Time, Small triumphs, Opiates, The Man
Posted in ashtanga on 08/07/2009 11:09 am by karenGoal for practice today: time. As in, reduce the amount of time to get through practice. I’ve been meandering along through 2 hour practices. This has been great, because I haven’t been killing myself trying to stick tight to the breath count, because I don’t like combining the sense of smothering with the experience of new poses. For I am a delicate flower, and when I have bad experiences, they tend to stay with me.
Today, though, I knew it was time (ha!) to start cleaning up the breath work and the pace. I was careful not to go berserk during the backbends (that section is where I can really tucker myself out and build up some anxiety), and once I was through that, I zipped along through the rest of the practice quite handily. Total time, surya 1 through end of savasana: 90 minutes. And I never felt rushed or out of breath. Well, not too terribly out of breath.
***
Mayurasana. Starting to pull together, in the sense of the core pulling together and stabilizing. Moments aloft are few, but there’s some balance and some flight, and that’s all good.
Nakrasana. I’ve gone from not being able to go ANYWHERE in the pose, to being able to manage three lame forward hops, to (today) five slightly less lame forward hops. I consider this a victory. Now I need to get the backwards hops happening.
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It’s been a couple of months now, since MM suggested an all intermediate practice. I’m here to say that there were some mornings there where I woke up and had to REALLY NOT THINK about what was ahead of me at the shala. Discussions with myself about not thinking ahead past the current moment. Like putting a big tarp over the practice until I got into the Mysore room and unrolled my mat, and then “whoosh!” — pull off the tarp and start climbing the mountain.
Today, as I headed into my favorite part of second (everything after yoga nidrasana!), I just got happier and happier. I was ready to float feet-first into the air during the headstands. As I stood on my mat, waiting for MM to come over for assisted dropbacks, I was smiling. And then I realize what’s going on: endorphin rush. Ha-UUUUUUUge endorphin rush. Hey, where’d the vibrating nervous system feeling go?? (Not that I really miss it.)
I thought about our question: why do we do yoga? And my answer at that very moment was “endorphins!!” Not the most sophisticated answer, maybe. But at that moment, that was the truth.
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Going on Sunday to do an “Intro to Intermediate” workshop with David Swenson, aka, “The Man.” Muscle Man’ll be there, too. Ought to be super fun.
08/07/2009 at 12:16 pm
Karen, was it that Swenson Video that made you think about speeding it up? My Intermediate is a little quicker than my Primary. My Intermediate takes about 50 minutes 1st Sury to end of Savasana (but then my Savasana is only about 2 minutes. My primary is always pretty much dead on an hour. I tend to sit for twenty minutes at the end now after Savasana.
I’ve had similar motivation issues. When it’s weak I just try not to think about it, I don’t think any further ahead than the first Sury. Standing is the same for both anyway and i’ve always loved standing, loved playing around with the sury’s. By the time I get to the main series, well hell I’m already on the mat and it only takes half an hour or so.
08/07/2009 at 12:22 pm
I knew (intellectually) that I had to speed it up & I’d noticed (physically) that I was getting sluggish. And then I saw Swenson’s video, which made speediness seem so appealing! It really is an advertisement for joy in practice, isn’t it? Seeing it kind of sealed the deal. Otherwise I might have done a few more slow practices while I mulled over putting the speeding-up project into play.
08/07/2009 at 1:35 pm
Swenson’s vid is TOTALLY an advertisement for joy in the practice. Hell, I saw it at something like 9:45 pm last night and wanted to roll out a mat, STAT!!
08/09/2009 at 12:25 am
Wow, Grimmly – you’re on turbo, man! Brought up on Sharath’s CD? Primary and intermediate each take me 90 minutes more or less exact, that’s including only 5 minutes in savasana! (I stay longer if possible). Add on 7 poses of third and I’ve got a two-hour practice, just about….
Karen, I’ve done that workshop, so fun! Though ours turned into a ‘train wreck’ rather early
08/09/2009 at 7:05 am
Susan,
Yes, exactly: when I have a really “on” Primary, I can do it in 75-90 minutes, but when I was adding ten of Intermediate to that, it was regularly a whole extra half hour on top.
08/09/2009 at 10:00 am
Yep Sharath’s Primary made a huge difference for me. Once I saw him do it in an hour I had no excuse for not doing the whole series before work. Learning to jump in and out of the asana made a big difference too. I was surprised when I noticed intermediate was taking less time than Primary. I wonder how long Sharath takes for his, isn’t there a video of it floating around somewhere. Of course we’ll have Kino’s 2nd DVD soon. I tried to slow it down this morning but it still came out at an hour. I guess it suits me for work days.
08/10/2009 at 12:39 am
Was curious about this so I timed my Intermediate this morning and it came out at dead on an hour. I was counting breaths all the way through to make sure i wasn’t skimping anywhere. So when I said 50 minutes before either I was taking it at the end of 2nd before finishing, skimping on the breath here or there or missing out my backbends. here’s how i noted it down
Began Sury’s 6:50 (3 of each) Standing 6:58, 2nd series 7:10, Bakasana 7:20, Pinca Mayurasana 7:28, Headstands 7:37, Backbends 7:40 (five UD’s one up to standing and one dropback) Finishing 7:44, Savasana 7:48 Meditation 7.50 (20 mins) 8:10 half grapefruit, Cappuccino and a couple of Marks & Spencer’s all butter fruity flapjacks…………..
This is a workday on my day off it’s usually more like 90 minutes as I chuck in an extra bit of kapo work, Karandavasanas, more dropbacks etc