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Blog article: Correct Vinyasa: It's Really, Really F*cking Hard
I’ve just recorded an MP3 of the Ashtanga Primary Series, set to the beat of a drum. The drum provides a measure for each breath: four seconds for the inhalation, four seconds for the exhalation.
I made this recording as an experiment. My teacher, Sharath Jois, says when we practice the breath, it should be even; inhalations and exhalations should be the same duration and intensity. In order to experience even breaths throughout the practice, I recorded Ashtanga’s traditional vinyasa count along to the drum. And, finally, after practicing along with the recording, here’s what I have learned: It’s really, really fucking hard.
The drum revealed that I lengthen some breaths and shorten others, I take extra breaths getting in and out of poses, and the vinyasa count is, in parts, almost impossible to match. I can’t do the whole Primary Series along the with the correct vinyasa count if the breaths are even. And I’m not referring to just the notoriously difficult poses and transitions, like Marichyasana D, or Supta Kurmasana; Utthita Hasta Padangustasana nearly killed me.
Does this mean that I’m doing the practice wrong?
When you think about your Ashtanga practice, what is the first word that appears in your mind?
Blog article: My Sadhana Is Taking Over My Life
Each week, from Sunday to Friday, I get up at 3 am to do a two-hour long asana practice before going in to work.
Sometimes I’m so tired, later in the day, that I’ll actually fall asleep mid-conversation. To get enough sleep at night, I have to go to bed one hour later…than my 18-month-old son. When people hear about my schedule, they look at me like I’m crazy.
And maybe they’re right. I’m freely choosing to do something that limits my freedom. Why?
Because it’s my sadhana.
Media: Elephant Journal DVD Review
Perhaps you have heard that in yoga, we ground to become light, we use our muscles to become effortless, and according to David Robson, a level-2 authorized Ashtanga yoga teacher, we can learn to float in vinyasa by creating a perfect union between breath and movement.
In this DVD, Learn to Float, David provides clearly guided instructions and detailed techniques geared toward helping us experience grace and weightlessness. He focuses primarily on Surya Namaskara A and B and covers them in three parts: Teaching, Technique and Practice.
"The beauty of the practice is that, inside of the structure of it, there is still room for interpretation." (David Robson, Co-Owner and Director of Ashtanga Yoga Centre of Toronto)
To be honest, it makes little sense to hear David Robson, co-owner and director of the Ashtanga Yoga Centre of Toronto, talk about struggling with focus. He wakes up at 3am each morning in order to do a few hours of asana practice before he heads out for his teaching day which begins at 6am. But then, it's often the people who have a measure of focus that know how disconcerting it is to work without it.
After completing a degree in Comparative Religion, David Robson made his first trip to Mysore in 2002, where he initiated studies with his teacher Sharath Rangaswamy. Since then he has returned annually to deepen and enrich his practice and teaching. In 2008 David was Authorized to teach Ashtanga by the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute of Mysore, India.
I first saw David Robson speak at Yoga Festival Toronto, in a workshop he provocatively titled, Dogma and Discipline. In our hour-and-a-half workshop, David put about thirty practitioners through their paces, slowly and deliberately teaching a sun salutation, followed by standing poses from Ashtanga's first series. Words like regulation, prescription, numerical breathing, dharana, and drsti filled the air; sibilant, measured and consistent as the clock's tick on the back wall of the studio...