A crown ratio of 1.1.1.1. in Nāḍī Śodhana
Utilising:
– Combining progressive and transitional Ratios
– Using a Vinyāsa Krama with both steps up to a crown and down
– The number of breaths totalling between 36 and 48
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Yoga Practice Planning and Theory Questions – Collected & Collated
Śītalī, Anuloma Ujjāyī and Nāḍī Śodhana
Utilising:
– Combining progressive and transitional Ratios
– Using a Vinyāsa Krama with both steps up to a crown and down
– The number of breaths totalling between 36 and 48
To Download or View this Question as a PDF Study Sheet
Yoga Practice Planning and Theory Questions – Collected & Collated
The Vinyāsa Krama or planning steps in the practice will be for a total of 60 working breaths.
– It will be based mainly around Āsana, perhaps with Mudrā and/or Prāṇāyāma.
– In this instance, the practice will not include any sitting Dhyāna.
– In the planning structure, any link Āsana such as Samasthiti, Śavāsana, Vajrāsana, do not count in the breath tally.
– State the intended direction and outcome of the practice in terms of the goal or goals.
– Indicate the primary or crown you are choosing to build the practice around.
– Justify your choice of supporting or compensatory Āsana within the scheme.
To Download or View this Question as a PDF Study Sheet
Yoga Practice Planning and Theory Questions – Collected & Collated
The Vinyāsa Krama or planning steps in the practice will be for a total of 60 working breaths.
– It will be based mainly around Āsana, perhaps with Mudrā and/or Prāṇāyāma.
– In this instance, the practice will not include any sitting Dhyāna.
– In the planning structure, any link Āsana such as Samasthiti, Śavāsana, Vajrāsana, do not count in the breath tally.
– State the intended direction and outcome of the practice in terms of the goal or goals.
– Indicate the primary or crown you are choosing to build the practice around.
– Justify your choice of supporting or compensatory Āsana within the scheme.
To Download or View this Question as a PDF Study Sheet
Yoga Practice Planning and Theory Questions – Collected & Collated
I do feel that verses ten and eleven in Chapter Two of the Yoga Sūtra offer a directional shift as an inspiration for undertaking the transitional commitment from Kriyā Yoga towards Aṣṭāṅga Yoga.
“These (Kleśa) are subtle and are
overcome by going back to their origin.”
Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 10“This fluctuation
(the rise and fall in their perpetual potency to ‘take over’)
is overcome by meditation.”
Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 11
For me, these two verses are an essential reflection in the transition from the integration of Bāhya Sādhana, towards the cultivation of Antar Sādhana. Furthermore, when considering this deepening of our Sādhana from Bāhya towards Antar, these verses also re-mind me of the simple yet heartfelt teaching inherent in Chapter One.
A fundamental facet in the principles of Āsana, Mudrā and Prāṇāyāma practice, in the teachings of Krishnamacharya through Desikachar, is the ordering of Āsana according to the acronym SLIBSS.
It is the practice arrangement or Vinyāsa Krama in the following order:
This is referred to in Religiousness in Yoga page 23-27.
It is the foundational structure on which all the other variants of Āsana, Mudrā and Prāṇāyāma practice arise from or are goals towards.
I feel Krishnamacharya’s accomplishments should not be defined just by his more well known characterisations, such as his remarkable philosophical background being applied to contextualising traditional Indian texts from within a Yoga viewpoint, or his unique access to Haṭha teachings and texts and innovating from these resources when choreographing modern postural Āsana synthesises for children and young adults.
“All of Krishnamacharya’s and Desikachar’s
life work focused on the training of students,
some of whom then went on to become teachers.”
However, what he is less well known for is his work with individual students, probably because it happened behind closed doors and students rarely had cause to speak about it to others. Nor would they have reason to want to teach it to others as it had been taught to them, as it was given at a particular moment in time, within a unique situation, with a specific purpose and within a private, rather than a public group setting.
Session 4 – Self Planning & Self Practice
This was a five day mid-afternoon Prāṇāyāma only planning and practice project for year Four students within a four year Practitioner Training Programme.
The format was:
The Bhāvana practice proposition and Prāṇāyāma practice techniques that set each afternoons focus, technique and crown ratio are shown below.
One important facet I experienced within the teaching process of Krishnamacharya and Desikachar was an intensive apprenticeship into the skills of being able to design individual practices for a range of possibilities, as well as for a variety of situations and stages within a student’s learning interests, needs and practice potentials.
Within this was the key premise of designing an individualised developmental practice for all aspects of practice, rather than just the more well-known notions of therapeutic adaptations, or the homogenous sequencings, that are more commonly seen as representative of Krishnamacharya’s teaching within modern Yoga approaches.
Accordingly, this meant that I spent a lot of time over the years in my lessons with Desikachar learning how to plan practices that incorporated a wide variety of Āsana, Mudrā and Prāṇāyāma techniques, initially as goal in themselves, ere to how these schematics could be applied within a students developmental Yoga journey.
For example in terms of Āsana
Session 4 – Self Planning & Self Practice
This was a five day mid-afternoon Prāṇāyāma only planning and practice project for year Two students within a Four year Practitioner Training Programme.
The format was:
The Bhāvana practice proposition and Prāṇāyāma practice techniques that set each afternoons focus, technique and crown ratio are shown below.
Session 1 – Self Planning & Self Practice
This was a six day pre-breakfast planning and practice project for year three students within a four year Practitioner Training Programme.
The format was:
There are some forms within the postural resources developed by Krishnamacharya that can function as either an Āsana or as a Mudrā, depending on how they are approached and utilised. This choice of direction and outcome can be realised according to the specific Bhāvana associated with the intention of the practitioner and the style of performance.
This distinction in characteristics can be generalised around whether the practitioner focuses on a dynamic form with the developmental priority around the variations of and in the posture, or on a static form with the focus on the developmental priority on the lengthening and refinement of the breath.
In other words, as to whether the focus is on the development of the various Vinyāsa Krama within the dynamic form through a specific competence within a number of physical variations. Or, the focus is on the development within the static form, of a specific competence within a number of respiratory ratios.
– From the Taittirīya Upaniṣad Chapter 4 verses 25-27 in the Mahānārāyaṇaya Upaniṣad
An offering for this day from my personal library of recordings from my studies with TKV Desikachar.
To Listen or Download the Nārāyaṇa Sūktam as an MP3 Sound File
To Download the Chant Sheet with Romanised Saṃskṛta and Chant Notations
Vīrabhadrāsana or warrior pose is an Āsana where the postural focus at the level of Annamaya or the structural aspect, involves the skill of holding seemingly opposite points of attention at the same time.
Feet –
Front Leg Focus on Toes Down
Rear Leg Focus on Heel Down
For example, if we start by considering the attention on the feet using the above illustration, the front left foot focus is on the rooting of toes, whereas the focus on the rear right foot is on the rooting of the heel.
Thus, here we have an example of a Pratikriyā Bhāvana, or opposite action conception, where we need to direct our attention with a contrasting dynamic in two places simultaneously. In this example on both the front left or rear right foot at the same time, but each with different points of attention.
However, even without outer obstacles,
we can encounter inner feelings that arise
and manifest as if obstacles to that re-turning.
Here it might be helpful to reflect
on how to cultivate the four pillars of
Maitrī, Karuṇā, Muditā and Upekṣā and
the role they can have in helping to transform
the unhelpful aspects of these inner feelings.
“Bhāvana is a beneficial attitude
that is consciously cultivated
despite tendencies to the contrary”
– T Krishnamacharya commentary on
Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verse 33
With the spirit of Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verse 33 in mind,
the cultivation of the four pillars is an inner practice
that can support a stepping, rather than stymieing,
onto our practice mat or seat through:
This particular full moon day is known as Guru Pūrṇimā. On this day the ongoing transmission from teacher to student is especially honoured. In previous years I have offered posts with chants honouring the lineage of teachers.
This year I would like to focus on the significance of the full moon within this day by offering a chant known as the Candra Namaskṛtya Mantra.
oṣadhayaḥ saṃvadante somena saha rājñā ‖
– Taittirīya Saṃhitā 4.2.6
The pursuit of ‘Yoga bliss’ can be so demanding or intense that it can drive us as students to search for it through moving experientially from one Yoga seminar, workshop or retreat, or live or online Yoga class, or the latest Yoga hybrid or crossover style, to another.
The primary purpose for Āsana is to take us towards Yoga,
rather than just taking us towards more and more Āsana.
One irony from this pursuit is that any experience will not be exactly the same next time we reach for it, once we have been through that ‘first time taste’. This is the nature of Avidyā and its illusory mimicry, as lived through its child Rāga.
“Attraction is the consequence of happiness.”
– Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 7
Know your breath and
its unique characteristics within Āsana
and you will have an initial template
for working with your breath in Prāṇāyāma.
Modern Postural Yoga talks a lot about individual patterning from our genetic past, along with upbringing and lifestyle conditioning, determining what body patterns we inherently carry from life to death. From this, how we need to consider what body we bring to Āsana practice and how we need to be intelligent in our choice of Āsana for our body and mind and the developmental direction of our body in Āsana practice.
Less talked about is that exactly the same can be said for our breath and the individual patterning from our genetic past, along with upbringing and lifestyle conditioning, determining what breathing patterns we inherently carry from life to death. From this, we also need to consider what breath we bring to Āsana practice and how we need to be intelligent in our choice of breathing patterns in Āsana for our body and mind and the developmental direction of our breath in Āsana practice.
When studying the many aspects of Āsana, my teacher taught me not just the final form of the Āsana, but also that there was a learning around the context and especially the Vinyāsa Krama of each Āsana and the ‘family’ to which they belonged.
For example when studying Āsana such as Bakāsana, I was taught that there are certain protective and selective criteria that need to be considered as part of both the dynamic of the form and the prerequisite steps. These also help in determining the readiness of the practitioner to engage in the dynamic that Āsana, such as this one, sit within.
These considerations include a specific Vinyāsa Krama or steps into and out of the Āsana. These steps in themselves offer a sort of check list to determine if the student is adequately prepared and thus ready to engage in the process of which the final form is but a still frame within a movie.
The teachings that TKV Desikachar received from T Krishnamacharya around Yoga practice and practice theory were far more extensive than is often presumed from the contemporary perception of Krishnamacharya’s Yoga legacy. These perceptions were mostly formed from either, the more well publicised approaches to Āsana by some of Krishnamacharya’s early students, or the popularised generic view of Viniyoga as a stylistic application of Āsana, found primarily within the therapeutic adaptive Yoga field or commingled breath and movement group Yoga classes.
By way of contrast my own experiences studying with Desikachar, developed over some thirty ongoing visits to Madras over more than two decades to study privately with him, may offer a different insight into the practice possibilities that I became increasingly exposed to. However as with many, even these days, being introduced to the teachings of Krishnamacharya still meant that Āsana was the starting point for our exploration into what is Yoga. In other words the ‘on the practice mat’ aspects of Bāhya Aṅga Sādhana.
