Tolasana/Uth Pluthi

[Guest guest]

Right at the end of it all, and shortly before

collapsing into Shavasana, when your body feels like

scrambled egg already, you lift yourself, legs dutifully

folded in Padmasana, right off into Tolasana with both

hands pressing on the mat, to stay there for the

prescribed time of dreadful 100 breaths. <br><br>Or so it

should be done, if you follow David Swenson's well

respected instructions (on page 238 of the "Practice

Manual" he sets great store on stressing that the breath

count of ONE HUNDRED is NOT one of the many typos in

his tome). However, I think that those 100 Tolasana

breaths are done in a rather quick, Bhastrika-like

fashion, which means that the time you spend balancing on

your hands is not as dramatic as you might initially

have believed.<br><br>But variety is the spice of

life: in John Scott's "Ashtanga Yoga" the scourge is

christened Uth Pluthi and done for the amount of equally

dreadful 25 ujjayi breaths.<br><br>Which lets me wonder:

what actually is the breathing technique K.P.Jois

recommends for that particular posture - whatever its

correct name might be? And what version do you follow in

your personal Ashtanga practice?

[Guest guest]

100 . I can't even count that far. No, the 25

ujjayi seems somehow more appropriate. The long calm and

reflective quality of ujjayi is (hopefully) very strong at

this point whereas bhastrika seems too frantic for

what must be one of the most serene moments in the

practice.<br><br>still david swenson knows a thing or two but, <br>well

thats my tuppence worth. however tolasana is a nicer

name. uth pluthi sounds like a city in a Borges tale,

and an ugly city at that whereas tolasana sounds like

a delicious ice cream or a unit of measurement for

hash in manali.<br><br>hari om

[Guest guest]

During PKJ's workshop in Southern California last

August, at the end of practice he would shout, "UTH

PLUTHI!" and everybody would cinch themselves up. Then

he'd take a comically long time counting to ten, and

he expected ujayi breaths -- anyone doing bhastrika

breathing was a very bad man or lady. David Swenson looked

surprisingly serene during the whole ordeal. He probably took

at least 100 breaths to keep from passing out.

[Guest guest]

I'm glad to see this, I was wondering the same

thing. Not about the number, but about the type of

breath. (I took the 100 breaths to be a goal to work

toward, long term, and even 25 to be something to work

toward.) I was doing fine, starting out at 15 breaths (now

do 20), with the ujayi breaths, but then I read in

DSwenson's book, the breaths described as "powerful". I

changed to do it this way. Even though the powerful

breaths had the upside(?) of finishing the routine

faster, it somehow didn't feel right. Felt like I was

introducing tension into my system. So lately I've been

backing away from that, starting in ujayi, then finishing

up with a few more powerful breaths. Glad to know I

can ujayi it all the way...<br><br>E.

[Guest guest]

>From Slade's synapsis of Jois on video ....<br><br>20 breaths here...<br><a

href=http://www.ionet.net/~tslade/yogvid01.htm

target=new>http://www.ionet.net/~tslade/yogvid01.htm</a><br><br>25 breaths

here....<br><a href=http://www.ionet.net/~tslade/yogvid04.htm

target=new>http://www.ionet.net/~tslade/yogvid04.htm</a>

[Guest guest]

Of the entire room of 2ndserizers, only 3 stayed up for the full count.

[Guest guest]

When I was attending Andrew Eppler's classes, we

always did Tolasana right after 25 breaths in Lotus and

right before Savasana. He said to aim for 100 breaths

but just to do 10 or 20 or whatever you can. And

these are rapid bastrika breaths. When a friend of his

was visiting from England and taught a class, we did

not do Tolasana. She said she was taught by BNS

Iyengar that when you do asana, you do asana, when you do

kriyas and pranayamas, then you do those. <br><br>On the

Sarah Powers Maui video, she has the class do 20

breaths in Tolasana. (no bastrika breaths)<br><br>Richard

Freeman's ends his video with 10 breaths in Lotus, followed

by just a couple of breaths in "Utplatih" (though

the accompanying book says 10 breaths), followed by a

Vinyasa into Savasana.

[Guest guest]

That was the way he did it in New York too - a

count from one to ten, but with the numbers in between

*not* guaranteed to be in their normal sequence or to

occur only once - the whole performance by some strange

coincidence taking almost exactly as long as the strongest

one or two people in the class could stay up. Both

tough and funny.<br><br>In my own practice I can stay

up for about ten normal ujayi breaths on a good day,

so it will be a while before I need to worry about

whether to do 25 or 100.

[Guest guest]

But what is this bastrika breath? Never done that.. So here in Finland, where

Lino Miele is the principal teacher we do (or are supposed to do ) 25 ujjays

in Uth Pluthi.

[Guest guest]

Bastrika breath or breath of fire is a rapid

breath through the nose with a strong forced exhale. I

haven't really studied pranayama separately, but I would

assume that this is one of the basic types of pranayama

practice. <br>I notice that the Its Yoga manual says 25

"fire breaths" in Uttpluthi. I think the theory behind

including this at the end of a session is that it expedites

removal of toxins, which may have been stirred up through

the practice.<br><br>It would be cool if someone with

more experience could comment on this. Did PKJ used to

include this as part of a primary Ashtanga practice?

[Guest guest]

> she said she was taught by BNS Iyengar that

when you do asana, you do asana, when you do kriyas

and pranayamas, then you do

those.<<br><br>TLS,<br><br>So I must suppose that according to BNS Iyengar,

you

shouldn't do ujjayi breathing in the postures, since ujjayi

is a Pranayama technique? But then you shouldn't

apply the bandhas either, because bandhas only make

sense when done in connection with

Pranayama.<br><br>Interestingly, this is also what that other, more famous

Iyengar

in Pune says: keep Asanas pure, don't mix them with

Pranayamas & bandhas. But if you leave out ujjayi, and if

you don't apply the bandhas during the postures: what

is left, is that still Ashtanga Yoga at all?

[Guest guest]

Alan,<br><br>Are you implying that Guruji is unable to count up to ten? Bad man.

[Guest guest]

Ok now I got it..Been there, done that. I used to

do this with one of my teachers, but what I recall

it was called otherwise (can't remember what). So,

first the asana practice using only ujjayi breathing

(and with a proper relaxation). And after that sitting

in padmasana or in other steady position, we did

this bastika and other, for example nadi shodana,

pranayama practices. If we had classes in the morning we

could start with some pre-warming pranayamas before the

asana practice.<br>So, to shining skull: when Iyengar

tells to keep asana and pranayama separate he could

just mean that during asana practice you are not

supposed to use any other breathings than ujjayi and then

practice the other pranayamas other time. Although the

keep-the-bandhas-out-of-it sounds very weird indeed. <br>Well, this is me

again with a little knowledge and a lot of enthusiasm..

[Guest guest]

Well, I can't answer for BNS, but I assume that

he teaches ujayi and bandhas along with asanas.

Also, even though he is basically teaching the same

yoga as PKJ, I don't think he claims to be teaching

according to PKJ's current teachings. It just seems that

there is some variation among teachers on what kind of

breathing is used in Tolasana. In the classes I went to, we

also preceded the salutations by working on nauli

kriya, which is probably not part of most Ashtanga

classes, but seems to be a good thing to add to the

session. I think of Ashtanga yoga as being the ultimate

asana practice and I think that there is value in

understanding a tradition and in keeping it pure, so I

someetimes find these discussions useful and interesting.

But on the other hand, I am exploring all kinds of

yoga and other physical disciplines and it looks to me

like there is an infinite variety of things that may

be appropriate for different people at different

times. So some of these minor variations in how

different teachers present Ashtanga yoga may not really be

that big of a deal. And of course, if someone really

wants to get to the bottom of it, I guess they would

want to go study with PKJ.

[Guest guest]

Not guilty. I'm implying that Guruji has the

talent of mixing difficulty with humour, which is a sign

of a really good teacher. <br><br>Or maybe he just

can't count up to ten in English very well - how are

your Kannada & Sanskrit? (Actually, I suppose that

last comment is unfair - I assume you are a native

German speaker, but your English is obviously excellent)

[Guest guest]

I'm not a teacher, but I have been told by

several teachers that Patthabi Jois used to teach

bastrika breathing in utt plithi (sp?) but now says only

ujayi breathing.<br><br>My original teacher in England,

who was a student of John Scott, was teaching

bastrika breathing four years ago but doesn't any more.

[Guest guest]

Alert: the following is purely academic

tomfoolery.<br><br>Seems that we can resolve the oddity of BNS's alleged

"keep-the-bandhas-out-of-it" remark as follows:<br><br>Godfrey Deveroux, a

student of BNS, distinguishes between uddiyana bandha

(the extreme suck-in of the abdomen that would, for

instance, prepare for nauli kriya) from uddiyana mudra (the

more subtle pulling in that we maintain throughout the

ashtanga practice). Also uddiyana mudra, if deepened to

the bottom of the abdominal wall, seems to

automatically engage the perineum for what we call mula

bandha.<br><br>So maybe we don't really do what BNS would define as

"bandhas" during asana practice.<br><br>I don't know what

to say about ujjayi pranayama.<br><br>Peace and

Good,<br>Homer