Yoga Update



Sri K.Pattabhi Jois



Last nights yoga class turned out to not be the usual Ashtanga routine we do. My teacher decided to tell us just before we were about to start that we would be doing 108 sun salutations in memory of Sri K.Pattabhi Jois who died on may 18^th 2009. Sri K.Pattabhi Jois is the Yoga teacher who transmitted the Ashtanga system of yoga to the modern world. As you can imagine there were a few sour faces around the room at this announcement, but everyone got over it and we got stuck into our salutations.

Now doing 108 sun salutations takes quite a long time, 90minutes in fact. And a lot of this time you spend with your hands pressed into the mat. After about 27 salutations my wrist were starting to feel the impact. But after 54 I had to stop for a rest because my hands were positively aching! And I seemed that I wasn’t alone in my pain, quite a few other people had the same problem and had to stop for a rest. But I did carry on and get through the 108, only stopping about 3 more times to give my wrists and hands a break. I was really impressed though with the people who didn’t have to stop once! How they did it I really don’t know, because I thought my hands were going to fall off!

But doing the sun salutations made me realise how easy it would be for me to practise them at home. At the moment I don’t do any yoga practise at home because I can’t remember what I am supposed to be doing. But I can remember a sun salutation. So I have decided I am going to challenge myself by doing at least one home practise of just sun salutations. I don’t think I will go as far as doing 108 but I could definitely do a couple of dozen. And for anyone out there who is interested in trying some yoga but can’t afford to go to a class or is really not too sure about it all. I would recommend trying the sun salutation. See picture below for sequence of moves. You could start off by just doing 5, and once you feel more comfortable do more. When you are in the down dog pose (the one where your bums in the air and your feet and hands are on the ground- like a triangle) you take 3 breaths before moving on to the next move. And you do the movements as you breathe, and make sure you take long breaths. 3 seconds in 3 seconds out.