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Saturday, 27 February 2010

Back bends, current state of play

Off work for the next couple of weeks.
The plan is to practice the two main Vinyasa Krama Back bend sequences IE. The Bow Sequence and the Vajrasana Sub routine from the Meditative sequence. I'll also throw in the Tadasana Hand variations behind back sub routine from the On your feet sequence. I want to incorporate some of the Venkatesh excercises that Boodiba has been sharing, the standing arches from last year which should follow on nicely from the Tadasana sequence, plus the Hang back exercises for Drop back and Kapotasana from last week. Finishing will be a pretty standard extended
Paschmottanasana, Sarvangasana and Sirsasana etc.
Thought it would be a good idea to take a look at my current state of play so that I can compare my Back bends at the end of the fortnight.
It's a long video so here are the times for the different sections to enable jumping around. 0:00 Vinyasa Krama hands variations behind back
Love using this subroutine as prep for back bends, I used to include it before the Sury's when I was doing Intermediate as well as when I went through a phase of doing drop back's at the beginning of the practice. The different hand positions seem to open up the different areas of the back nicely 3:30 Venkatesh standing arches
Need to review Boodie's notes and video's again here. I seem to remember she was hanging in these for a minute, I manage about 15 seconds tops, be interesting to see if and how much this improves by the end of the fortnight. 5:00 Drop back
Thanks to Boodie these have come on over the last couple of days. I misunderstood her instructions and started to bend my knees from the beginning. Though not the idea, it did make the importance of getting the knees as far over the feet as possible finally sink in. I'm aiming at a similarfeet/shin angle as in Pasasana. Add this to the riding the spring idea from a few weeks back and It's given me the back support and confidence to hang back. and control my descent more. Plus my feet are staying pretty straight.
6:00 Coming up
Work needed here. I think the knees over the feet is key to stop the feet turning out but I seem to have to completely relearn the hip action to come up. the second attempt on the video gives me hope, though the feet do move slightly. 6:48 Kapotasana
Big surprise here as I haven't done Kapo for a month. The hang back exercise seems to really help. I'm getting my hips as far forward as possible to try to employ the 'spring' support and while hanging I have the time to keep trying to push my hips forward. Getting this Hang back in Kapo is exciting me more than grabbing my heels at the moment. I was surprised how deep I dropped in too, was thinking it would take a couple of goes. Lot's of work needed here though. Yes I got my heels, but I think I can improve it by pushing up more, straightening my arms, breathing better. A voice in the back of my head is whispering 'ankles, ankles' but I hardly dear listen. Besides, it should be whispering "breathe, breathe'.
One thing I've noticed about both the Drop back and Kapo is the use of the wall. Those three steps away force you to drop down closer than perhaps you might do with a full mat to play with. 8:30 Walking in on Urdhava Danurasana or Ardha Chakrasana to chakrasana
This is actually in Vinyasa Krama in the Supine Sequence, Ramaswami has this to say.
' As a variation you can bring your palms closer to your feet during exhalation and keep your back arched. Stay in the position for three breathes, stretching and lifting your tailbone at the end of the inhalation.'
The Complete book of Vinyasa Krama p113
God, a ten minute video takes forever to load on YouTube, wont be doing that again. Here's a quick, minute a half version.
It strikes me, watching this all the way through, that, rather than thinking about grabbing the ankles in Kapo or Chakrasana or probably even getting my feet straight, I should be thinking about the breath, still ragged, unsteady and at times forced. Would be nice to make this video again, two weeks from now, and find long smooth steady breathing throughout.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 22:12 13 comments: Links to this post 

Two weeks off. Back bending! I have a couple of weeks off, starting this weekend. I'd planned on doing the Asymmetric sequence the first week and Supine the second. These are the two longest sequences in Ramaswami's Vinyasa Krama book and it made sense to go through them while I have some extra time. However, all the good stuff coming out of Boodie's place at the moment has seduced me to the dark side and back bending. (besides Asymmetric isn't taking as long now that I'm becoming more familiar with it. I've also cut Supine down a bit by practicing the Sarvangasana sequence with Sirsasana in the Inverted sequence).
I'm a little ambivalent towards back bending. On the one hand I tend to feel it's a little over emphasised in Ashtanga, the whole back bend sequence at the end of practice let alone the Kapo's and Vrishi's that await, and yet.....
You have to admit they are the coolest postures, such wonderful, shapes, classic poses one and all. Ustrasana, Kapotasana, Salabhasana , Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana, Vrschikasana, Chakra Bandhasana......
I should work at them more and Boodiba always inspires me to work hard, to work harder.
The deciding factor was her writing about staying longer in the poses, this is something I'm into at the moment, breathing through the poses, fits in with what I'm working at in Vinyasa Krama.
The main back bend heavy sequences in Vinyasa krama are the Bow and Vrajasana Sequences, though of course back bends crop up through most of the sequences, often as counter poses.
The Bow sequence subroutines are built around
Makrarasana, Mandukasana, Bhujangasana , Rajakapotanasana, Salabhasana, Viparita salabhasana, Bherundasana, Dhanurasana.
To this I've been adding the Vajrasana sequence form the Meditative poses Sequence which includes Subroutines around
Vajrasana, Balasana, Ushtra nishada , Advanced Ushtrasana and Kapotasana
These seem to go together well, the Bow sequence acting almost as preparation for the deeper back bend's of the Vajrasana Sequence. After those I should be nicely set up for some long Urdhava Danhurasana's and Slow controlled Drop back's.
The rest of my time off I'd planned to take up with extending and developing my Pranayama and chanting routine, plus some quality time with the second half of the Yoga Sutra's and Sankara's Brahma Sutra commentary. Been reading a book on Sankara and my guy Heidegger recently and the young Adi is blowing my mind.
So quite the yoga fortnight, looking forward to it.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 03:23 No comments: Links to this post 

First Hang back I've always tended to drop straight back as soon as I took my hands over my head. This morning I managed to hang back for the first time. I think it has something to do with the exercise I was working on in the previous post. There, I was bending the knees which was creating a steeper angle between my feet and shins. This morning I kept aiming for that steep angle but without bending the legs. This meant that my hips were much further forward and my body was constantly wanting to spring back up on it's own accord. I used that to give myself the support and confidence to hang back. The further back I went the more I tried to increase the angle at my feet and get my hips forward and retain that springing action.
Does that make sense, not sure what else to call that feeling of riding the spring back.
Coming up was not so successful tried the coming up onto fingertips that Boodie is talking about, but once I was up there I wasn't sure where to take it next, how to avoid pushing up through the hands and arms. I suspect it's to do with finding that springing action from the bottom up, probably increasing that angle again to get the hips forward, possibly bending the
legs to deepen the angle, then straightening them yet keeping the angle, voila, up you'll come, oh so easy to write, I can visualise it and everything, and yet........ This is what the Springiness reminds me of, kind of like I'm Jacob and the springiness is the Angel in Epstein's sculpture, holding me up. (If you ever come this way again Owl, this is the one I wanted to show you at the Tate that was all boxed up and in storage).
On the VK frount, Lotus sequence is going well. First day I had to unbind and stretch my legs a lot, this morning I only had to do that once, when you think your spending forty minutes in full lotus in this sequence, that's pretty good going. The most I tend to meditate for is Forty minutes at a time so if I can become comfortable in lotus for that long, I'll be most pleased. Nice sequence.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 17:37 3 comments: Links to this post 

Drop back, bent knee excercise

Having a go at an exercise Boodiba has been talking about here.
The idea seems to be to keep your legs bent throughout which is, I believe, supposed to help you come up more slowly and with more control. Clearly more work is needed. At the end I try lifting my heels, something I never usually do...to disastrous effects.
I like this exercise though, something about having the legs bent gives you more of a tendency to spring back up. By focusing on the point just before you spring you can ride it back more slowly to the floor and can probably do the same in reverse to come back up. Found that edge dropping back but not coming up....so far.
Of course I may have completely got the wrong end of the stick and doing it all wrong, Interesting though.
Have to say this is a pretty embarrassing stance, though it does remind me of an old martial arts posture, horse stance. I keep telling myself, "... your in horse stance, not at all squatting'.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 17:42 18 comments: Links to this post 

Vinyasa Krama Lotus Sequence,Some favourite asanas 
Saturday, 20 February 2010

Vinyasa Krama Seated Sequence. 

Pranayama? There's an App for that. So yes, an app for Pranayama. It's not ideal, it would be nice to have more control and be able to set your own ratios and/or time for each section. I want a 1:4:2:1 ratio of 5/20/10/5 seconds but it's a little awkward working out how to do that. I pretty much managed it, eventually, with the Advanced setting set at level 3.
I like using it because I kept losing count and forgetting where I was, especially with Viloma Ujaii. Best of all though is sticking it on at work while repairing, great when your doing something you don't have to think about to much like striping down an old sax.
A 20 second retention gives me enough time to silently chant the Pranayama mantra.
Here's a little demo of how I'm using it. This is the first app. demo I've done so excuse the thumb in all the wrong places. I think it's going for 2.99 GBP
Here's a link to the developers site and more professional demo's
I've settled into a routine now of finishing my practice with Kapalabhati (bellows like breathing) I do 108 of those, split into three, 36 in Padmasana (lotus) then 36 in Utpluthi (Lift up) and another 36 with my arms raised up bent back, hands crossed on my shoulders. I then do ten minutes of Nadi Sodana. I follow that with meditation, ten to twenty minutes depending on how I am for time. In the evening I do the same amount of pranayama, some more chanting and a longer sit.
Nadi Sodana Pranayama
Inhale : 5 seconds. Left nostril
retain : 20 seconds. Chant Pranayama mantra in my head
exhale : 10 seconds. Right nostril
retain : 5 seconds. Engage Locks This is the Pranayama mantra I use.
And here's a link to Srivatsa Ramaswami teaching the Pranayama Mantra
As well as teaching some other Chants, including the Yoga Sutra's here http://vinyasakrama.com/Chants
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 03:30 11 comments: Links to this post 

How to Approach S. Ramaswami's Complete book of Vinyasa Krama? 

Right argument, wrong discipline

or Back with the program...... the er, other program.
It's a cliche really. Kind of like a relationship that you wont admit is over. You keep trying to give it another go, you take each other back, try your best, you really do, but finally you just have to admit that it was over a long time ago.
Maybe it's because today is Valentines Day but I can't seem to think about this in any other way than as some Romantic melodrama.
Vinyasa Krama as the other woman, Ashtanga as my first love.
.... the argument was right, wrong discipline.
You find a regime, a discipline and stick with it. I chose the wrong one to try and stick with.
I loved Ashtanga, loved practicing it, but Vinyasa Krama was a revelation to me. The only problem with Vinyasa Krama was that it wasn't Ashtanga. I was used to practicing yoga in a particular way and couldn't seem to square Vinyasa Krama with the only way I knew how to practice. I tried to bring the two together, found so much in common and wrote a lot of posts on that. I'm probably going to need a couple of posts to work out why that didn't work out, why and how they are different and perhaps incompatible.
It's difficult, to say why I think Ashtanga is the wrong choice for me personally, it could seem like I'm being critical of Ashtanga and some may take offense at that. That of course is part of the problem. I want to explore Yoga, the philosophy as well as the practice. For me exploring is engaging, questioning, challenging. I see that as respect rather than disrespect. The practice would be OK but it's everything that surrounds it, I become frustrated angry even, that doesn't work for me. But I don't want to go there, don't want to say anything more about it. It's a wonderful practice, if it works for you great, it just doesn't for me anymore.
I've been doing a little Vinyasa Krama in the evening and practicing Ashtanga in the morning. However, it's the evening VK practice that I find myself looking forward to the most and finding more rewarding. I always assumed I would end up doing a Vinyasa Krama practice eventually, either because I was getting too old for Ashtanga ( not suggesting Ashtanga is a young persons game here but speculating I might become less interested in all the jumping about) , an injury (old knee injury coming back perhaps) or because I'd finally grow out of the need for such a pneumatic practice. I might miss some aspects of it occasionally but I think I can deal with that now. I don't know what it is, I just find VK more grounding, more..... profound.
I love Ramaswami's books, they're intelligent, philosophical, engaging, they make me want to understand more about this practice this tradition......
Yesterday I practiced the Lotus sequence today it was Vajrasana and I didn't miss Ashtanga one bit. Perhaps I'm finally ready to move on and let it go.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 03:55 15 comments: Links to this post 

S. Ramaswami's Newsletter on Meditation 

Manduka have a sense of humour

You may remember this post from a few weeks ago.
I'd ordered a new Manduka eQua from AllergyLiberation.com. On choosing a colour I went for for Sunset, expecting a bold, reddish towel. However, when it arrived it was on the pinkish side of Pink. Though great to practice on, I had a little rant on the blog about
it's pinkness and the loss of my manly reputation in my workshop.
Clearly, there are some self-realized yogi's at Manduka who, rather than take offense, were chilled enough to see the funny side and immediately offered to send me a more manly towel. Now this is a macho yoga towel. Grey, dare I say charcoal even and there is nothing pink about the bold red trim. THIS is a manly towel. It speaks of practicing Ashtanga down the pits of the Rhondda Valley
As it happens I've kind of become attached to my pink towel, in a bright light it is, it's true,
quite pink but in the candle light it has a much warmer blush.
One thing I did notice this week was the difference in size between the old Manduka eQua and the new. The old towel, the lime green one (next to the new manly grey one )below, is quite narrow. Having got used to the wider new eQua over the last couple of weeks, I found it a little irritating jumping back on the old one, the seam being in the middle of my hands. Next to it is a picture of my brown Yogitoes, also narrower and a little shorter than the new eQua. Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 03:30 8 comments: Links to this post 

YOGA NERVES from Srivatsa Ramaswami's February 2010 Newsletter 
Iyengar Drop back challenge week Day 7

See Day 1 for an explanation of the challenge/experiment.
This is the last video on this for a while, you'll be pleased to hear, though I think I'll stick with these for a while This one, like Day 1 is at normal speed.
On the last post Susan and Dana were talking about leading with my head when coming back up and suggested taking the head back last. Here are two stills that show the difference between
my head position going down and coming up again. I mean it works though doeslook a little strained. Something to work on along with the splayed feet.
I like the shadow in the first picture.
Had a go at trying to bring the head up last today but couldn't get the rhythm right and went back to what's working, for now anyway.
I've been doing the fifteen to twenty of these all week and the back has been fine, a little stiffness in the beginning but otherwise no problems. I'm feeling more confident with both. Before this week it was a little hit or miss, but that was due to laziness on my part and not practicing them regularly enough. I've always Ashtanga is a bit obsessive about back bending but, it's fun and curiously revitalizing, practiced the Iyengar way, however, the 15-20, I find quite meditative.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 04:14 4 comments: Links to this post 

Iyengar Drop back challenge Day 6

See Day 1 for an explanation of what the point of all this is.
Managed to keep it pretty much on the breath up to around seven or eight then lost a little control of the breath and lost the coordination. Lost count and ended up doing around seventeen, eighteen, rather than the fifteen I'd planned.
How to keep track of these for the 108. on the 108 sury's you could move a stone.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 05:13 2 comments: Links to this post 

Iyengar Drop back challenge Day 5

See Day 1 for an explanation of what's going on with this.
Both dropping back and coming up feel pretty secure now, more a case of getting the rhythm and making it consistent with the breath. Once the rhythm is nailed, the plan is to slowly tweak it bit by bit bringing the feet a little closer together dropping back and losing the splayed feet coming back up.
Find myself really looking forward to drop backs now, couldn't wait to get home. I think I did 18 in this one, lost count. A few weeks ago I grumbled my way through three now I'm having to force myself to stop and not over do it.
First couple of days I was feeling a little stiff but this morning was fine and I went through Intermediate without any discomfort. I'd been wondering how Kapo would feel but it was pretty much the same as usual, no better no worse.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 04:32 7 comments: Links to this post 

Your guru is your practice BKS Iyengar

“So,are you a guru?”I asked Mr.Iyengar.
I had been going to Iyengar yoga classes for three years, and BKS
Iyengar was visiting Australia for the first time.I was making a one-
hour radio program on yoga and interviewed the great master.
He replied, “Your guru is your practice.”The greatest thing a guru
could ever say. You learn to do it by doing it. Yoga is learned in the
practice of yoga ...”
Inez Baranay.From Iyengar:The Yoga Master,
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 15:19 5 comments: Links to this post 
Iyengar Drop back Challenge Day 4

See Day 1 for an explanation of this challenge
Dropping back feels much more comfortable but coming back up hit and miss. Still can't seem to nail the rhythm

Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 04:29 No comments: Links to this post 

Iyengar drop back Challenge Day 3, plus Iyengar Kapo challenge

So we looked at the Iyengar drop back challenge, how about the fifteen minute Kapo?
The Drop back's didn't turn out to be as scary as I imagined and I was wondering if the Kapo might be the same, the idea of it being perhaps worse than the reality, all bark no bite.
Oh but no, it bites.
I decided on a light toe bind rather than aiming for half way up the foot or the heels. My main reason for exploring it was to see if I could manage a longer, slower steadier breath than usual. As it turned out I managed twenty-five slower, steadier breathes, about two minutes, not so long.
Long way to go then.
Problems I found, were what to do with my head and cramping in the quads. I felt like the angle of my head wasn't ideal, always seemed OK for the usual five breathes but for a longer period it shows up as putting stress on the neck. It could of course be bad technique on my part or because I went for the softer bind, perhaps grabbing the heels would bring me up higher and create a better angle, free the head up more. The quads just began to ache half way in and I tried a half hearted attempt to bring in some Vipassana technique to deal with the aching. In the end I was happy with the twenty-five breathes and still managed to go into Kapo B and then come up.
Fifteen minutes still seems insane but five minutes of longer steadier breathing doesn't seem such a bad idea to occasionally consider.
I thought it had gone all too well on Sunday. I just did the usual yesterday, erring on the side of caution so no Day 2 video, couldn't wait to try them again today. It didn't go so well, couldn't seem to get the same rhythm going and failed to come up five times out of twenty. I was trying to take my head back later and perhaps that had something to do with putting me off, or perhaps I was just trying too hard.
Still no harm done, except to my ego. Here's a video, speeded up, because, lets face it, these are kind of like watching grass grow.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 00:07 3 comments: Links to this post 

Back with the program.... ish : UPDATE

After some reflection I've decided to bring back the Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama blog title. I intend to stick with the 'Intermediate for a year' pact, in the mornings but I've decided to continue exploring Vinyasa Krama in the evenings. VK just makes more sense to me, personally, as a practice. Physically and temperamentally, however I seem to be drawn to Ashtanga. Perhaps I just want to explore Yoga more and don't feel able to do that here under an straight Ashtanga umbrella.
In the evening I've been pretty much doing some Vinyasa Krama anyway. A couple of Sun Salutes, Uttanasana, Maha Mudra and then into Pranayama and Chanting before my usual Meditation. This week I wanted to add the multiple Drop backs, prepping it with some VK Tadasana poses and following it with the extended Paschimottanasana before my PCM. In the future I'll explore some other short subroutines again. Basically a light pre PCM VK evening practice.
And of course as has been pointed out I'd already added a couple of extra poses to Standing, it was always going to be Ashtanga +.
'Try it (Ashtanga) for ten years! '
I've seen this a few times now. I don't know, but 'try' and 'ten years' don't seem to collate. I think Mad Men missed a trick here. Why would you 'try' anything for ten years. You may commit yourself to ten years, that collates, but not try. I'm happy to commit myself to Yoga for ten years, to explore it, study it, interrogate it, engage with it but Ashtanga seems to want to resist that and I find that problematic for me personally. You can explore it and engage 'with' it but only it seems within certain parameters, heaven forbid you try to interrogate it. It often times gets presented as a regime to be followed not questioned, fair enough but was it always so I wonder?
This sounds like I'm being critical of the practice and perhaps even of those who chose to practice it. That's not my intention at all. I'm not suggesting anyone follows this blindly. I'm sure everyone thinks it through, sometime or other, and makes a decision to follow that method and stick with it. I can see the arguments for not wanting to worry about the In's and Out's and just get on with the practice and let the teacher deal with all the logistics, hell we have enough to worry about in our busy lives, perhaps it needs to be that way to be able to practice it every day.
So the Ashtanga I'll just get on with and shut up about, though perhaps some posts on how it's going. Other posts though, will no doubt be on different aspects of Yoga and of Vinyasa Krama. I might even take a couple of Iyengar classes and find out what's going on over there, perhaps the odd workshop.
I'm also considering a month long workshop with Ramaswami at Loyola University Nr. Venice beach, California, June-July this year. Been thinking about it off and on for quite a while. I thought I'd be able to get a cheap room at the University for the duration but they don't seem to do that. If anyone has any thoughts on accommodation in that area for a month or if anyone else is planning on doing the workshop and thinks we can reduce costs by sharing or something then please get in touch (email is on my profile under contact info).
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 20:54 7 comments: Links to this post 

Iyengar Drop Back challenge Day 1 So a quick reminder.
In the comment section on a previous post it come up that in Iyengar, 12-20 Drop backs may be recommended. It was also related that Iyengar himself dropped back 108 times on his 80th birthday.
Now this blew me away, 108! 12-20! I'm used to 3-5 in Ashtanga (Although as I point out in the previous post to this one, there are 21 back bends in the full Mysore back bend sequence as presented in Matthew Sweeney's book ASTANGA AS IT IS).
I take Sunday as my day off regular practice, rather than Saturday so thought I'd give the multiple drop backs a try.
Surprisingly it went well, really well. I did a little Vinyasa Krama back bend prep. basically leaning back in Tadasana with different hand variations. I followed that with Five UD's and then went straight into Drop Back's. The first one went so well that I thought I'd video the whole thing and edit it up later. I expected a couple of good one's coming up after a little rocking, some fails where I wouldn't manage to come back up, lots of pauses. I thought I might manage six.
As it turned out I did fifteen. The first fourteen without any rocking. The last one I had to rock once before coming up and decided to call it a day. A couple of times I go to far forward and have to reach out to the wall and a couple I have to take a step back. in the middle somewhere there are a couple where I come up and then go straight back, those were my favourites.
I'm using my new drop back approach that I try to outline here.
I can't get over how meditative it was. You begin to get a rhythm going (best ones are at 6.00), the breath is steady, your very focused, it was really quite wonderful. If it was like this after the first attempt then it really should be marvelous when I can go straight up and down on the breath.
Best of all I don't feel any strain, tension or ache just very very relaxed, peaceful and mellow. 108 doesn't seem such madness, in fact I imagine it's quite a profound experience.
I believe they tend to do the 108 on their birthday's, mine is in July and I think I might have to give it a try.
UPDATE: The morning after
My back felt a little stiff this morning so decided to go with Primary instead of Intermediate. Went round twice in Garbha Pindasana. Interesting the comment that Iyengar went easy on the backbends when he decided to focus on Pranayama. Some of the Drop Back's yesterday were better than others, smoother, I'm guessing the stiffness comes from the not so great ones. I didn't feel at the time that I was straining to come up in anyway. I might give it a miss tonight and then take ten minutes rest before doing them after 2nd tomorrow.
This has been going on all week now so have decided to christen it the Iyengar Drop back challenge week.
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 02:39 22 comments: Links to this post 
Multiple Drop Back's

So we where talking about the multiple Drop Back's in Iyengar yoga (here) . A recommendation of twelve to twenty was related in the comments section and it was mentioned that Iyengar himself did 108 on his 80th birthday.
Twelve to twenty does seem a lot to Ashtangi's who tend to do three to five.
or do we....
I was just looking at the Mathew Sweeney's book and in his section on Back Bending he has ...
Drop back's x5
Handstand drop-over x5
Viparita Chakrasana x5
Final Drop-over x1
Setu bandhasana x5
= 21 back bends
Posted by Anthony Grim Hall at 00:04 No comments: Links to this post