Guide · Learn with a teacher
Vinyasa: jump back and jump through
How the seated poses of the Ashtanga series are joined: lifting, jumping back to Chaturanga, and returning to sit. A technique, not a pose.
Awaiting subject reviewWritten from our source material and not yet checked by a teacher of this practice. Read it as reference, and learn the practice from someone who teaches it.
Practical guidance
In the seated part of the Ashtanga series, each pose and each side is joined to the next by a vinyasa. You cross the legs, press the hands down and lift, swing the legs back to Chaturanga, move through Upward Dog to Downward Dog, and then bring the legs forward between the hands to sit again.
The lift and the jump come from the strength of the core and shoulders over a long time. Until they come, step the feet back and walk or step them through. Nothing is lost by stepping. The breath and the rhythm are the practice, not the jump.
Stepping version
Sit, cross the shins, and come onto hands and knees. Step back to plank, lower through Chaturanga, Upward Dog and Downward Dog, then step one foot and then the other forward between the hands and sit.
Learning the jump
Learn the lift and jump with a teacher, who will show you the stages that suit your body. Go gently with wrist or shoulder injuries.
Made of
Chaturanga Dandasana
Four-limbed staff pose
Four-limbed staff pose. The low plank that links the poses in a vinyasa.
Urdhva Mukha Svanasana
Upward-facing dog
Upward-facing dog. The backbend of the vinyasa, the chest lifted between straight arms.
Adho Mukha Svanasana
Downward-facing dog
Downward-facing dog. The inverted V where the vinyasa rests for five breaths.
Related
Sources and tradition
- YOG Union App Content Map, 2 November 2026, p. 4