I’ve recently started focusing my home practice on the Rocket Vinyasa sequences organized (created isn’t quite the right word) by Larry Shultz. If you’re not familiar with Rocket, or Ashtanga, here’s a bit of a breakdown.
In the late 70’s, while on vacation in Jamaica, an insurance salesman named Larry Shultz was drunk, and driving past the beach when he notices an old dude doing some crazy looking gymnastics on a rock. He parks, hoping to ask the old dude what he was up to. Unfortunately, Larry passed out in his car.
The following day, Larry ran into the guy at a hotel bar, met his hot young girlfriend, learned that what the old dude was doing was Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, and decided then and there that he wanted some of this Ashtanga. I’m pretty sure a guy in his 60’s having a girlfriend barely out of her 20’s was a prime mover here.
After practicing with several American Ashtangis and eventually Guruji Pattabhi Jois for 7 years in the US and in India, Larry started teaching Ashtanga in California.
In the early 80’s, Larry was contacted by members of the unwashed travelling hippy festival known as the Grateful Dead, and enlisted as their private yoga instructor. He immediately noticed that teaching grown (mostly) men, with a wide variety of capabilities, time constraints and general fitness levels, in the Mysore method, wasn’t really getting anywhere.
Strong but less flexible band members who could do arm balances with ease would be stuck at Janu Sirsasana C permanently, and never receive the benefits of postures and series farther down the line. Flexible but less strong students could race through the Primary Series until an arm balance like Bujapidhasana, only to flop face first into the ground, making little progress, since holding poses aka isometrics, will never build strength as efficiently as movement based resistance training.
He needed a way of smoothly flowing from posture to posture, combining both strength, flexibility, and movement through a combination of basic, intermediate and advanced asanas in multiple sequences – something more well-rounded than the highly focused Ashtanga structure.
To answer this need, he reorganized and recombined each of the three main Ashtanga series; Primary, Second and Advanced, into three new sequences with elements of all – sequencing asanas that focus on a specific area of the body in gradually increasing intensity together, often ending in an option from the Ashtanga Advanced Series.
This brings me to the real topic of this blog – there’s no such thing as failure. Really. Since all Rocket sequences have Primary, Second and Advanced options, there’s going to be some crazy business. Rocket I alone has multiple inversions, 10 tuck handstands and 5 full handstands, press ups to Eka Pada Koundiyasana, Pashasana to Parsva Bakasana and several other tough asanas and transitions.
There’s very little chance even an intermediate student is going to make it all the way through without toppling over at least once. Personally, I get tired, really, really tired. I fall during the last few handstands, and can’t always nail all the transitions when fatigue and sweat start to make perfect engagement and form an absolute necessity.
Progress in Yoga is a bit like evolution, as in Darwin’s Big Idea style evolution. It happens so slowly that it can only be seen after the fact. Trying to pick a point in time and thinking that you’ll be able to see something is futile. It’s a process, not a destination, and process always presents a moving target.
Each time I step on my mat, I try my best to exorcise the demons of expectation - Rocket has really forced me to confront this in myself. I try to remember that there’s no trophy or gold star at the end of a yoga practice. If you rolled out your mat for home practice, or showed up for a class, even if you spend most of your time in Balasana, you practiced. High fives and ice-cream for everyone!
In the late 70’s, while on vacation in Jamaica, an insurance salesman named Larry Shultz was drunk, and driving past the beach when he notices an old dude doing some crazy looking gymnastics on a rock. He parks, hoping to ask the old dude what he was up to. Unfortunately, Larry passed out in his car.
The following day, Larry ran into the guy at a hotel bar, met his hot young girlfriend, learned that what the old dude was doing was Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga, and decided then and there that he wanted some of this Ashtanga. I’m pretty sure a guy in his 60’s having a girlfriend barely out of her 20’s was a prime mover here.
After practicing with several American Ashtangis and eventually Guruji Pattabhi Jois for 7 years in the US and in India, Larry started teaching Ashtanga in California.
In the early 80’s, Larry was contacted by members of the unwashed travelling hippy festival known as the Grateful Dead, and enlisted as their private yoga instructor. He immediately noticed that teaching grown (mostly) men, with a wide variety of capabilities, time constraints and general fitness levels, in the Mysore method, wasn’t really getting anywhere.
Strong but less flexible band members who could do arm balances with ease would be stuck at Janu Sirsasana C permanently, and never receive the benefits of postures and series farther down the line. Flexible but less strong students could race through the Primary Series until an arm balance like Bujapidhasana, only to flop face first into the ground, making little progress, since holding poses aka isometrics, will never build strength as efficiently as movement based resistance training.
He needed a way of smoothly flowing from posture to posture, combining both strength, flexibility, and movement through a combination of basic, intermediate and advanced asanas in multiple sequences – something more well-rounded than the highly focused Ashtanga structure.
To answer this need, he reorganized and recombined each of the three main Ashtanga series; Primary, Second and Advanced, into three new sequences with elements of all – sequencing asanas that focus on a specific area of the body in gradually increasing intensity together, often ending in an option from the Ashtanga Advanced Series.
This brings me to the real topic of this blog – there’s no such thing as failure. Really. Since all Rocket sequences have Primary, Second and Advanced options, there’s going to be some crazy business. Rocket I alone has multiple inversions, 10 tuck handstands and 5 full handstands, press ups to Eka Pada Koundiyasana, Pashasana to Parsva Bakasana and several other tough asanas and transitions.
There’s very little chance even an intermediate student is going to make it all the way through without toppling over at least once. Personally, I get tired, really, really tired. I fall during the last few handstands, and can’t always nail all the transitions when fatigue and sweat start to make perfect engagement and form an absolute necessity.
Progress in Yoga is a bit like evolution, as in Darwin’s Big Idea style evolution. It happens so slowly that it can only be seen after the fact. Trying to pick a point in time and thinking that you’ll be able to see something is futile. It’s a process, not a destination, and process always presents a moving target.
Each time I step on my mat, I try my best to exorcise the demons of expectation - Rocket has really forced me to confront this in myself. I try to remember that there’s no trophy or gold star at the end of a yoga practice. If you rolled out your mat for home practice, or showed up for a class, even if you spend most of your time in Balasana, you practiced. High fives and ice-cream for everyone!