages self practice (the student learns the sequence from a teacher and develops a self practice, which could be complemented by group or private classes depending on the decision of the student).
flexibility does not come overnight. it does not even come in a few weeks. as we continue to practice, the asana settles deeper into the body and into the muscle memory. as the layers are peeled back we may discover places we’ve never been before, both physically and mentally and spiritually. i’ve gone through periods of great flexibility and great inflexibility (in ALL the previously mentioned categories). i’ve had days where some postures were soooo eeeeasy and other days where i struggled/wrestled with the same posture. many of these barriers are just in the mind.
there are a few ashtangi mantras, one is ‘99% practice, 1% theory’ and another is ‘practice and all is coming’. there is also this website Ashtanga Yoga - Message Board - Yuku which just had an entire thread dedicated to ‘inflexibility’ on the 99% practice board. i have found this site to be a great help for my personal practice.
good luck,
s
thanks for the input everyone :D.
I’m completely new to all of this and I’m trying to get a better understanding of it all.
There’s a yoga studio I could walk to in my town, I think I may check it out. An instructor would probably help a lot.