Work in progress: Sirsasana (headstand) to Gomukhasana and back, to Baddha Konasana and back, to Padmasana and back. Plus a Baddha Padmasana approach.

Below is my first video of working on their Spinal movements that I've become addicted to, I'm more than a little embarrassed to share it, suggesting that after ten years of practice and nine of blogging about that I'm taking myself and my practice a little too seriously. I like to think of this video as akin to one of those first jump back in progress videos form the first weeks of the blog.

I'm thinking tai chi and how it takes decades of practice to iron out the edges, to maintain focus on all the elements throughout.

It's work in progress, come back in ten years.


Note: I strongly recommend watching this series of videos on YouTube for an explanation of the why and wherefore of all these movements SPINAL MOVEMENTS SEQUENCE 

Generally Simon recommends, when beginning physical yoga as well as perhaps a new sequence or approach, to employ natural breathing 'to the abdomen' a babies or sleeping breath. I've been employing relaxed abdominal breathing for a couple of years now but shifting from the Ashtanga one movement one inhalation or exhalation to letting the breath take care of itself has been challenging. But once you begin to get the hang of it other possibilities arise. in the video above, in places, I'm exploring breathing through the movements, so a long slow inhalation through the first stretches of one arm and the  the other above the head, one inhalation for both sides and then again a long slow, relaxed exhalation through the twists to the left and right. This is an aspect of practice I'm quite excited about exploring right now.

So the focus on the spine is clear and this carries on through Simon and Bianca's approach to seated postures, lengthening the spine, maintaining space as we move in and out of 'traditional/classical' postures. I began to wonder though about Inversions. In shoulder stand it's possible to do something similar perhaps, rolling up and down the spin/the mat, into and out of postures as we do in occasionally inVinyasa Krama. The video below is from a couple of years back, there is compression in the spine here in the backbend but a rolling down and back up too in the Supta Padangushtasana variation as seen in Krishnamacharya's 1938 Mysore documentary footage starting two minutes in, I'm working on this now with Simon in mind as I am in revisiting all the Vinyasa Krama sequences.

What then can we do with headstand, Vinyasa Krama variations come to mind, but we can also perhaps move from headstand to seated just as we roll down from shoulderstand to the floor, curling the spine vertebra by vertebra,  it's interesting to explore, again work in progress, research.

Below then Sirsasana to gomukhasana, a posture Simon and Bianca favour in their fundamentals course

Also, exploring 'rolling' the spine down into baddha konasana which we can also take back up although I haven't shown it in the video. 

I'm also exploring Simon's nerve tensioning arm movements in the posture as well as the spinal movement, working to relax the spine as I move in and out of the posture.

Even though there is movement to and from the postures in Ashtanga and Vinyasa krama, such practice still feels somewhat....static, flow perhaps but without... fluidity, it's perhaps this fluidity that I'm enamoured with in Simon and Bianca's approach and suspect may be of benefit.

In going the other way, back up to headstand from padmasana (lotus) I'm using some of Simon Borg-Olivier's tips for effortless handstand here. Aiming to push the hips forward, lifting the upper back and moving the sitting bones forward to firm the abdomen and make up for the lack of navasana, the key though seems to be breathing into the abdomen as I bring my lots up my arms and then all the way up to Sirsasana. 

See Simon's how to lift up to handstand , part fifteen in his superb spinal sequence series of videos on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h-vASq0H-U Update: 

And finally another of the movements we see in the spinal sequence in the video at the top of the page (near the end) to move with ease into the bind of baddha padmasana, active movement.

So much to work on here, I'm fascinated again by my practice.

I was tempted to start another blog altogether for this focus on Simon and Bianca's approach to practice, to strongly signal that it's in many ways a new beginning but the isn't our practice always a new beginning, every time we step on the mat it is or should be perhaps like the first time, just as each morning we seek to do a little better in regards to the yama/niyama.

This isn't a new 'style' of yoga, just an alternatively mindful approach to the practice we already have, If I feel a long way from my Ashtanga Vinyasa practice, moving back closer to the Vinyasa Krama variations of Krishnamacharya/Ramaswami I'm reminded that Simon has an online Ashtanga course in the works. Whatever we practice we can always perhaps impove the effectiveness and efficiency of practice as well as making it sustainable for the long as well as short term.