Day 14 - Backbend Actions in Standing Poses with Abhijata

We've reached the mid point of the month and I feel like I've been here forever! Life has settled down into a lovely rhythm of practice, sunshine and lots of lovely healthy fresh fruits and veggies. We walked to the institute via the interesting route through the shanty town and gathered a little entourage of boys, extremely keen to chat in English and show us the shortest way through the maze. Given that we seem to get lost on every attempt, this was very helpful and so we found ourselves splashing through very narrow back alleys between overhanging houses right in the heart of people's living quarters, giving us bemused looks as we passed, smiling apologetically. The social stratas are still very defined here and although everyone is super-friendly, the assumption is, we must surely be lost to be venturing into this territory.

We were all delighted to see Abhi back from Australia and straight back into teaching with as much clarity and focus as ever. The class was busy, so much so that we folded our sticky mats in two, lengthways to make the room feel less crowded. I have been attending this class as an online participant for several months, so it felt amazing to be there in the flesh at last.

The class focussed on backbend actions in standing poses - we started with Salabhasana to imprint the feeling of middle buttock pressing into the body , abdominal length and dorsal in and then endeavoured to recreate it in Trikonasana, Parsvakonasana and Ardha Chandrasana. After we had attempted all three, she asked had we been able to successfully apply these actions and there was a mumbled, doubtful response - she laughed and joked 'Last twenty minutes wasted then!' and then we spent some time creating openess in hips and groins, before trying again with much greater success.

I was not able to get notes on the sequence this evening and I was distracted by a feeling of instability in my back, so we're a bit thin on details this evening. Here is my best attempt at remembering the main points:

Day 14 - Abhijata Intermediate – Abdominal Length in Backbend Action