This miscellaneous sequence for advanced students is a little less dynamic than usual. That is because, while some miscellaneous classes are about “practising to do,” today’s class is about “practising to learn.” Often, especially when we’ve been doing yoga for a long time, we forget to pay attention to certain aspects of our practice, instead of going through the motions and performing poses a certain way out of habit. Well, this class is about breaking this habit of being passive in our practice and bringing back our capacity to learn, even when performing poses we are very familiar with.
To truly benefit from this type of observation-focussed practice, we will need to deconstruct each pose into the component motions involved and analyse them in more detail. Then, we will reassemble them and see what the pose brings. For example, we will experiment with different hand positions we can apply in inversions such as Adho Mukha Vrksasana and Pincha Mayurasana. Then, later in the practice, we will prepare for Bharavajrasana using seated chair twists.
In today’s class, it will also be important to explore the use of props. As advanced practitioners, we often forget to think about props at all. We get used to doing a pose a certain way and just assume that each day our approach to it will be the same, when in reality we should always start our practice by asking ourselves: What do I need today?
Video stills from this sequence
