Three month Samakonasana and Kroukachasana Challenge

Ramaswami suggested on his TT course that you do your regular practice and then, if you had time, perhaps in the evening, you might do an extra practice where you would work on asana or subroutines that you found particularly challenging.

There is one posture I've tended to avoid, skip over.... neglect. it comes up on page 84 of Ramaswami's Complete book of Vinyasa Yoga, in the seated sequence and again on 159 of the triangle sequence.

Samakonasana

I wrote yesterday,

'I can hardly believe it's possible for me either. Never really thought about it seriously before but words like geometry, magical and grounding have piqued my interest.... nothing to do with my self doubt being scoffed at'.

This was all in the context of a conversation in the comments to one of Boodie's posts HERE

I heard a couple of years ago, in relation to Hanumanasana, that a couple of senior Ashtanga teachers included hanumanasana after the parasarita's in the Standing sequence. Turns out Tim Miller has a little routine that goes from the parasarita's to samakonasna then hanumanasana A and B back to Samakonasana and then repeating on the opposite leg.

I'd been wanting to get my hanumanasana back ( had let it slip) and while I'm at it and we're talking challenges ,I've always found Kraukachasana to be elegant (picture below from David Williams Complete Ashtanga syllabus poster)

And so a three month challenge, six is perhaps more realistic, but three works better in the context of a blog and I should know at least by then if it's going to be doable. Optimistic about the kroukachasana, used to flatten out in Hanuman so that should come back and I'm able to do Eka pada raja kapotasana well enough but Samakonasana...I don't know.

Supposedly it's a posture for which no other postures prepare you except perhaps badha konasana. Not sure about that, surely the parasarita's prepare you and upavishta konasana...

So we need a bench mark

This morning I did my understanding of the Tim Miller post Parasarita routine. the Video is below but here are the current state of play of my Smakonasana ( if can even be called that at this stage ) and my Hanuman.

In the evening I tend to do my Ashtanga practice so this will fit in nicely enough after the parasarita's. in the morning I do a Vinyasa Krama practice, tadasana, followed by a couple of sun salutations with mantra. I'll add a couple of standing postures to stretch out the hamstrings the parasarita and this samakonasana/hanumanasana routine before continuing on with my long Paschimottanasana, maha mudra, badha konasana and on into my pranayama and meditation practice.

That's the plan.

UPDATE

It took nine days in the end, to lower to the mat anyway and a fair semblance of Samakonasana. Still a lot of work to do on it but clearly it is was possible for me, why was I so convinced that it wasn't . Here's a link to a post I'm updating on the progress called Samakonasana Watch. It came a lot sooner than I expected but then I have been doing a lot of work on Baha konasana for the last few months and have my knees comfortably resting on the mat, wide wide open, that's probably helped.

 ...and here's the video