First release · First edition, 2026
Escaping Samsara
Conversations with Three Generations of Ashtanga Teachers
Thirty-two long-form conversations with Ashtanga teachers spanning three generations of the practice — from OG teachers who went to Mysore in the 1970s and 1980s, to the teachers now carrying the practice forward, adapting it, and in some cases breaking from it entirely. The book follows the threads that connect them: lineage and authority, the body as it ages, doubt, devotion, and what actually happens on the mat after the romance of it wears off.
About the book
Where it came from
Escaping Samsara grew out of the Escaping Samsara podcast and Substack. The book gathers thirty-two long-form interviews with Ashtanga teachers, around 170,000 words in all, into a first edition published in 2026.
Harmony Slater contributes the foreword. The afterword, Strange Unicorns and Basilisks in the Jungle, is by Russell Altice Case.
The edition
What you get
- Formats
- Kindle, Kobo (EPUB) & paperback
- Length
- ~170,000 words
- Interviews
- 32
- Foreword
- Harmony Slater
- Afterword
- Russell Altice Case
- Edition
- First edition, 2026
- Publisher
- Jootbuddy Books
Where to buy
Get the book
About the author
Nathan Thompson
Nathan Thompson is a journalist and the host of the Escaping Samsara podcast and Substack. He has practised Ashtanga yoga for around fifteen years, working through the advanced series, which is what sent him looking for teachers willing to talk honestly about what the practice does — and doesn’t do — over decades. Escaping Samsara is his first book. More about Nathan and the press