Episode 3: Coming Home to Your Body - Ashtanga Yoga in Groningen as a Practice of Rhythm, Safety and Interoception
- May 4
- 3 min read
Updated: May 5
Practice should bring expansion. Not more control. Not more performing. Not more proving.
If that lands somewhere in you - this episode is for you.
Because somewhere along the way, yoga has became another thing to get right. Another area of life to optimise, discipline, push through. And yoga - Ashtanga in particular - hasn't always been innocent of that.
But that's not what this practice is. Not at its heart. And after more than twenty years of practicing and sixteen years of teaching, I had a lot I wanted to say about that.
I loved recording this episode. The passion probably shows - and there is still so much more to explore and say. More episodes on Ashtanga are coming. But what's in this one already goes deep, and I think you'll feel that when you listen.
This episode is for everyone - whether you're curious about Ashtanga but not sure it's for you, whether you practice yoga but are missing the rhythm and structure that lets it go deeper, or whether you've been practicing Ashtanga for years and want to understand more deeply why it does what it does.
For many who hear "Ashtanga Yoga", extreme poses come to mind, perhaps also strict teaching and a tradition that can feel like it's designed for a particular kind of body, the abled one - already strong, already flexible, already somehow sorted.
I understand where that image comes from. But it couldn't be further from what this practice truly is.
What I actually see in the Mysore room at Bhumi Yoga moves me every single time. People who spent years being harsh and controlling with their body, finding a different internal perspective. People who thought yoga "wasn't for them" - too stiff, too anxious, too much - who now practices regularly simply because they feel the immense support that yoga gives them physically and mentally. People recovering from burnout slowly finding themselves again. Busy parents carving out space that's genuinely theirs, connecting to themselves. And also people who have practiced yoga for years in led-type classes or here and there but wanted more depth.
In this episode I go deep into what Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga actually is, and why Mysore-style practice is so fundamentally different from a regular yoga class. I explore why rhythm and repetition are not boring - they are genuinely regulating. Why the familiarity of the sequence is what allows the nervous system to settle and something deeper to open up. And what that means for anyone living with stress, exhaustion, or that persistent feeling of being slightly disconnected from themselves.
I also talk about what shapes the lived experience of practice - the quality of presence a teacher brings into the room, what it means to hold space without hierarchy, and why connection over correction changes everything. A practice that truly listens to your body feels completely different from one that simply demands things of it.
Stimulation is not the same as depth. And this practice, when practiced with skill and taught with attunement, offers something that goes all the way down.
Press play. I think something in here will land.
And the door is genuinely open for all bodies, all levels, all ages in our Ashtanga Yoga Program in Groningen.
Curious what to expect from your very first class? Watch the reel here!
Want to know more about the Ashtanga Mysore program at Bhumi Yoga in Groningen? Read all about it here.
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