Born again Ashtangi - first moon day ? UPDATED

Sitting here with an espresso wondering what to do about the Moon day ( almost never take em). It's my day off and I often tend to get up later for practice. Actually I've decided recently that getting up later throws the day right off, better to get up at the normal time and do my practice as usual. But it's a moon day and last night I thought I'd continue playing it by the Ashtanga book and and skip practice.

Hate it.

Whistling, looking around the room, scuffing my feet back and forth.....now what?

Here's Ramaswami on moon days in his Sept 2010 newsletter


'Certain days in the month are considered “anadhyayana” days. Some
people ask if Yoga should not be done on these anadhyayana days.
During my studies with my teacher he did not specify any days when we
should not practice Yoga. Anadhyayana is usually associated with study
of the vedas and anadhyayana days are days one should not study the
vedas, presumably with the teacher. In short we may say that the veda
pathasala or veda schools would be closed on these days. I started
learning veda chanting (with my father) when I was about 10 years old
and I had a teacher who would come to our house at about 5 in the
morning to teach vedic chanting. But he would not come on these
“anadhyayana” days. The smritis say that vedas should be chanted daily
(vedam nityam adhiyetaam). So we may say that the prohibition is with
respect to studying, perhaps new lessons but not chanting the portions
already learned (swadhyaya).  On anadhyayana days like the new moon
day, one may refrain from learning with a teacher new vedic lessons,
but may chant what one has already learnt. It is a  moot question if
this restriction applies to yogasana learning  and certainly does not
appear to  apply to  home yogasana practice'


And a response from Eddie Stern

Do people write about moon days every month, seems to be a lot of blogging about it last night/this morning.

Noble quotes Tim Miller, something about observing moon days as one way to recognize the rhythms of nature. ( he also quotes Larkin too, which is always worth a link ).

Has everyone caught Tim's blog, I was excited when I heard he would be blogging, one of the early, senior teachers, but then disappointed when I saw that it was mostly about Astrology (which I abhor with a vengeance) but then found I looked forward to his posts anyway. Amongst the astrology, not my thing, are all kinds of old stories and references, Indian myths, legends and philosophy, very much my thing.

OK, so no ashtanga practice. This led Primary for a month experiment is quite full on, what with the pace of the practice. Can't deny the effect it's having on my body, lighter, leaner ( though less flexible), probably a good idea to give it a bit of a break.

Strange thing. I've noticed a certain... directness. No that's not it, how to put this. It reminds me of when I first shaved my head. This was what fifteen years ago, used to have hair so long that M used to braid it and they would hang half way down my chest. I shaved it all off over a Christmas holidays forgetting that the first day back to Uni I was supposed to be teaching Kafka's metamorphosis in my Aesthetics class.

Everyone should shave their head at least once, you get this ... warrior/monk effect. I remember feeling more erect, upright, my gaze at the world more... direct. Felt the same way when I practiced Iaido in Japan.

Iaido is interesting, the idea is that your walking along minding your own business or sitting in a tea house perhaps and then suddenly attacked by an enemy. You whip out your Katana (sword) and in the same action of drawing it, dispatch your attacker, all in one movement. In the return of that movement you might dispatch or clash swords with another attacker, there's a rhythm to it. As your last attacker falls the Katana is already returning to it's saya ( scabbard ) and then you have another sip of your macha, or carry along on your way discussing the weather. There's a committed and immediate response to the world.

Apart from the nasty....dispatching aspect it reminds me a lot of Ashtanga.



But anyway, whether, shaving your head running around with large pointy things or practicing ashatanga, there seems to be a directness of gaze, a result of the physicality perhaps. Not so much the practice as the physical effect of the practice on the body, one feels... panther-like, LOL.


Hmmm, or perhaps it's just the gaze, Ashtanga drishte, Iaido 'far off mountain gaze', as opposed to the chin tilted, eyes down gaze of Vinyasa krama

Vinyasa Krama seems to make me more... internal, inward looking thank Ashtanga. It's still a very physical practice, but softer somehow, the meditative aspect dominates all else. In Ashtanga the meditative is tempered by the physical.

In my own 'experience' of course.

Good thing bad thing? Just different perhaps, but Ashtanga is a householder practice, one is still a part of the world, interacting and responding to it, perhaps then it's not a bad thing.

Back to the moon day....So no Ashtanga, lets stick with the rules for a while longer but I've missed the long headstands and shoulder stands of vinyasa krama so perhaps a short tadasana practice followed by the inversion prep, a ten minute shoulder stand ( first five minutes with the legs relaxed), counter pose, twenty minutes headstand ( second ten with variations), second Shoulder stand with variations and counter then some Padmasana prep ( maha mudra and badha konasana perhaps ) and finally a full forty minutes of pranayama.

We built up to forty minutes pranayama on Ramaswami's Vinyasa Krama TT course but recently I've dropped down to twenty in the morning and twenty in the evening which is fine but I used to love those long long pranayama sessions.

UPDATE

Did the above Vinyasa Krama and pranayama practice but got a bit carried away. After the second shoulder stand I did Urdhva Danurasana as a counter but then remembered David's Tic tac video so started banging my chest against the wall in UD. Then I figured I'd work along with his Tic Tac video series ( in three parts I believe ) so made videos , having a go at the exercises he's presenting. That of course led into some serious dropback work. During the week I'm stopping Sharath's led, knocking out three quick dropbacks then  starting the stream/dvd/cd back up again and picking it back up at paschi. Nice to give them some more time this morning. Oh also in there somewhere I looked in on my Karandavasana spent ten minutes on some Kapilasana and bandha konasana.

Not exactly a rest day but fun to play for a bit and good to settle into the longer stays in the VK poses and with pranayama