kandasana

[Jim and His Karma]

Victor mentioned elsewhere that he can do kandasana.

Wha'ts the key on that one? I can do a very strong badda konasana, with knees flat on ground and soles pointing straight up, pretty effortlessly. I can also forward bend to the floor. But I can't really get started with kandasana, even though it seems a logical extension.

Am I wrong to consider it an extension of badda konasana? Do i need to start from some other foundation?

Here's a photo: http://www.hipjointstudio.com/images/candlepose.jpg

[Victor]

Very nice picture of Iyengar!
Kandasana is very much an extension of Badha konasana. One way to practice is to put a block or two under the feet in badha konasana and learn to sit that way just slowly taking them higher. Then eventually there is a final pull into the actual pose. the other way is what I did which was to just throw caution to the winds, pull up your feet and do it!
I learned this pose rather quickly after a class with Manouso Manos back in 1985. He was showing how to go deeper into Badha Konasana and casually mentioned that if one went further that one could do Kandasana. he then added that he had only seen two people who could do that pose and both were named Iyengar.
 For some reason I took that as a challange and spent the next weeks practice working on it. I found that personally I had to overcome fear of damaging my knees which actually were not that affected by the the pose. the stretch is mostly in the hips and the pressure in the ankles.For me doing the actual pose was not as difficult as overcoming the fear of attempting it. I remeber going into Manousos class the next week and the first thing he said was "take the feet higher!" Then he laughed and admitted that he couldn't do it himslef. It was a fun moment and I don't think anyone took themselves very seriously at that point. You also need to know that I was 24 years old and very excited about asana and  how many difficult poses I could do. 20 years later my perspective has changed a little.
I should also mention that Kandasana is also a pose that is very difficult to make a meditative pose but rather is an intense stretch to the hips. Although I can do it I personally find that this posture, while very distinctive looking is very difficult to stay in for any length of time so is mostly for show. Perhaps in very rare cases (such as Iyengar) it can be done with a sense of depth and breath. for the rest of us it gives an interesting picture of a dramatic looking yoga pose.
 this link should work for my pic -- click here

Moderator note: Long link embedded to get rid of wide page problem.

[lucidinterval1]

Wow Victor! That is mind boggling! Seems like you have a real mind over matter sense ingrained within your psyche.
Very impressive!
Paul

[Jim and His Karma]

Great photo, great job! Those reading along are going to think I'm being a jerk, but Victor and I are both Iyengar practitioners, so he'll understand and not take offense: what's with the assymetry of the feet? Was that just a bad photo day (there are, as you know, plenty of them in Light on Yoga, so you're in good company!), or is it extra hard to get them at same height and toes doing the same thing?

Thanks for the instructions, which make lots of sense. Can you do the other extreme, too, of mulhabandasana? That's another one I can't get started on, despite doing a really easy baddakonasana.

[Jim and His Karma]

Interesting...I just reloaded the iyengar photo (at link above), and noticed he's having the same feet/toes issue. What's the story with this? It's not like scorpion, where you can't see your feet.....

[Victor]

It seems that the feet don't want to be perfectly symmetrical, there is always one a little higher than the other.I think it has to do with the pressure on the tops of the feet and that if they were even that the bones would press too much on each other. I think what is more significant and where my pose differs from iyengars is that his feet nestle under the ridge of the ribs where mine are more on the chest. I think that there are two reasons for this. the first is that his chest is mre open and developed and his spine is strighter. the second is that I seem to have partiularly long shins compared to my thigh bones so the feet tend to come up higher. That photo was taken in 1996 I believe so its been a few years. Haven't done that pose in some time but now want to try it again and see if I can go a little deeper after doing AYP for a year. We'll see how it goes. Right now the alignment feels better but its much more difficult to get to the finished pose.
 As for Mulabandhasana, I can do it but not with the depth that Iyengar does. I can't quite sit on my feet but can turn them down while sitting on a block. Again, its been a long time.

[Jim and His Karma]

Great explanation, all makes sense, thanks. In these extreme poses, I guess some absolute limits come up. That's not something I've been in a position to experience or notice for myself!

I hadn't noticed the chest thing till you pointed it out. Yeah, you're closing down there a little. Must be incredibly hard to keep an open chest in this pose. although the ribcage rotation we discussed a few weeks ago may help (i.e. i'm getting the feeling that kandasana doesn't let you "cheat" by opening front body at expense of back body).

quote:
Haven't done that pose in some time but now want to try it again and see if I can go a little deeper after doing AYP for a year.

do you find that AYP has an effect on your asana practice?

quote:
 As for Mulabandhasana, I can do it but not with the depth that Iyengar does. I can't quite sit on my feet but can turn them down while sitting on a block. Again, its been a long time.

They say Mulabandhasana, unlike kandasana, is dynamite for meditation. I'd be interested in your comments.

Just a note out of nowhere...there are people who believe that foot flexibility is an indicator of spirituality. Seems kind of silly to me, but some very smart people have said this. I guess the thinking is that it reflects yoga work in past lives or somesuch.

[Victor]

I find that Ayp the way I have been doing the pranyama has opened me up much more from the inside. this has opened up lots of little nooks and crannies in the spine that were distorted or slightly rotated. i had been neg;ecting asana for a couple of years so now its a bit challanging that I want to go back into it. The AYP  has created a much more internally aligned state but paradoxically has made some familiar asanas that I had been neglecting become more difficult due to the internal changes. Then when the poses do open up the changes feel very powerful!

[david_obsidian]

FYI,  the link above is not working for me.  I get a login page for Yahoo when I click on it....

[Victor]

you need a yahoo membership to view it. I assumed that you had one if you were a member of the yahoo group

[yogani]

Hi All:

I can see the picture fine when signed in at the Yahoo AYP forum. Are you sure you are a group member there, Melissa?

I tried to open the photo and files sections for non-member viewing, but Yahoo does not allow it. Sorry for the inconvenience there.

Snitz (this forum's software) does have the ability to include images in posts, but it is turned off because I was warned it could hamper performance and eat up storage capacity and bandwidth. There are potential copyright issues too.

If you all think it is important to have images in here, let me know and I will look into it.  

The guru is in you.

[david_obsidian]

Melissa,

when I logged in I had a problem too -- I got an error message at the top of the page...  There was no photo at the bottom,  but by clicking 'Previous' and 'Next' I was able to find a picture entitled 'Victor Showing off a bit' which I think is the one we want.

-D

[Jim and His Karma]

http://www.imageshack.us/

allows you to put images on the web for free. no strings attached, no registration, no nothing. fast and easy. Yogani, no need to allow images here, it's soooooo simple for folks to host images at imageshack and just link to them from here.

I've just put Victor's photo here:
http://img496.imageshack.us/img496/6914/victor5vb.jpg

[Victor]

Whoo! thanks for all the good responses. That pic is sort of my personal trademark so its nice to share with all you fellow yogis and yoginis!
 It was taken as an attempt to be in the Yoga Journal calender and my guess is that it would have made it if it had been submitted. Unfortunately although I think that it was very well framed with a good background etc it was not shot by a professional photographer and thus was not quite sharp enough to blow up for a calendar. It did make me want to have more yoga pictures taken and i encourage all of you to do the same. It can be very interesting years later to have a photographic record of your progress. I haven't taken many yoga pics over the years and wish that there were more. Lets see yours!!!!