Conference notes from Mysore

http://www.ashtanganews.com/

I wanted to give a big thank-you to everyone posting conference notes from Mysore. Used to be that there would just be the odd line or two coming out of Mysore that would get passed around like Chinese Whispers, losing context in the telling and retelling, "Sharath said what????"

I know, me too.

Now, no doubt thanks to iPhones and iPads, we're getting fuller, more detailed notes and it's interesting.

The most detailed notes at the moment seem to be coming from Suzy who's clearly putting a great deal of effort into writing these up and I wanted to send a special thank-you to her and say how much I appreciate her work.

here's the link to her blog

Suzy's Mysore Blog 2011-12

and this to her most recent post

Conference – The true purpose of asana – 4th December 2011

She's running a couple of weeks behind, not surprising given the detail she's providing.

My favourite notes from her last post


'The alternative is to do shirshasana (headstand) and sarvangasana (shoulderstand). You can do these for a long time. You can do them for 1 yama, that is 3 hours. Don’t try this tomorrow. You should slowly build up. You need time also. You can try to do shirshasana for 10-15 minutes when you’re at home. Then amrita bindu will not fall down. Then the life gets longer. I’ve seen Guruji do shirshasana for many hours. Especially when you get older and are not able to do the more difficult postures, you can do sarvangasana and shirshasana – there are many variations in shirshasana you can do – like that you will be healthy'.


Interesting that Sharath is referring to asana and vinyasa outside of the Ashtanga series, we've heard before that Krishnamacharya and Jois would employ different variations when teaching those who couldn't perhaps manage the regular asana or who were having difficulties getting into a new posture.

I'll have the Vinyasa Krama Inverted (headstand) subroutine breakdown sheet for My Practice Book up in a couple of days which will show many of the vinyasa's we can explore in headstand but here's the first page, a taster.

Here's a link to my Sarvangasana, Shoulder stand subroutine breakdown sheet

DAY 75 : Supine: Subroutine Breakdown

...and this note where Sharath refers to the practice as Vinyasa Krama rather than just as Ashtanga

The Vinyasa Krama system is very unique because of the breathing, because the breath controls the mind. Irregular breathing causes lots of delusions and distractions. Other styles of yoga don’t talk about the breath, you just do the postures. When you synchronise the asana with the breath, that is vinyasa.


Always felt that the gap between early and late Krishnamacharya's teaching isn't as large as we often make out.


Kino too has started posting detailed notes from conference thanks to her iPad, she's just posted on Sharath's most recent conference.


A Lifetime of Practice: Conference with Sharath in Mysore December 2011

Thank you Kino and to everyone else passing on their notes and experiences from mysore and tempting us to make the trip ourselves. See the Mysore blog list over on the right of my blog (anyone I'm missing you'd like to recommend?).