Practice and Detachment

So- we covered sutras 1.4 -1.11 very quicky tonight :

1.1 Now, yoga
1.2 yoga is the means by which we join our mind in one place.
1.3 When yoga happens, the seer dwells in the splendor of our true nature
1.4 Other times, we are identified with the fluctuations.
1.5 there are five kinds of fluctuations you may know about them or you may not; they may be ahrmful or they may not.
1.6 the five flucationsa re correct perception, inoccrect percetion, conceptualization, sleep and memory.
1.7-11.11Then there is a discussion about each type of vritti.

And then he begins to list ways that we can still the fluctuations of the mind, starting with practice and detachment which is sutra 1.12 and where we focused our attention tonight. We worked on strong actions in the 5:30 class which took us through some standing poses into an introduction to bakasana. I made lots of technical adjustments and I really saw some improvement as we went along.

We had a few people missing in Beginning Yoga tonight but they were all accounted for and so we are still looking good on the Beginning Series Challenge.

It was kind of funny to work on the qualities of practice and detachment tonight. I did a strong practice myself before class where I worked on Maricyasana D. I was completely attached to working on the clasp. I actually got it quite well sitting on two blankets and by the end of the practice I was able to do it solidly sitting on one blanket. So, unpropped is another story. (There's the detachment part.) But the way the blankets have worked for me in the other maricyasana poses is that first the clasps came with the extra height and then shortly thereafter I could do them unpropped. One thing that was obvious to me is how little I actually tried to work on this pose in the past. I had totally ignored it and wrote it off. After Leanne's little pep talk post, I had some confidence that I should at least give it a good go.

So before pracitce, I did take a fascianting foray into reasearching the pose and where it first is presented in the LOY sequences. (This is some advice that Mary Obendorfer and Eddie Marks, two of Anne's teachers gave us at a weekend workshop. When you want to learn about a pose, find where it is first presented in the LOY sequnces and then see what came before it and that will tell you lots.) And it did. Maricyasana IV (Maricyasana D, to you Ashtangi's) is well into Course Two- all kinds of poses preceed it in the Iyengar School that do not preceeed it in the Ashtanga sequence. Like all of the variations of lotus- gorakshsasnaa, vatayanasana, yoga mudrasana, matsyasana, simhasana, badha padmasana, kukkutasana, etc. which tell you how important lotus is to the pose and that being able to move in lotus is crucial to Maricyasana IV.

In fact, with this standard, where the pose is place in the Ashtanga sequence is not in anyway adequate preparation. So maybe the Indian practioner for whom lotus is no big deal is prepared for Maricyasana D by the time they get to it in the Primary Series, but it comes as no surpise to me why it presents the stumbling block it does to the average, tight -hipped American.

Anyway- I am enjoying fousing on this nemesis pose and diving into the poses that inform it. So exciting to have a challenge and a learning opportunity all wrapped up in one. Stay tuned because how it always works is the learning opporuntity and practice challenge soon become the teaching opportunity.