Mountain Peak to Supta K

I climbed the ashtanga mountain and alighted at the peak of Supta K. Or Supta Kurmasana to be exact, which is translated Reclining Tortoise Pose. Your supposed to feel reclined and relaxed, kinda like Kino looks in this picture. Not quite for me just yet as it's still a work in progress! But I love working towards this awesome pose. As it's one of the postures considered the peak in the ashtanga primary series. And just looking at it you can see why. Legs behind the head ~ oh ya! Who wouldv'e thunk it. But sometimes when I'm good and warmed up in my Mysore class ~ many moons ago now, ha! ~ I could get my fingers to clasp on my back and my feet to cross in front of my head all by meself. Thank you very much. Haven't perfected the feet cross OVER my head yet. But it's the journey that counts. The other fun thing about it too is that this is NOT the end of the challenge. Oh, you thought we were peaked, eh! Not yet, my friend. There's still the exit out. Which requires great bhanda, torso, abdominal lift control and balance to unravel oneself, place hands on floor, lift up, up, UP into tittibasana, then lift up, up, UP, some more ~ oh you still thought this was over eh, uh, uh! ~ to bring feet around to bakasana and ~ pièce de résistance ~ jump back to chataranga! Et voila! lol! But I digress ...

Peak to Supta K Class

I took this online ashtanga class with a great ashtanga teacher, Jodi Blumstein, all the way from Santa Monica, California in my very own living room with an amazing online studio called www.yogaglo.com. Ah, the marvels of technology!

I decided on this class as it was a short-n-sweet primary, stopping at my fav pose that has all the challenging binds, flexibility and hand balancing a girl who wanted to excel in gymnastics but failed abominably could ever want, without the dread factor of a full slog of primary, which I wasn't in the mood for. This was the ticket. And I loved it. We had a lovely shortened sun sal A & B then did just the fundamental standing postures up to parshvottanasana (when you go beyond primary you only do the basic standing postures). Then we did just the right amount of seated postures leading up to Supta Kurmasana skipping some of them. She wisely chose the one's that would limber us in the right places for supta though. Which was great. I made sure to do almost all the vinyasa's between sides whereas they just picked up between sides, as I wanted to keep the heat in my body for the peak K posture which is KEY. Though I fudged a wee bit just to keep my wrists safe. As it was, I was warm and sweaty but not as warm and sweaty as in my Mysore class. So what with that, and a lack of practice, shoddy me, I wasn't able to do my famous finger wrap and feet wriggle-n-shimmy-cross-over (see Daylene's first version of Supta K ~ NOT her second, lol! ~ as that's mine when I'm warm and ready in Mysore class, not bad eh). Oh well, it was definitely still satisfying to have gotten there almost full on. 

And I had a nice practice with the exit too. Lift, lift, lift and got those feet back into a sad little bakasana before a flop down and shimmy back to chatarunga. Haha! The exit needs ALOT of work still. It's very challenging because you need ALOT of lift in your torso in order to land you knees properly positioned on the forearms to be able to jump back (see again Daylene's knee position high up on her forearms and the lift she did in her torso in order for that to happen). The thing is, it's really easy to position your knees properly in bakasana if you're just doing it straight from the floor, but NOT when you're coming from tittibasana which is that straight leg position you get into before moving your legs back into bakasana. Otherwise your knees are too off the sides of the forearms which makes it impossible to attempt the jump back at all. So you flop off every time. Lift is imperative here and cannot be faked. That's why I love this posture because there's no impostering. You gotta work that lift. So it's great for practice. Lol!

... so practice lift and all is coming.

Cathe, Kino and Travis!

The dynamic trio! ... I'm so proud of myself as I just did 3 workouts in a row since I've been back at work starting this past Monday, with my awesome go to trainers. I decided to print out a workout schedule and try really hard to focus and stick to it. I find that planning, printing and having my schedule in front of me at my desk is really helping me with my motivation and focus. I was finding that in my heart I want to do it. The heart drive is there BUT my physical, psychological motivation was lagging behind once the evening came around. This way, seeing my planned schedule and also knowing my days off is really helping me so far. But the true test is time over tension and consistency. So we'll see!

My Bakasana Ideal
(arms straight, knees higher)

My Bakasana Reality
(arms bent, knees lower, but getting there!)

I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet. Just an overview as I need to get to bed!

Travis Monday: 

On Monday I did my hearthrob, Travis', Ultimate Yogi Flexibility and snuck in a bakasana (arm balance) and jumpback to chatarunga. Weee! I felt stronger the second time around. Love the front splits in this one which he has you sit in forever! I'm practically groin down on one side. Yes! My hammies feel quite knackered the next day, but you know it's just stretchy growing pains — the Travis' leftover effect — pummelling my hammies to submissive openess. All's good.

Cathe Tuesday:

Then on Tuesday I did the awesome Cathe's XTrain All Out Low Impact HIIT. My achilles have been feeling a touch twingy lately from all that plyometric jumpy fun I've been having. Been icing diligently but thought what better time than this to try her dvd. Man, this got my heart rate up. It was funtastic.

She uses alot of low impact cardio moves that really hit the quads hard making it anaerobic too. Those quads burn!! There was floor work then step work and finally glide disc. I'm still having trouble with those discs. I can't quite keep my feet on them without them sliding off during the exercises. I'm trying to figure out what the magic trick is. But overall this was an amazingly fun, challenging, HIIT, quad quaking sweatfest without any impact that left my quads nice and sore the next day. I even felt the soreness in my vastus medialis muscle (the teardrop) muscle close to my knees. Nice! This is a muscle that's always been hard for me to engage properly yet is key to keeping my patellas stabilized. So, it's nice to know that all those vastus medialis leg extension machine exercises that I do at the gym is paying off.

Kino Wednesday:

And I topped it all off tonight with my favorite beautiful ashtangi yogini teacher, Kino's Primary dvd. Not that I don't have other fav yogi teacher's ~ we all know me and Travis ~ but sorry Travis I have some other loves too. lol!

With Kino's dvd, I love her pacing which is a bit quicker and her impressive non-stop dialogue of instructions. Some will love the chatter and some won't. I love it. It actually keeps me focused and in the zone. Also, if you really listen to what she's saying her directions are a phenomenal gold mine of tips, teaching and guidance into each posture. Literally a treasure chest of information. And I got to practice my jump backs and throughs. I will master you yet! Funny, the Travis set has helped give me more strength and stamina for the primary which is a nice bonus. I'm actually not surprised as I thought it might.

Hmmm, I don't think I was successful in keeping it short. Oh well!

So, it's been a good week so far and it's just past hump day! Now it's all down hill from here. Weeee!

... practice, schedule ~ do whatever works ~ and all is coming.

Cross-training and Having a Blast with Step Blast!

Had a blast with Cathe Friedrich's Step Blast today! This woman knows how to literally BLAST you into the stratesphere with her blasts of high intensity intervals! If you want to build your VO2 max fast she's definitely the way to go for a short cut. Pretty much all her aerobics will incorporate high intensity blasts to push you to your limits. She wastes no workout getting you to your max output one way or the other. And it's always fun! This is an oldie but goodie step workout where it's pretty much high energy steady state for the warmup and 3 combo's then when she puts the combinations together at the end called "The Challenge" she adds in high intensity plyometric intensity blasts between each go around. It's awesome! Check out the video starting at 5:31, 6:19 and 6:51 and  and you'll see her start adding in the intensity blasts. Her last blast at 6:51 is a doozer (just drag the little ball over to 6:51, it will let you really it will) starting with benign 3 repeaters with an over the board, face, and over the board and then SURPRISE, 2 plyo-jacks followed by 2 air-jacks followed by one tuck jump and jump ropes and then you do the 3 repeaters, over face and over, plyo's, cycling through it 5 more times!! Yowza!! It's so freakin invigorating and fun, fun, fun!! A total BLAST!!

Cross-Training

I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to keep up with this one and not stopping too much to catch my breathe and doing most of it at full output. Awesome! What's also quite amazing is how I'm noticing that the cross-training with ashtanga, weights, and step aerobics is really benefiting each other. For instance what was so surprising is that I found the plyometric blasts easier than the steady state as my legs are getting so much stronger from my leg weight training (90lb leg extensions @ 6 sets-4 turned out and 2 straight, 100lb barbell plie squats @ 3 sets)! My legs are so strong from the weights that I don't feel it in them for plyo's which feels amazing. It just eventually hits me aerobic's wise. But that is even getting better fast as it becomes easier on my legs and also the stamina being built in my cardio capacity. Moreover, the cardio is causing my ujjayi breathe to be a bit more open and steady and contributing to a bit more stamina in ashtanga. Still a work in progress though! lol! So it's all feeding on each other. Quite remarkable but shouldn't be so surprising. Yet it's so neat to actually see the benefits of it.

Forgot to Post

Did an awesome weight workout on Saturday. As I still have to be careful with my wrists always wearing my wrist braces and weights gloves I have been able to start back a limited upper body routine. And of course always wearing my knee braces: So I got in my:

Back: (didn't overdo it this time. Shewf!)
• Seated Lat Pulldown: 3 x 12 (60lb)
• Seated machine row: 3 x 12 (60lb)

Leg Extensions: 90lb + weight plate
• feet turned out to get my vastus medialis to stabilize my patella, 1 x 18, 3 x 13
• feet straight to get overall quads, 2 x 10

Barbell Plie Squats: 100lb
• 2 x 16 reps + 4 reps of 3 pulse squats going for the burn

Pec Dec: 45lb
• great cause it doesn't require your wrists
• 3 x 12

Tricep Pushdowns: 75lb
• safer for my wrists right now than the cable pulldowns
• 3 x 15

Abs: Killer 80° incline bench
• 1 x 40, hands crossed on chest, KILLER!
• some mat frog leg situps, really gets your upper core especially when muscles are already worked!
• reverse situps and leg lifts to get lower core. Hoping this will benefit me with achieving, one day in the not so distant future, the floaty jump backs and forwards and fancy fun hand balancing postures.

Practice and all is coming ...

ASANA WORKSHOP: Jump Back Practice ... Oh Yah!

I thought I'd share some tips for creating your own jump back to chatarunga home practice session to build strength and coordination. I try to do this once or twice a week when my wrists allow. Unfortunately, I don't do a 5-6 day a week ashtanga practice to build strength and lift only in that way as the lovely teacher in the "Finding Your Lift" workshop did. I find without that dedicated 6-day practice, and probably even if I did, I must do extra homework in order to make the impossible possible for me. Definitely gotta get more consistent with this, cause I WANNA DO IT! I'm an ashtanga crim! Yowza!:

Here's a great vid of the wonderful Maria showing a breakdown of the motions for the full jump back in slow-mo. It's her version of slow-mo! She's slowing it down herself NOT the video. SNAP!

To Practice Cultivating This Type of Strength I:

 

Practice HOLDING for a number of reps and breathes:
1. Sitting in a tight tuck with shins crossed hold knees as tight as you can to chest and feet as tight as you can to sitbones. Without using arms of course. The arms should be extended in front like the beginning position of the top video. In fact your working towards holding a delicious tuck like that beginning position. Hold, hold, hold! Shewf!
2. Lolasana holds: blocks are your BF here. But notice I didn't add the extra F as eventually ya just gotta to let them GOoooo!:
    • with both feet on floor
    • with one foot off floor
    • with BOTH feet off floor — Oooh yah, I said that right! Here's a great example of a pseudo-lolasana hold for core, lats, deltoid, hip flexor and leg strengthener from the divine, omnipresently giving, Kino:

    • then the pièce de résistance: with both arms bent and feet off floor! SNAP!

P.S. I got all this info from my many youtube sightings, blog readings, the wonderful workshop and from Maria herself. The lovely Maria Villella has an awesome practice video for this and more. Which I have and covet! Check it out at www.yogiclife.com/store and you can visit her at www.mariavillella.com.

Practice and all is a-coming!

Levitation Workshop ... OR To Get Your Float On!

Well actually it was a Finding Your Lift workshop but the way A., our workshop teacher, demo'd it hers was practically a levitation! No joke! Awe inspiring!! Just like those amazing lifts and holds AND changes in direction IN mid air you see on Youtube! Wow and double wow! Just like this (except she also showed how to change direction in mid-flight, and go into handstand, etc. Yowza!). The point is you wanna lift lightly and land lightly to get your float ON!:

And I got the DVD for this one: 

But I digress ...

Here was the workshop breakdown and key points. I'm trying not to look at the wonderful notes she gave us — how very generous of her — as I want to only get down what I remember and not feel like I'm plagiarizing her:

Overarching Key Points and Goals:

• transfer of weight from feet to hands and hands to feet
• to lift and land lightly
• to gain lift and lightness in your practice it's important to really pay attention throughout your whole practice to your form in plank, chatarunga and any arm balancing you do as this is KEY to strengthening and stabilizing your shoulder and shoulder girdle for lightness and weight transference. Use every opportunity to employ proper form even to doing extra chatarungas in your practice, as chatarunga is the base for so many balancing postures.

Jump Back to Chatarunga:

• First she explained that "jump" is a misnomer. As it misleads you to think that your just jumping haphazardly and flinging yourself rather willynilly into space. Whereas you must think of it as a transfer of weight. Your transferring it from your feet to your hands and vice-versa. It's a deliberate and controlled jump and or lift causing the weight to transfer into your hands/arms to a hang in the air catching your balance as in a handstand/hand balance (which is really what your literally doing) then down to plank/chatarunga or straight into chatarunga. You have to have an attitude shift here.
• When you transfer your weight always think deliberately to PUSH your hands into the floor with straight arms.
• Use your fingertips to keep your balance when you catch the hanging/pause. This is the same action as in a handstand to keep you from falling forward over your body. It keeps your balance. Fingertip action is VERY important in all the hand balancing and jumps. Who would of thunk!
• Always hands FLAT down and the position will be in front of your feet in the beginning and also finding the perfect distance from feet that's best suited for you to start this approach. Keep the hands shoulder width apart and arms straight. As you get better at this and more flexible your hands can then go closer and closer to your feet until they're beside your feet.
• When jump lifting, you lean forward and with hands flat and arms straight, you transfer your weight into your hands whilst really pushing your hands into the floor you jump lift your hips and feet up, thinking of lifting hips up almost to handstand and lower to plank/chatarunga. You start by doing it bent leg and as you become super-yogi you can start moving your legs back with straight legs.
• As you get better at this you will eventually catch a balance and can hang/pause there as you're literally in a handstand balance before shifting your feet back into chatarunga. It was so cool as I was starting to find this as I was doing it. Felt amazing. Although there wasn't much of a pause, but I was getting my hips up there! Wee!
• The final phase is being able to press to lift: This is when you're the bomb-yogi and got your float on and have mega-bandha control! You can now lean forward, press the weight into your palms again transfering the weight into hands/arms, employing those mega-steal bandha's to lift your legs slowly to a pike position and lower to chatarunga! Nice!  

Jump to Feet From Downdog:

• Think transfer of weight again into your hands with straight arms and hips lifted when jumping.
• It's important to look forward slightly beyond your hands to cause your feet to follow.
• Tighter hamstrings (most of us) will use bent legs. Only when your hamstrings are super/duper loose can you really do it with straight legs.
• Get your weight in your hands/arms when jumping with bandha control and allow for a controlled landing to feet.
• Use the end of the breathe out to "float" in the air to land. This allows for a compacted/controlled/bandha'd torso for floating forward.

Jump Through to Seated:

This was alot of fun. She taught us different approaches for doing it with bent legs. Too much juicy details to get into here. Sorry guys/gals. Suffice to say, she said it's actually harder and requires more strength and coordination to do it bent legs than straight legs. Yeah, as I do it bent legs and always thought that it was the kinda loser way to do it. I thought of it as the more inelegant, less practiced approach and in actual fact it's harder! Awesome! She finds the straight legged approach easier for women as they tend to have looser hamstrings and employs less strength. But you must have very loose hamstrings and can practically just fall into a perfect seated straight backed chin to shin forward fold to do this properly. Of which I do NOT have. I always had a sneaky feeling you needed that flexibility to do it anyway. In fact she can do both perfectly as she demo'd so well, but she said she purposely does mostly bent legged as she wants to train herself in strength. Neat!

Jump Back:

Misnomer again as it's a lift up swing through to lolasana to chatarunga arms lolasana to chatarunga dandasana. So many things to keep in mind AND to practice here but the essentials are:
• Try using a block in your practice half of the time to get the coordinated lift up swing through to bent arms to chatarunga
• When swinging through you need to bend your arms to chatarunga arms in order for your hips to go up at the back so you can kick your feet back to chatarunga. It's again a transfer of balance since when you bend your arms your front goes down so your hips can go UP.
• Practice holding a tight tuck, knees to chest, crossing at the shins not the ankles, holding your feet close to your butt. As that is key for being able to get your feet through. Now if I could do that, I'd be going places! I still have oodles of trouble getting my knees to tuck to my chest properly (I think weak hip flexors comes to mind) and it's still hard to tuck my feet close to my butt. Now try doing that when gravity takes over in lolasana and you'll see what I mean! lol! Oh well!
• She had us practice many types of lift up manouvers back and also to practice lolasana with two legs, then one leg on the floor, then bending arms to chatarunga with one leg on the floor (practically impossible for me!) and then using that position to jumpback with the other foot springing you back. SHEWF!! That can give me LOTS of homework!

This was an awesome workshop by an amazingly generous, knowledgable, organized teacher — I love when teacher's are methodical and organized when building our knowledge base — and was really good at getting the message across and how to incorporate it in our real day-to-day practice.

She said it took her 5 years to learn "to get her float on" as I like to say. And that the key for her and the key for us is to really incorporate those techniques throughout our practice day in and day out. And as for the jumpbacks in seated she used her blocks religiously to get the coordination and lift to swing through to bended arm to chatarunga. It was practice.practice.practice. I see a pattern here. Lol! She said it.was.time.consuming, it.was.tedious, it.was.exhausting, it.was.cumbersome but yet it was all worth the effort to build the strength, stamina, coordination, lightness and flow in the practice.

Hmmm, sounds like practice and all is coming ...