This article turns to the sun salutations, Surya Namaskar A and B, the sequences that open every Ashtanga practice. It is here that the four elements introduced so far, posture, breath, gaze, and the inner engagements, first come together in a real, moving form. The article walks through the shape of each salutation, explains how the breath leads the movement, offers practical guidance and cautions for beginners, and closes with an honest reading of the research, most of which studies sun salutation in general rather than these specific Ashtanga forms.
Where everything so far comes together
Until now this series has taken the practice apart. We have looked at the three points of attention, at the breath, and at the bandhas, each on its own. The sun salutations are where they are put back together. If the earlier articles were the instruments, this is the first piece of music.
A traditional Ashtanga practice ordinarily begins with sun salutations, before moving into the standing postures and the sequence that follows. They are repeated several times to warm the body and settle the mind into the rhythm of the practice. Learn these well and you have learned the grammar of the whole method, because almost everything that comes later is built from their parts.
What the sun salutations are
Surya Namaskar means salutation to the sun. Reverence for the sun has deep roots in Indian tradition, while the flowing postural sequences practised today took their recognisable forms more recently and developed differently across modern schools of yoga. Many styles have their own version, and most research studies a commonly taught twelve-position form.
Ashtanga uses two particular sequences, called Surya Namaskar A and Surya Namaskar B. They are close cousins of the classical form but have their own precise structure, counted in breaths, with a set gaze and a light internal engagement throughout. A is the simpler of the two and is always done first; B is longer and more demanding. Traditionally a practitioner performs a few rounds of each at the start of every session.
Surya Namaskar A, moving with the breath
The clearest way to understand A is to see that every movement is tied to a single breath.
You begin standing still and settled. On an inhalation, the arms sweep up overhead. On an exhalation, you fold forward over the legs. Inhaling, you lengthen the spine into a flat half-lift, the gaze lifting slightly. Exhaling, you step or jump back into a low plank, the body held a few inches from the floor with the elbows close. Beginners may lower the knees before this low plank and use a gentle cobra in place of a full upward-facing dog until sufficient strength and control have developed. Inhaling, you roll forward and open the chest into an upward-facing dog. Exhaling, you lift the hips back and up into downward-facing dog, the one place in the sequence where you pause and stay, for five slow breaths.
Then the sequence reverses. Inhaling, you step or jump the feet forward to the half-lift. Exhaling, you fold. Inhaling, you rise all the way up with the arms overhead. Exhaling, you return to stillness. That is one round, nine breath-linked movements framing the long, steady pause of downward dog.
Read as a list it sounds mechanical. In practice it is the opposite. Once the breath is leading, the body simply follows it, and the whole thing becomes a single continuous wave rather than a set of separate positions.
Surya Namaskar B, longer and warmer
B keeps the same spine as A but adds two new shapes, and it is noticeably more vigorous.
It begins by bending the knees deeply and sweeping the arms overhead into a fierce, seated-in-the-air posture, before folding forward. Then it passes through the same plank, upward dog, and downward dog as A, but on the way it introduces a warrior posture, a deep lunge with the arms raised and the gaze up, performed first on one side and then, after another pass through the moving sequence, on the other. Only then does it wind back to the beginning. Where A has nine movements, B has seventeen, and after a few rounds you will feel exactly why it is placed second.
The four elements, finally together
This is the moment the previous articles were preparing you for. In a single round of A, the breath leads every movement, the gaze rests at a prescribed point in each position, moving between the thumbs, the nose, the brow centre, and the navel, and the light internal engagement of the lower body gives you a steady centre to move around. Posture, breath, gaze, and bandha are no longer four separate lessons. They are one act.
You will not manage all four at once for a long while, and that is entirely expected. Most practitioners lead with the breath and let the rest fall into place gradually. The point is not perfection but the direction of travel, toward a practice where the four are woven together without your having to think about each one.
How to begin, and a few cautions
If you are new, begin with Surya Namaskar A alone, and only a few rounds, prioritising the link between breath and movement over the depth or polish of any posture. Step back and forward rather than jumping; the jump-back and jump-through are advanced skills that can wait for years without any loss. Let the practice build gentle heat, which is part of its purpose, but stop well short of exhaustion.
Some genuine cautions. The repeated weight on the hands can strain the wrists, so learn to spread the load across the whole hand and speak to a teacher if you feel wrist pain. The plank, upward dog, and deep back-bending shapes can aggravate the lower back and shoulders if forced, so keep them within an easy range at first. If you are pregnant, have wrist, shoulder, back, or cardiovascular concerns, or are new to vigorous exercise, learn these sequences under the eye of an experienced teacher who can adapt them for you. Sun salutations are demanding precisely because they are continuous, and that continuity is easy to underestimate.
What the research says
Of everything in this series so far, sun salutation has one of the larger and more encouraging evidence bases, though it still needs to be read with care and with one important qualification.
A recent systematic review gathered fourteen studies involving Surya Namaskar or yoga-based interventions that incorporated it, across physical fitness, physiological, psychological, and body-composition measures. The overall direction is positive, with reported benefits for flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, and wellbeing, but the review itself is candid about the limits: the studies vary widely in design, length, and how they measure outcomes, which makes it hard to combine them into a single confident conclusion. Among individual studies, a small randomized trial in college-aged women found meaningful gains in back flexibility and lumbar flexion after a six-week programme. In a separate study of forty healthy middle-aged men, sun salutation produced a different heart-rate-variability pattern from mild stationary cycling, which the authors interpreted as suggesting greater parasympathetic, or calming, influence. Sun salutation can also reach a real exercise intensity, which is why more dynamic versions have been compared directly with cycling tests.
The important qualification is this. Almost all of this research studies sun salutation in general, most often the classical twelve-posture form, rather than the specific Ashtanga A and B sequences described above. The two are related, so the findings are suggestive for Ashtanga, but they are not the same practice, and the point should not be overstated. The fair summary is that sun salutation appears genuinely useful for flexibility and general fitness, that its calming cardiovascular effects are promising but less settled, and that larger, more consistent studies, ideally of the Ashtanga forms themselves, would strengthen the picture.
Closing
The sun salutations are the doorway to every Ashtanga practice and, in a sense, the practice in miniature. Everything the method asks of you is already here: the breath leading, the gaze steadying, the centre holding, the body moving as one piece. Give them your patience and they will teach you the rest. In the next article we move beyond the salutations into the standing postures and the shape of the Primary Series, the sequence Ashtanga calls yoga therapy.
Before then, try three slow rounds of Surya Namaskar A, thinking of nothing but letting each movement wait for its breath.
References
Bhattacharya, S., et al. (2026). Multidimensional Effects of Suryanamaskar on Physical, Physiological, and Psychological Outcomes: A Systematic Review. Healthcare, 14(13), 1924. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare14131924 (Fourteen included studies; the review notes substantial heterogeneity in design, protocols, populations, and outcome measures.)
Dubey, S., & Choudhary, P. K. (2024). Analyzing the Musculoskeletal Flexibility in Young Females: The Impact of a Six-Week Surya Namaskar Intervention on Back Flexibility and Lumbar Flexion. Physical Education Theory and Methodology, 24(4), 554–561. (Randomized study of thirty female college students.)
Comparative Analysis of Heart Rate Variability Parameters between Surya Namaskar and Stationary Bike Exercise Groups. (Study of forty healthy middle-aged men.) National Library of Medicine, PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10919408/
Note: Most available studies examine sun salutation in general, commonly a twelve-position form, rather than the specific Ashtanga Surya Namaskar A and B sequences. Sample sizes are often small and study designs varied. Research on yoga continues to develop, and these summaries reflect sources available at the time of writing.