Peak Pose: Ustrasana (Camel Pose)

Hatha Yoga is the mixture of postures and respiration practices. For hundreds of years, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika outlined bodily yoga apply. A lot 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, nonetheless, backbends have change into ever extra necessary. This put up will function one in every of yoga’s emblematic backbends, Ustrasana (Camel Pose).

Working towards backbends is necessary due to the thoracic backbone’s tendency to stoop ahead over time. It’s comprehensible. Most of our day by day life actions require that we bend ahead—over digital gadgets, 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 necessary to level out that the thoracic backbone isn’t really designed to increase (backbend). Once we apply backbends, it’s the lumbar backbone that’s really doing the backbending. However there are issues we are able to 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.

The way to Put together for Ustrasana

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

Cautions for Ustrasana

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

• Keep away from or modify in case you really feel any pinching or ache in your low again.
• Keep away from or modify in case you have any shoulder ache, shoulder arthritis, or shoulder accidents.
• Keep away from or modify in case you have any again ache or accidents, together with surgical procedures.
• For many, it’s best to not drop your head again on this pose, significantly in case you have a neck damage or are in danger for stroke. As a substitute, carry your chin barely and use your neck muscular tissues to stabilize your head in place. You’ll be able to even draw the chin in towards the chest.
• Keep away from or modify in case you have shoulder accidents or ache within the pose.

The way to Observe Ustrasana

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

The way to Put together

1. Start by sitting in your heels on a yoga mat. In case your knees won’t enable this, be at liberty to position a rolled blanket or block below your hips to begin.
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 have to attempt to “appropriate” what you’re 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 instantly over your knees.
4. Place a yoga bolster throughout your calves.

Proceed to Camel Pose

1. Place your palms 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. Hold lengthening your backbone as you bend again.
2. Attain your palms again behind you and place them in your bolster. Breathe and develop.
3. Keep right here, respiration totally, for five to 10 breaths.
4. Press your knees into the ground to assist convey 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 pay attention to your physique’s vitality. Has something shifted?
6. In case your lumbar is versatile in backbends, you are able to do this once more, inserting your palms in your heels as an alternative of the bolster. When you do that and discover that your respiration is restricted or your pelvis collapses again over the toes, return to an upright place and apply once more with a bolster. Additionally, be at liberty to maneuver on to the following step.
7. After practising Ustrasana, apply Jathara Parivrttanasana (Revolved Stomach Pose). Then apply at the least one seated ahead bend to stretch the again physique and settle your nervous system. End with Savasana (Leisure Pose).

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed by Rodmell Press. Her third guide 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 people sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.