So almost the end of the year, had thought the Practice book project I was doing would be finished by now and I could tidy it it up, post it and be done but there's still the Lotus sequence to go, another week.
I'm tired of writing about asana and can't for the life of me remember why I started it. I think it was about making Ramaswami's book more accessible for the home yogi but I wonder if I'm not obscuring it more. It's actually a very clear book, Ramaswami's not mine, mostly telling you where to breath as you move in and out of an asana. Perhaps all it needed was a picture chart of all the sequences at the end of the book and it would have been perfect.
And I thought I had all these tips and tricks I'd picked up from the this blog, from the Ashtanga community but truth be told I find myself repeating the same things, 'engage the bandhas, remember to stretch and tuck in the tailbone', everything else is probably extraneous, we tend to work it out sooner or later.
That said it's been good for me to work through Ramaswami's book so closely, think I'm clearer about his system, or his teacher's system, his use of the breath, although my body probably worked it out most of the time by just making the movements. By the time you get past chapter one, lift your arms on the long inhalation, lower them on the long slow exhalation, you've pretty much got it, asana, it's not rocket science.
While working on the Vinyasa Krama project I've moved back towards Ashtanga in my practice, how curious. Perhaps it's the silence, those same familiar postures, the rhythm of the breath and bringing the attention to it again and again.
It's like that too in Vinyasa Krama, not so much the rhythm we have in Ashtanga, the movement of the pendulum with the posture the moment of stillness at the top of the ark but rather the stillness in the posture itself. For now though, when in a Posture in my VK subroutines my attention is somewhere on the page and how I can explain what I think is happening, how I think I'm getting into a posture.
Going back to Ashtanga in the evenings has been a sanctuary.
Sitting a revelation.
And blogging, I wanted to keep it so light that I wonder if I've not forgotten how to think deeply anymore, perhaps that's no bad thing be nice to come back to Heidegger without the philosopher's hat and just read him again as the yogi he was rather than as the high professor.
And I want to play my saxophone again, been a while. Thought recently that Vinyasa Krama was like Coleman Hawkins and Ashtanga like Lester Young and what a nice blog post that would make but I'm sure the blogosphere can do without it.
Sounds like a sabbatical is called for.
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5 comments:
Thank you for your practice Notes, very helpful addition to R's book. And I certainly look forward to the jazz post but have a good rest.
Seasons Greetings from India...am sure the new year will bring you energy and passion for your writing once again. Even if you have forgotten why you are working on this book....please know that there is a girl in India who is greatly helped and inspired by your blog.
Thank you Anon, appreciate it.
Your very kind Rani, thank you, Day 85, probably just a little burned out and having a wing. Glad your finding it helpful. Most of the time I've enjoyed working on it, almost done now. Think i just wanted to have it finished this week so I could start the year afresh.
Just had a look at your own blog, it's wonderful.
Yes, you have been working very hard this year G. I admire the work you put into the routines posts, and I understand what you say when you mention that in every VK practice you are thinking about writing. I believe this is the work of the teacher, how to verbalize or make simple the teachings, internalizing to an extent that can be transferred and easily, or clearly explained, so the knowledge can trickle onto others.
And it is working.
Who knows what the future may bring, I really learn from you, for example there is no book you mention that I dont want to read, and your introduction to Ramaswami has been key in my learning more about this enormously vastscience of yoga.
Thank you Claudia, was just having a bit of a winge, had really wanted to finish it and put the new version up on New year and move on. Almost done though, re filmed most of the Lotus sequence today only eight more routines to go and that's the end of the every day bit which will relax some of the pressure I put on myself. What was I thinking 90 routines in 90 days, stupid yogi : )
I just want to practice now, take a few months and just get on with it and not think about the asana just flow through them, so Ashtanga then, lose myself in 2nd for a few months.
Been thinking about the breath, mindfulness technique, the different approaches to meditation and how little of that we seem to have in Yoga. I read about people getting stressed out with themselves about monkey mind, stressing themselves out because they can't stay focussed on the breath, or the bandhas.. or the drishti but we don't have that in meditation do we. The mind wanders we gently bring it back and without judging ourselves, or we settle on the sensation, or the emotion.... If it's a concentration practice then where's the yoga concentration manual?
There should be a book that applies meditation technique to hatha yoga practice?
I'm thinking something like Moonlight of Mahamudra, no, too long (only dipped in and out of my iPad version), OK, 'The Essentials of Mahamudra' but applied to the practice of asana of Ashtanga.
Think I'd like to explore that a little this year.
So glad you got to study with Ramaswami. he's coming to the UK in October, hoping to see him then. I should ask him about it, perhaps there is some obscure hath a text somewhere.
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