Trouble is I keep coming up with new things to add. The latest idea was to make up some practice sheets of the Ashtanga Primary sequence and then draw boxes around all the different subroutines within it and show how they're similar to the Vinyasa Krama subroutines.
The point is to show how you can go about constructing a practice from all the different Vinyasa Krama Subroutines. One day it might have a similar layout to Ashtanga but another day you might practice different triangle subroutines than those in Ashtanga, or perhaps a couple of extra asymmetric subroutines or whatever.
First thing I needed to do then was make up some Primary practice sheets. My approach entails filming the whole sequence then, using VLC, take screenshots and after putting them in iPhoto, enhance crop and make them Black and White.
Should be straight forward enough but I decided to film the sequence after I got home from work last night as I didn't want to mess up a morning practice. I rushed through the sequence, one posture after another, hold for a breath then move on to the next. Going through It like that you don't really get to warm up the body properly, the marichi's for example were awkward and there wasn't much of a forward bend in uttanasana. Just as I was entering the first side of Mari D, M. called, nice chat then back to the mat and picked it up at the second side. This morning, editing, I find I don't have the first side of Mari D and have to try and get into it cold. Later I find I only filmed one side of Sury B so have to set the mat up, just as it was last night, and shoot that too.
The other problem is catching the screenshot at just the right place, VLC isn't very accurate so sometimes all you can capture is just as you come into a posture or out of it, then it turned out I didn't take shots of Uttanasana B so had to redo those and then work out how to reorder them on mac iPhoto, seems it wants to keep ordering the photos just as they were originally uploaded however many times you delete and reupload (slightly frustrating). There's a trick though, you pull up the photo information and then change the time and that puts it just where you want it. Phew.
What I'm finding REALLY interesting is how mellow I am about this now. A couple of years ago I would have been swearing at the mac, threatening it, shaking my fist, stomping around the room and considering taking up smoking again. Yoga, working perhaps?
Might be the Bhagavan Das CD I'm listening too that's keeping me so chilled. CK posted the video below on her blog Sunday, was completely blown away by it.
So the Sury's are done back to the grind now for the rest of the series.
All the VK subroutines ( over 80) are done and turned into sheets, just have to title them all and add a few practice notes, a contents page with links then it should be good to go.
See if I'm this calm five hours from now.
UPDATE ( 1pm )
Just finished editing the Primary series and turning them into practice sheets, what's that four hours?
Not sure how I feel about them, lot of postures look a bit tatty. Admittedly they were rushed through in the evening after work rather than filmed during a proper practice but they could be a hell of a lot better. Didn't help that I was using the Sweeney book as a guide during editing, looking at his posture looking at mine.....
Do I want my postures to be beautiful, elegant, would be nice but I'll settle for safe, some of these could probably be safer. Then again I have an inkling that elegant equals safe, I don't want to get hung up on how postures look, they're just tools but then I'm a repairer, I was taught to care for my tools.
Anyway here they are. Next job is to go at them with the red marker tool and box up the subroutines, that should be the fun bit.
UPDATE 2
The annotated version where I've divided Primary series up into the Vinyasa Krama subroutines is now posted over on the Vinyasa Krama blog.
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6 comments:
Awesome!!
As for Bhagavan Das, I'd like to send you the following song:
Jai Uttal: Bhakti Bazaar,
2. Devakinanda Gopala
Grimmley,
This is just so impressive - such dedication! I'm really impressed. I remember seeing a clip somewhere on YouTube of what happens at a photo shoot for Yoga Journal. There's the person in the pose, at least one photographer, someone to touch up the make-up, and someone else calling out alignment cues until it's perfect. There's you with none of that stuff and wondering why your poses don't look 'perfect'. Slap wrists!
Anyway, personally I find perfect poses by some yoga god or goddess depressing.
Mike
Amazing progress, and I like how you say that you have a sense of peace about it, that means you are in the right track, it always does, it is the body that tells us when what we are doing is the right thing.
Liking the video , thanks to CK from me too.
Thanks K, will check out the tracks you mention, thanks for those.
Hi Mike
Thanks, it's coming on. Was thinking about Matthew Sweeney while I was making everything up, wondered how much he did himself or if he just got a pro in.
Someone to call out the sequence would have been handy, my Primary is a little rusty, had to keep going back and reshooting something I missed. Was trying to stay in shot too and not extend over my mat ( look at my arms in parivritta parsva konasana : ), tricky, need one of those cameras with a reversible screen so I can see what's goin on. Kind of impressed with the mac though, that I can do all this without any extra fancy software.
Come to think of it that's why I started the blog in the first place, to capture. work in progress rather than the perfect jump backs etc that we would see on Youtube.
My primary should still be a little tidier though.
Think of yourself five years ago, when you were just trying to do your first few poses and some sections of primary probably looked so absurdly impossible, think how *that* Grimmly would feel, peeking into the future and seeing this book you have made, these photos of you doing these sequences. Wow! :)
Thanks for the reminder maya, after finding those old video of when i'm started I'm still faintly amazed my body does half of what it does. Don't think I'm being over critical though, for all the fancy stuff I can do there's still work needed on a lot of the basics but then perhaps that's always the way and part of the fun of it, ones constantly revisiting the basic postures.
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