Day 54 : Meditative : Advanced Camel walk subroutine from Vinyasa Krama Meditative sequence

VIDEO LINK

This is the advanced version of yesterday's Camel walk subroutine with the advanced Ushtrasana (Picture 5&9).

HINTS/TIPS/SUGGESTIONS

For the advanced Ushtrasana on one knee, a major concerns is of course balance. In the beginning consider stepping through slightly to the outside of the line with the hip, this will make your base more stable.

It's very important to lead with the hip when coming up from this posture.

Advanced Ushtrasana ( from Day 52 ).

Remembering to lift out of the hips and keep pressing the leg, from the toes to the knee, firmly into the mat, engaging the thighs and pushing forward the pelvis, arch back and take your arms over your shoulders towards your heels.

At first you may only be able to reach the mat behind you and may have to work towards taking your heels or ankles over time.

To avoid collapsing as you arch backwards it's necessary to keep your thighs strongly engaged and your hips forward and keep lifting out of your pelvis.

To reach your heels: one way is to land your hands on the mat and then walk them in towards and up your feet.

Ideally you will want to reach your heels from the air, this will take time but the trick is to keep the pelvis forward and the thighs engaged.

Work on strengthening the thighs and keeping the hips forward in other Vinyasa Krama postures, particularly the table subroutine in the Supine sequence.

An advanced extension of this version of Ushtrasana is Eka pada kapotasana, where we lower the head to the food and stretch out the leading leg.

Eka pada kapotasana

The same suggestions for the standard camel walk subroutine from Day 53 apply here but with some extra considerations due to the fact we're stepping up onto one foot.

Step forward about a foot in front of the trailing knee, when you arch back your knee will come forward, you want to step far enough forward that your don't over extend your knee past your toes.

Press down on all four corners of the foot, as you arch back you'll press more firmly on the ball of the foot and the toes.

Press the back toes of the trailing foot into the mat, all of them

Press the back of the foot into the mat

Press the whole of the lower leg from the toes to the knees into the mat

Keep pressing into the mat from the moment you begin to raise your arms above your head, throughout your stay in ustrasana and until you return to vajrasana stithy

Engage uddiyana bandha drawing in your belly as you fold over your leg

Engage your bandhas, draw up your anus and suck in the belly, imagine the muscles of the bandhas holding the base of the spine firmly, (Ramaswami's fishing rod example).

Engage the front of your thighs ( make the most of any postures that engage the quads so as to develop strength).

Most important of all bring the hips forward and keep encouraging them forward throughout, all the way back into ushtrasana and throughout your stay in the posture.

With every inhalation raise up your chest and with every exhalation push your pelvis a little further forward.

As you raise your arms and lift up of your knees lift out of your pelvis and try to keep lift up out of your pelvis throughout your stay in ustrasana.

NB: These are practice notes that will be tidied up and put into the new edition of my Vinyasa Yoga Practice Book along with the current sequences and subroutines. The book can be freely downloaded HERE. There is a page on Facebook HERE with all the latest sheets and updates. This book is in no way a substitute for Ramaswami's Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.