So my practice sheets and posters for the ten major sequences from Ramaswami's Complete Book of Vinyasa yoga are finally up on my Sister blog. Thanks to Wyatt for spotting a bug, that's now fixed and they should all be available to open and print should anyone wish, feel free to use them as you will ( no need to ask first), I expect to be drawing all over mine, crossing out bits here, drawing arrows there....Obviously these are not a substitute for Ramaswami's excellent book where you'll find guidance on the breath, how long to stay in different postures, how to move from one pose to the next, which poses to focus on bandhas and which bandhas as well as much more beside. He also has a little star system for each posture showing it's level of difficulty ( although you can probably guess which to hold off on for awhile). In fact without his book these sheets are pretty pointless.
These are then, just cheat sheets, reminders of the general direction of the major sequences, to save us flicking back and forth through the book during practice allowing us to focus on the breath and bandhas. That said there are several errors, mainly mixing up the odd variation but not I think anything too serious. This isn't Ashtanga, it's OK to drop postures from the sequence, add others from another and I would imagine, within reason, occasionally switch the order of the variations. And of course it's just me, a home yogi, no rockstar, YJ cover yogi with perfect alignment and beautiful posture, some postures I'm better at than others, some are dreadful, all still work in progress.
In the beginning at least, Ramaswami recommends practicing the sequences as they are in the book as far as you are able. Once your familiar with them and the different families of postures he suggests you still practice the full sequences every once in a while so that you stay familiar with them. Most likely though your practice will be a selection of different postures and subroutines from the different sequences although with perhaps a focus on one family of postures.
You might start with a ten minute shortened version of the "On your feet' sequence ( On Ramaswami's TT course we started each practice this way) a few standing poses from the Triangle or 'On one leg' sequence. After this you might choose to focus on seated or Asymmetric postures or perhaps backbends from the Bow and/or meditative sequences, all the sequences contain a variety of movements, twist, backbends, forward bends and contain counterposes throughout. Ramaswami does recommend a long Pachimattanasana , shoulder and headstand the latter of course might contain some of the vinyasas ( variations) from the Inverted and Supine sequences.
Now the hard work of taking screenshots, labeling them and bringing them together into sequences is over it will be quite easy to make up sheets of the different subroutines and then perhaps some possible practice sequence ideas,, some short, medium, long practice suggestions, something I hope to look at producing after I've taken a break
One more point worth mentioning perhaps. Each sequence tends to be collections of subroutines. A subroutine will tend to be built around a key pose, Marichiasana say, within Asymmetric sequence. There might be some preparatory poses (or the previous subroutine might do that job) the main pose, some variations of it and perhaps a difficult extension of the pose. When you get to a difficult posture that you don't yet feel ready for it doesn't mean it's game over for the Sequence. You just move on to the next subroutine within the sequence and practice as far as your comfortable within that subroutine then do the same with the next and the next (looking at any of the posters, like the one above, that accompany the practice sheets should make this clear).
The Ten major Vinyasa Krama Sequences
1. Practice sheets for Vinyasa Krama 'On your feet' sequence
2. Practice Sheets for Vinyasa Krama Asymmetric sequence
So time to practice...
