ollieyoga

After swimming this morning (4000 yards) I went to Vickie's house (she is my yoga teacher) to practice some partner yoga. I was in for a surprise.

For starters, some poses which looked as if they were going to be easy weren't. And some which looked to be impossibly hard weren't that difficult.

But what I found is that doing poses with a pratner helps one's individual practice.

I'll share a bit of what I learned.

First, when I go into forward fold, I am pushing my butt a bit back instead of keeping it over my feet.





http://www.couplescompany.com/Advice/Jason/yoga/yogapartner.htm
See how far apart their feet are? In the book "The Joy Of Partner Yoga", the feet of the respective partners are much closer together (that is the heels of prater A almost touch the heels of partner B). It is hard to do!



http://student.vwc.edu/~chronicle/4_11_03/features89.htm
Here, notice how straight the legs are and how the partners are clasping hands. Vickie and I couldn't do this. Why? Look at the torsos of the partners. The torsos are almost perpendicular to the ground. To get my legs that high up, I have to lean backwards thereby making it difficult for me to reach forward far enough. In this case, I am limiting my partner.



Here is double triangle. We do a version where the lower arm is actually grasping the partners leg and then released to get into this version to finish in half-moon.

Also we have a double down dog version; one prater in down dog and the other is also in down dog, but facing the other direction with their feet on the other partner's shoulder blades.

Anyway, this will be a lot of work, but the work will be fun and well worth it.