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Going Inside With Kurmasana

If Maha Mudra defined my practice in January, February has been all about Kurmasana.

When I was in India in 2015, Prashantji had an extended comment in class one day about Kurmasana and how important to practice it. He started with a simple question - what is the most important asana in yoga? Of course people answered with all the poses I would've suggested - tadasana, adho muka svanasana, even utthita trikonasana  and savasana.

But nope. The answer was Kurmasana, because that is the pose that starts to teach you about pratyahara, withdrawal of the senses, learning to go inside.

At the beginning of February, I started to be overwhelmed by the news and started to notice feeling toxified by reading too much of it. It seemed like a practice of going inside would help counteract.

Honestly, though, Kurmasana is such a challenging pose and neither I nor my students were quite ready for it. I started with a practice of supported forward bends, which helped with the mindset but not the physical openness. Last week, I worked a lot on Maricyasana 1 and the lateral poses/open twists. Progress was made, but still not enough.

This week we worked much more on the parvritta standing poses and Maricyasana 3 (this week's sequence is below). Better. Next week, back to long, deep forward bends without support.

Teaching kurmasana is interesting and sort of fraught for me because I can't practice the full pose right now. I'm still working with my sacrum injury and I'm honestly not ready for those deep forward bends. I agonized over this a bit - we're not supposed to teach what we can't/don't practice. But I decided to go forward with it - I am focusing on how I am practicing all the preparatory poses. I'm practicing versions of kurmasana in my own way. I am absorbed in a puzzle - how to get some of the actions and some of the experience of kurmasana given the body I have. I don't think my students should be held back by my limits. I hope they are learning more because my limits are spurring me to investigate the pose more deeply.

A couple more weeks of this, and then back to active backbends. The work of confronting unjust power and resisting unjust authority is fully on now. Time to get stronger and more courageous.

With love, gratitude and solidarity.

Kurmasana sequence, week 3
supta padangusthasana 1, 2, & 4 (parvirtta supta pad)
adho muka svanasana
uttanasana
tadasana, w/urdva hastasana
gomukhasana arms
parighasana
utthita trikonasana
Virabadrasana 2/utthita parsvakonasana
Parsvottanasana classic
Parivrtta trikonasana
parivrtta parsvakonasana, 2 ways
  • from virabadrasana 1
  • from kneeling/lunge
prasarita padottanasana
padangusthasana
padahastasana
sirsasana, parsva sirsasana
maricyasana 3
kurmasana
sarvangasana, classic
savasana




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