Sintra - Teachers Immersion, Week 2
Day 11 - June 26, 2024
Mysore
Black Lotus sequence - learning more and more of the vinyasa count and where specific hand placements are supposed to be. It is helllllla HARD but this is what I wanted. Something that I could keep working towards and feel challenged. In my regular mysore practice, I was stuck in leg behind the head. To be honest, I’ve struggled with this pose on the right side since 2018. It could very much be an anatomical factor but with this Black Lotus sequence, I find that I am able to move past leg behind the head and touch base on some strength and more shoulder flexibility. I’m clearly a fan, and will continue practicing this until I’m tired!
Tick tock update: Did 3 back to back, with MINIMAL breaks. And by this I mean… if you’ve ever seen me practice, I usually rock back and forth about 5x. Today, I reduced the rocks down to 3x :D maybe tomorrow it will just be 1-2 rocks ;)
Alignment/Adjustments
Today we focused on the seated twists and how we want the pelvis to rotate along with the twist. Something that I never really understood until this immersion. Jason Crandell made an instagram post about this recently too but didn’t go into very much detail. Its interesting to learn as the practice evolves and reveals more and more injuries.
Chanting/Philosophy
I woke up today feeling homesick. Home sick as in, of course I miss Jay. But I am also missing my routine. Cooking, working out, taking care of my plants. I am keeping myself busy by wandering off when I can, having dinner with friends but for the most part there is a lot of free time. I don’t do well with free time but it is teaching me to slow down and relax when I can. I don’t think my other classmates are doing too much with their days… and it would be nice to learn how to chill. Buttttt what do I do instead? I ended up getting a week membership to a Gym to give myself something to do. But its for the health of my mind! Despite the intensity of my practice, I crave more movement than yoga alone. The weather has been all over the place and with the amount of tourists that appear in the middle of the day, I really don’t want to be out and about in the streets waiting behind people as we all try to share this narrow sidewalk (if you can' even call it that!). Anywho, this gym is just about 4km away and it has some outdated equipment but it has a sauna, pool, hot tub and group classes (which I will not be attending). This unlimited week pass was only 25€, not too shabby of a deal.
Day 9 - June 24, 2024
Mysore
Today I practiced the Black Lotus sequence. I reviewed the sequence so many times last night, I even had a dream that I was teaching it! Ty has created sequence sheets with many levels and made them very accessible to practitioners with different history/background and different bodies. They vary from white, grey to black. There are levels 1-5. I chose the black standing sequence and the black lotus sequence, level 3. This sequence seemed to be compatible with my current practice (full intermediate + the first four poses in 3rd series). This sequence was everything my body was craving!! After a full week of my usual practice, while it is still difficult, there is very little strength required and I was feeling complacent in that department. Today, I got to play around with some handstanding, arm balances from tripod headstand and still get to open my shoulders, hips and hamstrings! The second last pose is trivikramasana and today I reached a proud progress point quite rapidly having rarely practiced this pose.
Tick tock update: I did 3 on my own, not the pretty fluid way but at least they were back to back :)
Alignment
We dabbled into seated forward folds but didn’t really get too far. Ty’s teachings are very intricate. I chose to learn from him because of how eloquent and poetic he is and his teachings, his practice all emulate that. He has the highest level of fine grained detail describing: how a posture should feel, how to maintain an uplifted Udana Vayu, how to be able maintain breath and ease and how to diminish the suffering.
After alignment and pranayama class, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my day. I’ve been getting some wedding planning done and really didn’t want to spend the WHOLE day doing that again. It seemed like today was the warmest/sunniest day so far so I worked up my courage and drove down south again. This time I avoided Cascais (traffic and my rerouting GPS has traumatized me from driving my Moped there) and chose to drive 30 minutes to Estoril, the neighbouring beach town to Cascais. There is a 25 km promenade that connects the two towns. This beach in Estoril was fairly quiet and under developed. The tide was getting higher and higher and everyone kept shifting their towels and belongings to avoid getting washed up (myself included). I had about an hour in the sun and it was finally a hot, hot, hot day. Water was nice. It was fantastic. I am traumatized from driving in the windy conditions and knew that I had a short span from 2-6pm to avoid the wind.. I wanted to have an early dinner in Estoril and take the time to charge my phone but I also was afraid of encountering these crazy winds. I decided to just drive home and with 10 minutes left of my drive, the craziest climate change occurred - grey dark clouds, mists of rain, wind that even lifted my tire off the road!! I am glad I played it safe and left when I did. And here I thought Edmonton had ridiculous weather changes…
Overall, an amazing day. I am loving every opportunity I have here.
Day 8 - June 23, 2024
Mysore
Everyday I am jubilant to show up to practice and learn. There is something incredible about being in a room with same purpose and drive to learn from Ty.
Kapotasana - surprisingly, last week, this pose did not felt super terrible and I have been catching my heels everyday. Today I thought about trying to catch my toes before landing and just like ninja, Ty was there and assisted me to grab my heels in the air. It felt comfortable and easily accessible. It is amazing how consistent asana practice and NOT working out makes all the difference haha.
Visvamitrasana - he gave me a tip of reaching my hand way out to the top right corner of my mat, and Anna his assistant also guided me to place the back of my thigh on my shoulder/arm as opposed to the inner thigh. My hamstrings have always been tight (or at least I think they are) and they tend to not straighten all the way for many poses that require “straight legs”. It would be great if I could take some photos of my practice to show you the progression but then again… I don’t really want to practice the post twice a day just for a photo :)
Lastly, my tick tocks are sorta coming together. Ty has been helping me move through smoothly and to feel it in my upper body and shoulders. He magically appeared when it was time and I asked “are we doing them back-to-back…. as in no breaks?” He made a face, “yeah, last I checked there are no breaks!” haha and so I tick tocked (which felt seamlessly because of his help). I tried one last one on my own and didn’t quite get it today but it feels better and better each day. I’ve always thought that I needed a very tight stance with my hands and feet so I can spring up, but its actually less of that and more of….something that I’m still trying to figure out??
I was inspired by the Black Lotus sequence last Friday and today, both practitioners beside me was practicing the sequence. I think tomorrow I will attempt it. I am itching to get some handstands and arm balances in as I feel like I am forgetting the mechanics when I am solely practicing intermediate & third series.
Alignment/Adjustments
We reviewed the foundations of forward folds (seated and standing). While I provide these adjustments quite regularly, it was nice to have immediate feedback from an advance practitioner today.
Ty went into detail about adjustments that were appropriate for him to provide and the adjustments he will provide for a male versus a female. Whether or not we want to consider it, we have to use our discretion of what is appropriate. The way we touch, the way we look, the sensuality of the pose, all needs to be considered if touch should take place or not.
There are students who absolutely love it and wish there was more of it. It’s tricky to decide who gets adjustments especially since COVID happened. Personal space and consent to provide adjustments are challenging to gauge. If I have seen you repeatedly in my classes and understand where your body is at, I am happy to provide it. If you are dropping in as a first timer in my classes, less likely to happen.
Pranayama
We reviewed the Pranayama sequence that we practiced on Friday in detail.
Ujjayi breathing
Rechaka (exhale focused) Viloma (or Kumbhaka) x 3 rounds
Ujjayi breathing
Puraka (inhale focus) Viloma (or Kumbhaka) x 3 rounds
I tend to teach Box Breathing, sama vritti in my Hatha classes. I would love to introduce a little bit of Ujjayi and Kumbhaka when I’m back to teaching at my Yoga Loft, something new for us ;)
