Really Good Teachers

A small list:

My own teacher is Andrew Eppler in Oklahoma.
David Swenson is one of the earliest American students of Aṣṭāṅga, and he still travels quite a bit to give Workshops.
I have learned a lot over the years by visiting with Tim Miller, but he seems to be retired now.
The Ashtanga Yoga Club of Durham was founded by the late Suzanne Faulkner, one of the saints of the Aṣṭāṅga community, along with her partner Nikos. Now it continues under the leadership of Suzanne’s yoga-sister Joanna Darlington. Both were students of David Garrigue, whose approach to the practice integrates elements of alignment-awareness.

Posture Cheatsheets

The old posture-sheets from BNS Iyengar’s original Yogashala in Mysore, India:

Primary Series, Page 1

Download this sheet.

Primary Series, Page 2

Download this sheet.

Steiner’s Sheets

Dr. Ronald Steiner collects a number of useful Aṣṭāṅga resources on his website, including “cheat-sheets” for the series here. You’ll want the sheets for:

Sun Salutation A & B
Fundamental Positions with BNS Iyengar
Primary Series with BNS Iyengar

Note: Steiner’s site is in German, with an option for English. If you see a popup asking what you want to do about “cookies”, it will probably be in German. The button to accept cookies is the one on the left.]

The Practice Manual

The classic hard-copy book is Ashtanga Yoga: the Practice Manual, by David Swenson. Its spiral binding allows the book to open flat so you can keep it beside your mat as you work through the postures.

Primary Series Videos

I teach a version of Primary Series of Aṣṭāṅga Yoga that was passed down by BNS Iyengar of Mysore, India, to my own teacher Andrew Eppler. One of Andrew’s students, Joey Paz, has produced a very accurate video of himself performing the BNS Iyengar Primary Series. It can be purchased for a low price here.
In this Youtube video, Wambui Njuguna-Räisänen leads a student through a large fraction of the Primary Series, offering very sensible modifications to the postures. (Wambui follows the more-commonly seen “Patabhi Jois” version of the Primary Series, so you’ll notice a few small difference from what we do in class.)
The jump-through portion of the vinyāsa transition is a frequent point of inquiry among students. In this video Laruga Glaser describes a sequence of modifications that many people find useful to train for the full jump-through.
This site collects a number of “short-form” videos, which you may find useful if you are just starting a home-practice. (Beware: you have to fight through a lot of ads to get to videos themselves.)

Mats and Rugs

If you practice Aṣṭāṅga consistently, you’ll wear out a regular “sticky” mat within a year or so. Most practitioners gravitate to one of the Manduka mats: being quite thick and tough, they save a lot of money in the long-run. I’ve had my Manduka for over twenty years and am only just now beginning to see signs of wear.

Depending on the climate and the intensity of your practice, you may sweat enough to render your mat and the surface surrounding it rather slippery. In that case you might want to put a “Mysore-style” cotton rug over your mat. A popular vendor of rugs for Aṣṭāṅgis is Ekam Inhale.