Week 1 4 August: Ashtanga Yoga

In comparison to Monday’s Hatha Yoga session, prior to my Ashtanga yoga practice with Dani, I felt it necessary to ask her to spend time working closely with me and observing that my various postures and breathing were correctly undertaken, that we warm up and cool down throughly. I had not entirely connected with each movement deeply in Monday’s Hatha and on Tuesday, my body had been in pain and less mobile contrary to my expectations. Most likely due to discovery and stretching of new cells yet unfettered (apart from once in Lijiang 2011 during an intensive blind school massage session.)

Today was another day of feeling respect and awe at a person and their bodily commitment and capacities to contort, balance and temper their physical and mental self into various incredulous postures that sometimes soothed and mostly provoked challenge in the form of breathing, strain and at degrees of doubt as to how far my joints and limbs could go.

We practiced the standard primary sequence that entailed various forward, backward, seated and extended angled postures, lifts, bends and jumps. At one point I succeeded on wedging my foot in my perineum on request and moreover, my finest accomplishment was a prolonged unassisted standing on my head (x seconds), despite a perverse fear of heights….or rather falling.

nb to self -pigeon feet, squaring hips, breathing.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Forward Sessions, the first session is conveniently a progression of Ashtanga with Dani and I have ideas as to how a more open development of aspects of todays cycles and rhythms may play out in the gallery….