what is mysore style?
In a Mysore room, you will find practitioners working on their own sequence at their own pace. The teacher is in the room guiding every single student in a very personal fashion. Helping them get deeper into the asanas or working together with specific goals; to understand the asanas or heal from injury. If you don’t yet know the sequence, on your first day you will begin to learn it step by step. The teacher will add onto the sequence at a pace that’s appropriate for the student so that they can memorize the postures and movements and integrate them into a regular yoga practice.
The Ashtanga Method is taught in a safe environment where trust and understanding towards each student’s priorities are taken into consideration very respectfully. The practice is adapted to the students’ needs to make it accessible and focused on thriving not only in the asana yoga practice but also in the student’s confidence and self-love.
Mysore Shalita is a very special room where community has been created with the foundation of compassion, love and devotion towards each other and the practice of Yoga. You’ll never feel alone as you work through your personal practice on the mat.
what is Ashtanga yoga?
The system of Ashtanga Yoga is based on the method of Vinyasa.
Vinyasa literally means to arrange something in a specific order. When practicing Asana with vinyasa, we arrange the cycles of breathing with the movement. So, as the breath leads the way we enter and exit the asanas in a way that becomes a dance. The breath is the music, and the body surrenders to the rhythm of the breath.
In Ashtanga Yoga, we follow six different sequences, where the vinyasa system is present throughout the entire practice.
As Eddie Stern so beautifully describes it on the preface of ‘The Yoga Mala’ by Pattabhi Jois, “Every sequence is like a Yoga Mala or a garland, where every asana symbolizes every bead of the yoga Mala or the flower in the garland, and the breath is the thread that puts them all together”.
Every sequence of Ashtanga yoga has a purpose, starting with the primary series to detoxify the body, then going to the intermediate series which works on the nervous system, and finally refining movement and breath we move into the more advanced sequences that show the grace and strength which can be achieved by the work of all previous sequences.
Emilia Arenas
Emilia from her native Colombia began a yoga practice when her mom invited her to a yoga class. Fascinated by the depth of the breath and the interesting movements the human body could get into, she decided to keep trying different styles of Vinyasa Yoga until she found Ashtanga.
From an athletic background, after many years teaching different modalities of fitness, the Ashtanga yoga system made her fall in love immediately especially with the idea of using the body as an instrument for transformation.
She decided to move to Miami to find a place where she could devote her spirit to the practice of Yoga. Soon enough she found her teachers Kino MacGregor, Tim Feldmann and Greg Nardi who ignited even more her eagerness for the practice and eventually invited her to participate in their apprenticeship at Miami Life Center.
Emilia traveled to India to study under Sharath Jois several times and found her Yoga Philosophy teacher Dr. Nagaraj who taught her in depth ‘The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali’.
After many years of leading a solid Mysore program at Miami Life Center, Emilia decided to follow her own path and create her own community. Opening Mysore Shalita has given Emilia the opportunity to share her love, passion and devotion for the path of Yoga.
Her passion is to witness the growth of her students while not only working with discipline but also enjoying every step of the journey.
Her goal is to help her students have a better conversation with themselves and about themselves so they can have a better conversation with the people around them.