Epiphaneous

25 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by artem6 in Uncategorized Tags: mulqueen, sun salutations

Nobel invented this word in his blogpost here. I had an epiphaneous moment myself yesterday during Sun Salutations.  Despite not feeling at all well this week, I was so tired of not getting up to practice, that I decided to get up and practice. My intention was a 75 minute 2nd series practice. I have this little problem with ambition, you see. Luckily, the sun salutations were edifying, despite breaks for coughing, and I had this moment in which it was clear that everything you need to know about yoga is right there in the sun salutations. Peg Mulqueen wrote about this:

Everything you need to learn, begins in Sun Salutations.  Is it your breath you’re looking for? … Trying to find a handstand?  A bhanda?  How about a backbend or a forward bend?  Anything you are working on in the series begins at the beginning.  Oh yeah.  And chaturanga is a pose. 

Suffice it to say that after many years of sun salutations, I am always learning new things.  The movements have become more economical, to be sure.  Since the David Garrigues workshop a major effort is to clarify the long line from heels to crown in chaturanga, butt down and shoulders up.

It turns out that I have bronchitis, with a touch of pneumonia.  So it’s probably a good thing that my son woke up early and came down to hang out with Mom just as I was transitioning from padangusthasana to pada hastasana (the first 2 standing poses of Ashtanga, immediately following the sun salutations).  Not the practice I had envisioned, but in the end, the perfect practice for me yesterday.