Wednesday 1st March 2006
Here’s the reason I’ve been spending every Sunday bushwalking and blackberry picking lately:
Hazelnut Berry Friands
185 g butter, melted and cooled
150g (1.25 cup) finely ground hazelnuts (walnuts/almonds are OK but definitely not as good)
6 egg whites
200g (1.25 cups) icing (confectioners) sugar
75g (.75 cup) plain flour
150 - 200g blackberries (blueberries/raspberries OK too)
Sift together the ground nuts, flour and icing sugar.
Whip up egg whites til stiff.
Fold egg whites and butter into dry ingredients until barely combined.
Gently stir in half the berries.
Pour mixture into large muffin or friand pans (or into a loaf tin and pretend it’s a cake). Scatter over rest of berries, pressing them down very gently.
Bake at 200C for about 25 minutes. Let rest in pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
Practice
Got to the shala extra early this morning so I could make an early start and be finished by 7.30am.
Rolled out the sticky mat, started my pre-practice stretches, then noticed that the other early Ashtangis hadn’t started their Mysore pactice. Very odd I thought, they’re usually half way through standing poses by now…???...they all seemed to be killing time, laying on their backs, sitting in lotus, doing slow motion stretching, chatting a little.
I waited for a bit, hoping someone would start their Surya Namaskars, but it didn’t happen. I stretched more...waited...ran out of stretching moves...sat still...and waited, with no idea what we were all waiting for.
I’d so wanted to do a Mysore practice at the shala this morning (the full Monty, complete with the opening chant, the heat, the music, the adjustments, the dropbacks, the lock in to no slacking off).
But I picked the wrong day.
Instead of Mysore practice, David had decided on a sort of led research practice. We used blocks, bolsters and straps to explore the theme of the day – the thighbones – through some classical poses (Baddha Konasana, Paschimottanasana, Supta Virasana, Upavista Konasana) and some slow motion movements in unconventional positions.
I tried really hard to follow, to understand, to transfer his instructions to my muscles and bones, (I really did) but had quite a bit of difficulty connecting into what he was trying to convey.
I came out of the class feeling a bit heavy, like I hadn’t done a physical yoga practice at all, so it was doubly disappointing that I couldn’t grasp today’s thighbone lesson as compensation.
I’m not sure how often David does this kind of class. It’s a really good way of breaking us out of our well worn practice habits, by hammering one particular point, bringing attention and awareness to how one particular part of the anatomy moves and responds, exploring that one point in a number of poses and positions. After an hour and a half of focussing on how to move the thighbones, it should have sunk into my somatic memory forever and be accessible in practice from that day forward. But alas I never quite got it.
Maybe the penny will drop unexpectedly in practice.
Ashtanga Triviality
I flicked through the copy of John Scott’s Ashtanga Yoga book which came back to me after a year of being lent out, and I learned something surprising - but be warned, you won't read anything more embarrassingly trivial than this...
According to John Scott’s technique, in Surja Namaskar B, after inhaling into Upward Dog, you should exhale to the Dog Pose position, then begin the inhale while stepping the foot forward and lifting the arms up to Virabhadrasana A.
After nearly 3 years of Ashtanga practice, I’ve been doing it wrong.
After the inhale into Upward Dog, I’ve been exhaling back to Dog Pose AND stepping my foot forward to the lunge position. From the lunge I then begin the inhalation to raise my arms up to Virabhadrasana A.
Was I taught it this way to start off with? Or did I just always do it my way and no-one noticed or corrected me? Or maybe it's not wrong at all, just different? Is there only one way? Really it's a minor point in the bigger scheme of things, so I don’t know why I’m making such a deal about it. Guess it shows up the introverted dristi I have right now if I can get obsessed about one breath.
The John Scott way makes sense from a timing perspective because the breath:movement ratio is spaced out more evenly through the movements. But I still wonder about it. Stepping the foot forward from Dog Pose is a closing movement because the thigh is drawn into the abdomen; and when you make movements that close or contract the abdominal area in yoga it feels more natural to exhale.
Perhaps I’ll ask David at class next week before I eat humble pie and teach it correctly to all of MY students.
If anyone can shed light on this ridiculously trivial point, drop me an email.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here’s the reason I’ve been spending every Sunday bushwalking and blackberry picking lately:
Hazelnut Berry Friands
185 g butter, melted and cooled
150g (1.25 cup) finely ground hazelnuts (walnuts/almonds are OK but definitely not as good)
6 egg whites
200g (1.25 cups) icing (confectioners) sugar
75g (.75 cup) plain flour
150 - 200g blackberries (blueberries/raspberries OK too)
Sift together the ground nuts, flour and icing sugar.
Whip up egg whites til stiff.
Fold egg whites and butter into dry ingredients until barely combined.
Gently stir in half the berries.
Pour mixture into large muffin or friand pans (or into a loaf tin and pretend it’s a cake). Scatter over rest of berries, pressing them down very gently.
Bake at 200C for about 25 minutes. Let rest in pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
Practice
Got to the shala extra early this morning so I could make an early start and be finished by 7.30am.
Rolled out the sticky mat, started my pre-practice stretches, then noticed that the other early Ashtangis hadn’t started their Mysore pactice. Very odd I thought, they’re usually half way through standing poses by now…???...they all seemed to be killing time, laying on their backs, sitting in lotus, doing slow motion stretching, chatting a little.
I waited for a bit, hoping someone would start their Surya Namaskars, but it didn’t happen. I stretched more...waited...ran out of stretching moves...sat still...and waited, with no idea what we were all waiting for.
I’d so wanted to do a Mysore practice at the shala this morning (the full Monty, complete with the opening chant, the heat, the music, the adjustments, the dropbacks, the lock in to no slacking off).
But I picked the wrong day.
Instead of Mysore practice, David had decided on a sort of led research practice. We used blocks, bolsters and straps to explore the theme of the day – the thighbones – through some classical poses (Baddha Konasana, Paschimottanasana, Supta Virasana, Upavista Konasana) and some slow motion movements in unconventional positions.
I tried really hard to follow, to understand, to transfer his instructions to my muscles and bones, (I really did) but had quite a bit of difficulty connecting into what he was trying to convey.
I came out of the class feeling a bit heavy, like I hadn’t done a physical yoga practice at all, so it was doubly disappointing that I couldn’t grasp today’s thighbone lesson as compensation.
I’m not sure how often David does this kind of class. It’s a really good way of breaking us out of our well worn practice habits, by hammering one particular point, bringing attention and awareness to how one particular part of the anatomy moves and responds, exploring that one point in a number of poses and positions. After an hour and a half of focussing on how to move the thighbones, it should have sunk into my somatic memory forever and be accessible in practice from that day forward. But alas I never quite got it.
Maybe the penny will drop unexpectedly in practice.
Ashtanga Triviality
I flicked through the copy of John Scott’s Ashtanga Yoga book which came back to me after a year of being lent out, and I learned something surprising - but be warned, you won't read anything more embarrassingly trivial than this...
According to John Scott’s technique, in Surja Namaskar B, after inhaling into Upward Dog, you should exhale to the Dog Pose position, then begin the inhale while stepping the foot forward and lifting the arms up to Virabhadrasana A.
After nearly 3 years of Ashtanga practice, I’ve been doing it wrong.
After the inhale into Upward Dog, I’ve been exhaling back to Dog Pose AND stepping my foot forward to the lunge position. From the lunge I then begin the inhalation to raise my arms up to Virabhadrasana A.
Was I taught it this way to start off with? Or did I just always do it my way and no-one noticed or corrected me? Or maybe it's not wrong at all, just different? Is there only one way? Really it's a minor point in the bigger scheme of things, so I don’t know why I’m making such a deal about it. Guess it shows up the introverted dristi I have right now if I can get obsessed about one breath.
The John Scott way makes sense from a timing perspective because the breath:movement ratio is spaced out more evenly through the movements. But I still wonder about it. Stepping the foot forward from Dog Pose is a closing movement because the thigh is drawn into the abdomen; and when you make movements that close or contract the abdominal area in yoga it feels more natural to exhale.
Perhaps I’ll ask David at class next week before I eat humble pie and teach it correctly to all of MY students.
If anyone can shed light on this ridiculously trivial point, drop me an email.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
