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Friends! Once more! If anyone you know might want to attend an evening Mysore class --- please reply to this email, or to the Facebook post! It would most likely be Mon-Wed-Thu, 5-7pm at Yoyoyogi. This is mainly for people who cannot make early morning practice, and so in order to cultivate an evening group, evening Mysore would feature its own fee. I'm getting a sense there's interest --- but please, if you haven't let me know, now's the time to speak up! +++ Can I do Ashtanga and [insert sport]? Sports usually mentioned: running, cycling, lifting weights, Crossfit, aerial arts, jiu jitsu, etc etc. I think often in many cases, what we mean when we say, "Can I do Ashtanga" is: Can I get more flexible and stronger? Can I master the poses and the transitions? Personally, I was curious to see what, how, and if I could expand my sense of competence through more complicated postures and transitions. However, I've come to appreciate that's a tricky perspective to maintain over time. On the upside, an abiding curiosity, a "rage to mastery," and a growing sense of physical competence --- dynamism and passion --- are terrific incentives to practice. The downside (there's always a cost) is that that perspective can reduce practice to a Pokemon hunt to collect postures. It also reinforces the idea that the poses can be perfected, or mastered, as if there were a finish line to cross and trophy to hoist upon ‘completion.' The good news/bad news combo --- there are no finish lines. There’s only more. It's difficult but more rewarding to see Ashtanga as a process or system, one that is maintained or tended to, like a fire. From a systemic view (not a series of goals), Ashtanga practice is breath, posture/vinyasa, and looking-point. This system is then run through a circuit of set posture sequences. To me, this is what Guruji (P. Jois) meant when he used to say, "Anyone can do Ashtanga." The forms and shapes of the series direct, guide, and channel the practice of the tristana. Meanwhile, Ashtanga practice forces us to ask deeper, more difficult questions, ones that do not present clear answers; rather, they present questions that must be continually asked, with the understanding that it is the honest asking of questions, rather than finality of answers, that is part of the point. What does this mean for Olympic weightlifting and Ashtanga? It means, in my opinion, go ahead and get after it! You will find, as I did, that experience will force a question, and you'll have to decide in which direction to move. For example, training for a triathlon and Ashtanga six days a week exhausts you, and you have significant problems getting out of bed. Which endeavor do you dial back? How do you dial it back? There's no right answer and there's no final answer, rather it is the engagement with the question that is an important part of the practice. Those thresholds, when our routines break, are important inflection points. All I can hope to remind you is that a 30-minute practice --- sun salutations, standing poses, sit down, lie down (lie down 10 minutes!) --- this is unequivocally Ashtanga, too! +++ The Summer Membership Sale is upon us! Save yourself $400 on a year of unlimited yoga at Portland Ashtanga Yoga! It is $1,499 for one year of yoga! That is cash or check only --- the sale runs July 1 through July 15! +++ This Sunday: Chapter One of the Bhagavad Gita, 9:30-10 a.m. We’ll undertake a chapter (maybe two) each Sunday --- come and check it out! If you want to follow along, I’m using J. A. B. van Buitenen’s translation. Or bring your favorite own copy and we can compare! +++ David Swenson is set to visit Portland during an incredible seven sessions during the weekend of September 15-17. We’re again hosted by Yoga on Yamhill, and the event is currently more than half full. Sign up now if you have even the slightest interest, because it will fill up. +++ Okay, that's it for this June! We're set to baste this weekend --- I believe I saw 100 degrees for Saturday and Sunday? --- so please stay cool, and I hope to see you on your mat soon! best, jason  Bizarro, June 10, 2017. Morning Ashtanga practice is its own fight club, only the bruising tends to the upper arms and upper thighs.
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 My friend and handstand teacher Nicolo Kehrwald has released a book on handstands! Everything you wanted to know in order to do them! It is an incredible little book.
Tara and I wandered into his living room for private handstand practices seven or eight years ago --- our first 2-hour handstand session was mindblowing. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy --- Nicolo is able to talk about handbalancing as an art form and as a practice. Get it on Createspace or Amazon. Barb has practiced with me since summer 2007, when we first moved to Portland. Her handstand has come a long way since then!
She’s a mother of two and I can only confidently say she is over 40. She teaches at PSU and travels overseas frequently to teach classes on conflict resolution. However, when she’s in town she’s in class every damn day! In fact, she often shows up before 5:30, which is when I get to the studio. I had Barb perform this handstand at the end of her practice, so she wasn’t as sharp as normal. But she’s learned to kick to the wall and use her midsection to pull her feet from the wall. Finally, she’s also now able to use her hands and wrists to balance in this position. Barb practices her handstands in between navasana. For her, they’re fun and challenging. At this time we are not focused on moving off the wall --- in my opinion, at this time for Barb the risk/downside/exposure to injury is currently not worth the reward/upside/benefits. (More on the appropriateness, utility, and inclusion of handstands and splits later.)An obvious takeaway is that the the “perfect” performance of an asana, or asana sequence, is not a predictor or sign of yoga, as I consider Barb a beyond accomplished Ashtanga yogini. Often my job is to merely remind people: you are already doing it!  What is the opposite of "throwback"? I don't know. I posted an old photo (2006) the other day, but you can't live in the past.
So this one is from the other week. Ren assists me in upavishta konasana. The most difficult aspect is that he tends to jump, leap and otherwise stomp around on my back. He plays with the balls and cart, the plank in the foreground is for the handstand practice.  Nothing stays the same is the only constant. Yet the essence of what drove my interest in marichyasana D (and the other poses) hasn't changed --- that is, my interest in yoga --- but its expression certainly has!
The delightfully flexible and strong Rebecca Z. demonstrates a sequence she used to learn and practice taking her ankles in backbends.
As a lazy Ashtanga Mysore teacher, I hope to subtract my physical involvement from students’ practices. This is one progression of postures that I have used to help students work on the strength, flexibility, and awareness to grab their own ankles. That way I no longer have to hold them aloft while pulling in their arms, and then stand there, holding them, forever. Rebecca expressed a terrific range of motion and awareness when she started at Portland Ashtanga Yoga, and at this point she has practiced daily for many years. She spent some months on shalabasana as well as pulling herself up into viparita shalabasana in order to develop active spinal flexibility, strength, awareness, and connective tissue strength. At that point, she could drop back and pause the motion at almost any angle from the floor. A general note on the “stages” below: they are obviously an organic continuum and the boundaries between are not discrete. Essentially Rebecca practiced moving to each stage and holding it for at least 5 breaths, and she would repeat specific stages for weeks or months before moving to the next. Stage one: walk fingertips to touch feet. Stage two: curl hips forward to pull herself onto her fingertips. She would hold on her fingertips for 5 breaths. Stage 3 (she doesn’t really show this one): one hand --- fingertip. Other hand: one fingertip only (pointer finger). This stage is how she learned to free up one hand to reach in to take her ankle. Stage 4: Holding one ankle, she pulls back to the fingertips of the hand on the floor. She spent a long time at this stage, because she would focus so much on grabbing one ankle she would drift away from her legs and end up glued to the floor. Stage 5: Holding one ankle, other hand only pointer finger on the floor. Stage 6: Take both ankles. I’m not sure if she’s interested or not, but she could possibly start walking her hands up her shins, or even work on grabbing her shins without touching the floor. We have tried that before, and Rebecca reported it didn’t feel great. We watched this after I filmed it, and told Rebecca it looks way smoother than it ever had --- she displays a smoothness between stages due to pure repetition and comfort. The Primary Series Saturation starts this weekend! On the real, there is a very strong chance we will not work on grabbing our ankles in backbends. However, we will bring this patient, progressive, step-wise approach to any and all other postures! You’ll also get into the myths and philosophy that surround this practice. Finally, you can enroll in single sessions! $199 for the whole thing (11 hours), $40 per session (2 hours/ea), or $99 for the seminar (5 hours plus break). Though I could always "cheat" a straddle press from a high straddle, as out of tittibasana or supta kurmasana, I have always sucked at the full Stalder Press. Rather than starting from a (high) straddle, a good test of press strength is to start from a handstand, lower down, press back up. Boy, am I deficient (translate: weak).
Here Nikki is showing 3 Navasana variations that might be useful if your Navasana looks less like a “v” and more like a “u.” Perhaps your hamstrings lack the requisite length, and pull your pelvis posteriorly (say that 5x fast).
One expedient approach is to reduce the load on the quads by shortening the levers. As Nikki shows, a good first stage is more of a “w”: just hover the feet off the floor, legs together. The next option is to bring the shins parallel to the floor. Finally: full “boat.” There are a few more options only used in an improv class (i.e. not daily), such as straddle and split-boat (i.e. one leg up/one leg down), both of which are interesting variations. Also an obligatory caveat is that Nikki has practiced very consistently for several years and brings to the practice her own unique background, traits, and gifts; in other words your mileage may vary. Navasana is a real pivot point in Primary Series, as it is one of just three positions repeated more than once, and the only posture in Primary Series repeated more than once (surya namaskar and urdvha dhanurasana are the other two, and technically they are not in Primary Series). Prior to this point all the postures have been static; there’s one isometric hold in utthita hasta padangustasana (standing with one leg extended and held) — not coincidentally that standing pose is hugely impactful on navasana. Ashtanga is rare and unique among posture-based yoga, at least to my knowledge, in that after navasana it incorporates a host of dynamic movements (rolling), perhaps more on this point later. What is the takeaway? Find the navasana that you can sustain — and then sustain it, in sequence, with the other postures! The Primary Series Saturation starts next weekend! You can bring your navasana and test its seaworthiness, as well as ask a million other questions. You’ll also get into the myths and philosophy that surround this practice. More info here: http://www.portlandashtangayoga.com/events.html There a a ton of ways to move into Surya Namaskar A, and if you’ve practiced for a little while you’ve probably messed with many of them. Age, interest, energy, injury, and time all have great shaping pressures on the appropriate sun salutation.
The union of breath, movement, and gaze can really be refined and expressed through surya namaskar A, and I can think of few other postures + movements with greater immediate practice of mula and uddiyana bandha. There is also the fact that tail up, head down also begins the practice of sense withdrawal/pratyahara. One of my recent perspectives has been to emphasize more the idea of limbering and mobilizing, rather than stretching and therefore striving, and in my own practice I try to allow myself to move as a marionette, drawn by the strings of the breath, rather than immediately trying to smack my forehead to my shins. It’s also often a phenomenal practice in watching the comparative mind burble up. I think maybe I’ve logged a couple thousand sun salutations since 1998? My mind produces lots of helpful comparisons for each part of the sun salutation: how it felt last week, last year, when I was “young,” etc etc. I thought here I would show a few more ways to get into chaturanga dandasana. The half-pike press is a little fancy and does require a considerable inhale to maintain breath count. Personally, I never learned the dynamic explosion back to the bottom of chaturanga, but have since come around to appreciate the dynamism, especially as a heating prelude to other movement. Finally, I love the step-back through lunge, if only because after 9 million hours per week of carpool, it’s great to get into the front of the legs. Also, I’ll confess that as I’ve pursued other, much more demanding physical pursuits, often I simply don’t have the gas, or I’ve been injured, and simply don’t want to leap, jump, or press up into anything! Come get into your own sun salutation (and more) at the Primary Series 6-class series at Yoga Pearl. Enroll here: http://www.yogapearl.com/ashtanga-primary-series/ Also, come press/pike/lunge your way through sun salutations in Primary and Intermediate Series Saturations (Feb and April)! Here are a couple variations of Surya Namaskar. These 2 move from half-kneeling and kneeling.
I learned the second from Tim, who I believe received it from Desikachar some years back (could be wrong? Maybe Desikachar got it from Tim). They’re both great if your hamstring/back/calf/shoulders/wrists (any or all) are fucked, which may be the case if, say, you're an athletic human being in North America! I did the second variation for some months after exploding my heel bone in 2012; the child’s position (balasana) was essentially my downward dog because I couldn’t put any weight on one foot. The emphasis as always is on mobilizing, not stretching, and of course on entwining the breath with gaze, movement, and internal “sticking places” of awareness (tristana — ujjayi, vinyasa, drishti). Get into this kind of detail at a few upcoming events: a 6-class series on the Primary Series at Yoga Pearl, a great way to learn the appropriate Primary Series for you. I’m also doing both a Primary and Intermediate Series Saturations (Feb and April). Finally, if you’re new to Ashtanga, or simply want a refresher, you can join the February 2-week Intro to Ashtanga course! (February 13-24.) You’ll get specific 1-on-1 modifications, either easier --- OR harder! |
AuthorJason owns and directs Portland Ashtanga Yoga. Archives
February 2018
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