Thank you to my dear friend and fellow blogger Claudia for choosing to interview me for her Yoga Podcast recently which was aired yesterday, follow the link below to her Blog which gives a kind and flattering backstory and introduction, had me blushing more than once.
First though, that picture (above)...
It was originally intended as a joke about how to find the time to practice my Ashtanga Vinyasa and keep up with my flute lessons but then turned into a semi serious exercise in playing long tones while in a posture to show up the quality of the breath.
see this post Chanting or playing the flute in Asana
In this episode David will charm you with his ability to buy x-ray yoga vision at Walmart, his million dollar secret for wrist pain, and the anatomy you need to know for a healthy practice, as well as his favorite book and that one thing that took him a long time to understand. Transcript here
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The Yoga Podcast: Episode 2: Anthony 'Grim' Hall The Choose Yourself Yogi
I thought in this post I would provide an opportunity to clarify and perhaps expand on a anything that came up
First though, that picture (above)...
It was originally intended as a joke about how to find the time to practice my Ashtanga Vinyasa and keep up with my flute lessons but then turned into a semi serious exercise in playing long tones while in a posture to show up the quality of the breath.
see this post Chanting or playing the flute in Asana
Another thing Claudia mentioned is that I have 2,500,000 visitors to this blog, that's actually the number of hits, visits to the blog rather than individual visitors and 2,000,000 of those hits are probably from M.
A large chunk of the rest are my going back again and again to re edit the posts and/or to try and decide if I still agreed with what I'd written an hour, week, year, later.
Claudia has already interviewed some great practitioners and teachers, whose interviews are being transcribed and will be appearing on her Yoga Podcast page at regularly intervals (first up was David Keil).
I have to say I felt a bit embarrassed to be included in that company but Claudia and I are friends, fellow bloggers, and it's nice that she wanted to include a home practitioner in her interviews.
Not all of us have the opportunity to go to a shala or studio or indeed to Mysore.
Others, myself included, have perhaps little interested in practicing in a room with 80-100 bodies (or even 20 in a small ,tight room... although I have a soft spot for Rethymno). Nor necessarily see today's Mysore as any more or less a source of the practice than Boulder, Encinites...Rethymno or indeed our own home practice rooms and the texts themselves (primary sources?) Yoga Mala, Yoga Makaranda, Yogasanagalu, Yogas Sutras, Yogayajnavalkya....
Exploring, practicing, at home and breathing ones own air in this 'breathing practice' is a more than comfortable and satisfying experience. Nor are adjustments/assists (however skilled), being taken ever deeper into yet another asana to 'experience the full expression' of a posture the only way to approach this practice. Home practitioners know this although would perhaps always welcome the subtle alignment suggestions of an experienced teacher, selfies at home only go so far.
Many home practitioners are also exploring pranayama and meditation after their asana practice, the integrated approach Ramaswami and his, as well as Pattabhi Jois' own teacher, Krishnamacharya recommended. At home there is no rush to vacate mat space, nor the feeling one needs to follow 'shala rules' and/or stick to a sequence, an authorised, official practice (although some shalas are more flexible than others as well as being more or less hands on)
At home we can cut our asana practice short and move straight to pranayama, chanting perhaps as manju suggests, meditatio, and at a time when we feel we are ready rather than when dogma dictates.
Shalas and experienced teachers can be wonderful but home practice is very much an option, one that most Ashtanga teachers themselves end up having to turn to as they getup for their own practice a couple of hours before opening their shalas. I hope the interview with Claudia conveys that home practice is an approach that is perfectly justifiable, satisfying, and once the routine and then discipline attained, can work.
And of course there are always workshops (see Ashtanga workshop reviews ) although these too tend to be too often dictated by mercantile and promotional forces that give the impression that more and deeper backbends, more floating and more of whatever angle that seems to get attention and people in the door are what we really need to progress in our practice.
What we really need has always been right there on our mats with us, the space to follow the breath.
There's a full transcript of the interview here
Yoga Podcast Episode 2: Anthony Grim Hall
TRANSCRIPT
I'm tended to have comments turned off on the blog for much of the last year what with all the travelling and settling back into Japan ( I think it comes up that you need to be member of the blog team or something, some strange google thing I don't understand, there is no team) I'm turning them back on for this post so if there are any questions (especially as the sound occasionally wavers ) , would like clarifications or have me expand on anything that came up please let me know below. thank you again to Claudia, it was fun.