I probably moved the furthest from Ashtanga I've ever been this year, trimming my practice down to just ten postures in my
Proficient Primary posts early in the year, treating those ten asana somewhat as mudras before later reintroducing most of the Standing sequence. Throughout the year I focussed more and more on
Simon Borg Olivier's teaching, making my asana practice safer, more beneficial perhaps, and explored in more depth Simon's Spinal sequence such that at one point, towards the end of the year, I moved all the way over into Qi Gong.
I still begin my practice with a five to ten minute version of Simon's Spinal (Qi gong/yoga) sequence but have ended the year settling back into a reasonably standard Ashtanga, it may be a Krishnamacharya, Manju Jois and Richard Freeman inspired, Simon Borg-Olivier informed, slightly Vinyasa Krama modified, soft, slow, half Primary/half Second Series Ashtanga Yoga practice.....but Ashtanga all the same...., after all these years it's just comforting. I don't tend to jump back between sides and will tend to focus on one asana or another, staying longer, introducing kumbhaka, treating them as mudras (see my
Proficient Primary page), that Mingus approach to practice I used to talk about (I'll find the
link).
The year ended on a sour note with Mary Taylor's article on Pattabhi Joi's 'adjustments', we'd suspected as much of course but this article clarified things, as did some of the responses and ongoing discussion (Thankfully that’s happening more in house now than via the ambulance chasers). Perhaps Guru Purnima will be more circumspect this year although I doubt it, the systems of power and authority remain, reenforced with title. My own post is mostly just links, to those it sadly happened to or to those who were actually there, I edited out the rising fury that was triggered at one point and decided to let the articles and responses speak for themselves.
My practice has always been a home practice. I tend to say I learned from books, DVDs..., YouTube etc. but that’s just being provocative, truth be told I worked my asana out on my own through daily practice, going on generally contradictory hints and suggestions....., just as we all do ultimately. No adjustments or assists sought, no guru's or teachers looked to, just daily practice, it stands up well on it's own I find. We can look back to Krishnamacharya's early texts, Yoga Makaranda (Mysore 1931) and Yogasanagalu (Mysore 1934) and find the practice pretty much as Pattabhi Jois passed it along to his students.
Krishnamacharya suggested that we should look to our own traditions, for me that tends to be Greece and Rome rather than India., Greek and Latin rather than Sanskrit.
