TT 6/19

6/19 TT

Today is led by Ben. I finally got a good night sleep last night, so got early and get into class earlier to practice. I sweat a lot already even on my way to class, and after just 10 mins practice, I sweat like have been doing 1hr practice.

* review two highest intentions of practicing yoga:1) Rememberance or co-create in the art of life. 2)realize and awaken to our divine nature, Ben put it the realization of Cit-Ananda. Then we review 3 A's. The Attitude tie in with intention. Setting intention will make yoga practice a lot different. In John Friend's training, sometimes work on just setting intention for a whole week class.

* ppl asked about the "optimal blue print". You may say it's already in you,so everyone has the potential to acchieve. That's why we call "Universal" Principls, coz it works for everyone. But you just need the "awareness" to realize it or acchieve it! That's what we want to develop in the practice.

*Also talked about the different between Natural breath and Ujjai breath. For Iyengar, they tends not go for advance pose, coz it will make breath short and tense, so Iyengar focus more on "full" breath. Anusara is from Iyengar, so the breathing in Anusara is more like the way Iyengar asked. In Ashtanga tradition, focus on Ujjai breath. But not many teacher really teach the technique throughly.

* Asana, meaning to sit. In traditional yoga, most poses are sitting pose. But marden yoga works more on standing.

*Asana practice. Again, Ben focus work on all 5 principles into practice. Asking the sanskrit name for the poses today. And asking the focal point of the poses. We also have handstand and add on back bending. In Urdhva Dhanurasana and drop back with assist.

*Drop back, ppl who assist really need to 1st look at the practioner's wheel pose first. See if they could really get into pose on their own, otherwise, don't get into drop back. If the practioner's quit flat in wheel pose, assitant need to stand wilder, and really make the back leg steady. Assist on hands on the sacrum and upper back, and help lengthen these two apart. Another way, is kind of new to me. Assistant with both hands on the thighs, and help practioner work on inner spiral a lot, practitioner goes one back down to floor and come up. With such help, practitioner could do even 20 drop backs and ups easily. And if with this kind of practice, it would transform the back bending a lot! I want to try this! This must be helpful for me!