I practiced 2nd series last Saturday for the first time in , what, two months and then again this morning. Both practices went well, enjoyed them. I really must do that month of led 2nd to tighten it up like last months Primary. Anyway, went well, mid foot in Kapo but that'll come back. That duck though, Karnadavasana, still it's squished, shoulders virtually on top of my hands.
I shouldn't complain, great that I can still get it up and it's not as though I'm in bad company...
Still, if there's one thing I would like to do before I hang up my Manduka is raise that duck with my arms at 45 degrees, kind of end up the same as I was before I started to lower my lotus.
Why dose it matter, if Krishnamacharya himself ended up squished? Well mainly for the exit, hard to flick back from there but aesthetics too damn it, besides, squishing can't be good, surely.
So it was still at the back of my mind when I came to the final sirsasana, thought perhaps I'd do the Vinyasa Krama lotus to headstand, just as I was going up I had one of those light bulb moments.
Lotus to headstand is hard, possibly even harder than karandavasana as the weight your lotus is so far back. The trick is to press down on your forearms just in frount of your elbows, draw the lotus up your arms and then take it up to headstand.
'Forearms just in frount of the elbows!'
When I do karandavasana I'm always thinking of my hand placement , pushing down my hands and forearms. Now when the hands are such a part of the focus you end pushing down that end of your arm.
So I grabbed the camera, and took the video below. Karandavasana but with an elbow focus and it made a difference, chin is off the mat, still squished, but less so. Remember, this is just my second Karandavasana in quite a while, I'm hoping that armed with this and a little practice I can ..... well, we'll see.
I called the next video Karandavasana prep, I don't know whether it is but try it and whether you manage to raise your lotus or not you'll still notice that your pushing down near your elbows which is the main thing to carry over to your Karandavasana practice to see if it makes any difference.
Actually rather than shifting the focus from one end of the arm to the other it probably makes sense to spread the force from the elbows to the fingertips, ahhhhhhh...
Tomorrow.
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3 comments:
Wow, your karandavasana prep is genius. I must try this when at home again. This is exactly the movement that is needed. Fantastic.
OK, I am like, totally far away from this pose, and I always thought it one of those impossibles, but your second video actually seems, from the point of view of the observer here, "doable", I agree with Ursula, amazing... not that I am going to try, I have enough with teh drop backs to focus on, but I appreciate it seeing it... suddenly maybe the world is not so taugh after all
Thanks Ursula, hope it helps. It's hard though. i saw this in Ramaswami's book and tried it but thought it imopossible, saw my fried Chris and also Ricky do it on the VK TT course. Knew it was possible then so managed it a couple of weeks later, tricky though, engaging the bandhas strongly helps.
Yes you have the joys of Karandavasana to come Claudia, so cruel you tend to have to get through that before you can split, exhausting : )
Nice to see those pictures of Krishnamacharya, felt better about being squished. btw I just found a better version of one of them on your blog after a google image search, wonder where and when they came from originally.
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