This morning, I did full primary (my rest day is on Sunday). In the Suryanamaskars, I am finally nailing floating back and floating forward into Uttanasana from downward dog. I've been able to kind of float back for a few months now: Basically, I lift my lower body up off the ground in Trini position, and then kind of float back into Chatvari. But it is only in the last couple of days that I am finally starting to get the hang of floating forward. I realize that it has a lot to do with how much of my body weight is on the legs rather than on the hands in downdog. You know that common adjustment you get in downdog, where the teacher pushes or pulls your hips back, so that more of your weight is in the feet rather than on the hands? Well, it seems that the more weight there is on the feet, the easier it is to "float" forward into Uttanasana. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but this, at least, has been my experience.
But recently, another question has come up in my mind about floating in the Suryas. According to Claudia, Sharath said in last week's conference that:
"So if you are able to do all asanas beautifully, if you do for example handstand which is the common thing everyone wants to show... I don't know where this habit comes from. What is this? After Surya Namaskar, dwi, trini, (two, three) and handstand. (He is refering to people who include handstand into the sun salutations as a way of showing off, but something that is clearly not supposed to be there in the salutations, see Pattabhi Jois' book Suryanamaskara). He continues I don't know why, it seems to attract people, but for a real yogi the transformation happens within."
I guess my question is: Is floating in and out of trini position in the Suryas showing off? After all, if you are lifting your body off the ground first in trini before you go back into chatvari, you are technically doing a handstand. Same goes for floating forward into Uttanasana/Sapta position: If you are floating, there is an instant in which your body is suspended above the ground. Which makes it technically a handstand. To illustrate my point, here's a video of David Robson "floating":
So is floating showing off?
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