Re-emergence of yoga....at home: Blog Intro. 3

Plan for this blog...

Ten years ago when I started my Vinyasa Krama Sequences and Subroutines as a companion to Ramaswami's Complete book of Vinyasa Yoga, I would make up a practice sheet, practice it in the morning and then write about it directly after the practice. The project took three months of daily practice and blogging and ended up as a book. For all it's faults, I have a soft spot for that blog and the immediacy of the format and approach, it came directly out of practice, often I was still sweating from the practice onto my keyboard as I blogged. That said, perhaps I could have been more questioning, more critical.

I'd like to do something similar with this blog.

Starting April 1st, I'd like to try and post a practice sheet daily from T.K. Sribhashyam's book, 'The Emergence of yoga', starting from 'Example of General practices Session #1 and working up to #58, then do the practice it and ideally add some notes by the end of the day.

On top of that, I'll see about posting the eleven 'Life Saving Practices', and six 'Insights into Krishnamacharya's own practice' in the next couple of weeks and back date them to today to keep them together for those who are less interested in following a course of practice. I'll also see about posting some guidelines for the practice.

In many ways this is a very simple practice. It takes around 45 minutes, starts off with a pranayama, followed by one asana from standing, supine, bow, then a shoulder stand, headstand, shoulderstand, supine again, a seated asana, a mudra and finishing with another pranayama.

I tend to 'Warm up' with a short Vinyasa Krama Tadasana sequence followed by some sun salutations, perhaps three of A and two of B. Sribhashyam will often throw you right into a full lotus, my old knees need some warming up.

You can move into the different postures slowly, I'll do a post on the gentle vinyasa krama lead in to asana, but you could also approach it Ashtanga style, lift up and jump back and jump through to the next posture.

Sribhashyam, tends to employ concentration points based on the Ancient Yoga Yajnavalkya but in the beginning you can just look up between the eyebrows on postures with the head up and look down to the tip of your nose for those postures with the head down, just as Krishnamacharya indicated in Yoga Makaranda.

Sribhashyam doesn't tend to indicate bandhas, (they don't tend to feature in Yoga Yajnavalkya) but they can (are expected to be) be employed, as Krishnamacharya taught them to him and he mentioned in an interview that he planned on including them in a follow up book, I'll discuss this in post soon.

For my Ashtanga friends these practices might be explored on a rest or moon day or perhaps in a light evening practice, I tended to practice twice a day way back when, Ashtanga in the morning ( Primary, Intermediate or Advanced) and Vinyasa Krama in the evening.

Coming from Ashtanga it was, for a long time, hard for me to strip my practice back this far, just ten asana ( or nine and a mudra). Eventually, I gravitated to what I called, 'Proficient Primary', ten Primary series asana practiced with slower breathing, kumbhaka and longer stays, I was heavily influenced by Sribhashyam's book.

The problem for me as an Ashtanga was that I was used to a practice that was also a work-out, one that kept me fit and in shape. At some point I decided to sacrifice the work-out aspect of my practice and settle on the yoga..... and I put on five kilo as a result. But that was from a loss of discipline in my eating. A physically lighter practice requires that we think more about what we are eating perhaps, practicing Ashtanga I could eat whatever I felt like, I'd burn it off the next morning.