The Practice

Last night I taught “The Practice” at the Yoga Center. The practice is normally 3 hours and is different than a class and a workshop in that it is not led; it is a practice where the student and the teacher all practice together. The teacher gives less ques and calls out the poses. I really enjoying going to the practice because I find it really effective, by the end of three hours I can get myself into some really incredible poses and I leave feeling great and feel like I learned so much about asana, philosophy, and about myself. I have always loved being a student of the practice and it is very exciting to have taught one. The practice at the yoga center was only 2 hours, but two hours of fullness and heart! There were 9 students, at the beginning of class one of the students an older man said he would have to leave an hour early. I said that was just fine (in my head I thought maybe he was disappointed that I was subbing and was trying to get out of it). The whole class the students were laughing, we even told some jokes. The end of the class came and the man never left after I said “I thought you needed to leave early” and he responded saying “he was having too much fun”. How awesome!


Theme: having courage to face our demons. I told a very quick summary of the Ramayana, about how Ram a human reincarnation of Vishnu was able to defeat Ravana a ten headed demon whom Brahma had granted immortality from everything except from human. In the end Ram kills Ravana by stabbing his navel. This story inspired us to fight on demons off our matt and our mat with all our human strength. I also read a wonderful quote by Abdi Assadi “You must have the courage to see into what is dark in your being in order to know what needs to be transformed.”

Main universal principle of alignment focus: inner/expanding spiral and outer/contracting spiral.

(I wanted to talk about how these principles can be applies to more than just our body, how our inner spiral is us looking into the dark, having the courage to look at our life and our habits and see what is not serving us. The inner spiral is Ram searching the earth for Ravana. It is the expanding spiral so it is looking at a lot of information, kind of like zooming out to look at a map so you can see a lot of land. And then the contracting spiral is like us “zooming in” to one point that needs to be transformed. The contracting spiral is Ram killing Ravana. I ended up not talking about this though because I didn’t think would uplift the students in the room)

The Practice:
High runner lunge
Half Hanumanasana
Vasisthasana
ardha chandrasana stretch
AMS-> jump butt to wall
Surya A 5x
Vira 2-> rev. vira
Mod parsvak-> vira 2-> rev. vira
Parsvak-> rev. vira
Ardha chandrasana-> vira 2->clasp->fold to inside of leg
Parsvak bound
anjaneyasana forearms down-> ½hanumanasana
titibasana prep
parsvotanasana w/ block (ankle loop**love this)
Variation of malasana + visvamitrasana
navasana
Mod. Eka Pada Koundiyanasana II 2x
Balance knee up isometric work-> figure 4
AMV at wall (working on pull one leg leg toward belly, and extending out through both heels)
AMV in middle of room (great success)
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana
Hanumanasana
Compass pose-> astavakrasana
mod. Visvamitrasana
Visvamitrasana
eka pada koundiyanasana II-> astavakrasana-> eka pada kouniyanasana II
Fishy bridge
Janusirsasana
Sputa femur bone back
Shavasana