Addressing Your Comments on Warmups....

So, I took my kids to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tonight (if you haven't seen it, you have to go, if only just to see what they've done with the Indian actor, Deep Roy as all 165 of the Oompa Loompas) and came home to a bunch of really delightful comments regarding "warming up" before practicing. Since there were a few, I figured I would address them here in a new post. (Hi IVDP, btw...hadn't seen you around "here" in the past day or so....good to "see" you again!)

First, I want to say that I really enjoyed that someone pointed out that my "warmup" is something worth thinking about letting go of. After all, Ashtanga is NOT a performance. Right? Right? Right! It is a practice.

But the reality is, in my rather unenlightened Western hemisphere, Type-A mind, I can't help but think about what I look like to my teacher....and I would rather not have my teacher look at me and think, "Oh Geeeez...look at Lauren today....How am I going to get her into Marichi D if she can't even take Ardha Baddha Padmotannasana?" OK, I know that is just me projecting - I am sure that my teachers view me with a bit more equanimity and a bit less self-interest than that! Or I hope they do! I know I do, with regard to my students....

But still...it feels good to "get" the poses and not have to struggle with them, and warming up definitely addresses that...Now, I do realize, as was pointed out, that Surya A and B were intended to warm up the body sufficiently to practice the rest of whatever it is you are practicing. However, where are the twists in Surya A and B? Where are the hip openers (Warrior I just doesnt' cut it...)? By the time I am done with my five-and-five, I am sweating like it's my job, but I still can't take Ardha Baddha Padmotannasana unless I spend about 10 breaths standing there in a pretty inadequate half-lotus before pulling my foot high enough to get a good bind. By the time I fold over, I've already been there for more than a minute....

And here is the rub: it never changes. It never has. Even when I practiced Bikram - and you do a variation on this pose in Bikram - every time I went to take the standing half lotus pose, it was like my hips had never heard of it before. OK, maybe I am exagerrating. It IS getting better. Very slowly. But it is really frustrating to me that day after day - six days a week except for moonday weeks - I end my practice in a really nice, parallel-thighs lotus, and yet the next morning I come to the mat feeling as if I had never taken lotus before in my entire life.

So, as one would expect, warming up does tend to make things smoother for me at the outset...and then I know if I have a "good" Ardha Baddha Padmotannasana, I will then have an even better Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimotannasana. And then all of my Marichis will be easier.

LOL...I know, I know...I hear myself...it is all very "attached to results". I get it. But how can we not be "attached to results" when the Ashtanga system requires that we "accomplish" certain things before moving on to the next thing? Oooo, ooooo, I am raising my hand...I know the answer, even as I ask the question. It is not "supposed" to matter what pose we are working on - wherever we practice, we are supposed to be practicing to our own personal edge. So maybe that edge is soemwhere in the Primary Series. Maybe that edge is in Fifth. But it isn't supposed to matter -by practicing, we get the benefits, if we are open to the benefits.

And yet it does matter, doesn't it....

OK, so all of that being said, I cannot begin to tell you how awesome my hips feel after I take Supported Reclining Bound Angle Pose (Salamba Supta Baddha Konasana) with a strap around my waist and ankles and ablock under my spine and just hang out there watching TV.

And now, I am going to tempt all of you tight psoas/tight quads people with a really delicious R&D (research and development) pose to work on at home (certainly not at the shala!). It's basically a variation on "Tiptoe Fish", which I am sure doesn't even EXIST as far as Ashtanga is concerned, but it sure will do wonders for your Urdhva Dhanurasana:

You lie down with a block set down on the skinny side and running vertically down your spine. Then one at a time, you bend your knees, and then one at a time, you tuck your toes under. Then you slowly lower your knees to the floor and reach your arms up overhead in prayer to touch the floor behind you. Try to bring your thighs to touch. YUM. If I ever find a photo of this I will link to it.

YC