Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Week 2-Ariana

week 2.
Same poses.
45 minutes.

I managed to remember to do all of the poses this time. Corpse included. I did the sequence late at night before bed so my body was pretty open. This time I was more aware of what I want to post on the blog. But I want to do the poses for the sake of the poses, not the blog. So I kept trying to bring my awareness back to the pose, and I kept noticing more and more things and then I would think, "I need to remember that."

I attended an Iyengar style class today with Tzahi Moskovitz. He suggested I focus on lengthening my side ribs away from my pelvis. So that was my focus in this sequence today. Actually, I found that I was grounding down from the pelvis down (not just the feet) and lifting from the navel up, infinitely, or at least trying to. While inverted in Shoulder Stand I did the opposite- grounded down from the navel down to the arms while I lifted my pelvis up. I am exploring this and beginning to feel more lightness in the poses as a result. My weight is disbursed–grounding down into earth while reaching to heavens. Earth. Sky.

Today I wondered why Extended Side Angle (Parsvakonasana) is before Warrior 2. To me, Warrior 2 is a precursor to Parsvakonasana. Unless Mr. Iyengar wanted to keep the Warrior poses together. Now I am wondering why he has 2 externally rotated standing poses followed by a neutral standing pose and then another external. So many questions.

There are many distractions that come up before and during practice, especially when practicing in my living room. drawing the blinds, picking up papers on the floor; a contract I need to submit; lint, dog hair and my hair on my yoga mat; and yes I lint brushed it before my shoulder stand.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Today I discover your blog and I like to read your experience. Thanks for blogging.

I was on a workshop with Mira Mehta and she teach us the five most important standing poses and the sequence.

Trikonasana
Parsvakonasana
Virabhadrasana 1
Virabhadrasana 2
Parsvottanasana

Some weeks I was doing this sequence daily and I like it. Mira says, the sequence is about stability. Parsvakonasana (2 feet and one hand) has more stability than the warrior poses.

Greetings from germany Klaus

ariana said...

Thank you for reading. The stability comment makes a lot of sense.

Simon said...

I am also fascinated by the asana courses in LOY. Enjoy!

A couple more points on the standing asana sequence:

Parsvakonasana is grouped with trikonasana because the action in the back leg hip is similar. The back hip lifts so you can extend the trunk to the side.

Look at the back leg hip in virabhadrasana 2. The back hip cuts in strongly to keep the trunk upright. This is why Vira 2 is grouped with Vira 1.

Doing Parsvakonasana before vira 2 can be used for improving the bend in the front leg but it makes it more difficult to extend the trunk along the front leg.