practicing without teacher

[Guest guest]

I am practicing Astanga for four years, but

without teacher. I am thankful to all the authors of

books and videos (Berych Bender, R. Freeman, D.

Swanson...)<br>Have anybody some motivation tips?<br>some suggestions

about working the vinyasas (Take it up)?<br>What about

diet?<br>What you think about practicing and running? they are

compatible?<br><br>Thank you all suggestions. Thank to Senor Pinche for

trying to be authentic: its also necessary and a good

point of view to think about.<br><br>Peace for

everybody!

[Guest guest]

Joan:<br><br>Here follows hesitant advice from

soneone who is hardly more than a beginner.<br><br>1. On

Motivation. If you have been practicing four years without a

teacher, then it's hard to see how anyone could say

anything to you about motivation. My

congratualtions.<br><br>2. Vinyasa. It took me a couple of months of daily

practice before I did my first jump back. Confidence in

lolasana is certainly a prerequisite. For this I found it

helpful to peform lolasana (including the variation where

your knees are lifted as close as possible to your

chest) throughout the day, for example whenever I got up

from a chair that had supporting side-arms. For

further strength, gradually work towards straightening

your legs in front of you and holding that position

for a few deep ujayi breaths. Try to avoid pooching

out your abdomen (which many of us are inclined to do

when the ab muscles are called upon). Ab-pooching

messes up uddiyana bandha, which seems to be needed for

the "liftiness" that is part of a jump-back. At first

it will seem impossible to keep the diaphram in, but

with persistance you can pretty much maintain your

uddiyana bandha while calling upon the abdominals

somewhat.<br><br>Once you are strong and confident in lolasana, you are

very near to a jump-back, I think. You need to shift

your weight forward slighly over your hands so that

your upper body counterbalances the weight of your

lower body, and you swing around, almost like a see-saw

with your shoulders as a fulcrum. At this point you

should have enough lift to straighten your legs, and the

jump-back is complete.<br><br>To be continued.

[Guest guest]

One exercise David Swenson gave us in the

teacher's training for jumping through that I've found

useful was to crumple your mat in a ball and hold it

between your knees when you take it up. Cross your ankles

and curl your toes towards your knees trying to make

your torso as small as possible with bandhas, bandhas,

bandhas. <br><br>I found this exercise very difficult but

as with the practice am focussing on what I can do

and building on that. It's been great for building

strength in the abdominal muscles and the muscles along

the sides (obliques?).<br><br>As for motivation I

found starting a practice group to be a good place to

establish a committment with others. Put up some notices or

take out an ad.<br><br>From trying to do the practice

group I found lots of people were interested but didn't

know the series well enough. So I started to focus on

preparing to teach and that brought a whole new level of

motivation to my practice.<br><br>Hope any of this

helps.<br><br>Brad