Moscow : Krishnamacharya's Ashtanga, a stripped back practice

It's the same with the practice except that Krishnamacharya goes through each asana and vinyasa breath by breath, kumbhaka by kumbhaka, Banda by bandha.....and that's pretty much it, that's the practice right there. There's no industry to be built here, even the teacher gets to step back and remove himselfherself so as not to become a distraction.

Perhaps it's because Krishnamacharya seems to have stressed the Yoga Sutras rather than say the Hatha Yoga Pradipka, YS is the text, for Krishnamacharya, to throw yourself into if you feel so inclined, explore the yamas and niyamas, all you need to know about them is right there, the same goes for the meditative limbs, all the methodology is laid out step by step. That's your rabbit hole if you care to dive into it.

It's very different from stressing Hatha Yoga Pradipka say, Krishnamacharya seems to have a complicated relationship with that text, he employs it, refers to it occasionally but often critically, outlining but then dismissing many of the practices. HYP strikes me as a 'rabbit hole' that's very easy to get lost down, did Krishnamacharya to see it as a distraction or is it perhaps that he wasn't initiated into it, Yogayajnavalkya seems to have played more of a role or at least a text he turns to more than HYP. I have a post in draft form I must finish where Krishnamacharya refers to certain asana as belonging to Hatha or to Raja. Hatha seems to be an approach he is prepared to turn to occasionally rather than immerse oneself in.

Could Krishnamacharya keep it more simple, work at your yamaniyams, practice your chosen asana introducing breath, kumbhaka and bandha, keep your pranayama straightforward but consistent, don't miss out on Pratyahara. And once the room has been swept/cleaned in this way.... live/sit in it and practice Dharana/Dhyana as outlined in Yajnavalkya and Patanjali.

He doesn't seem to allow us to get distracted ( I had to resort to his biography ) there's nothing to fall into. The only rabbit hole to get lost in is the/your practice itself, he seems to have intentionally avoided all tendencies for distraction that we so often fall into.

THE RABBIT HOLE CHECK : Is this a distraction or a support for my practice?

Does the practice ( have a tendency to) become a distraction from the practice?

A distraction from the Yamaniyams, from the Pranayama ( if it's as gentle as Krishnmacharya seems to have taught it then we don't need to be supermen to practice it).... from the other limbs. 

Why do we keep putting off all the good stuff, the important stuff because if we're going to throw ourselves into the asana then we might as well have thrown ourselves into HYP. The practice seems to have been kept simple for a reason.

And yet Krishnmacharya was a scholar, quite remarkable that he managed to keep his teaching so stripped back despite all that knowledge that he had accumulated. Saving it up for classes on particular texts perhaps, if a student, like Ramaswami, Mohan  was interested in the philosophical aspect, the Vedic chanting then Krishnamacharya was more than happy to offer it but he seems have managed to keep it related but essentially seperate. There is practice and then there support for the practice.

He doesn't even seem to allow us to get lost in Parampara, he barely mentions it ( if at all in his texts actually), perhaps the practice itself is all the light shining guru we need.

This is clearly a gross simplification of course but is there any truth to it and I what sense. How did Krishnamacharya himself manage to keep his practice and his academic and scholarly interests seemingly seperate or at least compartmentalised.

Impossible to post properly from the iPad and it's blogging apps, let alone edit but the above is what's been going around and around my head all week, over the next few weeks//months I'm going to be going back through his texts, reflecting on how much, if at all, that is actually the case.