Developing a home practice Part 7

The John Scott DVD brought me to realise that I wanted to practice Ashtanga rather than any other style or variation of Yoga. I should probably consider here why it was that I decided to continue practicing at home alone, rather than seek out a Shala to practice at. I mean, if I had been so taken with the practice and wanted to commit myself to it then why not?

Good question, and one that I've never really attempted to answer in any detail, probably because I'm really not sure of the answer. Curious thing Yoga, there you are..... on your mat, it's your space, you focus on your breath as you move within this space, It's private, solitary and yet you look up and there's another eleven people in this little room, doing the same thing, or a hundred in some giant studio. Something doesn't fit. And yet..... your engaged in a practice and a practice tends to be social, it has a history, it has a world. Strange how the personal and the social come together here on the mat. The practice then is never private.

Perhaps I just got used to practicing alone. I can see how practicing at a Shala, with others, can be a rewarding experience. I've heard about the energy in the room , the sound of the breath, and the movement of all these other bodies. The video's I've seen of practicing in Mysore, for instance, I've found moving. Something wonderful about all these people from all over the world coming together in this room, practising together with focus and sincerity.

I'm tempted to go, I am. I know there's so much I could learn from generous teachers, and yet I love practicing alone. I love getting up in the morning and going into my practice space in the near dark. I love the little rituals, the sound of my mat rolling out, aligning my towel perfectly. I love, best of all, taking my place at the head of the mat, I can hear cars going by outside the window and yet here it's like a sanctuary. With that first reaching up in Sury A the world drops away for an hour , hour and a half. I don't notice the cars again or the voices outside until sometime in Savasana.

But then no doubt it's a similar experience at the Shala.

That wasn't what I said was next in the last post.

So John Scott's DVD made me realise that I wanted to practice Ashtanga again. However, I found the DVD hard to practice with, it's long too. Luckily, I came across Sharath's Primary just in time. I think I bought it on eBay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKQCiIzZOKU. The first time I practiced with it, everything changed. the practice took about an hour and five minutes. I'd been practicing Swenson's 40 minute short form, four days a week and full primary twice. Now I began to do full Primary every morning. I could even shave a little time off the finishing to bring it in under an hour if I needed to. This revolutionised my practice. I was working towards Mari B and D every morning and supta Kurmasana and Garbha pindasana........ there's something about doing the whole practice too, the short form always felt a bit of a cheat. Now I felt more committed to the practice. By the end of the first week I remember being exhausted, all those extra Jump backs (even my lame jump backs).But I was becoming fitter and stronger.

I was losing weight too.I was feeling healthier. I'd already started to eat better, eat less, drink less wine in the evening. You don't feel like eating so much when you know you have this full on practice in the morning. In March I also became a Vegetarian, mainly due to a growing disgust with the meat industry. But Ashtanga had something to do with that decision too.

And Sharath's practice was so simple, nothing fancy, no.....flourishes, no fancy handstands and lifts. And his Jump back, he just lifted and jumped back. None of that lifting up in pike that Lino does in his DVD before crossing his legs and lifting back through. And his jump through....it was almost a little hop. I'd been trying to do a Lino jump back and of course failing miserably, but Sharath's jump back now that was doable.....wasn't it?

Next: the Jump back and blogging.