Here's a little Java program that plays a compressed (~30 minute) Sivananda sequence. It pops up a little window to show a picture of the current pose, counts a timer down for each pose and dings three times when each pose is complete. It also dings once within some poses so I know how time is passing.
Use this program at your own risk. I'm not a yoga instructor and this sequence is my own interpretation of the Sivananda asanas. Note in particular that this sequence is significantly compressed from a proper full Sivananda practice.
To launch, click the link above, download yoga.jar and double-click it. If it doesn't launch, probably you're screwed. If you know what you're doing, you could always issue java -jar yoga.jar from a command prompt to see what the problem is and go from there.
Requires Java 1.5+. (I like generics.)
The images and the basic sequence are taken from the Proper Exercise pages of the Sivananda Om Site. If you're the copyright owner of the images and you object to their use in this program, please contact pete in the user part and graffiti.graceland.ca in the domain part and I will remove the program from my web site.
The sequence:
- Warmup - 5 minutes. Warns with 1.5 minutes left. I like to sit and breathe until the warning, and then stretch my arms up, out and then twist lightly to either side.
- Sun saluations - 5 minutes. Warns at 2, 3 and 4 minutes. I like to spend the first two minutes on the right side of the first full sequence, taking it slow and getting a good stretch in downward dog. For the next minute do the left side, again getting a good downward dog. I then pick up the pace, completing two full sequences in two minutes.
- Child's pose - 1 minute. Breathe, relax and prepare mentally for headstand.
- Headstand - 2 minutes. First do dolphin three or four times. Warns with 30 seconds left to start coming down and into child's pose to rest.
- Shoulder stand - 2 minutes. This is enough time to rest a few breaths in corpse and get a good stretch. Warns with 20 seconds that time is passing.
- Plough - 1 minute. Warns with 20 seconds left that time is passing.
- Fish - 1 minute. Relax in corpse to recover from plough then spend three or four breaths in the pose.
- Forward bend - 1 minute.
- Inclined plane - 30 seconds. Take a few breaths in the pose to counter the forward bend and then relax into corpse.
- Child's pose - 1 minute. Breathe, relax and prepare for cobra, locust and bow. Warns at 15 seconds to come down into frontal corpse.
- Cobra - 1 minute. Two stretches of three or four breaths each with a few breaths between. Rest in frontal corpse when complete.
- Locust - 1 minute. Three or four breaths in each of two half-locusts and a full with a few breaths between. Rest in frontal corpse when complete.
- Bow - 1 minute. Two stretches of three or four breaths each with a few breaths between. Rest in frontal corpse when complete.
- Spinal twist - 1 minute 30 seconds. Twist first to the right. Warns after 45 seconds to twist to the left.
- Crow or peacock - 30 seconds. I ignore this and just sit, breathe and relax.
- Hands-to-feet - 1 minute.
- Triangle - 2 minutes. Spend three or four breaths on each side of two standing poses.
- Corpse - 5 minutes. Settle into corpse (clench and release legs, arms, hips, chest, shoulders and face), complete the auto-suggestion sequence, then breathe and relax for a couple of minutes.
Troubleshooting:
- Dings once at the beginning to test sound volume. If you don't hear anything, Java might not have found a sound device. Another program is probably hogging the sound card. Browsers are bad for that.
- Sends an ALT-release keystroke once a second to defeat a screensaver. This doesn't cause trouble in Debian GNOME, but I haven't tried it in other window systems. So if things go crazy, that's probably why.
- There's a bug somewhere in the navigation code. Sometimes when clicking the backwards and forwards buttons the sequence starts playing without actually clicking the play button.