Krama a pose in here and Krama a pose in there

Loved this comment on the last post, it makes a valid point. You start adding an extra asana here, an extra one there and you could end up with a series bursting at the seams.

It's had me thinking the last couple of days of why I want the flexibility to add poses in the first place.

3rd series was part of it. It's a nice series but I'm not sure I want to practice it. Now you know I love arm balances, but for all the wrong reasons. However, for a guy they're perhaps the least challenging kind of asanas; we're designed for them. Besides, after only a month of 3rd I could feel myself starting to bulk up. I tend to put muscle on quite easily and feel it just gets in the way of other postures, the twists for example. Twice a week was bad enough, four days a week and my Mari D would be right out the window and wouldn't have a hope of Purna M.

There are a lot of asanas in Third series I like, some I practiced in Vinyasa Krama earlier in the year and some I just find beautiful as well as challenging. In Vinyasa Krama these poses would just show up towards the end of a Sub routine and it seemed to make sense to have the option of slotting them in at the appropriate place in the Primary or Intermediate.

This morning, being my day off, I had an extended practice, Primary to Baddha Konasana then all of Intermediate. After the 2nd series LBH I just slotted in the LBH asanas from 3rd then carried on to Titthibhasana. This seemed to work OK, only added an extra ten minutes on to the practice and just took the LBH a little further. Perhaps next week i'll do a similar thing with back bends after kapo.

One of the things I missed about Vinyasa Krama was the wide range of asanas and variations. As it happens most asanas are represented in Primary to Advanced A, but obviously with less variation. Sometimes I feel like I want more twisting postures say, and this flexible approach allows me to add some. In Vinyasa Krama there are some twisted versions of Paschimottasana, for example, and occasionally it might be nice to slot them in.

Ramaswami writes about having a clear plan for your practice and this seems to be the key to making this approach work. I know too many extra asana will over burden the Series and it will no longer be what I love about Ashtanga.

The idea then is to have days where I add a small group of asanas I want to work on, Standing poses from 3rd say (perhaps my days off), and days where I add the odd variations because I feel like working on a particular area of my body or indeed of the practice.

And of course there's nothing new about Ashtanga VInyasa Krama, I'm sure people have been practicing this way at home ever since the Ashtanga came west. It's useful to give this approach to practice a name though and look at it as a separate style, kinda fun too. Over the next few months I want to locate each of the Primary and Intermediate asanas in their Vinyasa Krama Sub-routines to improve my familiarity with the variations available.

Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama

So I know I get peoples backs up sometimes by suggesting that what I practice is Ashtanga, so how about I call it something else, that way nobody gets offended.

But what to call it?

Well that was easy, there it is at the at the top of my blog already. I'd intended the title to Suggest Ashtanga and Vinyasa Krama practiced at home, now I take it to mean Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama TM... at home

So what IS Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama TM?

Well I'm glad you asked.

1. Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama TM is a 'new' style of yoga (about a week old)

2. It has it's roots in Krishanamcharya's Mysore palace yoga as presented by his student Sri K Patarbhi Jois in his book Yoga Mala. As well as in the Later yoga of Krishnamacharya as presented by his student of 30+ years, Srivatsa Ramaswami in his book, The complete book of Vinyasa Krama.

3. The practice is based on the framework of the familiar Primary and Intermediate series of 'Ashtanga'. However, it's Vinyasa Krama element is found in the way poses and/or subroutines are occasionally added before or after the traditional asana of the Ashtanga series.

Thus Hanumanasana may be approached after the parasarita series of Standing either on it's own or as part of a Vinyasa Krama Sub-routine. Natarajasana may be added after Utthita Parsvasahita. Akarna Dharnurasana A and B from the Vinyasa Krama Asymmetric routine as well as Ashtanga 4th series may appear before the Leg behind head poses of Intermediate. Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana after Kapotasana, Parsva Bakasana after Bakasana, Viranchyasana B after the Janu's and Urdhva kukkutasna after kukkutasana ETC. All these additions or preparation poses and others beside are deemed acceptable in Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama.

4. However it is suggested that too many variations and additional poses may have a detrimental affect on the integrity of the framework series and thus only a small number of variations should be considered in any one practice.

5. It is suggested that the traditional Primary and Intermediate series be practiced once a week each, without any additional asanas to 'ground' the framework.

6. It is also acceptable to drop subroutines from the framework Ashtanga series to make room for the desired Sub routine from Vinyasa Krama.

7. It is suggested that Asana practice last between 60 and 90 minutes and is followed by 30 minutes of Pranayama, Meditation and even Chanting if you like that kind of thing.

7a. However, Shorter practices are of course acceptable and no doubt just as beneficial, if not more so, than the longer practice. Swenson has 15, 30 and 45 minute variations that can be used as alternative frameworks for a flexible Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama short practice TM

8. The main focus of the practice is the breath, long steady inhaling and exhaling, between 5 and 25 breathes per asana depending on the stability of the asana, and the engagement of the bandhas.

That should be enough to be going on with while I rush out, print T-shirts and try to engage Bikram's business manager the Spaghetti Monster.

Knee injury and Vinyasa Krama

I wrote this draft two weeks ago but forgot to post it. (Where it says a month ago read six weeks).

About a month ago I injured my knee and posted about it here. Nothing too serious, just an old injury from twenty odd years ago that plays up in the cold sometimes. I'd ignored the signs and walked around London all day. The following morning I could hardly stand.

My Practice, what about my Practice.

I couldn't really bend my knee so that was most of Primary out of the window and half of Intermediate. If this had happened last winter I would have been devastated, I hadn't come to Ashtanga from another style of yoga, Ashtanga was all I knew, as it was I was still thinking, 'What if this is it and I can't practice Ashtanga anymore'.

Luckily this year I'd come across Ramaswami's Vinyasa flexible Krama. Flexibility is it's middle name. OK, I made that bit up, but it should be it's middle name. Hell of a lot of asana variations in Vinyasa Krama, the system is designed to be adapted to the needs of the yoga practitioner.

So I took it easy for a couple of weeks adapting my practice, then added a few modified Intermediates, dropping asana that affected the knee and adding a couple of others from VK.

With more thought I could probably have added asana that work similar areas of the body as the ones I was cutting. As it was I kept it simple and took the opportunity to add asana from Vinyasa Krama routines that are less well represented in the Ashtnaga series. Parsva Bhangi (side poses) for example. Also Purva Tanasana (anterior stretch poses) In Primary we just get Pursvottanassana. From Vinyasa Krama's Supine sequence I added Apanasana (Pelvic floor poses) and some light Dwipadapitam (desk poses) which were easy on my knee, as were a lot of the shoulder stand series from Supine. I added these to finishing, to take up the slack from dropping Urdhava Padmasana, Pindasana and Matsyasana as well as Baddha Padmasana, Yoga Mudra and Utpluthi. When practicing Intermediate I added most of VK's Bow routine and went backbend crazy followed by long Paschimottanasanas with the different VK hand/arm variations. To Sirsasana I added a lot of the VK Inverted subroutines, there are some asanas that work on the knee but being upside down you can approach them much more lightly.

Best of all I felt I had Vinyasa Krama to fall back on. If I couldn't do Ashtanga anymore I could always practice Vinyasa Krama and that would be just fine, more than fine. What wicked wit and gifts had had the power to seduced me back to Ashtanga anyhow?

Vinyasa Krama doesn't have Jump backs and Jump through, other than at the very beginning and end of a sequence. Not being able to transition became less of a drama than it might have done a year ago. I used the extra time to really slow the breathing down and stay longer in an asana as well as repeating. Can't do Marichiyasana B and D that's OK repeat A and C, Can't do Karandavasana (misery) then do Pincha twice and stay up there longer, breathing more slowly.

Last week I was pretty much back to Full Intermediate bar a couple of obvious knee centric asana. With the extra time that gave me in the morning I worked a little more on Kapo and Dropping back. This morning my knee felt fine enough for a loose, full lotus and even Utpluthi, the only Asana I missed out was the left side of Vatayanasana.

UPDATE : My knee is just about back to normal, copes fine with Full Vinyasa Primary and Intermediate. I'm back doing Vatayanasana on both sides, Garbha Pindasa and with a lotus tight enough again to jump back from Supta Vajrasana. The only thing I find is that for longer periods of Meditation and Pranayama I find it best to sit in half rather than full lotus, at least until the weather warms up.

Exploring Pranayama

This is just a post about my own evolving Pranayama practice, for a more detailed treatment try here.

Last time I posted on Pranayama (excellent just worked out how to do the link thing on blogger) it was Viloma Ujaii, the alternating nostril/throat technique and Kapala bhati, the panting fire breath thing.

This time it's Kumbhaka (retention) Pranayama. I think this is my favourite, the alternating nostrils techniques become confusing (although I still do it for five rounds or so), I find it hard to keep the count and for an extended period my arm gets tired (ahh bless). This is a much simpler but arguably more intense version.

You breathe in and retain the breath, you breathe out and hold the exhale then repeat. That's pretty much it.

It becomes interesting when you start slowing the whole thing down, long, slow steady inhaling and exhaling. I started off with a count of 5:5:7:5 inhale,retain,exhale,retain and now it seems to have settled on 10:7:10:10. I can't seem to even up the inhale, after breathing out so slowly and then retaining the breath, the first part of the inhale is a little fast. Supposedly the retention after the exhale should be a little less than after the exhale, tried it and it evened up my inhale. now its 10:10:8:10

It gets very interesting when you bring in the bandhas and this is why it's my favourite. I've been focusing on Intermediate lately and it just doesn't feel as grounded as Primary, less seated poses I suppose, which I find are the most comfortable for engaging the bandhas. It used to bug me but now I know I'll be doing this at the end of the practice, so I'm much happier.

This is how I approach/experience the bandhas. Towards the end of the exhale (2/3) I let myself become aware of the slight lifting sensation of moola bandha I begin to focus on it and intensify it, drawing it up. As it gets as 'raised as it's going to get uddiyana bandha has begun to become slightly activated, my lower abdomen drawing back towards my spine and up.

This next bit is an added extra . At the end of the exhale I draw my abdomen all the way up creating a cave beneath my ribs and then draw in at the sides as if I were about to perform Nauli Kriya (which I do last few breaths on the video). I tend to hold it for a count of five and then slowly relax it in readiness for the inhale.

It's much harder doing the whole nauli thing when your seated, as opposed to standing and bent over with your hands on your knees. After a few breathes it starts to become a little easier though.

At the moment I'm spending about 15 minutes on pranayama, a couple of minutes on kapala bhati, about five rounds of Viloma Ujaii and the rest of the time on this.

Anyway that's how I'm approaching it at the moment, obviously you wouldn't do this after eating or drinking anything.

Why do it? I love the focus and concentration involved in this. You get much more in touch with the whole bandha thing enabling you to employ them more effectively in the asanas, seems to have been a great help for karandavasana and of course the jump back and jump through, Bakasana B is another that comes to mind. I also find it very calming and use it throughout the day, though without the full uddiyana and with a lighter ratio.

When I do it at work I just sit up straighter with my legs wider as if I'm trying to ground my perineum more and then off I go, though with a much quieter Ujaii to avoid attention.

It's still very much work in progress but as I've said before I'd rather drop a couple of asanas from the series if I'm rushed (though not from finishing) than cut back on the Pranayama. Meditation I might cut back to five minutes followed by the Pranayama chant, then do a proper seated meditation and chanting when I get home but I'm finding I want to do more Pranayama rather than less.

Tried to catch the sound of my breathing but mostly caught the sound of the plumbing (no that's not my stomach rumbling ).

Long headstands

Before anyone jumps straight to the video I should point out that it's the yogic equivalent of watching paint dry, nothing happens, no really, NOTHING happens. The only source of mild amusement and possible interest is scrolling the play bar back and forth to watch the clock in the corner move and perhaps the uddiyana bandha. What with my dodgy knee it's a slow news day here.

I did a ten to fifteen minute Sirsasana on Sunday and it felt pretty comfortable. I liked how I was approaching the count, 25 breaths up 25 back down, so thought I might see about staying up longer today, 30 minuets, perhaps even an hour.

Annoyingly the video stopped recording before anything interesting happened, seems my camera only records for fifteen minutes before cutting out. Going by the count I figure I was up about twenty to twenty-five minutes when I noticed my toes and feet were going numb. I tried flexing them, rotating my ankles, some side and backward/foreword splits to get some circulation going. I'd done the inverted VK routine a few times in the past and been up in headstand for about forty minutes or so, but while your up there you doing all kinds of asanas so perhaps that's why I didn't experience any numbness then.

I decided to call it quits and see if anyone here can shed any light on this. Now I've heard that you can build up to two hours headstands and I'm sure somebody commented here once that they'd done an hour with the Darby's. So what's the story, is this something that passes? Any suggestions? I was doing some intensive breathing while I was up there, deep breathing, engaging the bandhas, is that a good thing or a bad thing, should I keep the breathing soft and light? What do you think?

Now I don't necessarily want to stay in headstand for two hours or so, but I like the idea of a comfortable 40 minute inverted meditation.