Krishnamacharya foregrounded the use of āsana throughout his career, and his teaching shows a highly structured approach to this branch of practice.

He used the term vinyāsa krama ("specially ordered steps") to describe a threefold scheme of preparation, main focus, and then release or restoration of balance.

His initial experiments with vinyāsa krama seem to have begun in the early 1930s, with the series of dynamic āsana sequences that later came to be known as Ashtanga Vinyasa.

[6] Kimberley Pingatore, reviewing the work for Religion, calls it a vast and fascinating collection, illustrating "the dynamic and varied conceptualizations that comprise the term guru within the context of modern yoga".

In his view, the accounts of Swami Ramdev, Sri Ravi Shankar and Jaggi Vasudev are much-needed, as these hugely popular leaders had been little studied; but the focus on exceptional individuals made it hard for readers to see "the larger structural shifts that set the stage for them to appear".