The dread, what happened to the dread.
Didn't feel like practicing yesterday. Was woken by my alarm at 5:30 from a very deep realistic dream, got up and was bumping into this, dropping that, was all over the place.
I'd planned on practicing 2ND but all the way through the Sury's and Standing thought, to hell with it I'll practice Primary. Just changed practice rooms too so still not comfortable in the new/old room.
At the last minute I changed my mind and went into Pasasana rather than Paschimottanasa and got on with Intermediate.
Now I've never really liked 2ND, mostly because it just wasn't Primary which I loved. Where Primary felt flowing and meditative, Intermediate always felt disjointed, a chore. I liked the challenges of some of the big asanas, liked working on them but never really enjoyed them within the practice. I've always had a dread of 2ND. There I've said it, dread. Primary days have me bouncing out of Bed, Intermediate days you'd think I was shuffling grimly to the gallows. I'd do it but rarely loved it, just told myself it's a discipline, later a regime.
Not only did I dread the series but also the individual asana. OK, ruddy Krounchasana (hate it), Kapo is coming, Dwi pada which I like, but is a bind (pun totally intended) and again a chore. And now the ruddy Titti's which squeeze the sweat out of me like I'm a lemon ( a sweaty lemon) and send my breath all over the place. Get through all that and you have Karanda coming up, it's like a video game where each bad guy gets meaner than the last. And then at the end of it all you have dropbacks. Again, interesting to work on but a pain at the end of practice.
But back to yesterday... sans dread. Just rolled on through the series. Sure it could have been prettier, better aligned but the breath was pretty good throughout, no one asana felt like it dominated, almost felt like I was practicing Primary. It flowed and it was meditative.
And then the same thing this morning. No dread of the series as I got up to practice and again no dread of individual poses.
So if, like me, you've asked if that dread ever goes away, well yes, it just might.
Thinking about why. I have a feeling it's something to do with feeling more accomplished in all the big poses. I can do a mean drop to the heels from the air kapo now which means I can take it easy and still drop back into something respectable without giving it 100%, I can take it easy. All the VK seated work I've done recently seems to have given me deeper LBH's. Karanda is back and relatively comfortable. Backbends and dropbacks are such that I really look forward to them now. Not having to worry so much about the big poses I can get on and delight in those that come between.
Of course it might be back tomorrow.
Kind of want to practice 2nd everyday now, scared to take a day off for Primary or Rest in case it returns.
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8 comments:
nice one. there is hope. just out of curiosity, after seeing the vk stuff on your blog i went straight out and bought the books, or rather straight online to amazon....are those the sequences you've been practising, from the book with the big pink lotus on the front? can't seem to get enthuised about them....:-/
yep that's the book and I've got some speeded up videos of some of the sequences under my labels on the right side of the blog. VK seated sequence, VK lotus sequence etc. I think the idea is that you learn the sequences as they are in the book to gain familiarity with all the different variations. You could then practice that sequence,a shorter version or perhaps a combination.
Try jumping to the seated or Lotus sequence and try those, Tadasana seems a bit tame when your used to Ashtanga and On one leg is too tough for us : )
Once you learn all the variations I find it usefull to complement my Ashtanga practice with them, just because I still have ashtanga under my skin.
On the library PC and about to get timed out, does that help? I struggled with how to build a practice from those sequences all year
Forgot to say. In the beginning I used to sandwich the sequences between the usual Ashtanga Standing and finishing.
I found it interesting when you take a tricky asana in ashtanga that your struggling with and then find it in Ramaswami's book. Look at the Asanas that come before it in the book and after. Eka Pada Sirsasana for example doesn't get much direct prep in 2nd series as opposed to Kapo say, but in the book, Archer pose and Heron come before it. I used those all through the winter before my Leg behind head postures in 2nd.
Another one I'm finding useful is the (sorry don't have the book with me) inverted lotus mudra where your in headstand go into lotus and curl the lotus all the way down, your trying to stay straight and yet curled and working on the breath. I do that for five to ten minutes every day now in my finishing headstand and I think it's doing wonders for my Karandavasana.
I do pretty much the whole Bow sequence as a lead into Kapo and a big chunk of the seated sequence after Supta kurmasana in Primary. I've also added a couple of Squats from the on one leg sequence mixed into UHP in Standing and this seems to be making my legs stronger which in turn seems to be helping my dropbacks and coming up, especially in laghu and Kapo B.
I think it's hard for us though coming from Ashtanga, where we're so used to a set practice.
Thank you :) I shall try again with it, really really need some help with my eka pada sirasana, am a long way off dwe, and it's been years, there is progress but very slow and admittedly hampered by my snowboarding habit ; ) Mind you the most flexible smooth and fluid intermediate i've ever practised was my first one after the 10day vipassana, waaaaaaaa.... righto, shall be spending my moonday researching a good vk sequence to slot into intermediate. thanks again x
OK, maybe there'll be hope for me down the road in a very long time. I have finally realized that I DREAD 2nd series and make excuses not to practice it. *sigh* just gotta keep practising it till the dread goes away I guess.
Still no dread, breezing through 2nd at the moment. very strange, complete turn about, as if I'm practicing Primary. Afraid to stop practicing it, should have done primary today but didn't dear in case things changed back again. off to paris for a couple of days tomorrow though so will see what it's like when I get back.
It's as if Kapo, Dwi pada, Karanda and dropbacks have just blended into the whole practice. That's it, the practice feels like a seamless whole rather than disjointed, segmented. Actually loving 2nd.
I blamed the series for a long time Skippetty, thought it was a poor sequel to primary. It seems it's just an attitude, were we like that with primary? The evil Mari D and Supta kurmasana?
Funny thing is that whenever I would sit down and come up with a VK sequence that I would want to practice, with all the poses I thought I should cover it came out looking like 2nd (more or less).
Sure you'll feel the love, hope it's sooner rather than later.
Going to have to go back to all those posts where I dissed 2nd and add a humble apology.
What you're experiencing seems to sit alongside one of my favourite quotes from Guruji: "you take it practice many years and shantih is coming, no problem".
Nice thought you had about the primary postures. I certainly did not like a lot of the ones that are now my personal favourites. I guess that's the healing in play.
Enjoy Paris!
very gooood!
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