Peak Pose: Ustrasana (Camel Pose)

Hatha Yoga is the mix of postures and respiratory practices. For hundreds of years, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika outlined bodily yoga follow. Many of the 15 poses described within the textual content are seated postures, with one lone backbend, Dhanurasana (Bow Pose). As yoga has tailored to fashionable life, nevertheless, backbends have turn out to be ever extra vital. This put up will function one in every of yoga’s emblematic backbends, Ustrasana (Camel Pose).

Working towards backbends is vital due to the thoracic backbone’s tendency to stoop ahead over time. It’s comprehensible. Most of our every day life actions require that we bend ahead—over digital units, counter tops, steering wheels, and many others. Add to that the tendency for gravity to drag us ahead over time. Common backbending will help us keep upright.

It’s vital to level out that the thoracic backbone just isn’t really designed to increase (backbend). Once we follow backbends, it’s the lumbar backbone that’s really doing the backbending. However there are issues we will do to verify we don’t overuse the lumbar. We do that by making ready different areas of the physique correctly earlier than we try Camel Pose, or any backbend.

Put together for Ustrasana

It’s vital to heat up earlier than working towards any backbend. Listed here are the actions that may put together us for working towards Ustrasana, together with poses that assist these actions:

Cautions for Ustrasana

Bear in mind that Ustrasana just isn’t a wholesome pose for each particular person. Please keep away from this pose when you’ve got hypertension or extreme fatigue. Listed here are another cautions and contraindications from Yoga Journal:

• Keep away from or modify in the event you really feel any pinching or ache in your low again.
• Keep away from or modify when you’ve got any shoulder ache, shoulder arthritis, or shoulder accidents.
• Keep away from or modify when you’ve got any again ache or accidents, together with surgical procedures.
• For many, it’s best to not drop your head again on this pose, significantly when you’ve got a neck harm or are in danger for stroke. As a substitute, carry your chin barely and use your neck muscle mass to stabilize your head in place. You may even draw the chin in towards the chest.
• Keep away from or modify when you’ve got shoulder accidents or ache within the pose.

Observe Ustrasana

After you’ve spent a while making ready your physique, you’ll possible be able to attempt Ustrasana. This model will use a yoga bolster throughout the calves that can assist you get most carry and lengthening within the backbone.

Put together

1. Start by sitting in your heels on a yoga mat. In case your knees is not going to permit this, be happy to position a rolled blanket or block beneath your hips to start out.
2. Take a second to really feel your physique. What’s the character of your vitality? Gradual or fast? Downward or upward transferring? Calm or agitated? There’s no must attempt to “appropriate” what you are feeling; merely discover what’s current.
3. Press your knees and shins into the ground to carry your hips off the heels, bringing you to a kneeling place, together with your pelvis immediately over your knees.
4. Place a yoga bolster throughout your calves.

Proceed to Camel Pose

1. Place your fingers in your pelvic rim. Floor your knees and shins, lifting your sternum towards the sky, in order that your low again lengthens. From this lengthening, root your pelvis proper over your knees (don’t let it fall again towards your heels), and start to bend again from the waist. Preserve lengthening your backbone as you bend again.
2. Attain your fingers again behind you and place them in your bolster. Breathe and increase.
3. Keep right here, respiratory totally, for five to 10 breaths.
4. Press your knees into the ground to assist carry your physique again to upright. Launch each arms to your sides and return to sitting in your heels or your block or bolster.
5. Shut your eyes and concentrate on your physique’s vitality. Has something shifted?
6. In case your lumbar is versatile in backbends, you are able to do this once more, putting your fingers in your heels as a substitute of the bolster. In the event you do this and discover that your respiratory is restricted or your pelvis collapses again over the toes, return to an upright place and follow once more with a bolster. Additionally, be happy to maneuver on to the subsequent step.
7. After working towards Ustrasana, follow Jathara Parivrttanasana (Revolved Stomach Pose). Then follow at the very least one seated ahead bend to stretch the again physique and settle your nervous system. End with Savasana (Rest Pose).

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and folks sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.