Slow Suryanamaskara (sun Salutation plus leg behind head sequence

Slow Ashtanga?

More from Wyatt Denney, my friend and colleague in Vinyasa Krama from Ramaswami's 2010 Vinyasa Krama teacher training course and a strong inspiration for me in the honesty of his practice.

Here he shares a Slow Suryanamaskara (sun Salutation) plus Vinyasa Krama leg behind head subroutine



The only sun salutation Ramaswami presents in his book The Complete book of Vinyasa Yoga is the Sun salutation with mantras. Krishnamacharya, Ramaswami's teacher for over thirty years, wasn't a big fan of practicing  too many sury's it seems. This approach however follows Vinyasa Krama principles however with the long slow breathing ( eight second inhalations and eight second exhalations).

Here's one of my own recent videos of a Slow Suryanamaskara (inc. David Robson's drums) with a stay at each stage for three breaths including retention, seems I didn't get to post on this. In Krishnamacharya's Yoga Makaranda, although he didn't present a sun salutation as such he did present each stage as a stand alone asana one after the other.

More from Wyatt, the leg behind head Subroutine that appears in the Asymmetric sequence in Ramaswami's book. The Asymmetric sequence weaves it's way through several subroutines that stand alone or can be seen as preparation for these more advanced asana.



Matthew Sweeney mentions in his recent article, The Evolution of Ashtanga Yoga, that Ashtanga can perhaps be seen to suffer from upper body centrism, neglecting the legs somewhat, not something we have to worry about in Vinyasa Krama where there are long slow practices of utkatasana and single leg squats that are challenging to say the least. Building leg strength gives an excellent foundation for those drop backs.

Here's Wyatt's Hendrix'ish VK flying bird sequence

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