It struck me that one of the things that helps you get on the mat in the morning, is working on or towards a new pose. Through most of Primary I was obsessed with jumping back and through and couldn't wait to get on the mat. Of course we're always working on our poses, tweaking them, developing them but there's nothing like a new pose to get you out of bed. I want to keep my Ashtanga simple, as stripped down as possible but perhaps just one new pose, but which, only just had stitches out of my head so can't work on flipping out of Viparita Dandasana.I was given this old copy of Iyengar's light on yoga last week, it has the best cover photo.
Kandasana, now there's a pose, one of those classic yoga postures like Natajarasana, Eka pada Kaja Kapotasana, Purna matsyendrasana, something beautiful about it. Here's Sharath on the left and below on the KPJAYI logo, I don't think I ever noticed there was a logo let alone that it had Kandasana on it. Thanks, R, for pointing it out.
Best of all it's a development of Baddha Konasana so slips right into Primary without disrupting things too much. Oh and there's a way of working towards it from Yoga Nidrasana so I can slip it into 2nd series as well, something to look forward to around the middle of both practices and a reason to get up when it's cold and dark.
A nice byproduct of practicing Ashtanga in the morning is that I'm covering the key Vinyasa Krama postures there, the long paschi, long shoulderstand and headstand as well as a tadasana sequence before my Surys. It frees me to explore mini Vinyasa Krama sequences and subroutines in the evening as prep for pranayama and meditation. I'm thinking a Standing triangle sequence pose then perhaps Maha Mudra, Paschimattanasana, Upavista Konasana (Seated angle pose), Baddha Konasana and Kandasana followed by Padmasana ready for pranayama.
Still a way to go of course, but then that's the point. I tried it after Yoga Nidrasana this morning while laying on my back, it felt close, I could feel my legs coming around and my feet coming into my chest, just a bit more leg strength needed.
I'll try and video the Yoga Nidrasana approach later but for now a very much work in progress seated attempt. This was taken after practice as I don't want to interrupt the flow of my practice at the moment.
Probably best not to try this one unless you have a really, nice knees- flat-on-the-ground Baddha Konasana.
UPDATE 27/02/12
Started working on Kandasana again with some improvement. The knees came more around today and down, a case now of bringing the knees closer together now to take the feet higher and deeper so i can let go, fascinating posture
