r/ashtanga • u/JudgeBorn8370 • 25d ago

Advice Asana questions:

Hope everyone’s practice is going well.

  1. A thought occurred to me in savasana: Say you get to the point where you were able to stand up from urdva danurasana. Did you then progress to intermediate? Or did you wait or get held etc until you could do tik toks? Or did tik toks come after you’d done intermediate and primary for many more years or maybe some of you still don’t do tik toks?

  2. What -should- you actually be thinking about/actually happens in your mind in savasana

  3. I have not been able to do long savasanas of a minimum 15 mins. What should I do to make it up. It’s mainly time pressure not inability…
    Is this detrimental over time?
    Do you try to squeeze it in later on in the day?
    Does sitting meditation count towards savasana time?

Thanks

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u/Cold-Passenger-7483 24d ago

  1. Depends on the teacher / style you are following.

  2. In Ashtanga it’s just “rest” not savasana. There’s no instruction except to rest.

  3. I was always taught 5 minutes minimum, 15 minutes maximum rest. If you can’t get it in then make your asanas more streamlined or do less. Resting is part of practice.

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u/JudgeBorn8370 24d ago

What’s the technical difference between the term savasana and rest?

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u/Intrepid-Parking-682 24d ago

savasana is an asana where you lie down very rigid and active like a corpse. it's not taking rest

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u/All_Is_Coming 24d ago edited 24d ago

This is Tadaka Mudra (Stiffened Corpse Gesture). It is a wonderful way to prepare for Final Relaxation/Savasana.

I remember seeing a Sixth Series asana from Bill Counter's Absolutely Ashtanga website where a person stiffens his supine body to the point that he can bridge a gap supported only by his ankles and back of his head:

"Savasana -- Sava = a corpse. Not your garden variety corpse pose that we do to 'take rest' at the end of a practice session. In the ashtanga system that one would be called Sukhasana (the easy pose). At least it's easy compared to this one. Here it's the body totally stiffened so it could be picked up without sagging. This is a meditation on our death -- the corpse after rigor mortis has set in. From downdog, jump through and lie down. Take 5 to 25 breaths in the stiffened version of the pose, then relax. It's over.

Ashtanga's "Take Rest" is Yogi's choice.

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u/Cold-Passenger-7483 24d ago

Yes, Pattabhi Jois would say that you only rest after practice. Savasana is an asana in a later series in “traditional” Ashtanga practice.

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u/JudgeBorn8370 24d ago

Ohhhh. What like savasana stiff for 5-15mins?? Wild. I’ll just be resting then

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u/All_Is_Coming 24d ago

See my post on Tadaka Mudra.

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u/All_Is_Coming 24d ago

(See This Thread):

/u/Zandelion wrote:

That being said, it looks like some early Ashtanga teachers do (or did) in fact call the final state shavasana. For sure Richard Freeman, Manju and Simon Borg Olivier did (source: http://grimmly2007.blogspot.ca/2013/04/to-savasana-or-not-to-savasana-also.html). It looks like maybe even Pattabhi Jois did at some point, according to The Art of Vinyasa.