Welcome to Season 3

(waves lapping) Hi, my name is Maria Villella thank you for joining me for season three of the Astanga practice show. In this season, I designed the practices to help everyone through the difficult parts of the first series and second series. What I've seen people and what I've experienced myself, where I've struggled or I've seen other people struggle in the practice. One of the practices is on hip opening for poses like lotus. Lotus is obviously a challenge for our western bodies.

Then we have another practice again for hip opening but it's more for legs behind the head. Which is a little important in first series, when we take poses like supta kurmasana, but very important as we start second series with poses like eka pada sirsasana, single leg behind the head, dwi pada sirsasana, both legs behind the head, and yoginidrasana. Another aspect of the practice that we look at is dropbacks. A lot of teachers will use dropbacks as a marker for when somebody is ready to enter into second series. So we'll spend some time looking at dropbacks and I'll offer different suggestions of how you can start working them into your own practice especially if you don't have a teacher nearby and you're kinda looking for ways to get yourself doing those postures or dropbacks.

We'll also look at inversions. Not necessarily a major part of the ashtanga practice however, they can be fun to play with. We do practice some inversions, like handstand, forearm balance, but more so looking at them as a transition for tick tocks, which is a part of finishing practice in ashtanga and then taking those into scorpion pose. I've also included another tutorial on transitions so I know that can be a hot topic and something that everyone's interested in is how to do the jump back and jump through to seated. So we have a tutorial on that.

Who is this practice right for? Who's ready for it? It's not a beginner's practice, this is definitely for someone who has been practicing a vinyasa style practice for a while, is comfortable with sun salutations, or somebody who's a dedicated ashtangi, who's somewhere in first series, doesn't have to be finished with first series, but they're looking to iron out the kinks, open up the hips a little more, get a little deeper into back bends, and start working towards second series poses. Thank you for joining me, I hope you enjoy this season, the practices, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out on the forum. Good luck and thank you.

Namaste.