Nice, 'by the book' Ashtanga....pretty much.

Picking my sax back up along with my Ashtanga practice.

  

A short post while the practice room warms up.

So New Year morning with three days left of my holiday from work and no plans or commitments, M. and I had the chance to practice together for a change.

And it wasn't planned but as we raised our hands for the first sun salutation I thought why not and decided to practice Ashtanga Primary matching vinyasa for vinyasa kind of like a Led but with nobody leading.

Mostly I just let M. get on with her own practice, give some suggestions if asked and occasionally, if we cross in the practice room and I notice something that might be harmful, I'll mentioned it but mostly I let her get on with working out her own practice, finding her own way

In this practice on New Years day I noticed a few things that had carried over from when I first introduced her to a simplified version of the practice I'd made up for her a couple of years back, something along the lines of David Swenson's short Primary. There were a few omissions, a few asana I'd suggested she hold off on, I took this practice together to mention them and that she was at a point where she might comfortably introduce them.

Nice practicing side by side, reminded me of practicing with a friend in the UK just before leaving, nice comfortable practice together.

And so we did it again the next day and again the next, three days of pretty much by the book Ashtanga Primary, It had been awhile.

I say by the book, I tend to take two long slow breaths and short kumbhaka in asana to M.'s regular five short ones, a couple of postures I stay a little longer perhaps but otherwise, KPJAYI kosher.

Yesterday I was back to work so practiced on my own and why not, the same as the  previous three days, straight Primary, a delight actually, it is a lovely practice.

Certain asana have suffered a bit from neglect recently with the shorter practice, with the longer stays I've been doing but they'll come back, they are already coming back, Mari D, Supta kurmasana, garbha pindasana which came back yesterday.... it's like welcoming back old friends.

Oh and M. mentioned that she had practiced full primary in the afternoon after I had left for work including the extra asana I had suggested she included to make up the full series.

Four days, just four days, not even a week, hardly woth mentioning but it's nice to revisit the practice, like an old friend comfortable to be around and nice too talking Ashtanga and Yoga in general with M.

Perhaps in a week or two and I'll start asking myself why I'm not staying in this posture for ten minutes rather than one or three, or practicing my asana for one hour rather than two giving more time for my pranayama and sit but for now......

Time for practice.

UPDATE

Ashtanga lasted ten days. As soon as M. had her 'holiday' my practice started slowing, longer stays, not enough time to practice a full series and ended up back practicing what i find, for me personally, a more satisfying practice, Slow Ashtanga.

Update 2 M's only gone and made an 'Ashtanga decision', choosing a more poorly paid job so that as not to interfere with her practice. On my more latest Developing a home practice post (part 35) I wrote "We may however also feel that we wish to support a fledgling or struggling local practice room by surrendering our home practice one or more days a weeks and just turning up to support the room". Back to slow, but relatively buy the book Ashtanga again until I this practice is no longer fledgling.