Gettin confused about asanas

[anthony574]

Ok, here's the deal. I've done asanas for about 4 months. I followed a book I got on it to learn the basics, and then adopted Yogani's asanas sequence. I basically do about 10-20 minutes once to twice a day before pranayama.

Here's the interesting part...I've never actually seen anyone do yoga asanas. I've never taken a class as I didn't feel it necessary considering I do a relatively light and simple asanas routine and have decent body awareness. I have actually seen people do asanas on TV...but I assumed they weren't "real" asanas...just the Westernized fitness regiment. I was just on YouTube trying to find a video of someone doing Sun Salutation out of curiosity...and again I see the same thing that keeps confusing me. When I watched it, I notice she only held each pose for like 1-2 seconds. She considered the whole sequence a "rep"...so I imagine she does quite a few considering how quickly she can blow through the sequence. Is this yoga asanas? I was always of the understanding that each pose is held for 5 breaths or as Yogani says 10 seconds...but thats a decent amount of time. Am I doing these wrong? I will post the video link so you guys can see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OCdLcEk09M

[yogibear]

Hi Anthony,

You can hold a posture for as long as you want as long as it is comfortable.  How long you hold a pose is often determined by how much time you have.  If not a lot of time, maybe one breath. If more time, maybe 3, and if there is no limitation 5 or whatever.

The breath is a good way to gauge how long you stay in a pose. One breath for one person might be 20 seconds and for another 4 seconds.  Depends on how they regulate or don't regulate their breath.  Five breaths for one practioner could be 10, 20 or 30 seconds.  It is not rigid.  It is flexible and not either/or.  You can adapt the poses and breathing to yourself and what is natural to you.  

The sun salute poses can be gone thru from one pose to the next without pause, like the lady in the video is doing.  It is more of a warm up for an asana session.  But each pose can be held for period of time before going to the next pose as well.

There are different standing pose sequences that can be gone thru, one pose to the next, without pause in the same way.  

There are many different approaches to asanas by different practitioners.  Some asana aficionados might hold a pose, the forward bend for example, for 5 minutes because they want to have a particular effect on the soft tissue.

So how you practice depends on what your goals are, how much time you have, etc.  There are no hard and fast rules unless you are trying to learn or adhere to a specific system. Sounds like you are adhering to Yogani's guidelines.

But the number on rule is to always stay within your comfortable capacity, what ever method you are using.

Hope that helps.

Best, yb.

[anthony574]

So it is more or less arbitrary how long to hold each individual pose, or just all the poses in general? Some poses I would like to hold a little longer.

[yogibear]

Hi Anthony,

Headstand, shoulderstand and inverted pose (viparita karani)  are usually held for a longer period of time than the other asanas.  They help in the transformation of sexual energy by draining the blood out of the lower body and soaking the higher nerve and brain centers with blood.

They can be held upwards of 10 minutes if so desired by the practitioner.  However, they can be held for a minute as well.

I usually don't hold them for more than 3-5 minutes because I get the effect I desire within that time.

Myself, I hold the other poses any where from one to 60 seconds and longer with the inverted poses.  Say I don't have a lot of time but I want to touch all the bases.  Then I do each pose for just a couple seconds.  That may amount to 2-3 dozen postures.

On the other hand, I might just do 6-8 postures and hold them for 30-60 seconds, inverted ones perhaps for 1-3 minutes.  When I have more time I might do an hours worth of postures and do all my favorites.

You can use your instinct to help you know how long to hold the pose. As you practice it will become more and more obvious to you what your body likes and doesn't like.  It communicates this to you by how it feels.

Maybe that gives you a better idea.  Which poses do you like to hold longer?

yb.

[anthony574]

Thanks for the information. Its a good thing to me being one prone to obsessive compulsiveness that asanas really are much laid back and arbitrary than I understood.

Certain poses that I really enjoy I like to hold longer, namely shoulderstand because I like the feeling of blood draining out of my legs and a nice long toe touch after a prayer standing backstretch :-)

[cosmic_troll]

Hey Anthony,

The thing about sun salutation (as yogibear indicated) is that it's more of a warm-up to asanas. In yoga class, we do sun salutation even faster than the lady in the video. After 4 to 6 repetitions, we move on to other asanas, which are done much slower and held longer.

I highly recommend taking a yoga class or two to get a feel for the routine. Before ever taking a class, I practiced at home from a book (Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar - fantastic book). After taking some classes, I learned that I was doing some of the postures wrong and I discovered a nice rhythm that I couldn't get from the book.

After getting a feel for an asana routine, it's much easier to pick up a book and feel like you're doing the postures right. Even postures you haven't done before, as you'll have the rhythm and breathing down.

I wish you success! Asanas are amazing and make you feel GREAT!

[anthony574]

I watched a video on the Ashtanga Yoga vinyasa sequence. I like the ashtanga vinyasas because they are kind of a different twist than i am used to. i dont think i could possibly go through the entire sequence of ashtanga yoga vinyasa, but do you think it would be OK to just do the 5 reps of Sun Saluation A and B? or is it strictly just a warm up?

[Victor]

Sun salutation is a great way to start. It is good cardio and stretches every part of the body. i would advise you though that if you want to go deeper to take a yoga class with a good teacher. When i started I practiced out of a book for 3 years and practiced ALOT. When I eventually did take classes I had to learn to undo alot of bad habits because no one had checked my progress and corrected me. Back then tehre were no classes in the style that I was workng on (Iyengar)in my area so I was on my own. These days yoga classes are everywhere so rather than worrying if its ok to do this or that, just take a class!