Led Primary with Kino MacGregor in DC

Back in March I had the fortune of catching a led primary series with Kino MacGregor through Woodley Park Yoga in DC.  When my daily mysore practice began almost a year and a half ago, I’d started by watching Kino’s and Sharath Jois’ Primary Series DVDs.  I've spent hours  watching Kino's videos mainly because she speaks my language when it comes to verbal cues. 

Prior to Ashtanga, I had a steady Baptiste vinyasa practice peppered with led primary classes and had developed a slow ujjayi rhythm.  When I began teaching led classes, I’d keep the same tempo while counting and occasionally heard from students that my counts were long.    Rather than compromise consistency, I maintained the slower tempo of counting which is slower than most; however, not slower than Kino’s counts.

Kinos 5 counts were 10 of mine, and the shakes set in early for me during her Led Primary class.  My hips also felt heavy during jump throughs, resulting in mat burn and a nice toenail nick on the top of my hand.  Prone to hyper pigmentation, I knew that I'd be reminded of these long counts for some time to come.  More immediate and pressing a matter, however was finishing the practice. The deconstruction of it all came during closing when my shoulders were so tired that I couldn't sustain the inversions.

I hadn’t been pushed by a teacher in the area of long counts since attending a weekend with David Robson at the Miami Life Center in 2013.  There, he used the drum beat to which he asked us to  move through sun salutations.   Since practicing with Kino, I've taken to extending my counts a little, which I didn't think would be acceptable to traditionalists until I read a recent throwback blog posted by Shanna Small  that featured excerpts from the theaspiringyogi.  If you scroll down in this interview with Manju Jois (the oldest son of Ashtanga Yoga Founder, Sri K Pattabhi Jois)  you'll see what he has to say about holding postures for longer than 5 breaths.    Basically, he says that the body begins to settle in a posture after the fifth breath.

Touche students, I feel your pain :).

* Pictured above are a some of my students who attended Kino MacGregors' March weekend workshop in DC.