Saturday 8.30a Asana 1 — Week 45 (November 14, 2009)

Focus: Review of Purvis Workshop groin opening poses.

1. Invocation in Swastikasana
a. Soft, slow, smooth inhalation. Soft, slow, smooth exhalation. The energy, prana, that you generate through the inhalation and the exhalation should reach even the remote areas of the body. Sit erect to create space, height, width, and depth to drench every area of the body with the breath.

b. From the inner cellular body, you have to keep yourself open because the cells are receptacles that receive that energy.

So let that annamaya kosha [physical sheath] of the body become completely a pranamaya kosha [energetic sheath], as though every cell of the body is receiving that energy.

If the nerve fibers fluctuate anywhere, or get inflated, the energy will get sucked up by those nerve cells. Don’t deflate them, as though the air is taken out from those areas, [else the prana will leak from them].

c. Quietly and silently, lift from the outer body, as the subtle body settles deeper into the core, the inner sheath, where it can remain restful.
[Geeta Iyengar — Pune July 6, 2009]

2. Tadasana/Samasthiti

3. Utthita Trikonasana

4. Utthita Parsvakonasana
a. From Utthita Trikonasana. Slowly bend the knee with the breath to allow the intelligence to reach every part of the body. Do in rhythm multiple times to bring mobility to the consciousness.

5. Ardha Chandrasana
a. Omitted for time.

6. a. Parsvottanasana (hands on chair seat)
Head on brick on chair seat. Left leg — while moving the left hip forward, move the left frontal thigh into bone to make space in the left groin and to bring the right hip forward.

b. Angular Parsvottanasana
Stand with the right side body at the wall and the right leg behind the left. Place the outer edge of the left foot on the mat and the inner edge up on the wall. Hands on the chair, step forward with the right leg in Parsvottanasana.

7. Baddha Konasana
a. Back to wall, sit on folded blankets high enough to support the outer thighs.

b. Brick between feet.

8. Supta Parsvakonasana
a. From Supta Baddha Konasana, toes at the wall and buttocks on a sticky mat, sidebend to the right.
b. Take the right leg out and make a square with the foot on the wall. Outer right thigh should rest on the mat. If that is impossible, put a flat brick under the right outer heel.
c. Extend the left leg, placing the bottom of the foot on the wall. If it is impossible, elevate the foot on flat brick or two, and support the left side of the sacrum. With arms out at ninety degrees, it form as Supta Virabhadrasana II.
d. Side bend to take the right hand to the right ankle to Supta Parsvakonasana.

9. Anantasana
a. Omitted for time.

10. Brick Setubandha
a. Omitted for time.