Healthy Living Club

Within yoga, self-reflection is called svadhyaya: “study” (adhyaya) of the “self” (sva). As one of the eight limbs of Patanjali’s ashtanga yoga described in the Yoga Sutra, this practice of self-study refers to both the understanding of the Self through the study of sacred texts as well as the skill of self-observation that leads to yoga or unification.In yoga practice, svadhyaya helps you observe moment-to-moment changes in your body-mind. How are you feeling in your body? Is your mind present? What subject matter draws your mind away? Applying svadhyaya to the yoga postures is one way of connecting to the truth within yourself. As we head into the new year, let’s apply svadhyaya within a subtle twisting forward bend, Janu Sirsasana (pronounced JAH-noo sheer-SHASH-annah), to cultivate the quality of balance, introspection, and connectedness that we long for during the changing of the seasons.

Embrace the Asymmetry

To begin, you may benefit from the use of a yoga blanket and belt. Although I am trained in the Ashtanga-vinyasa system where props are used minimally, if at all, I also appreciate the Iyengar approach, which uses props as tools for finding the integrity of the form.

Let’s work with props first. With a strap nearby, sit on a yoga blanket or flat pillow to elevate your hips. Take your right hand to the inside of your right knee and draw your right knee back so that you are consciously opening from your hip. Place your bent leg on the ground, with your right heel in front of your pubic bone and your toes touching your left inner thigh. For the moment, let your arms relax by your sides. Pause. Notice how your torso is no longer facing your left leg. Here is where you begin to activate the pose with awareness and observation. Start by getting the foundation through your pelvis, legs, and feet. Take a look at your left foot. Flex your foot and feel the sensations come alive in the back of your leg.

Now push through the ball of your foot as if you were stepping on a gas pedal, but keep your toes spread and drawn back. Observe how both your front and back leg are activated. Extend evenly through the inner and outer edges of your feet. Press the back of your left knee into the ground and root your left sitting bone into the earth. Now bring your awareness to your right thighour other anchor. Keep the right thigh grounded by pressing your outer thigh down, further opening your hip. Try to maintain this connection through your legs and hips to strengthen and open your lower body and flex the inner muscle of your concentration.

Now let’s embrace the asymmetry of Janu Sirsasana and begin to twist, working with the breath to gradually shift the torso to face straight ahead. Place your hands on the floor inside and outside of the left leg and pause. On an inhalation, ground through your sitting bones and lengthen your spine out of the pelvis, using your arms as anchors. As you exhale, gently contract your belly towards your spine and twist the core of your body towards your left leg. This is a gradual, continuous process.

Working with your hands on the floor can help you find your balance within this twisting action. Place a strap around the ball of your left foot and take up the slack of the strap so that your arms are fully extended. Using the strap helps you avoid doing forward bends with a hunchback and stay out of what I call “Quasimodo Land.” It is easy for the chest to cave in during forward bends and twists. Maintaining the actions of the lower body described above, lengthen your spine evenly through the front, back, and sides of your torso. As you ground your sitting bones into the earth, feel as if your spine moves in towards the front of your body. Your shoulder blades should slide down your back and towards your heart. Lift your navel towards your spine and let your sternum lightly rise.

As you twist with the breath, see if you can stretch evenly through your torso. On an inhalation, lengthen your spine. As you exhale this time, begin to fold forward, twisting to the left to center the torso over the left leg, keeping the spine long. Repeat this action until you reach your edgehe point where you are stretching the back of your left leg without losing the length of your spine.

You can think of this pose as a teacher of basic movement principles that apply to many other poses. You can also explore, as we will here, the play of opposites in this posestablishing a solid foundation in order to fly, standing firmly on your feet in order to grow away from the earth, and finding muscle support and strength in order to expand and become lighter and less serious.Have you ever noticed how much of the day you spend drawing into yourself and becoming contracted? Have you observed the effects of traffic, noise, deadlines, and fear on your physical state? In the city, where most of us live, there is often a tendency to unconsciously retract our physical selves in toward the center as a protection tactic. This is not inherently unwise, but over time it takes a toll on our psychospiritual state. I am constantly reminded of the tremendous blessing of my yoga practice, which points these habits out to me, especially when I practice a pose like Trikonasana, which deeply reverses contraction.

So I invite you to let your body learn to fly while standing clearly on the earth. To begin, stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) facing the long edge of a sticky mat. Step your feet 3 to 31? feet apart, turn your right foot out so it is parallel to the front of your mat, and turn your left foot in slightly. On an inhalation, raise your arms parallel to the floor. This pose (and life in general) requires some foundation and support in order to expand. To create support in your upper back, slightly retract your shoulder blades toward one another and slightly squeeze your arm bones with your muscles, while at the same time extending your arm bones away from your center with all your heart. Don’t hold backeel how liberating it is to completely extend.

Now create a similar action in your legs: Gently draw your leg muscles onto the bones, and at the same time reach your leg bones deeper into the earth. Stay here for a moment and pay attention to the undulation of your breath through bones and muscles, organs and tissues. Let these muscle actions be organic; you don’t have to contract your muscles as if you are being electrocuted. Think of a powerful river that has a strong muscular quality but can flow easily over rocks and obstacles.

On an exhalation, keep these muscle actions and extensions awake, and begin to deepen the hinge of your right hip socket, bending over your right leg. Pay attention to the front of your body, especially the front of your pelvis, keeping it as wide open and smiling as possible. Place your right hand on a block or on your right leg.

Now that you are in the full pose, do you still feel expansion? There is a good chance that your front spine has shortened, your rear end is sticking out behind you, or your head has come far forward of your spine. I often ask my students to imagine that they are doing this pose between two large sheets of very delicate rice paper, one along the front plane of the body, one along the back. Have you torn this delicate paper as you’ve gone into the pose? Once you’ve established a basic shape for the pose, begin to fine-tune it, like a painter filling in subtle detail. Take a look at where your left (or back) thigh bone is locatedhere is a good chance that this thigh is forward of your right (or front) thigh. Let your back thigh move back through space, even if your whole pelvis has to move back, even if you stick your rear end out behind you. Then strongly take your tailbone into your body without moving your back thigh forward. This should adjust your pelvis into clearer alignment. You will probably feel more muscle work in your back thigh (this is good!) and expansion through your pelvic floor.

Now bring your awareness to your spine. In the final pose, the spine is aligned with the front leg, but most students have a tendency to push into the front of the body in this pose due to limitations in the hip and shoulder joints, and the torso is often in front of the line of the legs. I tell these students to attempt to bring the torso even farther back, behind the line of the front leg, and often this will bring the spine into better alignment. Notice whether your kidneys feel hard on your back, and if so, let them inflate like little balloons behind you. This should give you more sense of ease in your lower back. Bring the back of your skull in line with your sacrum, spin your abdominal organs up to the ceiling, and if it’s acceptable for your neck, turn your head and look softly at your top hand.

Delight in the movement of oppositeseach into the ground to fly away from it, create muscle support to infinitely expand, rest into the back of your body to liberate the front, feel the expansion and slight tension in your body as you inhale, and follow each exhalation to a brighter sense of radiance in the pose. Just for a moment, don’t hold anything back from this expression of the fullness of your being.

How can you find sukha (comfort or joy) in Down Dog? This is a worthy question, as it is not easy to escape this pose. It is part of Suryanamaskar (Sun Salutation) in most systems of hatha yoga and a quintessential pose in Iyengar Yoga. If you struggle with Down Dog, be compassionate and patient with yourself; you are not the first person with tight hamstrings or weak arms.

On the other hand, be diligent. Ultimately, Down Dog will start to feel so good that you will really empathize with the full-body joy that dogs display while doing the pose.

Build a Good Foundation

The first thing about Down Dog is learning to ritualistically place your hands in alignment with your shoulders and hips. Typically, new students will have their arms too wide and their feet too close together. If your base is out of proportion, the pose becomes unstable, your joints stressed, and organs compressed. Come onto all fours. Place your knees right under your hips, making sure first that you have fully extended your spine. When you place your hands on your mat, shoulder-width apart, lightly spread your fingers, making sure your middle finger faces directly forward. Really study your hands, and without tensing them, connect all of the joints of your fingers and your inner and outer palm into the earth.

As you lift your pelvis to the ceiling and draw your hips back, look at your feet. They should be hip-distance apart, aligned with your pelvis. Beginners will often walk their feet towards their hands to prematurely bring their heels to the ground. Have patience, grasshopper. Your heels may or may not touch the ground, but you want to feel that you have room to continuously grow in this pose.

Unify Opposites

Down Dog very clearly puts you in touch with the inherent isometric or push-pull dynamics of yoga asanas, where a movement in one direction is balanced and enhanced by an action in the opposite direction. This has deep philosophical and spiritual significance, corresponding to the meaning of hatha yoga as the union of the sun and moon, the masculine and feminine. The practical benefit of this yogic principle is that in any pose, Down Dog included, you are simultaneously creating strength and flexibility, extension and stability.

What is the farthest vertical point from your hands in Down Dog? Your hips. What is the farthest point down from your hips? Your heels. Assume your Down Dog now and work those opposite points away from each other. Press into your hands and stretch your hips back from the tops of your thighs. Try to ground your heels. (Even if they don’t touch the floor, imagine roots growing from your heels down through the earth.) This movement starts to stretch your spine while evenly opening your hamstrings, hips, and shoulders, which leads us to a short tip regarding your weight—not how much you weigh but how you distribute what you’ve got.

Shift Your Weight Back

To get the blissful feeling and benefits of Down Dog, you need to shift your weight back into your hips. Again assume your best Down Dog. This time bend your knees so that you can really stretch back into your hips by simultaneously pressing into your hands, extending your arms, and drawing your belly slightly in. Imagine that someone is pulling back on your hips. When you get that “Aha!” it will feel as if your weight is centered in your pelvis, and your arms will feel light. If your hamstrings are very tight, you may need to practice like this for a while, gradually straightening your legs as if a strong wind were pressing your thighs and shins back. You can also place a block between the middle of your inner thighs to learn how to work your legs and develop the inner rotation of the thighs. Grip the block and press it back to feel greater extension in your spine.

Rotation, Rotation, Rotation

Learning how to both internally and externally rotate your arms at the same time to connect to your inner wrist, open your shoulders, and broaden your upper back is a key Down Dog trick. Start on your knees again with your hands in position. Typically the inner wrists start to peel off the ground, causing stress on your joints and a subtle disconnection. To ground through your inner wrist, internally rotate your arms towards each other from your elbows down. Thanks to the anatomy of your arms, your upper arms are naturally going to move in the opposite direction (external rotation). To witness how this happens naturally, when you press back into Down Dog, bend your elbows to the side in a diamond shape. Now rotate your elbows under and straighten your arms, maintaining the internal rotation from your elbow to your inner wrist. You should feel your shoulders broadening.

If this seems confusing, just try rotating your arms in the opposite direction and see how compressed the area around your neck feels. Are you starting to feel any sukha arising as you find relief in your shoulders and neck?

Support and Release Your Neck

Often humans aren’t sure what to do with their necks in Down Dog. Do you hold your neck up? Do you let it hang down to the floor? The general tip is to align the crown of your head with the natural line of your spine. If you tilt the crown of your head up, you crunch your cervical vertebrae. Dropping your head forward gives you a nice stretch, but over time can stress your neck. When you are in Down Dog, try aligning your ears with your upper arms. That should connect your head with your spine, simultaneously supporting your head while lengthening the sides of your neck.

Breathe, Relax, Enjoy the Ride

Now is the time to breathe life and vitality into your Down Dog. On the inhalation, emphasize the broadening of your shoulders and extension through your arms to bring more space into your lungs. As you exhale, focus on the movement of your legs back and down through your shins and heels. I have found this breath meditation in Down Dog to be very relaxing and powerful at the same time. As you relax, you will start to feel how nourishing this stretch is. All of the actions of the pose and your strength and flexibility to maintain them will gradually become more and more natural. Dogs have excellent devotion and patience as well as genuine joie de vie. Think of a golden retriever in the back of a jeep with its hair blowing in the wind. See if you can bring that kind of receiving quality to Down Dog in the midst of its challenges. Most of all, enjoy the ride.

Whenever I announce to one of my yoga classes that we are going to focus on twisting poses, there is a spontaneous “ahhhhh” from my students. Almost everyone loves to twist, because these poses bring such a release, no matter what your level of ability or physical condition. And the benefits of twists are many; besides the immediate gratification of the way they feel as you do them, they tone and cleanse your organs, release and strengthen the muscles of your spine and neck, and allow you to open and strengthen your shoulder joints. At the beginning of a practice, twists gently open up your spine, and at the end of a practice, they align and quiet the nervous system.

Bharadvajasana, a seated twist that is asymmetrical in the spine and pelvis, creates a slight backbend in the upper body. In twisting poses like Bharadvajasana, it is important to pay attention to your head placement and to avoid doing the pose “head first,” tightening the muscles at the back of the neck and contributing to headaches, upper back tension, and fatigue. To test your head position, lift your head upright and place the palm of your hand across the muscles at the back of your neck. Are they hard and taut? Bring your head back without lifting your chin, and you’ll feel the muscles at the back of your neck soften.

In exploring this revitalizing twist, we’ll focus on these aspects of movement: Where is your head in relationship to your spine? What is initiating, or moving, the pose? And where is the center of the pose?

To practice Bharadvajasana I, sit on your heels in the center of a mat. Fold a blanket into quarters and place a right-angle corner of the blanket so that it points at your right hip. Now sit to the right, placing only your right buttock on the blanket. Your left buttock will be off the floor, suspended in space. Use this blanket support unless you are very flexible in your lower back and hips. Even though this is an asymmetrical pose, we want to minimize the asymmetry. If the position of your pelvis is too asymmetrical, it will be risky for your sacroiliac joints and lower back.

Sit upright and face forward, so you are not twisting yet. Place your fingertips out to the sides, a few inches away from your pelvis. If possible, cross the top of your left foot over the arch of your right foot. Let your left buttock drop down as if your left sitting bone were a weight. Now begin to observe the placement of your head in relation to your spine. Let your head balance over your spine so that the muscles in the back of your neck remain soft.

Keep dropping your left sitting bone with every exhalation and begin to activate the muscles between your shoulder blades, so that you draw your inner shoulder blades deeper into your back. This will create a slight backbend in your upper back, and a lovely broadening of your upper chest, as you can see in the photograph below.

Now place your right hand on the floor or on a block behind you and place the back of your left hand on the outer right knee or thigh. Extend through the heel of the left hand towards the floor. Keep both inner shoulder blades pressing into your back.

Unless you paint ceilings for a living, there’s probably not much you do in a typical day that arches your body back. Most of life’s everyday activities round you forward: picking up your children, washing dishes, working on a computer. When you consider how much time you spend doing these repetitive tasks, it’s no wonder so many people walk around with collapsed chests and round shoulders, not to mention the accompanying aches and pains.

Walking through life in a slump weakens (and tightens) your abdominal muscles, compresses your heart, lungs, and diaphragm, and often leads to lower back injuries. Then there’s the effect that poor posture can have on your emotions. The next time you find yourself slouching, notice how you feel—tired? achy? down? Now, think of how you move when you’re full of energy and vitality—in all likelihood your chest is lifted and your shoulders are back. That’s because the way you hold your body affects the way you feel, and vice versa.

Fortunately, Ustrasana (Camel Pose) can counteract all that forward rounding. Dynamic and energizing, Camel offers welcome relief by stretching the muscles along the entire front body—the chest, belly, hip flexors, and thighs. It also creates space in your abdomen and chest, which aids digestion and breathing. Finally, according to yoga tradition, backbends open the heart chakra, one of the seven energy centers associated with love.

Proceed with Caution

Camel is an exhilarating pose, but it’s also challenging, particularly for beginners. When you’re first learning it, your back may feel stiff and your breath strained. You might even occasionally feel a twinge in your lower back or neck. You can avoid these tweaks and pains if you try two things: First, learn how to align your legs and the pelvis, so your lower back stays safely uncompressed as you move into the backbend. Second, be willing to modify the pose and practice the modifications for as long as it takes to bend back safely.

Most importantly, don’t be deterred. Simple modifications can make Camel an excellent choice for beginners. You don’t have to reach your hands to your feet to get the benefits of the pose; you simply have to practice a version that suits you. Be patient with yourself as you play with this challenging pose and find that place where your heart is open and your spine is arching, but there’s no stress or strain.

Prep Body and Mind

Before arching into the pose, take the time to center yourself and warm up. Try a reclined supported backbend to relax you and open your upper back. Sit on the floor and place one end of a rolled blanket or a bolster against your sacrum. With your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor, lie back over the support and release your shoulders toward the floor. Turn your palms up and allow your knees to fall together. Rest for a few minutes as you focus on slowing and deepening your breath.

When you’re ready to come out, roll onto your side and use your hands to return to a sitting position. Next, do a series of Sun Salutations to help build heat in your body. Incorporate either high and low lunges or Virabhadrasana I and II (Warrior Pose I and II) to open your quadriceps and inner groins.

If you have attended even one yoga class, it is a familiar gesture: the drawing together of one’s palms at the heart. Your teacher may bring his or her hands together while saying “Namaste” at the beginning or end of a class. You may find this gesture within certain asanasn Tadasana (Mountain Pose), before you begin Sun Salutations, or in balance poses such as Vrksasana (Tree Pose). This sacred hand position, called anjali mudra (AHN-jah-lee MOO-dra), is found throughout Asia and has become synonymous with our images of the East, from the smiling face of the Dalai Lama peering over his fingertips to images of devotees before a Hindu or Buddhist altar.

In the West, we translate this gesture as a posture of prayer. Because we have grown up with this gesture as part of our culture, each of us probably has our own personal connection to this mudra?ositive or negative. Some of us may find a subconscious resistance to bringing our hands together as if it were a sign of submission. However, the beauty of this gesture, which positions us right at the core of our being, is timeless and universal. I know a 3-year-old who is delighted to greet people this way and an actor who prepares himself with this gesture before entering the stage. As we explore the significance and potential of this mudra, be open to your own experience and ways that this simple yet powerful hand position can be a practical tool in your practice and daily life. In Sanskrit, mudra means “seal” or “sign” and refers not only to sacred hand gestures but also whole body positions that elicit a certain inner state or symbolize a particular meaning. Anjali mudra is but one of thousands of types of mudras that are used in Hindu rituals, classical dance, and yoga. Anjali itself means “offering,” and in India this mudra is often accompanied by the word “namaste” (or “namaskar,” depending on one’s dialect). As the consummate Indian greeting, like a sacred hello, namaste is often translated as “I bow to the divinity within you from the divinity within me.” This salutation is at the essence of the yogic practice of seeing the Divine within all of creation. Hence, this gesture is offered equally to temple deities, teachers, family, friends, strangers, and before sacred rivers and trees. Anjali mudra is used as a posture of composure, of returning to one’s heart, whether you are greeting someone or saying goodbye, initiating or completing an action. As you bring your hands together at your center, you are literally connecting the right and left hemispheres of your brain. This is the yogic process of unification, the yoking of our active and receptive natures. In the yogic view of the body, the energetic or spiritual heart is visualized as a lotus at the center of the chest. Anjali mudra nourishes this lotus heart with awareness, gently encouraging it to open as water and light do a flower.

Begin by coming into a comfortable sitting position like Sukhasana (Easy Pose). Lengthen your spine out of your pelvis and extend the back of your neck by dropping your chin slightly in. Now, with open palms, slowly draw your hands together at the center of your chest as if to gather all of your resources into your heart. Repeat that movement several times, contemplating your own metaphors for bringing the right and left side of yourself?asculine and feminine, logic and intuition, strength and tendernessnto wholeness. Now, to reveal how potent the placement of your hands at your heart can be, try shifting your hands to one side or the other of your midline and pause there for a moment. Don’t you feel slightly off kilter? Now shift back to center and notice how satisfying the center line is, like a magnet pulling you into your core. Gently touch your thumbs into your sternum (the bony plate at the center of the rib cage) as if you were ringing the bell to open the door to your heart. Broaden your shoulder blades to spread your chest open from the inside. Feel space under your armpits as you bring your elbows into alignment with your wrists. Stay here for some time and take in your experience. What initial shifts of consciousness do you experience? Is there a change in your mood?

In his classic book Mastery, American aikido expert George Leonard details the beginner’s approach on the journey to mastery: Start with something simple. Try touching your forehead with your hand. Ah, that’s easy, automatic. Nothing to it. But there was a time when you were as far removed from the mastery of that simple skill as someone who doesn’t play piano is from playing a Beethoven sonata.

For most students, this simple example is analogous to how you begin a yoga practice. If you’re lucky, it’s in an introductory class in a room full of similarly inexperienced students. The teacher’s first instruction sounds like a foreign language, and although you consider yourself relatively healthy and intelligent, dyslexia attacks: You forget where the left hand is, or the right foot, and look around the room, suddenly frightfully aware of your limited faculties of perception.

Having taught an “Intro to Yoga” class for years, I know this is a familiar scenario. So familiar, in fact, that I have simplified the initial instructions I give in class to vocabulary and movements that are recognizable to most beginners. But even after you are not a beginner anymore, going back to basicsoing less, but with more awareness?llows you to find the essence of the most fundamental poses and touch “beginner’s mind.”

The first pose I teach is Balasana (Child’s Pose). For many of us, this asana possesses a deep physical and psychological memory of our time as infants. The shape of the pose is useful for many reasons, but in particular, it forces you to confront your attitudes and patterns of breathing, the health of your organs, and your level of awareness in moving from the abdomen. It is a very simple pose to begin with physically, yet it requires patience and the ability to surrender to gravity and a state of nondoing.

In Balasana, the shape of the pose forces the front of the rib cage to compress and causes an internal resistance to full, frontal breathing, which is the adopted pattern for most of us. In this resistance you will confrontossibly for the first timehe notion of breathing somewhere other than the front of your lungs, or in such a way as to avoid distending your belly as you inhale. As the frontal ribs are compressed, the unyielding presence of the internal organs and the compression of the abdomen trapped against the thighs limit the diaphragm, sometimes resulting in feelings of claustrophobia, nausea, or even fear. This further precludes soft, even breathing.

In “Salutation to the Teacher and the Eternal One,” a paper written by T. Krishnamacharya and distributed to students at the Yoga Mandiram in Madras, he says: “One important thing to be constantly kept in mind when doing asanas is the regulation of the breath. It should be slow, thin, long, and steady: breathing through both nostrils with a rubbing sensation at the throat and through the esophagus, inhaling when coming to the straight posture, and exhaling when bending the body.”

Although we’ve all seen images of yogis effortlessly draping their torsos onto their thighs, for most beginners the moon seems closer and more attainable than a forward bend. In my beginners classes, I hear a steady chorus of “My hamstrings are so tight!” And such complaints make sense. When your hamstrings are tight, forward bending, twisting, inverting, and just plain sitting become much more difficultnd much less enjoyable.

Yet even though stretching your tight hamstrings should be a high priority, standing and seated forward bends pose dangers. Tight hamstrings pull down on the sitting bones, rotating the bottom of your pelvis forward. With your pelvis tucked under and your ego demanding that you bend forward anyway (everyone else in class is doing it!), you can easily stretch your lower back instead of your hamstrings perfect recipe for lower back strain (or even more serious injury).

Fortunately, the benevolent yoga deities gave us Supta Padangusthasana (Reclining Big Toe Pose), a safe method for stretching your pesky hamstrings, bringing more freedom to your back, pelvis, and hips, and thus opening the door to many other poses. In this reclining pose, gravity won’t force your back to bear the weight of your torso, as it does in standing and seated forward bends; instead, once you can bring your leg to a vertical position, gravity helps you stretch your hamstrings. As long as you keep your hips and back releasing into the floor, you won’t strain your lower back.

To practice Supta Padangusthasana, begin by lying on your back with both knees bent and your feet on the floor. Bend your right knee into your chest, place a belt around the ball of your right foot, and straighten your right leg toward the ceiling. If your leg ends up further away from you than directly vertical, congratulations! You’re a member of the Tight Hamstring Club. Your hamstrings will tend to curl the base of your pelvis up off the floor. To counteract this, bend your right knee until your sitting bones drop toward the ground.

Holding an end of the belt in each hand, keep your elbows straight and the weight of your arms falling from your right foot so that your shoulder blades remain on the floor rather than hunching forward. If you are more flexible and can hold your right big toe with the first two fingers of your right hand while keeping your shoulder blades on the floor, you can dispense with the belt and bring your left arm to the floor. Whether you’re holding a belt or your big toe, don’t use a death grip; soften your hands, relax and lengthen the back of your neck, and let your backside muscles release into the floor.

Allow yourself to relax into the pose even as you concentrate on the stretch. Breathe deeply and evenly, soften your face and eyes, and keep your peripheral vision gently active as you gaze with concentration at your right big toe. If your big toe is out of sight, focus on a single spot on the ceiling. Every time you inhale, feel your breath slightly strengthen your legs. Every time you exhale, feel your muscles release and your hip joints gratefully open. Let your back muscles drop into the floor and your belly relax back into your spine as the pose soaks into your body.

For many of us, Urdhva Hastasana is a pose we practice a variation of unconsciously every morning: We roll out of bed, stand upyes half open, yawningaise the arms, arch the spine, and take the head back. It is an intuitive movement that helps get energy moving after a night’s sleep. When we encounter this pose for the first time in a yoga class, we often take it for granted. Why waste time practicing a pose we feel “good” at when there are many more poses to conquer?

There is a natural tendency for beginners to feel a sense of accomplishment and take pride in asanas that seem easy, especially when others present more obvious challenges. Unfortunately, these feelings can become obstructions for connecting with the more subtle qualities of a posture. Urdhva Hastasana (Upward Hand Pose) has within it the seeds of more advanced poses like arm balances and backbends. And by mastering the intelligence of a simple pose like Urdhva Hastasana, you can gain the power and confidence to move deeper into your practice.

Entering the Pose

Like most asanas, the principles of movement in Urdhva Hastasana break into three parts: entering the pose, being in the pose, and exiting the pose. Whether you are practicing it individually or as part of a flow series, the pose should be executed with these principles in mind.

It is helpful to begin with the understanding of where movement in a pose comes from. There is a very basic principle in physics which you have probably heard since you were in grade school: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In yogic terms, this concept applies directly to the movement of subtle energy in the body. If you want something to go up, connect with the energy that is going down.

To begin Urdhva Hastasana, stand with your feet together and arms at your sides. Feel the soles of your feet softening into the floor and the firmness of the floor supporting your weight evenly across each foot. This is your ground. Notice that there is a natural lift that accompanies this grounding. Allow the breath to move freely along the full length of your torso, without bloating the belly. With an exhalation, soften and release the weight of your organs down, feeling the navel draw slightly inward. Sense your organs resting on the floor of your pelvis, and pay attention to the firming in your legs and a subtle lift moving up the spine. As you catch this energy, surrender your shoulders and begin your inhalation, feeling your breath across your back as you raise your arms. You should sense lightness and length in your arms, like a kid flying down the road in a car with his arm sticking out the window. The effortless lifting of weight by its very nature is grace, and in Urdhva Hastasana, grace is the outer expression of the inner movement of energy, where all effort is coordinated and directed from the abdominal center.

At the peak of the pose, the arms converge over your head as you bring your palms together. Spread your shoulder blades and draw your chin in slightly (towards the center of the throat) as you take your head back and gaze at your thumbs. If you have neck vertebrae complications, keep your head upright until you develop the strength and understanding necessary for taking it back.

Yoga postures are good teachers. Some of the asanas are gentle and nurturing, showing you how to relax into your being. Other asanas are strong and directhe kind that don’t pussyfoot around. Meet Utkatasana (OOT-kah-tah-sah-nah), one of those vibrant asana teachers that you’ll likely never forget.

Utkatasana is often called “Chair Pose.” To the external eye, it looks like a yogi sitting in an imaginary chair. When you do the pose, however, it is definitely not a cushy, passive ride. A deep squat, Utkatasana immediately engages the strength of your legs, back, and ankles. The literal translation of the word “utkatasana” from Sanskrit is “powerful pose.” Here power is not about domination or control over someone else so much as it is about aligning with the life energy within and around you. At the core level, Utkatasana teaches you how to find your seat of power within your pelvis, at the center of your body.

From the yogic view of the body, your pelvic region (from the navel to the pelvis floor) not only houses the organs of procreation, digestion, and elimination, but also controls the flow of energy along the spine. If the pelvis is misaligned, the rest of the spine, and by extension, the pose, will be out of balance, often resulting in lower back pain and overworking the knee and ankle joints. When your pelvis is centered and aligned with gravity, there is a feeling of stamina and vitality within the pose, as if you’ve tapped into a geyser of energy.

Pelvis Power

Let’s begin to explore Utkatasana. We will start by finding the optimum position of the pelvis good seat, if you will. If you are familiar with Utkatasana as part of an Ashtanga practice, you may already be doing the pose with your feet together as it is done within Suryanamaskar B (Sun Salutation B). If you are new to this pose, however, practice with your feet apart to steady your balance.

From a standing position, step your feet hip-width apart so you feel grounded and connected to the width of your pelvis. On an exhalation, squat down from here as if to sit in a chair, keeping your heels on the floor.

Explore the range of motion in your pelvis by bringing your hands to your hips, tilting your tailbone up (into a swayback) and then tucking it under. Notice the effect of both extremes. When you lift the tailbone, tipping the top of the pelvis forward, you jam your lower back. When the tailbone is tucked under, your abdomen is restricted.

Now find the balance. Reach back and feel your sitting bones (those bony points at the base of your buttocks). Take your hands and sweep your sitting bones back as if dusting off your bottomhis is the direction you want to move your sit bones. Keep releasing your sitting bones back while turning your tailbone down, so the sacrum moves forward into the body. You should feel a release in the lower back as your pelvis is stabilized (neither tucked nor swaybacked) and your sacrum broadens.