Sunday 16 August 2026
WORKSHOP 1 | The Matrix of Ashtanga Yoga
10am-1pm
WORKSHOP 2 | Ashtanga Vinyasa Count
2-4.30pm
Your anatomy is complicated, learning anatomy doesn’t have to be!
David is unparalleled when it comes to making anatomy understandable, practical and relevant to your own body and yoga practice. He teaches like no-one else we know, educating and inspiring you as you explore your yoga anatomy.
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WORKSHOP 1 | The Matrix of Ashtanga Yoga
Sunday 16 August (10.30am-1pm)
Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga is perhaps one of the most misunderstood styles in the yoga world even though so many other styles are influenced by it. The practice is more than just a sequence of postures. It is doing those postures while maintaining breath, bandha, and dristhi.This is not a workshop that simply reviews the basics that everyone is familiar with. It is about seeing the practice from a new perspective.
In this workshop, we first discuss the context within which the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga method came to be. Then we look at the essential elements that make it distinct and an extremely internal practice. The context that the practice lives in is one of recognizing our true nature. Are the elements in the practice being used to this aim?
The elements that provide the framework for the experience of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga are: vinyasa/breath, bandha, dristhi, and asana. It’s one thing to know what these words mean, and another to have an experience of them. We will be doing small pieces of practice to illustrate the concepts that lead to an actual experience of these elements. We will also take a look at why this method is so often misunderstood. Bring your skepticism and judgments if you wish.
Our intention during this workshop is to create a perspective and understanding of the practice that allows us to appreciate it. The practice is mostly misunderstood by people who have not practiced it. When I use the term practice, I don’t mean going to a led primary series class and thinking that one has practiced it. What I mean is, a minimum of 5 days of practice in a row, with a teacher who can transmit the essential points of the practice, that leads one to an EXPERIENCE of the practice.
Ashtanga is much more than doing the postures in a particular sequence.
This is a lecture-based workshop and aimed at those who have an open mind and a desire to understand the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga system in a way that enhances whatever method of practice they choose to participate in.
Topics Covered:
Understand the context of Ashtanga Yoga
Understand what concentration really means
Dive deep into bandhas
Understand what vinyasa means
Discover techniques of integration
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WORKSHOP 2 | Ashtanga Vinyasa Count
Sunday 16 August (2-4.30pm)
The Ashtanga Vinyasa Count Workshop is about understanding how to use the count as a mechanism for bringing focus and clarity to the practice. Like a mantra, the count can be used to hold the mind steady on one thread during the practice.The main components of the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga practice are described as the tristana, meaning the synergistic quality of asana, breath, bandha, and dristhi. Underlying correct breathing is a structured framework known as the vinyasa krama (count). Many people seem to know what vinyasa is, but few are familiar with the word krama. Krama means process, order, or succession. The breath coordinated process or order of movements is the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga method’s core.
If you can understand this layer of the practice, a whole new level of discipline and focus can be accessed. A new appreciation for the method, its intricacies, and what you’re doing relative to the practice will be understood.
In this workshop, we will spend time learning how to count. We will learn how to use the count within the practice to bring yet another level of focus and depth to what we’re doing.
The intention is not that everyone leaves being able to count the whole of primary series. Instead, we plant a seed of inquiry and provide just enough experience that one can go off and learn the count if they choose.
Topics Covered:
Count the vinyasa of key postures
Learn how to use the count for focus
How the count connects us to the Ashtanga lineage
How the vinyasa krama regulates the breath
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WORKSHOP COSTS
Workshops 1 & 2 £99
Individual Workshop £59
Workshop Series - BOOK NOW
Workshop 1 - BOOK NOW
Workshop 2 - BOOK NOW
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About David Keil
David Keil was introduced to yoga in 1989 by his Tai Chi Chuan teacher. Both the Tai Chi and Yoga practice at the age of 17 began his research into his own mind-body connections. His search continued through massage therapy where he discovered many insights and affirmations of what he had been exploring and finding on his own through his practices. One of the most important elements was the specific understanding of the musculoskeletal system and how fascinating, beautiful and amazing the body is on the scientific level and how that directly played into and off of his own understanding of the human body. He was given names and explanations for some of things he had been experiencing and feeling.
As an instructor of Kinesiology (the study of movement and musculoskelatal anatomy) at Miami’s Educating Hands School of Massage from 1999-2003, David developed a fun, informal and informative style of teaching. By repeatedly teaching incoming students who had no prior understanding of anatomy, David was confronted with the problem of making such a complex and beautiful system accessible and understandable to the average person.
David brings his unique style and ability to make things simple to the yoga world. Because of his passion and desire to share the human body with everyone, he delivers this complex and sometimes frustrating topic in a way that is very accessible and understandable to yoga practitioners.
Over the years David has used his skills as a Neuromuscular Therapist to help people reduce their chronic pain patterns. He often brings this information into his workshops where students are regularly uncovering painful patterns or injuries in their bodies.
David was introduced to Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in 1999, but it was in 2001 that he met John Scott in Penzance, Cornwall, presenting his anatomy workshops for the first time oversees. Two weeks practicing with John was transformational and he realised that he had found his teacher. This began a relationship of both teacher/student as well as a collaborative colleague relationship that continues today.
It was also John who told David to go to Mysore in India the following year, which he did. David arrived in Mysore in 2002 where he studied with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in the “old” shala. In fact, it was the last year that the old old shala was used for practice. David was authorised in 2004 and returned yearly for extended visits to Mysore with his wife Gretchen Suarez. They are both Authorised Level 2 and grateful for their time in Mysore, meeting Patabhi Jois and studying with R. Sharath, his grandson, over the years.