Tapas: Final update, One month Chakra Bandhasana Challenge. YES or NO....or Kinda

So 'final' update on the one month Chakra Bandhasana challenge, first a recap....

 Here's, the original post

Chakra Bhandasana - Grab heels in a month backbend challenge

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/chakra-bhandasana-grab-heels-in-month.html

If you remember, this project came about from seeing this video by Jen René Peg Mulqueenand Michael Joel Hall.

30th Oct

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/chakra-bhandasana-grab-heels-in-month.html

6th Nov

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/backbends-progress-report-one-month-to.html

7th Nov

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/another-updateprogress-report-on-one_8664.html

12th Nov

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/update-on-solo-chakra-bhandasana-in.html

A slice of brilliance from Michael Joel Hall

My own attempt

15th Nov

http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/towards-chakra-bandhasana-in-month.html

Which brings us to today, I've been running this pretty much from Tuesday to Tuesday (my day off), so this would be a month.

drum roll....

26th Nov

Chakra bandhasana ladies and gentlemen, that's it right there, bound, solid, and secure...

Have you noticed that most hold the leg above the ankle, above the knee even, (scoff), BELOW the ankle that's what you should be after...and none of this hands wrapped right around the leg, that's just cheating, you want to be aiming at subtlety, the merest gesture, the ankle tendon gently held between the fingertips/nails.

What do you mean it doesn't count

no?

But.......!

Jeez

Anyone for a THREE month Chakra Bandhasana, challenge,.......anyone?

Here's the video anyway, it's coming, gradually, no rush really. I'm more interested at the moment in settling into that final step/brick and exploring the breath, want to get ten long slow breaths there and then twenty-five, worry about catching the legs later.

UPDATE

Chakra bandhasana or Tirangamukha Uttanasana

Thank you to Chiara for the Yoga Blocks, I didn't have an indelible marker in the house so have photoshopped the tag in.

Something my friend Susan mentioned about her understanding regarding the difference in names for this posture is that as far as she knew Tirangamukha Uttanasana was holding above the knees and chakra Bandhasana catching the ankles. This was depressing as I was catching (between my fingertips) below the ankle. This time I tried having the block a little higher to see if I could catch a little higher. Seem to be on to something, I'm kind of at the ankle here especially if I manage to flatten the feet, perhaps because it was earlier in the morning I was a little less bendy than Tuesday. Oh and Susan's iPhone autocorrects chakra Bandhasana to chakra bendy asana, which I like.

So Chakra bandhasana or Tirangamukha Uttanasana


In Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda (1934) we find one of the young boys of the Mysore palace school, here it's called Tirangamukha Uttanasana and this is grouped in with the uttanasana variations, in a sense it is a 'backward facing' uttanasana, Ramaswami refers to it as Tiryangamukha Uttanasana suggesting Krishnamacharya continued to.

Iyengar has it as Chakra Bandhasana but this version, a bound wheel pose, he's walking in from Urdhva Dhanurasana too rather than dropping back and catching from the air

Iyengar is more 'bound' than I am obviously

All the old texts seem to have different names for the same postures, gets confusing. Plus the descriptions in the old texts aren't what we're used to now, so they seem to end up slightly different with every reading. Krishnamacharya refers to certain postures as one thing in this school and something else in another school, one student probably remembers one of those name another remembers a different one or calls it by some text he comes across in the Mysore Library. That's just the postures with names deriving from texts.... the others are just, shall we say, ...'rediscovered' during practice ( or teaching), and then described in a moment of inspiration. There can't be that many of the old named postures that are set in stone.