So I think I've worked it out, the problem and perhaps, just perhaps, the solution.
The problem.
The first problem was that I couldn't hang back, that's already been fixed by getting the hips further forward to give me a counterweight along with riding the reflex to come back up all the way down to the mat. Actually not ALL the way down but most of the way down, that becomes important later.
The second problem was that I couldn't come up without splaying my feet out to the sides. One way of overcoming that was to bend the knees quite deeply but that's not much of a solution
because it tends to result in you raising your heels or falling forward onto your knees, you replace one problem with another.
The possible solution
At first I thought it was just a case of getting the knees as far forward as possible, but I was finding that I was at my limit, I couldn't seem to push my knees any further forward and was still having to bounce off the wall a couple of times to come back up.
What I was missing was that it wasn't so much the knees I needed to get further forward as the hips. It was obvious and I've probably been told it a bunch of times. It's the same as the 'pelvis in space' thing from a while back when I was looking at the Press to handstand. There's a lot of weight in the pelvis, get that forward and you have your counterweight.
It's also what happens with the hang back. You push your hips forward allowing yourself to hang back, eventually you have to drop the last bit, on a video you'll notice that in that final drop your hips come back, they're no longer acting as a counterweight.
There's a Venki exercise that Boodiba was demonstrating a couple of days ago. She's in Urdhva Danurasana and keeps pushing herself forward. I liked that and tried doing it, first in UD and then after dropping back. It's a nice exercise but it wasn't enough, I couldn't seem to get my knees or hips any further forward, not enough to give me the counterweight to come up. That's when I realized why I splay my feet.
Check out one of the older videos where I come up with splayed feet, stop it just as I start to come up and you'll see that my hips are just ahead of my my heels, that's why I splay them and why I can't come up when I don't.
So I need to get my hips further forward but for some reason I can't seem to push them any further forward when down in UD.
The final part of the puzzle came this morning. I'd watched Susan's dropback again and she puts her hands on her hips to really push them forward.
I started to do that and then tried to get a little more by putting my hands just under my buttocks and pushing forward and up, kind of like at a 45 degree angle, that gives you a little more. While I was doing it I noticed something, a slight lift, a lightness. I tried to focus on that point and that action of moving them forward and up as I started to drop back.
I was pretty much hanging all the way, pushing forward and up, when I just floated back up to standing. This is on the video, it's like the spring action I've been talking about all week but lighter, kind of floaty, couldn't help laughing out loud.
The next thing I tried was after dropping back and then taking a step back closer to my hands thus bringing my hips further forward and higher up. You can see from the pictures it's a better position for coming back up, the hips are almost in line with the heels.
I did the same thing again, dropping back but kept my mind on that forward and up action at the hips all the way down, after landing.
I seemed to rock forward and on up onto my fingertips without trying and then I was back up. My feet splayed a little, but I think that was more out of habit than necessity (you can see in the picture on the right that my hips are in line with, if not slightly forward of, my hips, I don't need to splay them here). Usually I splay them further and push down hard on to the edges of my feet, here it was almost effortless.
I'd planned on doing another week of Bow sequence but I think I'm going to switch to the Vinyasa Krama Supine sequence for the week. Urdhava Danurasana comes into that sequence but before it does there's a lot of work on desk pose variations involving lifting the hips.
And if I'm wrong about this....well it's just something else eliminated.
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9 comments:
I am so glad you post about your discovery, really helpful for me coming on the train right behind. After your suggestions and Boodiba's yesterday I tried "hanging" with the hands extended, and it did not go well, I even attempted falling on a sofa like I saw in an old video of yours. But it was not pretty, I have deleted the video because it only belongs in a Ricky Gervai's show... BUT, now reading about the importance of pushing the hips forward gives me another clue to follow... I will try again tomorrow with this in mind... I dont know why it is but with me the reflex to come back up is intense!
Did it make some sense Claudia, I kind of know what I'm trying to say but not sure it came over in the post.
Sorry yours didn't go so well,this time, it'll come of course, good luck with it.
Hi Grimmly, great blog, my practise is nowhere near what you get up to or rather 'dropback' to but to see someone with a dedicated home practise is pretty inspirational. I'm aiming to make the transition from the shala to my lounge but will see what happens.
hey Shaf, Thanks, have you found a moggy with similar markings to replace Mooshi yet? Most envious of your month in NYC.
Good luck with the transition to home practice, it can work, just need a set routine from the start, same as if you were at the Shala. The routine and sticking to it seems even more important practicing at home (later, when it's settled you can play around with it).
Ashtanga seems ideal for a home practice, you know where you are and what comes next, I don't think I could have started out with Vinyasa Krama at home, though I seem able to make it work now.
A stint in this place really is something to be envious of, attractions aside there's an amazing quality to the natural light this morning being a prime example. What i think i would miss the most of a shala based practise is the motivating energy i get from other practioners also maybe feeling a bit guilty as it seems that its key to spend as much time as you can with a teacher, its essential yoga sutra and SKPJ highlights it in Yoga Mala time and again. Unfortunately, its either a home practise or no practise for me as i've only got a week back in London then im off to the 'middle of nowhere' Spain.
I'll miss Mooshi when i leave!
I imagine it must be hard making the switch, when your used to the collective breath etc. carrying you along. But I'm sure you'll get used to it.
Re the guilt about guru thing.
Patanjali gives us, what, three sutras on asana, and then it's probably only Lotus or variations of. The Yoga Sutras really doesn't seem that concerned with asana, the least significant of the limbs (?). I'm always a little bemused how Patanjali gets used to justify someone telling you how you should or shouldn't practice your asana.
Get your asana out the way and then get on and do some real yoga. It's why Whitwell can talk about one yoga but many asana practices.
Krishnamacharya was supposed to have recommended, for an hour lesson, forty minutes asana and twenty minutes Pranayama and chanting. I consider him to be a Yoga teacher rather than an asana teacher. He taught asana but he was also teaching mantra, pranayama, chantingetc. as well as the sacred texts, he was, I guess, Patanjali's idea of a guru.
I think a Yoga guru and an asana teacher are completely different things. Patanjali was talking about the former.
Krishnamacharya was involved in that movement to re-promote Yoga in India. Asana teachers started popping up all over the place. Can imagine everyone trying to outdo each other with more and more asanas and setting themselves up as Yoga teachers. No doubt many of them had only studied (or paid much attention to ) asana rather than the yoga tradition. I'm sure some picked up a couple of asana from a pamphlet and because they were really flexible made a bit of a name for themselves. You can see why Krishnamacharya and Jois would stress that you should study from a real guru rather than some cowboy asana teacher or from a book/pamphlet by such 'teacher'.
I learned my asana from Swenson, John Scott, Kino and now Ramaswami. Not from them personally but from their books and DVD's they are respected, experienced teachers. I don't think that contradicts Jois or Krishanamacharya and I don't think it has anything to do with Patanjali.
In the summer I'm planning to study for a month with Ramaswami, Krishnamacharya's student of thirty years. Not just to learn asana (though I love the idea of being shown asana as Krishnamacharya taught it to Ramaswami) but because I want to learn more about Yoga as Krishnamacharya understood it.
Sorry Shaf, just thinking out loud. Basically just saying that I don't think you have anything to feel guilty about. And besides there are always workshops to keep you up to date and tidy up your practice.
In India now and more so in past times there would be a whole segment of society that followed an ascetic path, they are and were a well respected part of society. In the West thats simply not the case, in general terms we have upper, middle and lower classes - whereas in India theres the added 'ascetics' class. Point being that Patanjalis words in my opinion were an eastern answer to an eastern issue. Agreed, to use the Yoga Sutra as an argument for or against anything in the times we live in now can easily be viewed as literally standing on the book to look further or knocking someone on the head with the book itself - not good uses of the book. The point im trying to make is, where i am with my practise and who i am and the society and times ive grown up in, i require someone who has walked my walk - someone from the west BUT in addition the reason why SKPJ talks of finding a teacher with 'noble and saintly qualities' is because being in their presence just might hasten some beautific qualities that you never knew you had they might just be teaching you asana but they may well also inspire you to greater things. Cant really argue with that, yoga teachers and students the world over have deep love for one another - just the way in which SKPJ is held in such high regard is an ideal example. I think and bearing in mind im very new, to try to learn yoga as Krishnamacharya understood it one would have to walk his walk but to learn yoga as i might understand it i need inspiration from a teacher - having said that i still have to concentrate on a home practise and your blogs inspirational.
I find the Yoga Sutras still very much relevant, Patanjali argues a good case and I look forward to studying them in some more depth with Ramaswami. There are problems of course applying anything cross culturally but that doesn't mean it can't be done sensitively and with caution.
I was just referring to how yoga and asana get mixed up as if they are the same thing and because asana is equated with yoga the other 193 sutras get applied directly to asana rather than the 3 asana sutras.
Both Krishanamacharya and Jois seemed to want to make Yoga (not just asana) available to the modern householder, not just the ascetic. They seemed to try to find a way where Yoga could be practiced while practicing asana. Thus if you were a householder with very little time you could still practice, yoga, the essence of the sutras while practicing your asana. Isn't that what Jois is doing in Yoga Mala, perhaps that comes from Krishnamacharya, difficult to tell, his Yoga Makaranda is a bad book (format wise).
i agree with you about the benefits of a teacher with 'noble and saintly qualities' , I have nothing but admiration for Jois himself and how he taught everyday for so many years, constantly stressing that he was teaching what his teacher taught him.
One of the wonderful things about Ashtanga is that he seems to have inspired so many other teachers by his own example. Western teachers who as you say have walked your walk. I might have some issues at the moment with the rigidity of Ashtanga, the clash between the home student and perhaps necessities of the shala, and choose another direction for my own practice, but that doesn't stop me from admiring Ashtanga, its teachers and practitioners. How can you not be in awe of people who do this everyday.
And as i said i think it's ideal for home practice.
To find relevance in the 1700 year old yoga sutras in today's day and age a typical 'me me me' mindset would have to have go through quite a lot of cleansing, whether from the east or the west. That's not to say the sutras are not relevant or inspiring they very much are to a simplified mind. Which is what we yoga practioner's strive for.
Having read Yoga Mala and the Essential Yoga sutra recently and being fresh in my mind I think its important not to let yoga or asana become simply the parts and not the sum of. Which is why i am going to miss being in the presence of a teacher who inspires me.
SKPJ from his words doesn't strike me as a man who would compromise on what yoga is ie he wouldn't intentionally set out to come up with 'yoga simplified' but i do think he was aware that asana can be seductive so he pretty much knew that all he had to do was let loose asana and 'all is coming'
Krisnamacharya was a man who would require complete dedication from his students but he would have compromised over time as most people do, just as SKPJ would have done being aware of the constraints of householders. Both men were only a generation apart but India was going through its biggest changes at that time with the advent of technology, Krishnamacharya representing old India and SKPJ well he was living up to a few years ago.
Right off for some yoga, i should really thank Linda for her books
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