Just go back from floatworks where I spent an hour in a floatation tank. Why don't they call them isolation tanks or sensory deprivation tanks anymore I wonder. If you haven't heard about them before, basically they are pods, half filled with water with a couple of shovel fulls of Epsom salts, basically the Dead sea in a giant bucket. You strip, off, shove in some earplugs (provided) get in, close the lid and float for an hour. At floatworks they give you ear plus, a fluffy white towel (costs an extra pound) there's a shower in the room with the pod for before and after (nice blueberry shampoo in the shower by the way).
I'm sure you can guess the claims that are made for this, theta waves this, Dali lama grade meditation state after a three ticket packet that and so on and so forth. To be honest it doesn't need the hard sell, it's the dead sea in a bucket, in the dark and without a beach full of screaming kids, what more could you want? well, Yoga.
So I got in, naked , there I said it, closed the lid, switched off the light inside and waited for them to turn the room light off, click, pitch black. They play some tape with the sound of waves for ten minutes (and again at the end to let you know your time is about up) and then that fades and there's nothing but the sound of your breathing. This was quite loud as I thought I'd try some pranayama. I engaged bandhas too but that was enough to make me drift into the side and bang my head. I softened the breathing but focused on the breath and I think I drifted off for a few minutes.
I didn't see the point of spending my hour sleeping and to be honest I can meditate better on my cushion at home so ended up doing some yoga. And here I think I'm on to something, flotation tank yoga. I should say I got lucky and was given tank number 8 which is twice the size of the usual one(think that's it in the picture above, guess it was the only one free when they took the photos). I tried some simple postures, tree pose at first but then moved on to padmasana, a kind of floating lotus. I did try sitting up to see if it would keep me afloat but I sank. The good think about lotus in the big tank was that with my hands in angeli on my chest, elbows gently supported by the water, I could float round and round and if you bent a little at the waist and gave yourself a little push you could spin quite nicely.
After a little while I got adventurous and tried Supta vajrasana, which was the highlight of the float, there I am in the picture above, now imagine it without the bolster or indeed the floor, really really nice. I tried a few others, started on leg behind head, getting as far as my shoulder but I would have had to take my foot over my face to get behind my head and didn't want to risk getting the salt water in my eye, shame, can you imagine floating in Kasyapasana?
When the music started to tell me my time was up I unfurled my legs, stretched them for a bit then rolled over. I tried a quick Bhekasana (frog pose) which amused me no end, as well as Dhanurasana and then that was that.
So flotation tanks, nice for power naps on your lunch break I imagine and probably a fine place to meditate, but for some gentle sans mat sans floor yoga it's certainly worth a try.
I have another ticket, it'll probably be the smaller tank but I'm taking suggestions for flotation tank yoga postures, any suggestions?
11 comments:
No suggestions but I found your account hysterically funny. The things yogis get up to!
I sat & meditated for 20m (holding crystals) after my non deluxe castor oil / salt bath. I decided to ask Guruji for help, guidance for my practice basically. It's his birthday after all and it's the moon day in Mysore, according to JC on Fri. Why not ask right? I'm not waiting for an immediate answer...
Thanks Boodi, now if I could just convince Branson to let me have a go at zero gravity....
Ahhh your practice and where to take it, glad your blogging again it's such an interesting question. Sooner or later you have to stop right, I mean you can continue to learn 4th but then what 5th? And then? Or do you decide to settle on the first three series or first two even and try to find something in them that satisfies.
I had two 'epiphanies' on the course, one was that I was no longer that bothered about advanced postures. The other was that I seemed to have a bit of an aptitude for them and seeing that there are less people in Vinyasa Krama that seem able to do them (having perhaps not been through ashtanga with it's six days a week of attempting the same challenging postures everyday) I should probably keep them up. In Ashtanga there are plenty of people who can teach or demonstrate 3rd/4th series but only a handful it seems in VK. People on the course seemed to appreciate seeing someone do Puna M rather than just see it pictured in a book, whether they are ever likely to attempt it or not.
On one hand I hope you find peace with Primary and 2nd and teach while getting into pranayama more but on the other I'm kind of hoping you make it out to Rolf again.
kukuttasana, jump throughs and backs, ut plutihi for like 100 counts... hee hee... depeneding on how deep the tank is I would do anything that requires working against gravity.
You had me laughing with the post... :-)
Ya, ya.... It'd be good to continue to refine 3rd but I'm getting hardly any TEACHING these days. I want the consistent attention of a fully engaged & interested teacher. For that I would have to go see Rolf again. It isn't that I don't enjoy primary or 2nd at all though. I just always want to be learning.
In my own case it isn't so much about "advancing". Since the series are a mix of levels it's not like you go in one straight line up some hill...
Anyway, since it's a moon day & I did not get my ass out of bed for a make-up 2nd series, I suppose I have time to sit for 20m before work. I'm going to do it. I'm more interested in the straight "sit" than I am pranayama, and so if there's only time or inclination for one I'll pick that.
I like the 100 breath utpluthi idea Claudia, might finally get me that Lino lift and jump back too.
your right of course Boodie, I'd forgotten how hard some of the poses in Primary actually are untill i saw people trying some of them for the first time last month, let alone 2nd. I was looking at advanced B in Sweeney a couple of days ago and caught myself thinking 'X would be fun to work on', it wasn't about wanting to be able to do a pose so much as the whole process of working on it/towards it, so I get you on the 'I just always want to be learning' bit. Rolf would give you plenty to work on for the rest of the year no?
Missed practice too, woke up late, still jet lagged so will practice more asana this evening.
That's it, I'm going to use my blog to try and drag people kicking and screaming into a pranayama practice, Sometimes I feel like I could almost drop everything else.
of course what I really mean is gently encourage people to consider a little itty bit pranayama as a tinsy wincy part of their daily practice rather than the kicking and screaming bit.
It's the moon day here but I'd skipped yesterday too. Three days off in a row is rare for me! It's ok though. I won't get quizzed on it & I'll be fine.
Ya the whole thing about "qualifying" for the advanced practice in Astanga is being strong enough to do it every day with the gradual adding on. It's one thing to trot out a full 3rd, but it's another to do that three to four days in a row, regularly.
Rolf would tweak the hell out of my 3rd. He did a lot with me on the vinyasa, that first time. Used to say, "She is really strong," and "Not really necessary, but for you is ok." He'd make the arm balances HARDER :) I'd get 2-3 Ganda B assists every f-ing day, rather than just once or twice a week.
When I think of how much attention I got now, from a man who was practicing his own practice in the middle of the night & teaching 5-6 hours a day, two rooms, well it's just amazing.
A qualified guess is that you did still not make friends with savasana ...?
Instead of all this acrobatics in the dark, next time you should challenge yourself and be absolutely still in body and mind for just one tiny little hour. No sleeping, no thinking, no daydreaming, no meditation, no moving of any body parts, no nothing ...
When I was first taught it (by some satyananda people way before my ashtanga adventure), I was told savasana was the most difficult asana of them all. Later I discovered that Patabhi Jois and many other yoga traditions say the same.
The pose is about letting go completely. The obstacles to a good savasana are sleep, boredom, mental agitation, and the ultimate obstacle: thinking you don't need savasana.
Or to quote Michael Stone on savasana:
'From Patanjali’s perspective of looking at hindrances, we could say that we actively engage the imagination in order to avoid the void of corpse pose.'
Michaels full article on savasana is clever and to be found here: http://www.iyengar-yoga.com/articles/savasana/
Au contraire roselil, savasana and I are now the best of buddies. In VK we take them throughout the practice not just at the end. During the practice they are a couple of minutes but I guess they were around ten minutes or so at the end. Also in the evening practice I tend to take one after the asana and another after the pranayama before meditation. Mainly it's for rest and recapturing the breath but Ramaswami would also talk of it as pratyahara an, alternative to the pratyahara mudra, something I wanted to explore further in the next trip to the bucket. It's something I'm interested in at the moment as it seems poorly treated in the literature (gets even less than asana in the sutras). I'll probably be in the regular size pod the next time I go so wont have the opportunity to explore poses (wasn't going to pass it up). Thanks for the link, will have a read.
You certainly earn the poses in shala ashtanga, in VK it seems to be just a case of whether you flexible and/or strong enough for the next expression of a pose. Was just looking at your FB link to Rolf's site, would love to go, always looks so intense in his practice.
Rolf worked me super hard the last time. Hopefully he'd do it again! You never can tell, as per Venki. I still can't quite believe he took that much money & did diddly squat for me. He'd always been so helpful before! The classes were shorter and infinitely flimsier too. Oh well. At least I know I never have to go back to Mysore now. I find the town itself a bit boring and so it's nice to be done.
What a waste of a floatation session - I can't believe you got bored and started moving around - I've been floating for years and also meditating for even longer and floatation will always take you further and deeper in to meditation. How you can say lying on a cushion is more comfortable than being suspended in skin temperature silky salt solution I'll never know. You messed up on this one.... you should have been still both physically and mentally for the whole hour and only when you got out at the end would you have appreciated exactly what it was all about.
I don't think I suggested that i was bored but rather that i was interested in asana 'gravity free'. I prefer seated meditation because I've been doing it on and off for twenty-five years and that was my first time in a floatation tank, familiarity and all that. The present was three sessions and in the later ones I did of course 'just float', interesting, liked it but still prefer my cushion.
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