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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Anusara Buzz

We're still flying high after a couple of great workshops with Sara Strother this past weekend. We thought we'd seen everything, but both Friday night and Saturday morning held some new postures, flows, and wisdom. We can't wait until Sara's back in town for the next family get-together (Flag Day, anyone?) - maybe she'll school us again?

Speaking of Anusara, we've found an interesting video of instructor Darren Rhodes making this poster:

It's sort of an Anusara take on Dharma Mittra's classic:


A quick comparison:

Mittra: 908 postures taken over who-knows-how-many days. In addition to postures, includes some pics of kriyas (cleansing practices, like nauli) and other yoga practices. All of these pics were taken by Mittra by himself, using a tripod and camera (FILM camera - this was a while ago) with handheld remote (connected by wire) to take the pic. Also used a camcorder and television. He would get into the posture, check the image in the television, and take the picture. It sounds easy enough, until you start to think about it: one-handed handstands, feet-to-head, arm balances - many times the picture was snapped using the teeth, as the hands were full.

Rhodes: 345 postures over two days. Each type of posture was performed in quick succession - all of the backbends in a row, all of the arm balances in a row, etc. As you watch the video below, you can see this and hear the photographer and assistants calling the next posture, even as he's coming out of the current one.



At first it seems like Rhodes had it much easier than Mittra -he didn't have to worry about the photography, for one thing, just do the postures, and usually only for a few seconds (e.g. Sayanasana - 1:32). But let's not forget that Mittra could take as much of a break as he wanted between each posture, while Rhodes was stuck in an endless vinyasa-type nightmare.

One way or another, it's an incredible thing to create one of these posters. Is anybody looking for a model for Savasana?

3 comments:

Jen said...

Wow! What an amazing video. I'm ready to take rest, just from watching!

Kali Om said...

More info on Dharma's poster:

1. Dharma actually took 1300 photos, but only 908 would fit on the poster. Before doing it he conducted a lot of research, pulling together every book, etc. he could get his hands on. He wanted to include every single pose.

2. Dharma made the poster as an offering to his guru, Yogi Gupta

3. One of the reasons the poster took so long was because Dharma he noticed that his ego was involved in a pose, he would have to do it over again.

Anonymous said...

amazing! one of my friends is putting together a couple of little self practice books by cutting up this poster and pasting it into varying sequences.