Yesterday I posted about David Robson's Learn to Float Primary series with Drums, this morning I thought I'd give it a try with 2nd series. As well as the Led Primary, David has an MP3 of just Mathew Stephan's drums, perfect.
Perhaps the drums come into their own even more here. The full count in Pasasna and keeping the breath nice and regular with the beat is challenging, even more so with the Salabhasanas and Dhanurasanas, kind of realise how much I must cheat. And then there's Kapotasana, the Charcone of Ashtanga 2nd, again tricky to keep the breath full and regular here but the beat helps. I've only just started going this deep again recently so found it particularly challenging to stay the full five and then for another five in B, in fact I think I might have come up one early. David needs to come out with a Led 2nd series with drums.
( If you crank up the sound you can hear the breath, get it back in sync around 1:13)
I only practiced 2nd up to and including the twists so I could move on to my more involved finishing and pranayama. Oh the drums are nice for dropping back and coming up too.
Tried the drums with the pranayama as an experiment but it got in the way of my mantra, became irritating so knocked it on the head. You can see from the video below that it doesn't really work out, not sure how to sync it, how many rounds an exhale or for the kumbhaka etc, bit of a mess which is why I'm not posting it on youtube just putting it straight on the blog (which means it wont show up on iPad etc just on your desk or laptop).
You can get an idea of where I am in the breath cycle by the deep uddiyana on the kumbhaka around two minutes in and the second one at 2:55. You can see it's going wrong by the sharpish intake of the breath at the end, following the beat rather than my body and getting the rhythm all wrong, not ideal here.
My regular pranayama is a 1:4:2:1 of nadi shodhana. A 5 second inhalation 20 second hold with mantra, 10 second exhalation, 5 second hold. I'm comfortable with that and tend to do twenty minutes in the morning and evening. The four second beat doesn't fit that very well so I ended up getting confused, two rounds of the drum for the inhale, distracted from the rhythm of the mantra by the drums, then exhaling ended up being around three rounds of the drums and no idea what was going on with the retention...
It could probably work if I thought it through
Inhale - 1 round of drums
hold - 4 rounds of drums
exhale - 2 rounds of drums
hold - 1 round of drums
still a 1:4:2:1 ratio
See my pranayama page at the top of the blog http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/p/pranayama.html
"Follow Matthew Stephens hypnotic, subtle drumming to sharpen your focus and time your breath as you practice. At a steady one beat per second, this 80 minute track is a wonderful tool for self-practice and for teaching.
Note that this is audio only, no video included".
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| This is actually for the led primary but it has a picture of Mathew |
( If you crank up the sound you can hear the breath, get it back in sync around 1:13)
I only practiced 2nd up to and including the twists so I could move on to my more involved finishing and pranayama. Oh the drums are nice for dropping back and coming up too.
Tried the drums with the pranayama as an experiment but it got in the way of my mantra, became irritating so knocked it on the head. You can see from the video below that it doesn't really work out, not sure how to sync it, how many rounds an exhale or for the kumbhaka etc, bit of a mess which is why I'm not posting it on youtube just putting it straight on the blog (which means it wont show up on iPad etc just on your desk or laptop).
You can get an idea of where I am in the breath cycle by the deep uddiyana on the kumbhaka around two minutes in and the second one at 2:55. You can see it's going wrong by the sharpish intake of the breath at the end, following the beat rather than my body and getting the rhythm all wrong, not ideal here.
My regular pranayama is a 1:4:2:1 of nadi shodhana. A 5 second inhalation 20 second hold with mantra, 10 second exhalation, 5 second hold. I'm comfortable with that and tend to do twenty minutes in the morning and evening. The four second beat doesn't fit that very well so I ended up getting confused, two rounds of the drum for the inhale, distracted from the rhythm of the mantra by the drums, then exhaling ended up being around three rounds of the drums and no idea what was going on with the retention...
It could probably work if I thought it through
Inhale - 1 round of drums
hold - 4 rounds of drums
exhale - 2 rounds of drums
hold - 1 round of drums
still a 1:4:2:1 ratio
See my pranayama page at the top of the blog http://grimmly2007.blogspot.co.uk/p/pranayama.html
 |
| Learn to Float Drums MP3 |
"Follow Matthew Stephens hypnotic, subtle drumming to sharpen your focus and time your breath as you practice. At a steady one beat per second, this 80 minute track is a wonderful tool for self-practice and for teaching.
Note that this is audio only, no video included".