I was tempted to start another blog altogether for this focus on Simon and Bianca's approach to practice, to strongly signal that it's in many ways a new beginning but then isn't our practice always a new beginning, every time we step on the mat and encounter our body as it is that morning, isn't it or shouldn't it be perhaps as if the first time, just as each morning we start from scratch and seek to do a little better in regards to the yama/niyama that day.
This isn't a new 'style' of yoga, just an alternatively mindful approach to the practice we already have, If I feel a long way from my Ashtanga Vinyasa practice, moving back closer to the Vinyasa Krama variations of Krishnamacharya/Ramaswami, then I'm reminded that Simon has an online Ashtanga course in the works. Whatever we practice we can always perhaps improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our practice as well as making it sustainable for the long as well as short term.
Pattabhi Jois preserved one form of Krishnamacharya's teaching of asana from the Mysore period, the form clearly, originally, designed/intended for the teaching of the young boys of the Mysore palace (this does not mean that the practice is exclusively for young boys and can't be enjoyed by anyone else). We can see from the 1938 footage and from Krishnamacharya own writing from this period that his teaching at this time, in 20s-50s Mysore took several forms, with/without kumbhaka, with/without more variations. Manju and Saraswati have preserved one form as have many of the early teachers, as has Sharath, a base camp practice if you will from which we can venture out and return. Other early teachers have explored the possibilities of Krishnamacharya's practice as did the great man himself in his later teaching, as did Iyengar. Were they developing different 'styles' or just continuing the postural research from the ground of their interpretation of early sources, Iyengar strongly indicated the later.
Sharath, my friend Manju (anyone who studies with Manju I suspect comes away feeling that he is a friend rather than their 'guru') claim that the Ashtanga vinyasa form they teach is traditional. Having spent ten years looking at the history of the form here on the blog that makes little sense to me. In what possible way is Ashtanga vinyasa more traditional say than the Vinyasa Flow Power yoga in your local gym down the road. Not in the count certainly, not in the tristana, not in selection and ordering of postures. Traditional yoga if it means anything is a dedicated, sincere, committed physical practice of some form that prepares us, along with our pranayama, for the meditative limbs and enquiry into self, all on the basis of appropriate yama/niyama we have chosen to seek to live our lives by that support this enquiry. Too often we become fixated on the form at the expense of it's purpose. In his book Yoga Mala, Pattabhi Jois suggested that after fifty we should choose a few appropriate asana, that even a handful of salutations (which certainly weren't traditional, Krishnamacharya frowned upon them as a fitness fad and rarely taught them) followed by the last three postures may be considered sufficient.... and still Ashtanga.
I have loved my Ashtanga practice, I'm grateful for it for, to all teachers and practitioners that I thank each time I step on the mat, for my personal practice that has emerged out of it. Is it still Ashtanga vinyasa, I cease to care that much about it's label, is it still Ashtanga, is it yoga? Yes, I believe it is, if it's still a committed enquiry of self.
This isn't a new 'style' of yoga, just an alternatively mindful approach to the practice we already have, If I feel a long way from my Ashtanga Vinyasa practice, moving back closer to the Vinyasa Krama variations of Krishnamacharya/Ramaswami, then I'm reminded that Simon has an online Ashtanga course in the works. Whatever we practice we can always perhaps improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our practice as well as making it sustainable for the long as well as short term.
Pattabhi Jois preserved one form of Krishnamacharya's teaching of asana from the Mysore period, the form clearly, originally, designed/intended for the teaching of the young boys of the Mysore palace (this does not mean that the practice is exclusively for young boys and can't be enjoyed by anyone else). We can see from the 1938 footage and from Krishnamacharya own writing from this period that his teaching at this time, in 20s-50s Mysore took several forms, with/without kumbhaka, with/without more variations. Manju and Saraswati have preserved one form as have many of the early teachers, as has Sharath, a base camp practice if you will from which we can venture out and return. Other early teachers have explored the possibilities of Krishnamacharya's practice as did the great man himself in his later teaching, as did Iyengar. Were they developing different 'styles' or just continuing the postural research from the ground of their interpretation of early sources, Iyengar strongly indicated the later.
Sharath, my friend Manju (anyone who studies with Manju I suspect comes away feeling that he is a friend rather than their 'guru') claim that the Ashtanga vinyasa form they teach is traditional. Having spent ten years looking at the history of the form here on the blog that makes little sense to me. In what possible way is Ashtanga vinyasa more traditional say than the Vinyasa Flow Power yoga in your local gym down the road. Not in the count certainly, not in the tristana, not in selection and ordering of postures. Traditional yoga if it means anything is a dedicated, sincere, committed physical practice of some form that prepares us, along with our pranayama, for the meditative limbs and enquiry into self, all on the basis of appropriate yama/niyama we have chosen to seek to live our lives by that support this enquiry. Too often we become fixated on the form at the expense of it's purpose. In his book Yoga Mala, Pattabhi Jois suggested that after fifty we should choose a few appropriate asana, that even a handful of salutations (which certainly weren't traditional, Krishnamacharya frowned upon them as a fitness fad and rarely taught them) followed by the last three postures may be considered sufficient.... and still Ashtanga.
I have loved my Ashtanga practice, I'm grateful for it for, to all teachers and practitioners that I thank each time I step on the mat, for my personal practice that has emerged out of it. Is it still Ashtanga vinyasa, I cease to care that much about it's label, is it still Ashtanga, is it yoga? Yes, I believe it is, if it's still a committed enquiry of self.
This post relates to my previous posts
In their standing sequences at yogasynergy.com Simon Borg-Olivier and Bianca Machliss focus on moving the spine vertebra by vertebrae while keeping length and avoiding, as much as possible, any compression, starting from the base of the spine around L5 and moving on up, tricky.
Below is my first video of working on their Spinal movements that I've become addicted to, I'm more than a little embarrassed to share it, suggesting that after ten years of practice and nine of blogging about that I'm taking myself and my practice a little too seriously. I like to think of this video as akin to one of those first jump back in progress videos form the first weeks of the blog.
I'm thinking of tai chi, of Qi gong and how it takes decades of practice to iron out the edges, to maintain focus on all the elements throughout.
It's work in progress, come back in ten years.
Instruction for this sequence can be found on this download
https://yogasynergy.com/shop/spinal-movements/
And Simon showing how it should be done
https://yogasynergy.com/shop/spinal-movements/
And Simon showing how it should be done
Note: I strongly recommend watching this series of videos on YouTube for an explanation of the why and wherefore of all these movements SPINAL MOVEMENTS SEQUENCE
UPDATE
One minute breath (give or take).
Generally Simon Borg-Olivier recommends, when beginning physical yoga as well as perhaps a new sequence or approach, to employ natural breathing 'to the abdomen' a babies or sleeping breath. I've been employing relaxed abdominal breathing for a couple of years now but shifting from the Ashtanga one movement one inhalation or exhalation to letting the breath take care of itself has been challenging. But once you begin to get the hang of it other possibilities arise. In the video, I'm exploring breathing through the movements, so a long slow 30 second inhalation through the first stretches, of one arm and then the other above the head, one inhalation for both sides and then again a long slow, relaxed 30 second exhalation through the twists to the left and right. This is an aspect of practice I'm quite excited about exploring right now.
Note: The video is natural speed, it hasn't been slowed down.
And also this. I love what Simon has to say on this video about practice and Yoga in general and I've shared this here before but try changing the settings to 1080p and watching it with the sound off. THIS is what I'm currently exploring in my own practice, the first two minutes in particular.
So the focus on the spine is clear and this carries on through Simon and Bianca's approach to seated postures, lengthening the spine, maintaining space as we move in and out of 'traditional/classical' postures. I began to wonder though about Inversions. In shoulder stand it's possible to do something similar perhaps, rolling up and down the spin/the mat, into and out of postures as we do in occasionally inVinyasa Krama. The video below is from a couple of years back, there is compression in the spine here in the backbend but a rolling down and back up too in the Supta Padangushtasana variation as seen in Krishnamacharya's 1938 Mysore documentary footage starting two minutes in, I'm working on this now with Simon in mind as I am in revisiting all the Vinyasa Krama sequences.
What then can we do with headstand, Vinyasa Krama variations come to mind, but we can also perhaps move from headstand to seated just as we roll down from shoulderstand to the floor, curling the spine vertebra by vertebra, it's interesting to explore, again work in progress, research.
Below then Sirsasana to gomukhasana, a posture Simon and Bianca favour in their fundamentals course
Below then Sirsasana to gomukhasana, a posture Simon and Bianca favour in their fundamentals course
Also, exploring 'rolling' the spine down into baddha konasana which we can also take back up although I haven't shown it in the video.
I'm also exploring Simon's nerve tensioning arm movements in the posture as well as the spinal movement, working to relax the spine as I move in and out of the posture.
Flow without Fluidity
Even though there is movement to and from the postures in Ashtanga and Vinyasa krama, such practice still feels somewhat....static, flow perhaps but without... fluidity, it's perhaps this fluidity that I'm enamoured with in Simon and Bianca's approach and suspect may be of benefit.
In going the other way, back up to headstand from padmasana (lotus) I'm using some of Simon Borg-Olivier's tips for effortless handstand here. Aiming to push the hips forward, lifting the upper back and moving the sitting bones forward to firm the abdomen and make up for the lack of navasana, the key though seems to be breathing into the abdomen as I bring my lots up my arms and then all the way up to Sirsasana.
See Simon's how to lift up to handstand , part fifteen in his superb spinal sequence series of videos on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-vASq0H-U Update:
And finally another of the movements we see in the spinal sequence in the video at the top of the page (near the end) to move with ease into the bind of baddha padmasana, active movement.
So much to work on here, I'm fascinated again by my practice.
UPDATE
Just as I start to think that I've moved far from Ashtanga vinyasa, my thinking turns fall circle and I start to think that it's really not so different after all.
A few Sury's
Standing (with a lot of arm waving I'll admit - and not just in standing, seated too)
Twists
On one leg
First half of 2nd
First half of primary
Sarvangasana
Sirsasana (with variations, just as krishnamacharya included variations in the 1938 footage)
padmasana
pranayama
Sit
Not so far away after all perhaps
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