Developing a home practice part 26b. Vinyasa Krama Lessons in a Yurt

Lesson Two of Four

So the first lesson had gone well, pretty much what I'd hoped for, the second lesson was going to be on the Supine sequence, my favourite. The first half of the sequence your laying on your back, a lot of leg to chest variations and desk poses, the second half is all shoulder stand variations, it's a long sequence.

We started with some some of the On your feet sequence, the side poses we'd missed from the day before and then went into the lead into the Supine sequences. All the vinyasa krama sequences have a lead in of some sort, usually a variation of the Sury namaskara or the Jump through. The Sun salutation is a little different from that in Ashtanga, here each position is held for three breaths instead of an inhale or exhale in Ashtanga. For Supine instead of coming up to standing you jump through to sitting and then lay down. Interestingly in downward dog you have your feet together and the preferred jump through is straight legged, though as with most things in VK it doesn't seem to be dogmatic. I'd learned the straight leg jump through a few months ago but hadn't practiced it that much and had lost it again. I should probably get it back, it's easier (less effort) than the 'half Kino' crossed leg, half handstand that I do and thus less chance of disturbing the breath.

Two things my notes for this lesson stress again and again are bandhas and anchoring. I'm looking at the first page of the Supine sequence now, and notice for the Pond gesture (Tatkamudra), the first pose after the lead in, 'Exhale completely. Anchor your heels, tailbone, arms and back; press down through your palms and draw in the rectum; pull in the lower abdomen in and toward your back. hold the locks for five to ten seconds.' and in the next pose the Belly twist ( Jataraarivritti) 'Anchor your pelvis, especially your tail bone.......'. Anchoring, good thing to hold in mind throughout your practice especially when you think that yoga is all about achieving stability and steadiness, mentally and physically.

We stopped at the shoulder stands leaving that section for the next lesson and moved on to some Pranayama, Kapalabhati. I tend to practice this in my Ashtanga practice just before Utpluthih (did I get that from the John Scott DVD, can't remember) but here it seemed to be practiced much slower. This is the one where you breath sharply and suddenly through your nostrils, kind of like a snort. You automatically draw in the breath in preparation for the next 'snort'. Here we did 3 rounds of 36, the first round with the hands on the knees whether in Lotus or crossed legged, the second with your hands raised and linked palms up and the third with the hands dropped back on to the shoulders with the elbows up (this seems to work best for me for some reason).

One moment in the lesson that amused me, was while laying in Savasana, after Supine. S. started to chant and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from bursting out laughing. It wasn't that I was laughing at S. but rather at myself. Here I was, laying in corpse pose, naked but for a skimpy pair of shorts in a Yurt and someone was sitting cross legged a couple of feet away fully dressed chanting over me...... if my Father could see me now.

As it happens I'd started to become interested in the chanting already having listened to some of Ramaswami's chants on his site http://www.vinyasakrama.com/Chants. I'd downloaded them on to my Itouch and an had been humming along for a couple of weeks. I liked S's chanting and took home a copy of Pam Hoxsey's Yoga Sutras with it's chant sheets in the back that S had lent me as I didn't have lessons the following day . He also lent me one of Ramaswami's other books 'Yoga for the Three stages of life' which may well be one of the best book ever written on Yoga, more on that another time.

When did yoga take over my life?

I get up before dawn and do an hour and a half of Ashtanga or Vinyasa Krama followed by half hour of Pranayama, Meditation and even some chanting of the Yoga Sutras. My morning shower is shared with my yoga towel as I rinse it out for the following morning. Cycling to work I'm listening to some of Ramaswami's chants, chanting away with him cheerfully as I cycle through town.

In my lunch break I'm reading the Upanishads or the Gita and as soon as I get home from work I throw down the mat again and do an hour or so of Yin and some more meditation. In the bath I'm reading Roberto Calasso's Ka (Indian mythology novel type thing....what the hell is this book anyway).

I eat lightly, because of Yoga I have a splash of red wine filling the glass up with sparkling water and let the chinchilla out while reading Sankara's take on the Sutra's or perhaps Yinsights or some such yogary thing.

In bed, before I fall asleep I'm looking at Ramaswami's sequences in preparation for the mornings practice.

When did this happen. It used to be an hour of Ashtanga in the morning, some Vippassana in the afternoon and my reading, mostly Heidegger, some cool novel or perhaps some Livy in the bath. I'd play my Sax, listen to some Jazz (when did I last put on a Jazz CD) while working on some Vintage Saxophone. I'd cook, sipping on a nice Red and I'd watch Lost, Dexter or Mad men in the evening while Nietzsche (the chinchilla) ran around. I'd maybe go to Oxford or London on my day off.

Tried to write to a friend this week, she'd told me what she'd been up to and I had no response that wouldn't sound the same as what I'd written to her the week before. At least then I'd been able to tell her I'd been practicing Yoga in a Yurt.

I need to get out more.

What happened to this guy?

PS. Great Karandavasana this morning, or at least the lowering part was, really slow and tight. going up pretty much the same as usual, up but not pretty. oh and did i mention my Kapo..........

Vinyasa Krama Hands locked behind back sub-routine leading to drop back

The 'hands locked behind the back' sub-routine is part of the 'On your feet' Vinyasa Krama sequence. In the book the sub-routine comes early, before the forward bends (after the hasta variations in mention in this post http://grimmly2007.blogspot.com/2009/08/vinyasa-krama-hasta-variations.html ) but I like to do it at the end of my standing forwards bends and lead it into a drop back. This is before my first Sury of the day. After the drop back I do some complete forward bends stretching up and back as far as I can and then folding over. This leads into my long Uttansana and then finally the Surynamaskaras.

I like how the hand positions give you support as you bend back. I never used to be able to hang back for more than a few seconds because I wasn't able to take a breath, this routine has helped me overcome that. I think it's helping with my Kapotasana too,

Vinyasa Krama Kapotanasana ?

Didn't make it to the Shala this morning. Woke up at 5am but didn't need to be at the station until 6;30 so allowed myself to doze, next thing I knew it was 6;45. Spent the next two hours trying to decide what to practice at home.


I found myself a bit confused, this morning, as to where I was going with my practice. I'd settled into a nice Vinyasa Krama routine, over the last couple of weeks that was evolving and developing nicely. But then I'd practiced that Primary on Tuesday evening on a whim, and loved it ( Plus there were also those amazing videos of Laruga's practice on her blog http://peaceloveyoga.blogspot.com/2009/09/mayurasana.html ). As I was planning on visiting the Shala this morning I practiced Ashtanga for the rest of the week, trying to practice it with Vinyasa Krama in mind, slowing it down, focusing strongly on the breath and finishing with some Pranayama, meditation and even some Chanting.


Reading Yoga Mala again in the week I found those elements stressed by Ramaswami in Vinyasa Krama to be just as emphasised by Jois in his book. Ashtanga, though dynamic as a result of all the full and half Vinyasas still advises long slow, steady inhaling and exhaling and plenty of it. It also recommends you stay in key poses for extended periods, just as Vinyasa Krama does.


Ramaswami recommends that you study and practice the sequences in his book until you've learned them and then develop a practice that best suits you, choosing from the sub-routines in his book and practicing some key postures daily, finishing your practice with Pranayama, Meditation and ideally some chanting. Krishnamacharya developed several such sequences over 70 years ago that we continue to practice today. Perhaps those Ashtanga sequences aren't for everyone but they do seem to pretty much suit me, for now at least.


And yet I also like the flexibility of Vinyasa Krama. I'm becoming familiar with the asanas and sub-routines now and am more able to, occasionally, add postures to my basic practice where I feel they may be beneficial.


For now at least, I'll continue to practice Ashtanga while keeping Vinyasa Krama (and Yoga Mala) firmly in mind. Slowing the practice down as much as possible, with the breath ever paramount. Because of it's dynamism a certain level of fitness is required and once a week doesn't seem to be enough.


So the new plan is to practice Primary and Intermediate twice a week each and Vinyasa Krama the rest of the week pretty much as laid out in the daily practice plan on the blog side bar. I'll continue changing the sequence on those three days while continuing to learn the sequence and improve my understanding of the sub routines.


So in the end, I decided on Intermediate this morning and it turned into a nice practice. Back bends went particularly well. I added a couple more of the back bend asanas from the Bow sequence and managed to come up from Kapo for the first time in ages. I also came up from Urdhva Danurasana for the first time in several months, something I'd just stopped bothering with. It turned into a long practice though, two hours plus another half hour of PMC (Pranayama, Meditation and Chanting).


This is a long slow Kapo build up with a rest, you might want to jump ahead.

Ashtanga Intermediate Vinyasa Krama style

I've called this post Ashtanga Intermediate Vinyasa Krama style, but in light of the last post perhaps I should be calling it Ashtanga Intermediate, Ashtanga style. Most of what I took to characterize Vinyasa Krama relates just as well to Ashtanga as presented in Yoga Mala. The only way it seems to differ is that Ashtanga is a fixed system and Vinyasa Krama a flexible one.

Anyway, this morning I practiced my first Intermediate in a month. The plan was to approach it the same way I approached Thursdays Primary, with particular attention on the breath and bandhas throughout.

As with Thursday's Primary it came out at 90 minutes, half an hour longer than usual. While I loved the slow, steady breathing in Primary it was not exactly something I was looking forward to in 2nd. There are a lot of poses in Intermediate that your really don't look forward to staying in any longer than necessary, it will take some getting used to.

Primary had been fine on Tuesday, perhaps some loss of fitness but not of flexibility. Intermediate was less forgiving of the month off. I found it hard to stay bound on the left side of Pasasana and while Kapo was one of my best ever I wasn't able to come back up from Kapo B. ( though I'd been comfortably able to come up from Laghu V ). My pincha was unsteady and it took me two tries to land Karnadavasana, I wasn't even close to going back up. My right finger kept slipping off in my solo Supta Vaj and I couldn't land my Bakasana B. The Sirasanas were strong though, which I'd expected as I'd been doing a lot of LBH work in VK. Everything else was pretty much the same as usual, slipping out of Mayurasana and dropping my toe as I rolled over in SUPV.

It was a lot less sweaty than usual, breath stayed more regular and overall I enjoyed it, a slower paced 2nd seems to appeal to me.

The plan now is to practice Intermediate twice a week and likewise Primary, plus three days of Vinyasa Krama. I cover most of the Seated and Asymmetric seated sequences in those two Ashtanga series along with Bow sequence. The the VK days I'll focus on the Inverted, Supine and Lotus sequences along with the standing sequences as warm ups. That way I can keep exploring VK and learning the sub-routines.

Tomorrow I'll practice a long, slow Primary again as it looks like I'm making my third ever visit to a shala on Sunday, first time in over a year and my Primary is rusty to say the least.