"For people over fifty, it is enough to practice some of the easier and more useful asanas, as well as some of the pranayamas." Pattabhi Jois -Yoga Mala
But why wait till fifty?
UPDATE 1
Actual speed is approx 40 minutes, I spent less time in some of the asana as well as in the static versions of shoulder stand and headstand than usual, as a rule the whole practice takes about an hour.
Actual speed version to come.
Actual speed, bit wobbly in places still
some blog posts
On Simon's spinal sequence and diaphragmatic breathing
On Simon's 84 key asana course
http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/2017/04/what-is-it-about-mudra-also-simon-borg.html
And a new Blog of mine bringing together my posts on this
https://activemovementyogaathome.blogspot.jp/
In the photos of the practice below I've shown the basic standing spinal movements then the different foot positions those spinal movements are repeated in. I've only shown the one side.
See Update note 1a above, this is not a sequence that I've developed to teach or promote in anyway, it just shows a direction my own personal practice took for a time.
***
The post below was originally from August 2017, reposting it for the sun salutation update
My Current practice
A shift (or evolution) from Proficient Primary (see page above) to a more 'Spinal/active movements' approach, inspired by Simon Borg-Olivier
But why wait till fifty?
UPDATE 2
It fascinates me how my practice always seems to settle back into the same old Ashtanga that seeped into the marrow of my bones through all those years of daily practice. It may be a Richard Freeman inspired, Simon Borg-Olivier informed, slightly Vinyasa Krama modified, soft, slow, half Primary/half Second Series Ashtanga but Ashtanga all the same.
I love the practice below and I still start my practice with Simon's Spinal movements before moving on to five sury's ( 3 A/ 2 B). Most of standing though, seems to have elbowed it's way back in and it's pretty standard fare up to Navasana (though Bharadvajrasana in place of Marichiyasana D, as Manju suggested once), before slipping into a YogaSynergy Fundamentals/Vinyasa Krama Bow half 2nd Ashtanga.
The inversion vinyasa's below are fun and I've kept them for now but suspect I'll end up going back to longer static sarvangasana and sirsasana.
Whatever I practice before pranayama strikes me as MOSTLY unimportant ( it could be tai chi, Qi Gong or a long swim just as well as Ashtanga), I'm under no illusion that this was designed as a series or particularly that old, rather a wonderful accident of circumstance but I might as well allow the practice that stole my heart all those years ago to settle back into it's rightful place.
Update 1a
Q: Did you create your own sequence?
A: NO! I didn’t ‘create’ my own individual sequence, I'm a little horrified at the suggestion (thus this update to clarify), certainly not in the sense of trying to develop my own style or teach a new sequence ( I don't teach). Pattabhi Jois mentioned in Yoga Mala that after fifty you can adapt the practice as you wish, choose the asana you find most beneficial along with how you wish to practice them. But that was ALWAYS Krishnamacharya‘s way, throughout his teaching 'career', the asana were not, it seems, fixed in a set sequence. Why wait until you are fifty.
Even though I spent a little time with Ramaswami (Vinyasa Krama), I always seemed to settle back into Ashtanga, the shape of the practice I had become most familiar with, comfortable with. I would adapt the practice, perhaps, take a more 'vinyasa krama' approach, add some extra preparation postures or more advanced versions, developments, but the shape of the practice was basically the same, it was always, to my mind at least, still Ashtanga.
As I explored, in practice for a couple of years, Krishnamacharya's old Mysore texts (following the line by line close reading module on Ramaswami's TT) I spent longer in certain asana, exploring Krishnamacharya‘s kumbhaka options. That took more time so I cut out asana, reducing my practice down to to ten key asana from the Ashtanga series, a Rishi series if you like ( Pattabhi Jois had mentioned a Rishi series idea to David and Nancy in the 70s, choosing ten postures and practicing them for longer, 25-50 breaths each).
In blog posts I referred to that as 'Proficient Primary', not to promote my own series but rather to indicate that you didn't need to practice 'Advanced asana' to have an advanced practice, you could practice primary series in an 'Advanced' way, or rather in a more proficient way, not only in how we approached our alignment but in how we worked with the breath, with drishti. If you could only do half primary or just a few seated (perhaps in a chair), even just the supine postures you could have an advanced/proficient practice, no deep backbends, arm balances, headstands necessary.
I tended to still do most of Ashtanga standing before moving into those ten asana. Recently I explored some of Simon Borg-Olivier's spinal movements before moving into my asana and finished with some handstand variations to go into asana 'hands free' (to avoid pulling limbs into postures), but it still feels like Ashtanga to me, I personally can still see the shape but it was perhaps the furthest I moved away from straight by the book Ashtanga. It was always about my own home practice, adapting the practice to my needs and what I sought to explore in practice, never to teach to anyone else. Were I to teach (and I have NO intention to do so) it would be to encourage somebody in their own home practice. I feel strongly that a good teacher has NO students, or very few, who will move on to their own personal practice (this of course doesn't mean you can't hold a room, in which case you are not necessarily a teacher but perhaps merely a facilitator - Note: I have no intention to hold a room either).
Personally I feel we should drop the whole Parampara, guru, teacher/student model altogether and let the practice do the work. Be a facilitator, a resource, that a practitioner can reach out to if and when they so choose. The only to time to impose ourselves perhaps is to offer safer practice options, the practice will take us deeper on it's own.
In the end I settled back into a pretty standard approach to Ashtanga because ultimately I found that practice I had worked with for ten years, comforting, just comforting. Now I just do a quick (depending on time) Simon Borg-Olivier style spinal warm up before move into a pretty regular Ashtanga Primary plus a little 2nd, just picking one or two asana a practice to stay longer and explore the kumbhaka options?
Ashtanga is just comforting for me, no doubt because I’ve practiced it for so long now (actually, ten years is not so long), even though I may have explored it through adapting and modifying over the years. I think the potential to adapt the practice to our needs is built into the practice, it was always Krishnamacharya‘s intention. Jois lost his way a little perhaps when he introduced Led classes (madness to try and rush 80 to 300 students into Marichiyasana D on the count) and made it more and more fixed (although we might understand if not agree with his argument for doing so). Sharath, no doubt, just tries to continue what he saw as his grandfathers legacy but perhaps really we should be going back to early Ashtanga (Manju?) or even further, to Krishnamacharya himself, we have Krishnamacharya's early texts. Pattabhi Jois may have lost his way in more ways than one, when I see video of his led advanced class in the garage on YouTube, his adjustments, on those who clearly aren’t ready for Advanced (possibly not even 2nd) are frankly insane.
Pattabhi Jois didn't invent the Ashtanga vinyasa approach to practicing asana. The instructions for practicing the asana, the drishti, the vinyasa count...., it is all in his teacher Krishnamacharya's early text Yoga Makaranda (Mysore 1934). In Krishnamacharya's Yogasanagalu (Mysore1941) we even find the asana mostly in the order Jois presented them for his four year Sanskrit college course. Pattabhi Jois merely passed along his teacher's teaching. We can question how he passed it along, how he taught, how he behaved without that necessarily questioning what it was he was teaching, the practice stands up on it's own - we can question it separately and we should. We can question Pattabhi Jois' adjustments, how extreme as well as how sexually abusive they were at times, we can question the introduction of Led classes, how practice was speeded up to accommodate a fixed practice, how kumbhaka was lost along the way, how flexible Krishnamacharya seems to have been in his approach by contrast, we can question Pattabhi Jois' judgement. But even if we remove Pattabhi Jois from the equation altogether we still have Krishnamacharya's texts, the vinyasa, a shape/framework to practice, if not a set sequence (though the asana is presented in almost the same order as Jois, Krishnamacharya seems to have resisted teaching the asana as fixed sequences), we still have the practice as well as encouragement to explore the practice and adapt it to our own needs and preferences.
However much it may be tempting, given the allegations of sexual abuse, to airbrush Pattabhi Jois out the timeline altogether, I recognise I wouldn't have this practice that I'm so grateful for had he not opened his doors, with such generosity, to those early teachers and taught tirelessly for decades. In brushing over Jois we also brush over those who's trust was abused by him and the dynamics, the environment and power structures that allowed it to happen and that are still in place however much we may feel that Sharath, for example, would never behave in the same way. It would also ignore those whose lives were, they feel, transformed for the good through his teaching.
Krishnamacharya stressed that the practice of asana should be explored on a grounding of the yama/niyama, the moral code comes first and foremost as well as accompanying our practice to help us avoid losing our way, to be there to fall back on when we slip (and Patanjali reminds us that we will constantly), to support our practice and what arises out of it. The asana too, for Krishnamacharya, is always in the context of pranayama and pratyahara, it is always a meditative and spiritual practice of radical enquiry in which, for Krishnamacharya, and he would hope for us, God or at least Love is sought.
A: NO! I didn’t ‘create’ my own individual sequence, I'm a little horrified at the suggestion (thus this update to clarify), certainly not in the sense of trying to develop my own style or teach a new sequence ( I don't teach). Pattabhi Jois mentioned in Yoga Mala that after fifty you can adapt the practice as you wish, choose the asana you find most beneficial along with how you wish to practice them. But that was ALWAYS Krishnamacharya‘s way, throughout his teaching 'career', the asana were not, it seems, fixed in a set sequence. Why wait until you are fifty.
Even though I spent a little time with Ramaswami (Vinyasa Krama), I always seemed to settle back into Ashtanga, the shape of the practice I had become most familiar with, comfortable with. I would adapt the practice, perhaps, take a more 'vinyasa krama' approach, add some extra preparation postures or more advanced versions, developments, but the shape of the practice was basically the same, it was always, to my mind at least, still Ashtanga.
As I explored, in practice for a couple of years, Krishnamacharya's old Mysore texts (following the line by line close reading module on Ramaswami's TT) I spent longer in certain asana, exploring Krishnamacharya‘s kumbhaka options. That took more time so I cut out asana, reducing my practice down to to ten key asana from the Ashtanga series, a Rishi series if you like ( Pattabhi Jois had mentioned a Rishi series idea to David and Nancy in the 70s, choosing ten postures and practicing them for longer, 25-50 breaths each).
In blog posts I referred to that as 'Proficient Primary', not to promote my own series but rather to indicate that you didn't need to practice 'Advanced asana' to have an advanced practice, you could practice primary series in an 'Advanced' way, or rather in a more proficient way, not only in how we approached our alignment but in how we worked with the breath, with drishti. If you could only do half primary or just a few seated (perhaps in a chair), even just the supine postures you could have an advanced/proficient practice, no deep backbends, arm balances, headstands necessary.
I tended to still do most of Ashtanga standing before moving into those ten asana. Recently I explored some of Simon Borg-Olivier's spinal movements before moving into my asana and finished with some handstand variations to go into asana 'hands free' (to avoid pulling limbs into postures), but it still feels like Ashtanga to me, I personally can still see the shape but it was perhaps the furthest I moved away from straight by the book Ashtanga. It was always about my own home practice, adapting the practice to my needs and what I sought to explore in practice, never to teach to anyone else. Were I to teach (and I have NO intention to do so) it would be to encourage somebody in their own home practice. I feel strongly that a good teacher has NO students, or very few, who will move on to their own personal practice (this of course doesn't mean you can't hold a room, in which case you are not necessarily a teacher but perhaps merely a facilitator - Note: I have no intention to hold a room either).
Personally I feel we should drop the whole Parampara, guru, teacher/student model altogether and let the practice do the work. Be a facilitator, a resource, that a practitioner can reach out to if and when they so choose. The only to time to impose ourselves perhaps is to offer safer practice options, the practice will take us deeper on it's own.
In the end I settled back into a pretty standard approach to Ashtanga because ultimately I found that practice I had worked with for ten years, comforting, just comforting. Now I just do a quick (depending on time) Simon Borg-Olivier style spinal warm up before move into a pretty regular Ashtanga Primary plus a little 2nd, just picking one or two asana a practice to stay longer and explore the kumbhaka options?
Ashtanga is just comforting for me, no doubt because I’ve practiced it for so long now (actually, ten years is not so long), even though I may have explored it through adapting and modifying over the years. I think the potential to adapt the practice to our needs is built into the practice, it was always Krishnamacharya‘s intention. Jois lost his way a little perhaps when he introduced Led classes (madness to try and rush 80 to 300 students into Marichiyasana D on the count) and made it more and more fixed (although we might understand if not agree with his argument for doing so). Sharath, no doubt, just tries to continue what he saw as his grandfathers legacy but perhaps really we should be going back to early Ashtanga (Manju?) or even further, to Krishnamacharya himself, we have Krishnamacharya's early texts. Pattabhi Jois may have lost his way in more ways than one, when I see video of his led advanced class in the garage on YouTube, his adjustments, on those who clearly aren’t ready for Advanced (possibly not even 2nd) are frankly insane.
Pattabhi Jois didn't invent the Ashtanga vinyasa approach to practicing asana. The instructions for practicing the asana, the drishti, the vinyasa count...., it is all in his teacher Krishnamacharya's early text Yoga Makaranda (Mysore 1934). In Krishnamacharya's Yogasanagalu (Mysore1941) we even find the asana mostly in the order Jois presented them for his four year Sanskrit college course. Pattabhi Jois merely passed along his teacher's teaching. We can question how he passed it along, how he taught, how he behaved without that necessarily questioning what it was he was teaching, the practice stands up on it's own - we can question it separately and we should. We can question Pattabhi Jois' adjustments, how extreme as well as how sexually abusive they were at times, we can question the introduction of Led classes, how practice was speeded up to accommodate a fixed practice, how kumbhaka was lost along the way, how flexible Krishnamacharya seems to have been in his approach by contrast, we can question Pattabhi Jois' judgement. But even if we remove Pattabhi Jois from the equation altogether we still have Krishnamacharya's texts, the vinyasa, a shape/framework to practice, if not a set sequence (though the asana is presented in almost the same order as Jois, Krishnamacharya seems to have resisted teaching the asana as fixed sequences), we still have the practice as well as encouragement to explore the practice and adapt it to our own needs and preferences.
However much it may be tempting, given the allegations of sexual abuse, to airbrush Pattabhi Jois out the timeline altogether, I recognise I wouldn't have this practice that I'm so grateful for had he not opened his doors, with such generosity, to those early teachers and taught tirelessly for decades. In brushing over Jois we also brush over those who's trust was abused by him and the dynamics, the environment and power structures that allowed it to happen and that are still in place however much we may feel that Sharath, for example, would never behave in the same way. It would also ignore those whose lives were, they feel, transformed for the good through his teaching.
Krishnamacharya stressed that the practice of asana should be explored on a grounding of the yama/niyama, the moral code comes first and foremost as well as accompanying our practice to help us avoid losing our way, to be there to fall back on when we slip (and Patanjali reminds us that we will constantly), to support our practice and what arises out of it. The asana too, for Krishnamacharya, is always in the context of pranayama and pratyahara, it is always a meditative and spiritual practice of radical enquiry in which, for Krishnamacharya, and he would hope for us, God or at least Love is sought.
UPDATE 1
My current practice, still very much work in progress (when isn't it?).
Standing strongly influenced by Simon Borg-Olivier and Bianca Machliss' Yoga Synergy Spinal Sequence,
Seated influenced by Ramaswami's Vinyasa Krama,
Inversions influenced by Krishnamacharya's early shoulderstand and headstand vinyasa...., plus ten years of Ashtanga.
Standing strongly influenced by Simon Borg-Olivier and Bianca Machliss' Yoga Synergy Spinal Sequence,
Seated influenced by Ramaswami's Vinyasa Krama,
Inversions influenced by Krishnamacharya's early shoulderstand and headstand vinyasa...., plus ten years of Ashtanga.
Actual speed is approx 40 minutes, I spent less time in some of the asana as well as in the static versions of shoulder stand and headstand than usual, as a rule the whole practice takes about an hour.
Actual speed version to come.
Actual speed, bit wobbly in places still
It took me a long time to come around to these movements in standing, for the longest time all I saw was arm waving. THIS series of videos from Simon Borg-Olivier, where he explains what is happening anatomically, physiologically in all the movements as well as the surya namaskara and several asana went someway to bringing me around but even then what I was looking for was a similar explanation for the asana I was already practicing in Ashtanga or in Vinyasa Krama (which Simon has done in his 84 key asana course). In the end it takes a leap of faith, just practicing these movements for a week or two, incorporating them into your regular practice.
some blog posts
On Simon's spinal sequence and diaphragmatic breathing
On YogaSynergy fundamentals course
http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/2015/07/just-enrolled-on-simon-borg-olivier-and.htmlOn Simon's 84 key asana course
http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/2017/04/what-is-it-about-mudra-also-simon-borg.html
And a new Blog of mine bringing together my posts on this
https://activemovementyogaathome.blogspot.jp/
In the photos of the practice below I've shown the basic standing spinal movements then the different foot positions those spinal movements are repeated in. I've only shown the one side.
See Update note 1a above, this is not a sequence that I've developed to teach or promote in anyway, it just shows a direction my own personal practice took for a time.
***
The post below was originally from August 2017, reposting it for the sun salutation update
My Current practice
A shift (or evolution) from Proficient Primary (see page above) to a more 'Spinal/active movements' approach, inspired by Simon Borg-Olivier
I seem to be dropping most of Ashtanga Primary Standing and Seated postures altogether and moving straight from an opening Spinal sequence to inversions. The few classic seated postures with pranayama exercises I do include, I enter and exit, hands free, from Sirsasana.
Spinal movements
Surya namaskara
(Can't quite bring myself to drop these altogether)
Update:
Simon Borg-Olivier's Simplified/subtle (Method 3) sun salutation x 5, followed by Method 1 Supine sun salutation x3 - see video below
Dandasana
Paschimattanasana /Purvatanasana
bharadvajrasana
Maha Mudra/Janu Shirshasana D
(optional marichiyasana)
(Can't quite bring myself to drop these altogether)
Update:
Simon Borg-Olivier's Simplified/subtle (Method 3) sun salutation x 5, followed by Method 1 Supine sun salutation x3 - see video below
Dandasana
Paschimattanasana /Purvatanasana
bharadvajrasana
Maha Mudra/Janu Shirshasana D
(optional marichiyasana)
Sarvangasana prep
Urdhva Dhanurasana
Urdhva Dhanurasana
Sarvangasana - static 5 mins,
Sarvangasana vinyasas
Sirsasana - static 5-10 mins
Sirsasana entry to seated asana inc. pranayama exercises.
- gomukhasana - 30 inhalation
- baddha konasana - 30 second kumbhaka after exhalation
- Baddha padmasana
- Padmasana Nadi shodhana - 20 second kumbhaka after inhalation
Sit - Siddhasana
*
I've been asked where one can find more on this approach.
See this post for an intro into Simon's approach, with videos, links etc
Simon Borg-Olivier made me fall in love with my SPINE all over again
For those not sure about the arm waving, and it took me a while to come around, I recommend Simon's 84 key asana course, see this post where I include a concordance with Ashtanga.
I hear Simon has an online Ashtanga course in the editing stage, should be excellent.
I'm just about to start Simon's 13 week online Yoga Therapy course, more on that to come.
*
The videos below give an idea of my current approach to practice.
Spinal movements in different foot positions including a slower version......,
The first five minutes of the video below shows Simon demonstrating some of the spinal movements.
Below- lengthening the inhalation and exhalation, so, one inhalation for both sides of the first exercise/vinyasa, one exhalation for both sides of the second twisting 'exercise/vinyasa
I might include one or more active movement variations of standing asana
After the spinal movements I might do a couple of sury's
Update:
Simon Borg-Olivier's Simplified/subtle (Method 3) sun salutation x 5, followed by Method 1 Supine sun salutation x3 - see video below
I've started skipping standing and most seated postures altogether and am going straight into some shoulderstand preparation postures, these too perhaps from Simon which strike me as important, a revelation in fact. I'm exploring introducing the principles Simon outlined below into my inversion vinyasas - posts to come on this. See Appendix for more from Simon.
Followed by some shoulderstand prep from Vinyasa Krama that Krishnamacharya/Ramaswami recommended.
After a five minute static shoulderstand, lengthening the inhalation and exhalation to twenty seconds for each, I'm tending to include the vinyasas below from Krishnamachary's old 1938 Mysore film footage, as well as perhaps a few other of his vinyasas that may come to mind.
I finish shoulderstands with the standard vinyasas from Ashtanga Finishing, leading into padma mayurasana, followed by...
Urdhva danhurasana
Sirsasana, a five minute static headstand, lengthening the inhalation and exhalation to twenty seconds for each.... followed by the asana below entered from sirsasana and including different pranayama exercises.
The videos below don't include the pranayama.
Gomukhasana - 3 breaths each side - lengthening the inhalation to thirty seconds
Bharadvajrasana - Lengthening the exhalation to thirty seconds
Baddha Konasana A - Kumbhaka: Holding the breath out for thirty seconds
Padmasana: Nadi shodhana 12 rounds - 1:4:2:1 A twenty second Kumbhaka after the inhalation
Back up to sirsasana to stretch out the legs before lowering and entering siddhasana hands free for a twenty or forty minute Sit.
Appendix
3 comments:
Anthony, great resource once again.
A few questions -
How long did it take to get to your level of speed and feel proficient in the standing spinal sequences? I still have to take it pretty slow to feel the synergistic tensing and relaxation of the opposite sides. (Very interesting concept) It seems like I just need more practice though, because I've seen Simon move very fast.
2. Are your spinal movmements into to forward folds such as paschimottanasana and badda konasana just improvised from the general sequence?
3. Is Simon's 30 dollar DVD on Spinal Movements a good buy? I practice with the full length youtube class, and the 29 part series, but have been eyeing the DVD. His and Bianca's elements DVD's were nothing short than amazing.
Thanks brotha, keep it up! The slow conversion to the dark side of spinal movements is the result of these blog posts. One year ago your blog got me into Vinyasa Krama, and the year before into an Ashtanga home practice.
Next post I'll ask some more questions!
Pretty quickly, I think I started practicing the arm waving spinal sequence in July see this post http://grimmly2007.blogspot.jp/2017/07/spinal-and-active-movements-after-ten.html
If you click on a video to go to Youtube you should be able to see my Youtube channel and will see the first arm waving spinal sequence video marked three months ago. That was after a few practices and you can see perhaps how it improved by looking at the videos that followed it. I still don't feel as smooth and flowing as Simon looks when he demonstrates but it's coming.
2. Moving in and out of Paschimottanasana is something I've practiced for a few years and perhaps reflects Krishnamacharya's teaching in yoga Makaranda ( 1934).
Introducing the spinal sequence into asana postures like baddha konasana is something I came up with myself but have seen Simon do something similar, it seems to follow and make sense. I find it interesting to practice them to see how the spine is affected by the different postures.
Likewise my coming down and back up into postures is something I came up with but have since seen an old video of Simon doing something similar but in handstand!
3. I do think Simon's spinal sequence is worth the $30, it really nails the movements, you understand a little better what the intention is , what's happening, and because the movements are repeated in different feet positions, it gets smoother and more flowing more quickly. I found it helpful but perhaps practicing along to some of the videos I7ve shared here will have the same effect.
I've just downloaded all the Calligraphy yoga and Qi Gong dvd's from Simon's teacher, interesting seeing how that has flowed in and through Simon's teaching, post to come on that soon.
Thanks for reading.
The new blog with all the material mentioned is here https://activemovements.blogspot.jp/
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