Krishnamacharya’s early Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama Yoga...at home : UPDATED: John Scott's Ashtanga App (with vinyasa quiz) Plus my five day Easter Ashtanga retreat in Spain.

Thursday, 13 February 2014

UPDATED: John Scott's Ashtanga App (with vinyasa quiz) Plus my five day Easter Ashtanga retreat in Spain.

Had a big surprise at work today, notification of this status update from Living Yoga Valencia...

Seems we're going public.

This was an idea that came up at the end of my retreat in Valencia last month, Cosmin and I were riffing on the idea of a five day workshop where we could look at Ashtanga and Vinyasa Krama in more detail, spend more time on Pranayama and meditation, perhaps some chanting options. We began to look at beautiful farmhouses in the area...

It's beginning to take shape. We have dates, Easter, and couple of options on places to hold it, more details to come soon.

The idea springs from a post I wrote June last year " If I was to organise a retreat...."

The basic outline of the workshop as it's taking shape is to start of with a Pranayama session, something short and simple the first day but building up as the week goes on to perhaps forty minutes or an hour the final day.

Each day will have a different approach to Ashtanga practice.

The first day will be Krishnamacharya's original approach in Yoga Makaranda (1934). It will be close to current Ashtanga Primary but with less postures. the breath will be slower, some kumbhaka (breath retentions) and some longer stays. If your new to the practice this might work well as an introduction to the due to the slower pace and the chance to look at different elements of practice as we go along.

The second day will look at Patabhi Jois' Ashtanga as found in his Yoga Mala (1950s), The Kumbhaka's are gone but the breath is still long and slow and longer stays in the postures are still present. The practice is full vinyasa in that most asana begin and end at standing. Because of the slower breath, longer stays and full vinyasa we will only do half primary, so again, suitable for those new to the practice.

The third day we will look at the original 1974 Ashtanga syllabus, the breathing will be less slow and shorter stays in postures ( in line with some of Pattabhi Jois' demonstration videos ), perhaps as Manju Jois did on the workshop I took with him in August last year we will look at the first half of Intermediate series, the more gentle backbends.

The fourth day we come up to current practice and model the led full Primary series on Sharath's led classes on tours as well as on his DVD and CD. It was with Sharath's DVD that I made the transition from David Swenson's short form Ashtanga to the full series. I practiced with Sharaths' DVD daily for a number of months. A couple of years later I did something similar with a recording of his led stream from Jois Yoga. The pace of this led will be faster than on the other days allowing for the full series but by now the finishing sequence should be familiar so if anyone wants to move to finishing at any time in the practice they are welcome to do so.

The final day is the point of the workshop. This will be Mysore self practice and there is the option to practice however you wish, it may be with a slower breath longer stays as with the first few days or slower breathing and shorter stays, longer breathing and shorter stays, the idea is to find the approach to the Ashtanga that feels right for you.

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There will also be workshops each day looking at transitions between postures both simple and advanced, another workshop on 'twists and binds', another on back bending and modifying practice etc.

In the evening there will be Vinyasa Krama classes. The idea of these classes will be to develop a tool chest that we can use to modify and develop our practice as we feel appropriate. We might use some of the options available to us in Vinyasa Krama to give us more preparation for a challenging asana in our Ashtanga series or perhaps a simpler option. We might also use some of the more challenging asana options in Vinyasa Krama to extend an asana in the Ashtanga series. However, it may be that Viyasa Krama is so appealing that some might choose to practice it on the final morning's Mysore self practice, this too would be welcomed.

in a sense Vinyasa krama is the tool kit that Krishnamacharya and Pattabhi Jois had their disposal in their teaching for modifying a students practice dependent on their requirements, very useful when confronted with injuries.

The Vinyasa Krama class will be about an hour followed by pranayama and meditative practice. Ramaswami taught us on his teacher training that his own teacher of over thirty years, Krishnamacharya had explained that the asana gets rid of the rajas ( the agitation), the pranayama gets rid of the tamas ( the lethargy) leaving us in the most satvic of states (the ideal state/condition for meditative practice). However meditative practice can take several forms, the more familiar seated meditative practice, perhaps silent japa mantra repetition, or perhaps chanting or even study of rewarding texts like the Yoga sutras. Perhaps we could offer several options on the workshop.

That anyway is the way the workshop is taking shape, more details to come soon.

contact https://www.facebook.com/living.yogavlc

My next workshop is 'Exploring Krishnamacharya with Anthony 'Grimmly' Hall in Ulm 5th- 6th April 2014 (Ulm)

and then the Yoga Rainbow festival in Turkey 3-9 May, 2014

...and there may be something else in the pipeline on and around Easter that I'm quite excited about...

*****

If I'm presenting all these Led Ashtanga classes I need to brush up on my vinyasa count, recently I've been focusing on the Krishnamacharya Yoga Makaranda approach with it's slightly different order and count. Help is at hand.....

John Scott has just brought out an Ashtanga App based on his stunning Ashtanga DVD and best of all it includes a quiz on the vinyasa count as well as a game where your required to put the asana in the right order, designed I think to help learn the sanskrit names. There are a couple I'm rusty on myself, those that I rarely write about on the blog. I have this image of the Vinyasa quiz being very popular in Mysore this month.

First thing to say about it is that your not getting the DVD on the cheap. There are videos of all the different sections of practice but these are screenshots taken from the DVD, basically slideshows with voice over. This is not a bad thing as it allows you to stop at the postures and hit the info button for more information on the asana as well as the vinyasa. As well as the quiz there are flashcards, they seem to have thought of everything.

UPDATE: Practiced with John Scott's app this morning beautiful practice, do love this coming back to standing after each asana, has an elegance too it and no more tiring than usual 9all about conserving and moving energy around rather than expending it)..
Trying to decide if it's 'full vinyasa' though ( and what 'full vinyasa' actually means.

In Yoga Mala there seems to be a coming back to standing after each variation of an asana. So in Yoga Mala, and I think this is how Lino Miele presents it in his book and Video 9would have to double check), you come back to standing after janu a and after Janu b and after janu C. in John Scott's app and video he starts from standing does, Janu A, B and C with half vinyasas in between and then goes back to standing. In a sense John is still starting and ending each asana from standing it's just the sides and the variations of an asana when they're present that get the half vinyasa (but even then, with the variations the full count is implied.

How important is the Vinyasa count, is knowing the count. Do only teachers need to know it or should anyone who practices Ashtanga vinyasa study it, is it enough to know, as the Mysore boys supposedly did, that odd numbers indicated inhalation, even numbers, exhalation.

Krishnamacharya dropped it but never dropped the focus on the appropriate stage of the breath for each movement in and out of an asana. Going up, inhaling, going down, exhaling (roughly).