My friend Kristen and I were on our way to the beach yesterday and we were chatting about our practice and how hard it is to balance practice with teaching and all the other aspects of life, especially when you're supposed to be practicing with insight and intellligence and all of that. Both of us are very admiring of the Ashtanga Vinyasa ethic and the way that they always know what they are going to practice and where they are in that series.

Now, I've done Ashtanga and I know that it's not right for my body and my constitution, so I'm not about to take it up again. We were thinking, however, that it would be great to develop a handful of sequence that one could plough through on a regular basis with the knowledge that, upon completing them, one will have touched on most of the poses in the Iyengar repertoire. Inspired by the idea of the Anusara "Eye of the Tiger" sequence, we started talking about how we might divide up the poses in Light on Yoga. We came up with the idea of 5 sequences:

• forward bends and twists
• core poses and arm balances
• baby backbends
• full backbends
• restorative poses

I woke up this morning full of vim and vigor and started thinking about what the sequences might entail and came up with this idea, based on the order of the poses as they appear in Light on Yoga for the first sequence. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to do the whole thing. I got as far as Marichyasana III, which took me about 2 hours. I think the whole thing would probably take about 2 1/2 hours in total.

Rope Shirshasana

Utthita Trikonasana
Parshvottanasana
Adho Mukha Shvanasana
Uttanasana - feet wide
Prasarita Padottanasana I
Prasarita Padottanasana II
Padangusthasana
Padahastasana
Uttanasana

Adho Mukha Vrkshasana
Shirshasana

Dandasana
Virasana
Parvatasana in Virasana
Adho Mukha Virasana
Gomukhasana - with arms
Gomukhasana - forward extension
Adho Mukha Ardha Padmasana
Ardha Padmasana
Padmasana
Parvatasana
Tolasana
Baddha Padmasana
Yoga Mudrasana

Maha Mudra
Janu Shirshasana
Parivrtta Janu Shirshasana
Ardha Baddha Padma Pashchimottanasana
Triang Mukhaikapda Pashchimottanasana
Krounchasana
Marichyasana I
Marichyasana II

Upavishtha Konasana
Parshva Upavishtha Konasana
Parivrtta Upavishtha Konasana
Pashchimottanasana
Parivrtta Pashchimottanasana

Bharadwajasana I
Bharadwajasana II
Marichyasana III
Marichyasana IV
Ardha Matsyendrasana I
Pashasana
Ardha Matsyendrasana II
Ardha Matsyendrasana III
Paripurna Matsyendrasana

Salamba Sarvangasana
Halasana
Karnapidasana
Supta Konasana
Parshva Halasana
Shavasana

Try it out and tell me what you think...