Yoga Practice Reflection – Sping 2018

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a practice review. I am not much inclined to doing so. I am in a period of relative silence, not inclined to talking too much (especially if not asked to). So this is mostly note-taking for myself.

This is what my current practice looks like this (this is a short-hand anotation that presumes familiarity with this style of practice):

It’s built around the same skeleten is has been for ~3 years. A couple of new ideas were introduced last year when I met with Paul face-to-face. It has been through continuous unfolding.

Last year was a hectic year and felt very disruptful to my practice: my trip to Hawaii, my yearly allergy, Iulia injuring herself, my attempt to be involved in Ceptr/Holochain … and other “life happenings”. Whenin fall, I felt settled into practice I felt like I had a long journey of recovery ahead of me. I chose to skip my yearly visit to Israel to meet my teachers, preferring to enter a prolonged period of undisturbed practice. Sometime in early January I felt that I “caught up with myself” – that I reconnected with an experience of stable containment and vitality.

Gradually I felt I was able to inhabit a full practice (as described above) and it too has been continuously unfolding. In the initial phase (first half of winter) I felt a return to presence-in-body. Then I felt a return to a beath-development cycle. When I felt vitality returning I re-introduced back-bends. I then gradually extended seated forward bends to include stays in maha-mudra (initially staying for 2 breaths, then 4) until maha-mudra became its own place.

The last piece added to the puzzle was the seated-twist. Though I already had a relationship with it last year, I felt that I did not have the vitality to hold it, that it drained me. When I finally felt welcome to bring it in, the meeting was soft and welcoming.

During this time I also did a 1-on-1 training with Paul around chanting. I’ve been familiar with chanting from my years of training with Paul, but I never studied it officially. Now I have, and I feel drawn in. I feel softness and spaciousness at the notion of softening my grip on my physical body and acquainting myself with my vibrational body. In chanting Paul has invited me to focus less on the meaning of the words and more on an experience of sustained vibration generated through subtle aspects of sounded-sanskrit.

The practice is now about two hours long. It occupies the first part of my day (unless life diverts my attention elsewhere).

Pranayama

When I met Paul 14 months ago I received 4 practice variations:

1. 10.0.10.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   12.0.12.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   15.0.15.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   8.0.8.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   4.0.4.0	x4br	ujjayi

2. 10.0.10.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   12.0.12.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   12.4.12.4	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   8.0.8.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   4.0.4.0	x4br	ujjayi

3. 8.0.12.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   12.0.12.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   12.4.12.4	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   8.0.8.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   4.0.4.0	x4br	ujjayi

4. 12.0.12.0	x16br	pratiloma ujjayi
   6.0.6.0	x8br	pratiloma ujjayi
   4.0.4.0	x4br	ujjayi

I explored almost the entire set last winter/early spring. After settling back into practice I started over. I started with variant 3 and then moved to variant 2. By mid-January I felt that I was ready to move onto variant 1, but then experienced blockage coming and going mostly in my right nostril. I was able to hold variant 2, but not to move on. I feel I’ve learned something about my blocked nasal passages (its subtle and I may try to go into more detail in a separate post). I am now transitioning to variant 1. It is my default practice, though on days where I feel blocked, I may still revert to variant 2.

I feel that I have an increased breathing capacity (that I could softly transition also to variant 4), but that the nasal blockage is holding me back.