Swenson's short forms

[Guest guest]

Hi Alan<br><br>I have never seen Swenson's short

form video, since I do not believe in short forms, but

I went to buy his book. And you are right! He

states in the text that the short forms are also

intended for newcombers.<br><br>Well, all I can do, is to

agree with Takeitup, who wrote here some time ago, that

David Swenson is a teacher of his own system, that is

different from guruji's.<br><br>Also I would like to tell

you that I am very happy, that my teacher is very

strick about not changing anything of the tradition. If

you have only 45 minutes or are a beginner, just

start from the beginning and do about 30 - 40 minutes,

skip the rest of the series and jump right into those

of the finishing asanas that you do, starting with

sarvangasana, halasana a.s.o. ending with padmasana or another

crosslegged position, where you carefully focus on the breath

and finish with a good, long relaxation.<br><br>In

this way you are also building up your strength

gradually, but you are learning the correct order and

opening up your body the way it is ment to. Sticking to a

given form without changing it, is also a matter of

respect and diciplin, not always easy, but part of the

practice. <br><br>After I have startet teaching myself, I

also clearly see that the progress of those, who just

do the practice without wanting to change/modify the

asanas or the sequence is much faster.<br><br>Good luck

with your practice. <br><br>tutu

[Guest guest]

do you mean to imply that david is disrespecful,

indisciplined and taking the easy way out and that those who

occasionally or always use his short forms are not going to

build strength gradually nor open their body, or did

you just forget that words can say a lot more than we

mean them to when we dont think about them carefully

enough? are you aware that the so called correct way to

open the body as it is now encoded as the primary

series was not encoded like that when it was taught to

david. he, at least, is in a position to know that these

sequences are not in fact written in stone but on the

living sweat of personal experience, and there we are

all different, no matter how much we have in common?

[Guest guest]

Well I think that David is mentioning that there

is other things to do other than primary series and

so forth and I believe that the short form is a

sugestion for people that have 45 minutes to practise

rather than one hour and twenty something minutes.<br>I

do know that he teaches the full primary series as

was passed on to him thru David Williams and Pattabi

Jois among others and I take my hat for David Swenson

since he is the one of the fews that are writing about

the third series. And he out together a nice

inspiring video with several advanced ashtanga yoga

precticioner.<br><br>Have a good one<br><br>Reinaldo Liem