Launching my NEW blog : Practicing Vinyasa Krama Yoga at Home

I know, I said I was away on holiday for a week and wouldn't be blogging ( see yesterday's post ) but I don't actually go away until tomorrow. So one more post, and then I'm gone, no really.

This one is to launch a new blog which I'm calling, 'Practicing Vinyasa Krama Yoga at Home'

In his Complete book of Vinyasa Yoga Ramaswami presents several hundred postures, grouped into subroutines and Sequences. So, for example, we have a Marichiyasana subroutine in the Asymmetric sequence, a Kurmasana subroutine in the Seated sequence and a Baddha konasana subroutine in the Lotus sequence.

Supposedly Krishnamacharya recommended grouping the sequences this way and it does make sense, you see the relation between postures, how one leads into another building on what has gone before, for me it was a revelation.

The problem comes when you try to turn this resource into an actual daily practice, there is so much in the book that it can be a little overwhelming. Ramaswami recognises this and gives suggestions on how to approach your practice both in the book itself and in his newsletters. Below is a link to perhaps his clearest presentation. I've tried to make clearer still by breaking it up into bullet points.

How to practice Vinyasa krama ( in bullet points )

My new blog is an attempt to take that further still. I've fished out fifty or so Vinyasa Krama posts from this blog and copied them over to the new one. There are still more to move but the process is slow going and I'm getting a headache, it's a start.

The posts reflect my own attempts at getting to grips with Ramaswami's Vinyasa Yoga, coming from an Ashtanga practice. Some are practice outlines, some exploring favourite postures and subroutines. I've put the last year or so of Ramaswami's Newsletters there as well as posts that show how I've used Vinyasa Krama to modify my Ashtanga practice, sometimes that's because of injury other times to see if it helps me get deeper into postures and still others for the hell of it.

The blog is subtitled 'An integrated practice' so there are posts too on Chanting, meditation, pranayama as well as the stand alone pages from the bar at the top of this blog, these are areas I hope to explore further in future posts.

In future posts I'll continue to explore approaches to practice but also look at individual postures in a similar way to how I've done here but from the Vinyasa Krama perspective rather than Ashtanga.

It struck me that this blog is getting too big and confusing. If your only interested in Vinyasa Krama you have to really pick through the Ashtanga posts to find what your looking for. And for the Ashtangi's it must often seems that the Vinyasa Krama posts are written in conflict with Ashtanga (sometimes they are but not always).

I could just turn this one into a Vinyasa Krama blog of course but I'm a little proud of the first year or so where I was trying to find my feet in the practice. Kind of feel the posts and video's reflect the struggles everyone goes through on starting Ashtanga and might be useful for others starting out especially those whose only option is to practice at home.

Anything I post on the new blog will get a link here, so if your interested in the Vinyasa Krama stuff you wont miss out. I still plan on practicing Ashtanga, Primary on Friday's, 2nd series on Sunday so will post here that's ashtanga related.

This will probably remain my main blog.