Vinyasa Krama tool kit : Primary without the forward bends.

Primary without forward bends, huh, ' What's the point Stan' (Life of Brian).


Morale!


Primary on Friday is pretty sacred, despite all the experiments, the move into Vinyasa Krama, exploring of different Ashtanga series, I've managed to keep up my Friday Primary. However, as mentioned yesterday I have a problem with my back at the moment, going in and coming out of forward bends is painful and I'm trying to avoid that action, and as we know Primary is 99.999999ish% forward bends..... give or take 20%


The vinyasa krama tool kit yet again comes to the rescue. Last night I was thinking about this while replying to Micqui's comment (nice blog by the way, Ashtangi Angel). The Vinyasa Krama Asymmetric sequence has many of the same postures as the first half of Primary. The difference is that for each of the Primary poses there is a development of the pose, a couple of twists, counterposes etc. So how about I go through Primary as usual but skip the forward bend in Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana, say, and do the twist and side lift from VK instead ( don't worry, video to come). For Janu Sirsasana A I do Maha mudra , which is pretty much the same thing but without bending forwards, big focus on breath and bandhas. I still do the Jump backs and through between postures, so the key postures are kind of the same ,the Vinyasa's are the same, it feels like Primary but with a slightly different focus.


Interestingly I found that Mari B was OK, it seems the bind gives me the support to lower forward and come back up strain free, same with Yoga Mudra. What is the muscle group that lifts you out of forward bends and lowers you slowly, what did I do with my anatomy books.


The Sury's were OK too because I included the squat from VK, from forward bend you squat on to your haunches and then push up through the legs thus avoiding any back strain. Side bends in standing where fine, it's only the forward bend I'm having problems with. Finishing was pretty much fine as I mentioned yesterday, bending the legs towards the chest in Inversions is curiously fine.

Here's a speeded up video of the whole asymmetric series you can jump about pretty much anywhere to see how the Ashtanga postures we find in primary are developed and extended