Diary of a yoga nobodhi

Wednesday 6th April 2005

There’s an interesting research article on Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga here.

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Saturday 2nd April 2005

An acutely odd week of practice brought on by trying to do more than I can physically cope with.
I had my last Mysore class with David on Monday as he’s going overseas for five months.
In Tuesday’s morning practice I had to purposely restrain myself and cut the practice down, reserving my strength for an extra class on Tuesday night with my former teacher. The night class was a strong, intense, carefully paced class, mostly Level 1 poses except for Eka Pada Bakasana which I couldn’t do on the first attempt. I would have liked a bit longer to work on it but we moved on.
We did some Surjanamaskars, lots of Dog Pose and Uttanasana, Trikonasana, Virabhadrasana B, Parsvakonasana, Parsvottanasana, Hanumanasana (with the forward bend), Janu Sirsasana and the backbending trio moving from Setu Bandha Sarvangasana into Viparitta Dandasana then pressing up to Urdhva Dhanurasana, holding each one for about five breaths then repeating the trio four or five times before finishing with Sarvangasana, Halasana and Paschimottansana.
A different kind of practice for me, working with depth, precision and intensity in each pose, quite indulgent. With the wisdom of hindsight, I can see how the extra class on Tuesday night contributed to wiping me out for the rest of the week. It just tipped me over the razor's edge that I'm constantly balancing on.

Practice on Wednesday and Thursday was barely practice at all, not an ounce of vitality left in my body. Wednesday I persisted stubbornly to the end of the standing poses then sunk slowly into passive restorative poses for the rest of my 2 hour session. Thursday was a similar story. Friday I set my alarm to go to Darren’s 6am led Iyengar practice but changed my mind when it went off.

This morning we had our once a month teacher’s practice (followed by the teachers meeting) at Rebecca’s studio. Kosta and I started at 6.30am and the other three teachers including Rebecca arrived somewhere between 7-7.30am I think.
I fronted up, set up my mat and laid down on it. I still hadn’t recovered my lost energy.
When Kosta came in, I courageously stood at the end of my mat, pretending to be ready for take off, but secretly fearing another crash landing into yoga wimp oblivion. No surprise when I got to the second Surya Namaskar B and called it quits. I decided to sit in meditation for the next one and a half hours and be an authentic yogi (reasoning that way beyond asana are the noble practices of pratyahara, dharana and dhyana that lead to Samadhi).

I guess I sat for about 30 minutes and it was a productive sit – my mental state quickly became clear and aware – I was moving inwards easily and fine tuning to the infinite channel. There were a few distractions as the others arrived, footsteps passing in front of me, the creak of the floorboards. With my eyes closed I tried to guess which teacher it was from the sound of their steps. They began their practices quietly and I resettled and reconnected.

Kosta was opposite and facing me, pumping through the Ashtanga sequence – I tried to guess what pose he was up to in the sequence without opening my eyes, then turned my wandering mind back inwards, reconnecting again. I’d been in Ardha Padmasana for about 30 minutes now, so I moved to Virasana, resettled for 5 minutes then unfolded into a steady, meditative Dog Pose. Following an inner prompt, I moved from Dog Pose into Sirsasana (Headstand) and stayed there for what seemed like about 7 minutes, trying to find the sweet spot where the bandhas kick in, and the energy is drawn through the core from my feet to the crown of my head. Sirsasana becomes profoundly mystical when this happens. The meditative mind was still with me, so although I didn’t quite find the elusive sweet spot this morning, my Sirsasana was a very quiet and powerfully understated experience.
I don’t think I’ve ever done Sirsasana at the start of an asana practice so I have no precedent, no explanation, no justification for starting with it today. Nor had I planned on doing any more poses after Sirsasana but they just sort of unfolded spontaneously in a divinely inspired order: Supta Baddha Konasana, Matsyasana, Baddha Padmasana, Yoga Mudra (5 minutes), Matsyasana again, Supta Paschimottanasana (couldn't find a link for this one so it might be the wrong name, but you lay on your back extending legs straight up to 90 degrees then holding the ankles draw the feet towards your face breath by breath, keeping the sacrum on the floor as much as you can), Halasana, Sarvangasana, Urdhva Padmasana (5 minutes), Matsyasana again, then miraculously (since I was started so bleakly) finishing with three, strong Urdhva Dhanurasanas as the rising energy from the practice peaked.

I laid out after the backbends, preparing to seal the session with a nice Savasana, but the others were packing up, so I had to skip Savasana. It didn’t really matter as the practice had restored and balanced my energy.
I felt nourished and relaxed.

We walked down to the local café and chatted about a couple of teaching issues. I contemplated breaking the news to Rebecca that I was planning to finish up my teaching at the studio in two weeks, but it just didn’t seem an appropriate time. I’ll have to call her on the weekend about it.

After coffee we wandered back and I taught my 9.30am Level 1 class. I took them through some basic Padmasana preparation work, something they haven’t done much of. The class seemed infused with a lovely feeling of connection between everyone - perhaps it was just me that was feeling connected. The teacher’s energy is instrumental in shaping the energy of the class and it’s so nice when a class gels like that and everyone leaves feeling strangely inspired.

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