Sadhana: the practice for day two

This photo was taken in October, but so far, sunrise in Vancouver looks about the same in June.

The first day of Sadhana went off without a hitch. In fact, from where I sat, it felt comfortable and familiar.

I know I wasn’t the only one. On her way out the door, Rosaria said: “It feels like we just picked up where we left off last year.”

Savasana was short, and for reasons of time, we didn’t do two of the standing poses and one of the twists.

I’m optimistic that by this time next week, we’ll be sailing through the full practice with 10 minutes for Savasana at the end.

Why?

The first few days always take extra time.

First, I have to give “the talk”: we all work at our own pace, we do nothing that the body says “no” to, we are all free to come into a rest position at any time.

Then each person needs to find their appropriate variation of headstand and arm balance.

And there’s the general early-days phenomenon: it’s all slower when you do it for the first time.

Tomorrow’s practice is the essential pattern for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays as set out in Geeta Iyengar’s Yoga: A Gem for Women.

What’s different from day one?

Variations in headstand and shoulder stand replace the standing poses, and forward bends replace backbends.

Because most of us are working to simply balance and hold in headstand, we won’t be practicing headstand variations.

We will, however, work to our capacity in shoulder stand variations.

Day 2: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

(Poses in brackets are for more experienced practitioners.)

Sitting/ Invocation 5 to 10 minutes

Child’s pose   1 minute

Dog pose     2 minutes

Arm balance (or preparations) 3 – 5 minutes

Headstand (or preparations)   3 – 5 minutes

Sarvangasana, (shoulder stand)  5 minutes

Halasana  (plow pose) 2 minutes

Karnipidasana  1 minute

Supta Konasana  1 minute

(Parsva Halasana) 1 minute per side

Eka pada Sarvangasana 1 minute

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana  (with brick beneath sacrum)  3 to 5 minutes

Abdominal poses: hold 20 seconds, building to 30 seconds, repeat

Urdhava Prasarita Padasana  1-2 minutes

Jathara Parivartanasana      1-2 minutes

Seated Forward Bends   1 minute each side

Janu Sirsasana

(Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana )
Triang Mukhaikapada Pascimottanasana

Marichiyasana I

(Parivritta Janu Sirsasana)

Baddha Konasana Cycle   one minute per variation

Bhaddha Konasana

Forward bend in Baddha Konasana

Upavishta Konasana

(Kurmasana)

Virasana cycle: one minute per variation

Virasanana  (hero pose)

Parvatasana arms in Virasana  (fingers interlaced, palms out, arms up)

Forward bend in Virasana

Malasana  one minute per variation

Malasana upright, hold ankles

Malasana forward bend/clasp

Twists

Marichyasana III

Ardha Matsyendrasana

Winding Down:

Paschimottanasana  2 to 4 minutes

Savasana  7 to 10  minutes

Photo courtesy of chispita_666, via Flickr.