| I practise ashtanga, and am much more of a traditionalist about it now than I used to be.
Establishing an ashtanga practice is a well-defined, progressive, sequential process. The poses are all done in the same order, every practice. If you can't learn from an experienced ashtanga teacher, and can trust yourself to respect your limits, you can learn from a number of great books on the subject. Gregor Maehle and David Swenson both have great books which outline the primary series (Swenson's covers second series, too). The idea is to move through the series until you come to a pose that you find challenging (and here is where it is most important to have a teacher on hand - making that judgement!). Then, you work on that much of the sequence every day (except moon days and Saturdays), until that pose comes to you; then, you add the next pose. Any chance you could make a mysore class even once a month?
The sequence is designed that the series prepares you for successive poses. For example, the hip opening in standing poses, janu sirsasanas and marichyasanas come before the more intense supta kurmasana.
You don't need any level of expertise to try ashtanga - rank beginners are encouraged to come along to mysore classes - the whole idea is that each student works at his or her level. If you wait until you think you can do all of primary before starting, you may be waiting a very long time indeed! 
Ohmseven - my opinion is that you'd be better off finding an ashtanga class rather than doing the short forms. Those are fine if you're short on time, but there are, of course, poses left out; poses which are an important preparation for some of the harder stuff. Have you tried practising as I've outlined above? Don't omit anything, just go through the sequence until you reach a pose which is beyond you.
namaste,
lisa |
HOW DO YOU PRACTICE?
