Widening horizons or selling out?

Its pretty well known that Sri Krisna Pattabhi Jois, the guruji of ashtanga yoga believes that asana practice is fundamental to the 'higher' practices of yoga - pranayama, pratyahara etc and that as a result of that he doesn't teach his students anything beyond asana until they have achieved proficiency in yoga chikitsa (the primary series) , nadi shodana (the intermediate series) and some of sthira bhaga (the four advanced series). He believes that the asana practice is necessary for the body to withstand the influx of prana that comes with pranayama.

Most authorities on yoga agree that asana is a precursor to pranayama and that it is the foundation of preparing the body for 'real' yoga, however they don't tend to be as dogmatic as Guruji. In most forms of hatha yoga, for instance, pranayama and meditation are taught alongside asana. In India, the majority of yoga practitioners don't do asana at all after they reach adulthood. Their yoga practice is pranayama, karma yoga, bhakti and so on....

OK.
Enough rambling.... time to get to the point.

By sticking to ashtanga and the precept of "practice, practice and all is coming", am I missing out on some of the other stuff that's so integral to yoga?

If, for example, I were to take a jivamukti class alongside my ashtanga practice would I be selling out? I'd get to study yoga philosophy, do kirtan and other forms of bhakti, pranayama, meditation, go to satsang.....

Tempting isn't it....

Tedium and sore knees

Its been a while since I put anything on here and I was feeling under a bit of pressure to do so. Its kind of weird - almost as if you create a blog and then need to nurture it somehow.

I guess one of the things about yoga, especially a form like ashtanga where the mala (garland) of postures is set in stone, where the asana flow one from another, there's little variation in one's day-to-day practice. It kinda goes same...same....same...mini-breakthrough...one step back....same same...repeat mini-breakthrough...same...same etc.

Anyway. That's a really long-winded way of saying that in terms of my asana practice, I've not been having any breakthroughs, mini or otherwise. In fact, I've had a dose or two of the yoga-fevers and a couple of brushes with the yoga fairies (as David Swenson calls them) and they weren't happy! In addition I've felt compelled to move my mainly morning practice to a totally evening practice, and somewhere along the way I've managed to drop a session. I'm down to four days a week and feeling pretty guilty about it. I mooted the possibility of attending a sunday session over breakfast today, but it didn't go down well. I let it lie figuring that karma yoga is as important as yogasana. In addition to that, the way my knees are giving me gyp at the moment, four days might be enough.....