Advanced and With the Master
This is one of the maintenance sets the masters gave the Los Angeles advanced class in May, built to wake the glandular system and steel the nervous system at once. You are not stretching for comfort here. You are tuning the body so prana can move clean through the nadis and the glands can do their secret work. Done in order, it readies the system for heavy times, the way a smith tempers a blade before it is ever needed.
Pose 1
Lie flat on your back. Raise the left leg to 90 degrees, hold the left foot with both hands, and kick your buttocks with the right foot. Stay with it for 2 - 3 minutes. Switch sides and do another 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 2
Come up into Shoulder Stand. Lower the left leg to the ground over the head. As you raise the left leg back up, lower the right. Keep alternating, raising one leg as the other comes down, for 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 3
Sit up with the legs out in front, spread as wide as you can. Stretch and lower the forehead toward the left knee, then the right knee, then center. Hold this left, right, center sequence for 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 4
Sit in Rock Pose. Interlock the fingers in front of the chest. Keep the hands locked there and twist the torso side to side without stopping for 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 5
Stay sitting on the heels. Open the hands, fingers spread, and stretch the arms straight out in front, parallel to the ground. Make a grasping motion with the hands and pull them back toward the body one at a time with great tension, as if hauling an imaginary 200 pounds. Keep stretching, grasping, and pulling at maximum tension for 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 6
Stand up. Stretch the arms straight out in front of you. Do knee bends, rising up and lowering down. Continue for 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 7
Come into Locust Pose: lie flat on the stomach, chin on the ground, make fists and fit them into the groin. Raise the legs as high off the ground as you can, toes pointed. Hold for 3 minutes.
Pose 8
Stay on the stomach and come into Bow Pose. Bend the neck toward the left shoulder, then the right. Do not turn the neck, bend it from ear to shoulder. Continue for 90 seconds. This serves people who may have hypoglycemia, blood sugar too low. Then, still in Bow Pose, rock back and forth on the stomach for 1 - 3 minutes.
Pose 9
Come onto your back, palms flat on the floor. Raise the buttocks as high as possible, then lower them. Keep up this movement for 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 10
Lie on the back with the heels together. Place the hands underneath the buttocks, raise the legs to 90 degrees, then lower them. Continue for 2 - 3 minutes.
Pose 11
Get into Cobra Pose with the hands off the ground beside the shoulders. Stick the tongue out and breathe through the mouth for 2 minutes.
Pose 12
Raise up into full Cobra Pose. Keep the tongue out and stay with the same breath. After 3 minutes, relax.
Pose 13
Stand up. Put the hands on your shoulders. Raise the knees one at a time to touch the chest. Continue for 2 minutes.