Self-isolation

Self-isolation is an opportunity to explore self practice.

Rather than attempt to replicate a Shala or directed Studio practice, we can perhaps reflect on whether our practice really needs to be (that) complicated. Do we really need intricate, intermediate and/or advanced asana, do we need challenging transitions, do we need to learn a complicated sequence or a different sequence every day or how to construct sequences of our own.

ASANA

Try this. Get out of bed, yawn and stretch. Now step on a mat/rug/carpet/towel and do the same same yawn/stretch but settle into it, adjust different parts of your body to make the 'stretch posture' feel more comfortable, stable, sustainable to you, pay particular attention to your neck. Now make some more simple yawn/stretch movements, decide which ones you like best, this is your basic standing practice, now do something similar but seated, or laying on your frount or on your back, aim for stability. Add those yawn/stretch postures which feel most beneficial and enjoyable to your standing practice. Aim for around eight to ten of these yawn/stretches.

This then is your daily asana practice, try not to get trapped into what you think a yoga posture or movement should look like. Trikonsana (standing triangle pose) is unlike anything in the Hatha Yoga Pradipka, the same goes for many of the the standing postures it's probably something Krishnamacharya (or one of his peers came up with or possibly appropriated from foreign or domestic gymnastics/exercise traditions). Practice your yawn/stretch 'asana' daily with or without attention to the breath (and with or without yawning).

Alternatively choose a handful of asana you are most familiar with and stay in each a little, or a lot, longer than in your shala or studio, pause perhaps to reflect on the countless micro asana that exist between where you start the asana and where it ends, Krishnamacharya was surely correct there are countless asana that only you will discover and that no teacher has ever taught.

PRANAYAMA

Sit, either on the floor or a chair, upright but comfortable, stable. Notice your breath, watch your breath. Now start to slow and lengthen your inhalation not unlike breathing into a paper bag following a panic attack, do this six, eight, twelve times, you choose, lengthening the breath to four, six, twelve, twenty seconds or more, whatever feels sustainable over the number of breaths you've decided upon. Six breaths with the inhalation at six or eight seconds can be perfect to work towards and settle upon. Now do the same thing but with the exhalation, the inhalation short but slowing and lengthening the exhalation. Thirdly consider working on lengthening the inhalation and exhalation, an eight second inhalation a twelve second exhalation. There is no rush to build up and not necessarily that much more benefit, more repetitions are probably of more benefit than less repetitions of a longer count. Settle on a breathing/pranayama practice you come up with that is pleasant, sustainable and feels beneficial. The are countless pranayama techniques because, well, pranayama teachers, like asana teachers need something to teach.

MEDITATION.

Sit, either on the floor or a chair, upright but comfortable, stable. Notice the breath. Watch the breath for a time then forget about the breath again and just sit. Do this for a period of time that feels appropriate, sustainable, pleasant and beneficial. Continue sitting in this way until the Pandemic is over and then perhaps for another ten years. As distractions become less during your sit, and/or your ability to not get caught up in them, you might consider (or not, Soto Zen has seemingly done just fine without one) an object of contemplation, the breath is perhaps the most common but it might also be sensations in the body, emotions, thoughts, abstractions, a line or verse, a mental picture of the The Leo Triplet group of interacting spiral galaxies perhaps. There is no need of a meditation teacher to tell us what to meditate on, it's our birth right, we are born with the gift just as we are born to stretch and breathe and we have plenty of time to explore for ourselves what object of contemplation or the absence of one we wish to explore, this practice is radicle enquiry after all.

We might choose to take some classes on 'Zoom' to support a teacher who may well have supported us or another shala/studio mate, we may well return to the shala after this κρίσις (krisis) has passed to support our shala/studio community but this time is perhaps a reminder that self-isolation is always available to us and we don't need a government lockdown to take advantage of and relish it's possibilities.