Day 15 : Parasarita padottanasana subroutine practice notes from Vinyasa Krama Triangle sequence

VIDEO LINK

Tips/hints/suggestions

• Stretch up out of the pelvis

• As with the forward bends in the On the feet subroutines this posture is all about the hips. Think more about bringing the hips over and down.

• Keep the feet facing forward to protect the knees

• Engage mula bandha for stability, visualise a weight on a chain dropping to the mat from your perineum. as you take your hips over imaging your mull bandha and uddiyana bandha trying to raise the weight, pulling up on the chain as you bring your hips over.

• Stick your backside out/back

• Draw in your uddiyana bandha, your belly back and up to give more room for the final fold as your head reaches the mat between your feet.

• Engage the bandhas before raising back up on the inhalation 

• Don't rush it, take a tip from the earlier subroutines, enter the pose hands to the floor on the exhalation and come up on the inhalation , then go a little deeper with each breath.

• Try it with the wall a foot behind you so you know you won't topple backwards.

NB: These are practice notes that will be tidied up and put into the new edition of my Vinyasa Yoga Practice Book along with the current sequences and subroutines. The book can be freely downloadedHERE. There is a page on Facebook HERE with all the latest sheets and updates. This book is in no way a substitute for Ramaswami's Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.

Day 14 : Viabhadrasana ( Warrior ) subroutine practice notes from Vinyasa Krama Triangle sequence

I was asked "Why Subroutines"? 

Here seems as good a place as any to put my own thoughts on this.

Vinyasa' in the Ashtnga style of Pattabhi Jois tends to refer to the transitioning in and out of a posture, the jump back often referred to as the half-vinyasa but in Vinyasa Krama it has Krishnamacharya's usage as variation.

I seem to remember Ramaswami referencing Krishnamacharya as saying that asana without it's vinyasa is futile. Krishnamcharya writes on this in his Yoga Makaranda, p79 saying '...all the vinyasas should be followed'.

The subroutines are the vinyasas/variations of an asana, but also the stages that lead into and out of an asana. Krishanamacharya says too that the vinyasas must be practiced so that the prana circulates evenly. Ramaswami talks about the vast range of asana as allowing the blood to circulate to all areas of the body. I'm happy to link (loosely) prana to blood circulation. If we only practice a few asana we don't access our bodies evenly and completely. 

This suggests that practicing a bunch of unrelated postures in a practice is less than ideal.

But of course we can only practice so much, so there's compromise

Vinyasa Krama recommends practicing a number of subroutines one morning and then different subroutines the following day and so on through the week or ten days so we reach all areas of the body in our practice.

Ashtanga has a wide mixture of postures and mini subroutines that you practice daily.

I like a subroutine will often lead up to a posture, give you variations that allow you to extend and develop the main posture and then finish with a counterpose, it seems to make sense. Plus if your going to do a posture, if we think that a posture has some value, some benefit then surely we should be milking it for everything it's got. Every slight variation of the posture has a different subtle effect on the body.

The sequences in the book are just groupings of postures, all the Supine postures, all the Bow postures. Standing gets split into three sequences both feet , one foot/leg and triangle which seems to form a grouping of it's own, then of course all the many postures in lotus and inversions etc. At the back of the book are a number of subroutines that don't seem to fit into any grouping.

Within that grouping, Asymmetric say, there are a number of key asana and it's around these that the vinyasas, the variations are built. Ashtanga has that with the janu sirsasana mini subroutine but it also has the one leg bent back posture, tiring mukha eka para paschimottanasana all on it's own. Vinyasa Krama has a whole subroutine built around that pose, the different possibilities it raises. Interestingly there is a nice variations but in fourth series ashtanga, with the other leg behind the head.

Some subroutines are more challenging than others and they would come later in that overall grouping of subroutines and some of those subroutines seem to lead on to each other others are complete and stand alone.  It seems to make sense that Virabhadrasana subroutine follows utthita Parsva konasana but it's clearly different. The prasaritta subroutine (see tomorrow day 15), almost exactly the same as in Ashtanga, isn't a development at all and could probably go anywhere in the triangle sequence at the beginning, middle or end.

VIDEO LINK

Tips/Hints/Suggestions

The motion from the first to the second picture is revolving shoulder joint action, a fluid almost circular motion. the same action comes up in the On your feet sequence in the haste variations from Day one.

Notice the difference between the third picture here and yesterdays parsva konasana, this is similar but with the knee bent. It's the bent knee that characterises virabhadrasana

As with parsva konasana the raising of the leg comes from the hip

Visualise a rope on you wrist and on your raised ankle stretching you

As with Day 12, Utthita parsva konasana we need to protect our one as we straighten and bend the leg

Be careful of your knees, use the back of a chair if necessary,

Don't go down too low at first.

Lowering is easier than coming back up. If necessary lower slowly but then put your hand and foot back down to come back up before raising your arm and leg and lowering again until your legs strengthen enough to come back up unsupported.

Focus on band has to help keep your steady and fix your gaze on a point on the mat.

In the final posture use the repeat approach at first going in and out of the posture on the breath a little deeper each time.

NB: These are practice notes that will be tidied up and put into the new edition of my Vinyasa Yoga Practice Book along with the current sequences and subroutines. The book can be freely downloadedHERE. There is a page on Facebook HERE with all the latest sheets and updates. This book is in no way a substitute for Ramaswami's Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.

Day 13 : Utthita arsva konasana ( side stretch ) subroutine practice notes from Vinyasa Krama Triangle sequence

I've practiced Parsva konasana in the Ashtanga  style of Pattabhi Jois for a number of years, enter the posture on the breath, stay for five, exit on the breath and repeat on the other side (ashtanga generates a lot of heat and Parsva konasana comes up in the middle of the standing sequence so we're nicely warmed up for this intense hamstring work). 

In the Vinyasa Krama approach to parsva konasana we can see the comprehensive nature of this style of practice. First we enter and exit a simplified, supported, vinyasa/variation of the posture on the breath, then on the third entry we stay for a significant period of time, three to six long slow inhalations and exhalations. Next up come two versions of the posture, an elbow bind and the more classic hands in reverse prayer. As we have seen from the On your feet sequences there are probably other hand/arm variations that we might explore here. Finally we enter the posture again with our palms on the mat but this time raise our trailing leg from the hip in a counter pose, holding for another three to six breaths before returning to the original starting point of trikonasana stithi. There are approximately fifty breaths taken in this one subroutine and it can take anywhere from twelve to twenty minutes depending on how long and slow we make our breath.

This is a pattern that we see in many of the Vinyasa Krama subroutines.

• Enter/exit on the breath
• long stay
• Vinyasas/variations
• counter posture
• return to starting position (stithy).

I tend to practice a couple of the vinyasas in different postures from different subroutines and sequences, building my practice by covering a wide range of posture types. This morning, re shooting the video for this practice sheet I was reminded of how profound practicing a posture in this way can be. 

Entering and exiting on the breath allows us to work a little deeper into the posture each time. Knowing we have several attempts we can be gentle on ourselves, ease into the posture

The long stay in the posture allows us to settle, find the spaces, shift our weight here there, sink into the pose.

The vinyasas allow us to explore, extend, expand upon the 'theme' and yet remain centred 

The counter pose and return to the point in which we began  gives a sense of completeness, the subroutines generally exists as a whole.

And there's flexibility, depending on the level of our practice or how warmed up we are we might not bend as deeply, do all the vinyasas or stay as long.

Caution.

parsva konasana offers a deep stretch to the hamstrings and this is one benefit of working slowly into the posture, it's not one to rush unless we have been prepared before hand by other postures or subroutines.

Tips.

• Protect the hamstrings by pressing the leading foots toes firmly into the mat

• Focus on the trailing hip, make the movement form there. So if your bending over your right leg focus on your left hip, bend from there. but make sure your hips are in line with each other.

• Leading with that trailing hip has the curious sensation of having your backside pulled up into the air as your bent over as if there is a giant balloon hooked into your gluteus maximus

• In the final variation, when you raise your leg, again lift from the hip  

• When entering those three times at the beginning of the subroutine I lead with my chin the first time, my nose the second and my forehead the third, this come from a later supine subroutine.

• Engage your mula and uddiyana bandhas, these help protect your hamstrings in paschimottanasana, the seated forward bend but will have the same effect here.

A tweaked or pulled hamstring seems to take forever to heal up completely, for months you'll find yourself mindful of it. You can still practice but it puts a bit of a damper on it, so go easy here. Thats' what a vinyasa karma subroutine is designed to do, to ease you into a posture and vinyasas.

NB: These are practice notes that will be tidied up and put into the new edition of my Vinyasa Yoga Practice Book along with the current sequences and subroutines. The book can be freely downloadedHERE. There is a page on Facebook HERE with all the latest sheets and updates. This book is in no way a substitute for Ramaswami's Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.

Day 12 : Uttita parsva konasana ( side stretch ) subroutine practice notes from Vinyasa Krama Triangle sequence

This is another subroutine that I decided to re shoot and make up another sheet from that on my Vinyasa Krama Sequences and subroutines website. The main difference is that here I include the intermediate stage of keeping the palm on the mat while bending and straightening the knee. This is a particularly challenging subroutine and the intermediate stage may be plenty to be going on with for a while. The important thing is to work on the balance and breathing, only moving on when the breath allows us to do so.

The first two weeks of Ramaswami's Teacher Training course had seemed relatively easy. We'd spent a lot of time with the On your feet sequence focusing on principles and guidelines as well as some Asymmetric and Seated postures. The 4th of July holiday was coming up and we had a couple of days off, a few of us came up with the idea of practicing the complete Vinyasa Krama syllabus, one sequence after another, we figured it would take around five hours.

Krishnamacharya

Perhaps Ramaswami got to hear about it but the next sequence we began to study was the triangle sequence, watch the video, Ramaswami had us do this particular subroutine at about half the speed ( at least it felt that way ), long slow inhalations and exhalation as we would raise and lower on one leg. The next sequence we explored was the On one leg sequence, more long slow one legged squats.


The plan to practice the whole syllabus in one go quickly dissolved.

Ramaswami referred to the On one leg postures and subroutines as tapas.

In Sanskrit tapas means heat and these postures certainly heat you up, used figuratively tapas can denote spiritual suffering, mortification or austerity, which comes closer to the experience of a one legged squat.



Tips and hints to make this subroutine a little easier or at least more manageable.

• Bandhas Mula and Uddiyana 

see Day 4 Ardho Uttkatasana

• Balance. 

Balance is everything here, move your weight about, depending on where you are in the sequence, move it forward , bringing your heavy pelvis forward over your knee as you raise you leg

• Raise your leg from the hip

• Look straight ahead

• Vizualize

I use a geyser coming up out of the ground and up through my leg which seems to help to keep it strong ( old Aikido trick). As I lower I'm lowering down into the geyser which keeps me strong and supported. Whatever you use the mind needs to be completely focused.

• Tapas

Think tapas, you get to ask the gods for a boon (favour) after this.

• Benefits 

These are tough but they strengthen the legs, above and below the knees which will protect them in the long term. Strong legs help in the standing backbends.

Caution
Be careful of your knees, use the back of a chair if necessary,
Don't go down too low at first.
Lowering is easier than coming back up. If necessary lower slowly but then put your hand and foot back down to come back up before raising your arm and leg and lowering again until your legs strengthen enough to come back up unsupported.

NB: These are practice notes that will be tidied up and put into the new edition of my Vinyasa Yoga Practice Book along with the current sequences and subroutines. The book can be freely downloadedHERE. There is a page on Facebook HERE with all the latest sheets and updates. This book is in no way a substitute for Ramaswami's Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.

Day 11 : Parivritta trikonasana (twisting )subroutine practice notes from Vinyasa Krama Triangle sequence

This is another subroutine I needed to re shoot.

For the last couple of years, since discovering Vinyasa krama, I've been writing about spending more time in a poses, taking longer and slower breathes, retaining the exhale, taking up residence in a posture.

And yet still there's this....



This is the twist in triangle pose on my Vinyasa Krama Sequences and Subroutines webpage. It's OK, I enter the posture a couple of times before coming into it for a longer stay and and then take a number of long slow breaths.

I rush into it though, turn lower and twist all on one exhalation.

Ramaswami is very clear in his book, as practiced in Vinyasa Krama, this posture has three distinct steps.

'You can see that the movement from the trikonasana position and the final posture is made in three distinct steps'  The Complete Bool of Vinyasa yoga p150


Whats the rush? We get fixated on the final posture, even in styles of yoga where the movement in and out of the postures play such an important role, it's hard to slow it down. In Ashtanga I have to remind myself to slow the upward and downward dogs after the the jump back, remember to keep the breath at the same rate as when in the posture.

Here it's even slower. We raise our arms on the exhalation take our inhalation and then turn on the long exhale, inhale and then on the next exhalation lower half way, staying there for another inhalation before turning, again on the exhalation and finally settling into the posture. The exit is the same but in reverse unwinding on the inhalation, pausing for the exhalation before straightening on the inhalation, pause again for another exhalation then turn to the front on the final inhalation.

That's four breaths in and four breaths out of the pose, then there's the 2-6 breaths while in the final posture, that's fourteen but then we have the reverse twist, another fourteen. I clock the video below at a little over eight minutes and to be honest my breathing could have been, perhaps should have been, a lot slower.

What's the rush



The same tips for keeping the knees safe apply here as from yesterdays uttita trikonasana

• Press down the opposite foot to the side your bending but also the inside of the foot on the side your bending in to, from the heel all the way to the big toe.

• The more stable the base the more protected the knees, pushing down into the mat takes some of the stress off the knees.

• really stretch out of your hips before beginning your bend and keep stretching up along both sides of your body. The tendency is to stretch the outside and collapse the inside, stretch through both.

• Breathe, strong ujjayi.

• Engage bandhas

and one more comes to mind...

• push your backside out as you take that breath in forward bend just as in the half forward bend in the On the feet sequence so as to protect your back.

Here's a reminder of the breathing

Going into the posture
turn on the exhale
lower on the exhale
twist on the exhale

Stay for 3-6 breathes

Exiting the posture
Raise and unwind to horizontal on the inhale
lift up straight on the inhale
turn back to the front on the inhale.

Watching the video back I notice I'm bunching up a little, bringing my shoulders chest up shortening my neck, probably a result of raising the arms, i need to watch out for that, raise my arms but relax my shoulders, bad habit.

and is one arm/shoulder a little higher than the other......?

NB: These are practice notes that will be tidied up and put into the new edition of my Vinyasa Yoga Practice Book along with the current sequences and subroutines. The book can be freely downloadedHERE. There is a page on Facebook HERE with all the latest sheets and updates. This book is in no way a substitute for Ramaswami's Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga.