Abhitatas Class September 24, 2014 9:30-11:30 am shared by Janet McLeod This was a very fine class where we worked on Tadasana, Adho Mukha Svanasana, Sirsasana, Adho Mukha Vrksasana, Salamba Sarvangasana and Savasana in detail. She began the class by explaining the different parts of the feet and we explored how we carried weight differently in quite fine detail comparing one foot with the other and looking at each individual foot. Although we were doing Tadasana, we moved arms into Urdhva Hastasana to see how the weight distribution on the feet changed. To take the arms up we first bent the elbows and emphasized the lift of the arms upwards rather than pushing them strongly forwards to maintain the balance on the feet. From Tadasana we moved into Uttanasana and using the pressure of the hands on the floor fine tuned the connection between the feet and the floor and tried to maintain it as we came back to Tadasana. She asked us to be aware of how the legs were working and how the sides of the body were extending making the point that when the foundational aspect of the pose is incorrect it registers up into the rest of the body. In Adho Mukha Svanasana a lot of time was spent on the positioning of the hands, first resting the weight on the wrist only and balancing the inner and outer. Then the whole hand was activated observing the effect on arms, shoulders, sides of the trunk and our capacity to cut the top thigh back. She said that Guruji used to say that when we place our palms on the floor for Adho Mukha Svanasana we do it like the buffalo drops his dung on the road - no awareness - she was laughing. Sirsasana - in this pose we began with Ardha Sirsasana and worked on strong lift from forearms. Then we had to kick up with right leg, down with right leg; then left in the same way. We did this several times exploring the base of the pose; the length and firmness of the outer wrist; rolling the outer elbows towards the inner. We watched how raising and lowering the legs negatively impacted the body - pelvis tilted; sides of body uneven; shoulders; neck. We changed the interlock of the fingers and observed how things changed. She said not to press the tips of the thumbs together as this made the pose aggressive. Adho Mukha Vrksasana - much of the same detail but added the firmness of the elbows when kicking up. Salamba Sarvangasana - moving into Halasana and Eka Pada and how the movement of one leg affects the whole pose. Savasana with a tightly rolled sticky mat supporting the spine vertically with a pillow for the head. It took quite a while to get into the pose symmetrically beginning with the feet and legs in Tadasana; then about 10 minutes of Savasana. The above is information that we all know but with her concentrated approach it was a challenging and internal class. Points: - when you receive the knowledge it is objective and you have to make it subjective or first you perceive and then conceive the asana. - although the distortions are small consider the impact on the body with daily practice. I really enjoyed this class; so foundational and so elegant and so telling; how I dont always put what I know into practice - I have quite a bit of conceiving to do.!!!
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:53:23 +0000