Practice, practice, practice

In the wake of yesterday's interview with Guy (for the May issue of Living Mysore Magazine, I am grasping for some firm ground. The conclusion?

No too tight, not too loose.

Obsess and don't obsess. Find the middle ground.

What keeps speaking to me is this question, "why are we doing this yoga?" The answer keeps coming as "to transform".

Example. My body is physically changing. It is adapting to the new challenges of my practice, it is getting stronger, lighter, and the shape is slowly shifting.

Example. My mind is changing. Thinking of the physical aspects of practice, there is no one day that I am performing. I am not practicing and practicing these postures so that one day I can show them off. I can't just fast so that the next day I "feel light" and then can do a certain posture. The choices I make for what I put into my body are long-term habit changes. Every day is the performance, everyday is the practice. Everything has to change.

Example. But why does it have to change? Am I obsessing over asana? Kind of, but not really. I am obsessing over cultivating mindfulness in my thoughts and actions. It is watching myself as I move through the world the entire 22 hours until the next asana session. The whole day is "doing yoga".

On this entire physical/mental shift fostered by the asana practice, it is interesting how one would think that "oh everything is perfect and now I will just work on this one thing", when actually this one thing effects everything else. I remember when I did this workshop with this Ayurvedic teacher that was all about Mind Body Centering and she was talking about how when you get an organ removed, that sickness and pain that was there is still there because the issue was never solved. How could it still linger even when the physical organ was gone? It is simple. Everything in the body is connected to everything else. When an organ is removed, the body doesn't think, "okay, the right kidney is gone, oh well." In this same way, getting a new posture changes your entire practice and then changes your entire life. Everything is different, everything is connected.

Excited about this Danny Paradise workshop coming up at Om Factory next week. It is always interesting to hear different points of view. Also hyped about Mysore, so I dug up this info to inspire!

Ashtanga Yoga in Mysore, India
General Mysore Info:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At_JswBti28
http://www.livingmysore.com/


Ajay



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWuquyM5VXg
http://www.sthalam8.com/index.php?sub_page=ajay

Sheshadari



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=574KxzmIH3E
http://mandala.ashtanga.org/index.php/sheshadri

BNS Iyengar



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClWOwVHvLQU
http://ashtanga.org/lineage/bns_iyengar.shtml

Sharath/Guruji/Saraswati



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3-8Te30H6k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKQw0-IlJiY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3mzQ83Gk8A
http://www.ayri.org/

Another keyword search: which leg first in krounchasana?

That one is easy! Jump through from downdog with the right leg bent and left leg up like in triangmukha eka pada paschimottanasana. Then do a vinyasa and jump through with the left leg bent and right leg up. Pretty much its always right leg first. There are a few exceptions though. For instance, you twist to the left side first in pasasana. Why does it say to twist to the right first in David Swenson's book? *Shrug*

yoga therapy; Self Improvement;