Having a ball + UPDATE; back bending tips

Did think about keeping this to myself, I mean if your struggling then the last thing you want to hear perhaps is that somebody else is have a whale of a time....or perhaps you do

But then I thought, this winter has been tough, haven't really mentioned it much, been practicing at home long enough to know that the Winter is the down time and practice picks up in the Spring but this year it's been a particularly hard work. Old injuries flaring up, aches in the joints and the back such that I had to push Ashtanga up to the evening slot and do a gentler Vinyasa Krama practice in the morning, focus more on the Pranayama etc.

So it hasn't been easy, it's a cold Shala, basically bookshelves blocking off half of a large room so it doesn't really keep the heat in but the warmer weather is coming, first day of Spring today I hear and along with the crocuses, practice is blossoming.

Buying a new decent mattress (silentnight miracoil3 with memory foam, if your interested, wow) probably helped the back ache but that's another post.

Practice is a blast again.

Perhaps the timing just happened to be right but I'm soaking up Richard Freeman's instruction, just loving all that subtle internal stuff, giggling away to myself at some of the metaphors while practicing along.  Although off the wall sometimes, they do seem to work, they direct the gaze, they make some crazy kind of sense.

To think I had all this stuff years ago but never really noticed it, I found Richard's practice Video's too wordy, intrusive, I wanted the least amount of instruction at the time so as to leave me the space to work out the basics of a posture myself.

I wanted 'How to get in the posture' manuals which obviously, being a guy I'd just glance at, get the gist and put the shelf up, crookedly, myself but up right.....kinda.

With Richard, of course, you get a two for one deal, Ashtanga and Iyengar bundled together, three for one actually because after so many years the lines between the two seem to have blurred in Richard's practice and teaching, it's Ashtanga but it's Iyengar but it's Richard. Whatever it is it strikes me as skillful practice.

Just starting to bring some of Richard into My Vinyasa Krama practice too, now that's interesting.

Reminds me of watching John Scott's Primary or Lino and thinking and wondering why anyone would feel the need to practice anything else, I mean if they can make primary look like THAT. Feel that way with Richard's Primary and 2nd, vast vistas to skip towards...sorry I mean stride manfully towards obviously.

Practiced with his Intro to 2nd series this morning that can be found HERE, great if you struggled with the sound of the AYC backbend workshop, most of that stuff comes up in this video, certainly worth the $15. It takes you up as far as Ustrasana and then on to finishing. Thanks to Yogagodess' blog for the heads up.

This evening I practiced with RIchard's regular 2nd series DVD and had one of my most enjoyable Intermediates ever. It's a little slower but not as slow as you think going by the pace of Richard's voice. I remember falling in love with a waitress once just for how she moved around a room, she was on her own in a busy restaurant at the busiest time of day and she was everywhere, everyone seeming to get all the attention they required, as they required it but without seeming to hurry, to rush, skillful practice indeed.

I'm curious how different aspects of the practice appeal to us at different times, open up in us, I mean I've had those Richard Freeman dvd's for years. Dear old Hegel, still taught in many institutions so we're stuck with paradigms of progress and development for a little while longer yet, I prefer clearings, fresh worlds of practice opening up when the light and the play of the shadows just right.

So never say never, Mysore is the last thing on my mind at the moment but some fine shadow play supposedly and the light I hear is good. A way to avoid the cold winter of home practice too.

Talking of openings (mixing my metaphors.... or am I) here's my kapo from yesterday, something seemed to shift just as I settled in such that the feeling came  that there was more space to be found, I'll never be a Kino or Susan but there's the feeling that those legs can be a little straighter, still kind of leans off to one side (the left), more work can be done in the shoulders. More importantly though this is probably as deep as my kapo ever was but it feels miles more comfortable, steadier and on the first day of Spring too, was expecting to have to wait another month or two for those salad days.

Coffee is drunk, no stiffness to speak of (thank you Silentnight), may give a morning Primary a try and see how much spiralling this way and that has been internalised.

Just finished primary and it went well, my first full primary at 6:30am for a few months, few creaky Sury's in the beginning but a nice practice, it's the new mattress I tell ya, invest.

UPDATE: FB backbending tips,

I posted the picture above to my FB asana in progress album and was asked why it's feeling more comfortable. thought I'd share my answer below, not sure it makes much sense as i find it hard to type into the little FB comment box and i can never remember how many characters they allow.


The things that have been working me recently are stronger legs (some of the one leg VK poses have helped but really milk the one in Ashtanga) Venkatesh/Heather Morton's really tilting the hips up helped a lot but Richard Freeman takes that further for me, rather than just tilting there's this whole bringing the sit bones together, coccyx forward, dropping pubic bone back to the coccyx, so you have a whole compact, engaged unit then pushing the whole lot forward as far as possible then scooping the sacrum down under and through which has the same effect as the Morton tilt but seems even more effective, more space, more comfort. plus Ramaswami's engaging the bandhas so that whole unit feels held firmly like a fishing rod. Plus all the usual lifting the hips off the femurs and then stretching up out of the pelvis...oh and some of Richard's shoulder work, rolling back but widening, the kidney wings...


Plus of course with everything feeling much more secure and stable it takes away a lot of the stress allowing you to breath better and just enjoy them more, that i think makes a huge difference. No doubt none of this is that new of course but we forget certain elements as we focus on others, starting to think of them as mille-feuille's layering all these different elements one on top of the other.