Ashtanga United - The Heart Of A Living Tradition | A Four Day Intensive
A shared practice. An ongoing conversation. A living tradition.
Petri Räisänen | Tara Mitra | Scott Johnson
12th - 15th June 2025 | Price: £250
Ashtanga United is a four-day intensive rooted in shared practice, thoughtful inquiry, and respect for the living tradition of Ashtanga yoga.
Held by Petri Räisänen, Tara Mitra and Scott Johnson, this gathering brings together three senior teachers shaped by different eras, cultures and approaches within the Ashtanga method.
Each morning is dedicated to Mysore practice, forming the heart of the event. The afternoons offer workshops that reflect on what arises through practice, exploring themes such as breath, structure, energy, attention, and the realities of long-term engagement with Ashtanga yoga.
Rather than presenting a single interpretation, Ashtanga United creates a shared teaching space where dialogue, lived experience, and direct practice guide the work.
This intensive is for experienced practitioners who wish to deepen understanding, refine their relationship to practice, and explore how tradition remains alive through care, curiosity, and continuity.
Who this intensive is for:
Practitioners with an established Ashtanga practice
Those interested in lineage without rigidity
Students who value thoughtful, non-dogmatic teaching
Anyone looking to deepen understanding rather than accumulate techniques
This intensive is not suitable for beginners.
The AU26 event includes:
Mysore-Style Mornings (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday)
Each morning all three teachers will co-teach and support your practice in the Ashtanga yoga Mysore class and you can choose to come early or late. Start times for the Mysore classes are:
Friday 12th June
First start time: 06.30am
Second start time: 08.15am
Saturday 13th June
First start time: 7am
Second start time: 08.45am
Sunday 14th June
First start time: 7am
Second start time: 08.45am
Monday 15th June
First start time: 06.30am
Second start time: 08.15am
When registering for the full event you can pick either an early or late start time. You will automatically be included in the afternoon workshops when you book either session.
Workshops (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
Afternoon Workshops will be co-taught by the faculty, with each teacher exploring technique, philosophy, and the evolving nature of Ashtanga over the years and into it's future. There will also be a faculty discussion with all three teachers.
A Community Experience – This event isn’t just about learning; it’s about experiencing Ashtanga as a living, breathing tradition, together.
Friday Evening Community Indian Thali Meal: On Friday 12th June, from 6.30pm, there will be a community gathering at Stillpoint Yoga London with food prepared by Tom Norrington - Davies, a fellow practitioner/teacher and celebrated London chef. This will be a separate, opt-in event, that we will contact you about nearer the time.
Full Weekend Schedule
Friday 12th June
06:30 - 10:00am: Mysore Style Ashtanga
12pm - 2pm: Moving through Sound with Tara Mitra
Tara has been exploring the human mind for thirty-six years. Yoga asana came twenty-three years ago, philosophy and the Yoga Sutras not long after, and twelve years ago, Vedic chanting under the guidance of Dr. Vigneshwar Bhat. Each thread deepened the others. Rooted in her East Indian heritage and the living traditions of Ayurveda, her practice has always understood yoga as a complete science of the self. Sound, in this lineage, is a technology of attention. Ancient chants carry a precision that speaks directly to awareness, shifting something in the listener that instruction alone cannot reach. Through chanting and guided inquiry, we explore how sound moves us from the inside, settling the nervous system, opening perception, returning us back to ourselves. Mantra, after all, means exactly this, a tool that frees the mind.
Saturday 13th June
7am - 10.30am: Mysore Style Ashtanga
12pm - 2pm: Moving in Space with Scott Johnson
Since 2009, Scott Johnson has been observing how the movements of the Ashtanga system align with the unique movements of each practitioner. Not to correct or refine toward an ideal, but to deepen trust in what is already there. This workshop begins with a question: where does movement come from? Through steady inquiry and direct experience, we explore what it means to move through space and within it, to let proprioception and breath become a single act of listening. What emerges is less a technique than a reorientation. The practice begins to feel less like something you do, and more like somewhere you are.
Sunday 14th June
7am - 10.30am: Mysore Style Ashtanga
12pm - 2pm: Moving with Energy with Petri Räisänen
Petri Räisänen has spent decades working at the edge of what touch can do. Long before Ashtanga, he studied Jäsenkorjaus, the Finnish folk healing tradition, learning to sense and move energy through the body with precision and care. That training never left. It lives in how he adjusts, how he listens, how he meets a body in practice. This workshop draws on both streams. Through breath, attention, and direct experience, we explore prana not as concept but as something felt, something that can be guided, refined, and trusted. A different way of knowing the practice from the inside.
Monday 15th June
06:30 - 10:00am: Mysore Style Ashtanga