Monday, October 3, 2011

Coming into Utkatasana from full squat Kino style, engaging the bandhas, floatiness

During practice this morning, I tried doing what Kino does in Surya Namaskar B (see this post), going into a full squat before moving up into Utkatasana in Ekam position. Surprisingly, the whole movement wasn't as physically challenging as I expected it to be: I was expecting some kind of a burn in the quads, but it didn't happen.

What did happen, though, was that the internal rotation of the thighs needed to keep the knees together throughout the movement really helped me in engaging the bandhas: I discovered that as a result of doing this movement, I was able to lift my feet off the ground in trini position more easily (and they probably went a little further off the ground than usual too), so that the resulting landing in chatvari/chaturanga felt a bit lighter. Well, I still don't have the kind of floaty chatvari landing that David Robson is so famous for. But well, the important thing is to practice and to have fun practicing, right? Everything else, as Guruji would say, is coming. In any case, I thought I'll share this here, as I have recently been reading quite a lot of bloggers' experiences (and, I sense, frustration) with trying to nail that elusive floaty Surya Namaskar. Hope some of you out there might find my experience here to be of some use.

Speaking of David Robson, here's the man doing Surya A:


But if you are not quite at Robson's level of floatiness yet, do not fret. Do your best, and be happy. And if you fall over, remember to laugh (and maybe curse as well :-)), as our friend below so gamely demonstrates:

 
Have fun!

4 comments:

  1. I won the David Robson video in a Twitter draw! I'll be floating in no time and I'll tell you all about it. Thanks for the post!

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  2. I look forward to hearing about your floating experiences, AYEA :_)

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  3. Wow, David Robson can float! loved the second video too!

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  4. Yes, he is definitely a floater :-)

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