After making the decision to start our Mysore self practice together on Sunday, this morning, Kathryn and myself were at Chi to do the practice when there was no yoga class going on.
After going through the sun salutations and standing poses without any hitches, when it came to the seated poses, I had a bit of difficulty binding in Marichyasana D initially but managed to keep my fingers locked together for the five breaths. As there was no teacher to assist me in Supta Kurmasana, I did not managed to go deep in the pose as I was not able to cross my feet and put them behind my head and clasped my hands behind my back. I did managed to place my hands on my lower back and slide my feet together in front of my head.
From today's self-practice, I know that doing the full primary on my own without any teacher's assistance might take me a longer time to progress in some of the poses but I realized that I was actually getting too dependent on my teacher especially so when I was doing full Garbha Pindasana. With Kunal around, I would normally gave up on turning around while rolling upwards in the pose on my own, but today, although it was slow and with difficulty and collapsing at the last roll instead of lifting up, I made the effort to do the pose on my own.
.jpg) |
| Supta Kurmasana (easier variation) |
I believe that doing the self-practice would give me an opportunity to watch myself grow and change. As I would still be going to the Hatha classes, I would still be learning the techniques and getting assistance for those areas in my practice that need attention from my teachers at Chi.
I would also be doing research on my own by reading yoga blogs and visiting yoga websites such as Yoga Journal and I have also found many yoga videos posted by some of the great teachers such as Kino MacGregor, Christina Sell and David Garrigues where they provide tips and techniques to go into the poses.
I am so glad to be practicing together with Kathryn as we will be providing support to each other to keep up the self-practice.
Below is a video on Garbha Pindaasana with Maria Villella which provides a step-by-step breakdown of the pose.
