The Confluence Countdown as I have mentioned previously is a daliy read for me.
Bobbi Jo & Steve are co-practitioners at Omkar108 YogaShala & I regard them as fellow-travellers on the road of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.
Bobbi Jo is a teacher , and I find her recent post entitled '" For the Love of Led Primary " genuine , authentic & traditional .And I did happen to be in attendance at last Friday AM's Led Class which inspired her .
Where most bloggers are focusing on the lower rungs of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga ( Ekam , Dwi ,Trini , I still can't bind in Marichi , hehe ), ( or just being an airhead about them ; see previous post from Elephant Journal ) , this entry uses the magic word " transformative ".
" I still look back on that time as precious. I learned something every single class, and each thing I learned was transformative. I remember the day I learned ujjayi breathing. I remember the class I learned to follow it rather than have it follow me. I remember finding mula bandha by pressing down my big toes, the class I learned to push into my head in prasarita, and the day I learned the opening prayer (my teachers said it along with us–including Tim). All of these things were because of encouragement that came from a led class.
The most important thing I learned from all those led classes was that beat. My first Ashtanga teacher told me there is an exact number of breaths in the Primary. Every practice has the potential to have the same number of inhales, exhales. The breath is time. The time is the string that holds the beads of the poses together. Beautiful. "
This is what traditional vinyasa yoga is about , the " Work-in " vs. the " Work-out ". More on that in a succeeding post. Working in towards the Ashta of Ashtanga Yoga : Samadhi / Bhakti Yoga .