A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on how to prepare your body for Camel Pose (Ustrasana). Camel Pose is a challenging backbend. It stretches the entire front body, especially the quadriceps, abdomen, chest and shoulders. In the post, I outlined a sequence you can practice in order to stretch and mobilize these vital areas of the pose. In today’s post, I’ll describe how you can practice Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks to make the pose more accessible and comfortable.

A common concern in practicing Camel Pose is that straining to reach your heels with your hands restricts breathing. Practicing Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks raises your hands and decreases the strain on your chest, which can help ease your breathing.

Not everyone’s spinal structure supports easy backbending. As you can see from the above photo, the lion’s share of the backbend occurs in the lumbar spine. (The thoracic spine is not really designed for more than minimal backbending.) Some people’s lumbar spinous processes are large and thick, meaning that they will “hit” each other much sooner than shorter, thinner spinous process do. This restricts range of motion in spinal extension.

In addition, some practitioners have a more pronounced thoracic kyphosis (convex curve). This also restricts range of motion in backbending. So even though the thoracic spine’s range of motion in backbending is limited, even a small amount of extension makes the pose easier, whereas a curvier thoracic spine will restrict movement. All this is to say that practicing Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks can make the pose accessible to almost everyone.

How to Practice Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks

You can practice Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks three ways. Yoga Blocks have three different height options: tall, medium and short. (The above photo shows blocks at their medium height.) Here’s how to practice Camel Pose with Yoga Blocks.

1. Gather your props: a Yoga Mat and two Yoga Blocks. You may also place a folded Yoga Blanket under your knees for extra padding if you like. If you’re using a blanket, fold it so that it is narrower than your mat, and place it in the center of the mat.
2. Come to a kneeling position on your mat and/or folded blanket.
3. Place blocks at their highest level on the outsides of your feet. If you’re kneeling on a blanket, make sure your blocks are on your mat or on the floor rather than on your blanket to give them a stable base. (This applies to solid flooring such as wood or concrete. I wouldn’t recommend using blocks on plush carpeting.)
4. Place your hands on your pelvic rim and press down, releasing your tailbone toward your knees.
5. Lift your chest and lengthen your spine as you begin to bend backward, reaching for your blocks.
6. Take a few breaths with the blocks at their highest height. Is your breathing free and unrestricted? If not, stay here for a few more breaths to see if it becomes easier.
7. If your breathing is easy, feel free to turn the blocks on their sides, to medium height. Check in again with your breathing. If your breathing is free and easy, take a few breaths here. Then if you want, you can lower the blocks to their lowest level. Again, check your breathing.
8. Free, unrestricted breathing is way more important than getting your hands to your heels or to the lowest height of your yoga block. So keep checking your breathing to make sure it feels relaxed.
9. Take 5 to 8 deep breaths, wherever you are in the pose. Then return to kneeling and either sit on your heels or sit on one of your Yoga Blocks as your knees allow.

One More Suggestion

Yoga Blocks can certainly make Camel Pose more comfortable, but it’s equally important to make sure that we prepare the body to the fullest extent possible before we embark on Ustrasana. I highly recommend that you read the post I wrote a few weeks ago about how to prepare your body for Camel Pose, and how to cool down afterward to rebalance your body. Your breath—and a couple Yoga Blocks—can guide you into a Camel Pose that’s both exhilarating and relaxed.

Savasana (Relaxation Pose) is a welcome respite, the well-deserved dessert after your asana practice. It’s a time of rest and integration, the time when you get to lie still and absorb the benefits of your asana practice.

But for some people, it’s actually not so relaxing. I often see students lie down onto the floor, only to begin fidgeting, bending their knees, placing a roll under the lower spine, etc. That’s when I know they need support, not under their backs, but instead, under their lower legs. When I place support under their legs, back pain relief is almost always instantaneous.

Why Does Support Under the Legs Relieve Back Strain?

When your legs are stretched out on the floor, the hip flexors stretch. When shortened hip flexors stretch passively, as in Savasana, the low back is pulled into hyperextension. That’s where back discomfort comes from. Shortened hip flexors are quite common in our culture. Because of our pervasive cultural habit of marathon chair sitting, many people end up with shortened hip flexors. This is because sitting puts all our joints into a flexed position. Over time, the muscles shorten.

That’s one reason why asana practice is so important. There are lots of poses that counteract our habitually flexed joints. While we’re doing active practice, we expect to feel stretching sensation. It’s part of the process. So stretching sensation in the hip flexors, along with low back extension, just feels normal in most poses. It’s usually not until we lie passively in Savasana that we actually feel our chronic hip flexor tightness—in the low back.

Savasana is most effective when we’re able to relax completely. If we’re feeling fidgety and uncomfortable our nervous systems will continue to feel agitated. We won’t feel the quiet sense of ease that is the hallmark of a deep Savasana. The good news is that relief is easy to find.

Stonehenge: Back Pain Relief in Savasana—And More

There are lots of ways to support the legs in Savasana. In Hugger Mugger’s blog, you’ll find lots of articles detailing options for bolstering the legs. These options involve using Standard, Round, Junior and Pranayama yoga bolsters, and combinations of these. I learned Stonehenge many years ago at a Restorative Yoga teacher training with Judith Hanson Lasater. Several of my students find that Stonehenge is the most effective way to find back pain relief in Savasana, and they set themselves up this way in every class.

Stonehenge has some characteristics of a very mild inversion. The pose can be a good substitute for poses such as Viparita Karani (Legs Up the Wall) or even Salamba Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) for people for whom full inversions are contraindicated. This includes people with unregulated high blood pressure, detached retina, heavy menstrual flow or glaucoma. So instead of simply setting these people up in the standard go-to, Balasana (Child’s Pose), set them up in Stonehenge, which will give them some of the benefits of inverting without the risks.

How to Set Up Stonehenge

1. Gather your props: a yoga mat, two 4-inch yoga blocks and a Standard Yoga Bolster. Don’t use 3-inch yoga blocks for this pose. They are more likely to tip over than the wider 4-inch blocks.
2. Set your blocks up, in their tallest dimension, on the foot end of your mat. Set them up so that they’re about hips-width apart. This width is important because of the blocks are too close together, the weight of your legs may cause the bolster to sag down on either side, which could destabilize the blocks. The same is true if the blocks are too far apart; the bolster may sag down in the middle. So you want the blocks to be right below your legs for the best support.
3. Lay your bolster widthwise on top of your blocks, so that it’s oriented crosswise on your mat.
4. Lie down on your mat with your knees bent and the soles of your feet on the floor. Bend your knees in toward your chest and then place your calves on the bolster. You may need to adjust your hips toward or away from the bolster to find your most comfortable position.
5. Relax and enjoy.

Backbends are exhilarating. They stimulate the nervous system, and can promote freer breathing. They are the perfect antidote to a sedentary life. Camel Pose (Ustrasana) is one of yoga’s more challenging backbends.

The Camel Pose (Ustrasana) we know today—as in the above photo—is not the same as it was in its early incarnation. While Camel Pose has been mentioned in yogic texts since as early as the 1700s, it more closely resembled Bow Pose (Dhanurasana) than the Ustrasana we know today. The traditional pose looked much like Dhanurasana, but instead of lifting the thighs off the ground, the thighs stayed grounded, the ankles crossed.

The first description of Camel Pose in its current form was by Sita Devi, author of Easy Yoga Postures for Women, in 1934. Still, the traditional version continued to proliferate in some circles until the 1960s, when the kneeling version became ubiquitous.

One thing most of us can agree on is that Ustrasana in its current form can be intense. That’s why it’s important to prepare the body before attempting to practice it.

Why Practice Camel Pose?

Like all backbends, Ustrasana relieves some of the problems that arise from too much sitting. When we sit habitually for long periods, our glutes lose strength as our hip flexors shorten. Bending forward over a desk or device can cause our shoulders to slump over time, giving way to forward head posture.

Practicing Camel Pose can help reverse all these issues. Here are some of the benefits:

• Stretches the entire front of the body, the ankles, thighs and groins, abdomen, chest and throat
• Lengthens the deep hip flexors (psoas)
• Strengthens back muscles
• Improves posture
• Stimulates the organs of the abdomen

Ustrasana Cautions

As with all yoga asanas, Camel Pose is not for everyone. Here are some contraindications for practicing the pose:

• Neck or low back injury
• High or low blood pressure
• Insomnia
• Migraine
• Second and third trimesters of pregnancy

How to Prepare for Camel Pose

As I mentioned above, preparation is important. Here’s how I suggest preparing for Camel Pose:

• Begin with a few relaxed Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskara) to warm up the body in general.
• Mobilize the thoracic spine. The thoracic spine (the segment of the spine that’s attached to the rib cage) is not capable of backbending. But you can create more mobility in that area by twisting and side bending. Try Talasana (Palm Tree Pose) for side bending. Any twist you choose can be helpful. Try adding some twists to your Sun Salutations. Revolved Lunge Pose (Parvrtta Anjaneyasana) can fit nicely into your Sun Salutations.
• Stretch the quadriceps and hip flexors. You can do this by practicing Lunge Poses (Anjaneyasana), or Half Hero’s Pose (Ardha Virasana).
• Stretch the shoulders and chest. Supported Fish Pose (Salamba Matsyasana) is a great way to ease your chest open to prepare for the pose.
• Dhanurasana (Bow Pose) is the same shape as Camel Pose, but with a different orientation to gravity, so it can be a helpful prep pose as well.

How to Practice Ustrasana

1. Gather your props: a Yoga Mat, two Yoga Blocks and a folded Yoga Blanket. The blocks and blanket are optional, but it’s good to have them handy just in case.
2. If you know that your knees are sensitive to pressure, place your folded blanket on your Yoga Mat. Otherwise, you can skip using the blanket.
3. Come to a kneeling position on your mat or blanket with the tops of your feet on the floor. Place a Yoga Block, at its highest height, on the outside of each foot. Make sure the blocks are on your mat, and not on your blanket if you’re using one.
4. Place your hands on your pelvic rim and press downward. Imagine your tailbone extending down toward the floor. At the same time, lift your chest, lengthening your back.
5. For some people, including myself, allowing the head to completely release back, as in the above photo, can cause dizziness or nausea. Feel free to keep the head more neutral, lengthening both the front and back of your neck. You can also move your chin toward your chest.
6. Without leaning your pelvis back—keep your pelvis over your knees—bend your lumbar spine back and reach for your blocks. Continue lifting your chest.
7. Press into your blocks to lift the chest even more. If this feels pretty easy, you can lower your blocks to their middle height. If this feels easy, you can reach for your heels.
8. Take 5 to 8 deep breaths. Then release the pose and sit on your heels or on one of your blocks, keeping the spine upright.
9. It can be helpful to repeat the pose one or two times more. Backbends often become more easeful with repetition.

Winding Down

You may feel tempted to go right into a forward bend after practicing Camel Pose. But it can be kinder to your back to ease into forward bending. Before forward bending, practice a twist, such as Revolved Belly Pose (Jathara Parivrttanasana). Then practice a few seated forward bends to lengthen out your back body and relax your nervous system.

Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose) is a staple in my morning yoga classes. Years ago, several of my students made up unflattering names for it—Cow Pie, Mad Cow, etc.—because it was so challenging for them. Now those same Cow Face naysayers have turned into Cow Face converts. Some of them even give up a bit of their Savasana (Relaxation Pose) to do it if I don’t offer it in class. The Cow Face arm position is another story, however. It can be quite a challenge, but with a yoga strap, anyone can reap the benefits.

Gomukhasana is quite complex. It’s classified as a hip-opening pose, as it stretches all the glutes—maximus, medius and minimus—as well as the piriformis and the tensor fasciae latae. My students—the ones who like it—find it very grounding, making it helpful a helpful pose toward the end of a practice. (Note that the photo that accompanies this blog shows only the arm position, not the leg position. You can find a description of the leg position in the above “Gomukhasana” link.)

Cow Face Pose Isn’t Just About the Hips

Cow Face Pose also opens the shoulders. The classic arm position features one elbow pointing upward and the other hand wedged behind your shoulder blades. Said to look like one raised and one lowered ear on a cow’s head, it creates a strong triceps stretch in the upper arm and a strong biceps and deltoid stretch in the lower one.

While the leg and arm positions are traditionally practiced together, they can also be beneficial on their own if you’re interested in putting more attention into either your hips or shoulders.

Why Use a Yoga Strap?

Today’s blog will focus on the shoulders. The traditional position calls for connecting the hands of your upper and lower arms in the upper back. But many people’s shoulders just won’t allow this. There are many possible reasons for this, including the construction of the shoulder joints. Some people’s shoulders are formed for stability. They may not be able to reach their elbow straight up toward the sky because their humerus bones will “hit” the back of the scapula before the arm gets to vertical. This particular shoulder configuration is not a sign that you’re a “deficient” yogi! It is well within what’s considered to be normal range of motion.

Others will find that when their dominant arm is the lower one, that their hands can’t touch, even though they may connect when the dominant arm is the upper one. This may be due to increased strength and stability in the dominant arm’s biceps and deltoids, although there could be other reasons.

In any case, a yoga strap can help. It can bridge the gap between your hands, creating a connection. Connecting the hands is important for energizing the arms in Gomukhasana. Whether you connect the fingers or use a yoga strap to connect your hands, your Gomukhasana will be more dynamic if you can connect your hands.

How to Use a Yoga Strap in Gomukhasana

If your hands don’t connect in Gomukhasana, try this:

1. Extend your left arm out in front of you, turning your palm outward, internally rotating your shoulder. Swing your arm around behind your back. Bend your elbow and place the back of your hand on your low back. Now scoot your the back of your hand up your back any amount—anywhere from the lower ribcage to between the shoulder blades.
2. Hold a yoga strap in your right hand. Dangle it over your back. Turn your right palm to face inward, toward your head. Bend your elbow and find the yoga strap with your left hand. Walk your right and left hands toward each other. If you’d like to add some extra energy to your shoulder experience, “stretch” the strap, pulling upward with your right hand and downward with your left.
3. Stay for five to ten deep breaths. Let go and let your arms relax. Take five to ten deep breaths before practicing your other side.

If you’d like to see more uses for Yoga Straps, as well as how to use Hugger Mugger’s other premium props, please visit the Yoga Props Guide.

A strong core is essential to so many aspects of our daily lives. Tending to our core muscles—the abdominals and back muscles—is core (so to speak) to our yoga asana practice. Yoga’s most iconic abdominal strengthener, Boat Pose (Navasana), can be extremely challenging, and often contraindicated for people just starting out in asana practice. For that reason, a modified version of Navasana can be a great way to wade into core strengthening.

Benefits of Core Strengthening

Here are some of the benefits of strengthening your core:

• Promotes healthy posture
• Improves balance and coordination
• Stabilizes the body, so that injuries such as sprains and strains are less likely
• Reduces back pain
• Promotes deeper breathing
• Makes everyday activities such as lifting, rising up from the floor more effortless

When we think of the core, our minds often go right to the abdominals. However, our back muscles are also essential players in core strength. While Navasana is mainly an abdominal-strengthening pose, it also has a secondary benefit of strengthening the back muscles as well. In addition, as a balancing pose, it helps us build our balancing skills.

Why Modify Navasana?

Unlike the photo at the top of this post, the traditional form of Navasana is practiced with straight legs. This version of the pose poses several challenges. First, straightening the legs in Navasana requires stretchy hamstrings. A practitioner with tight hamstrings will invariably have to flex their lumbar spine to an extreme. Second, the extra leverage straight legs exert on the body can cause strain.

The third challenge applies mostly to men. The center of gravity for a female body is lower than it is for a male body. For most women, the center of gravity is in the pelvis; for men it’s in the low back. This means that the leverage straight legs exert on the body will make it really difficult for men to find stability in Navasana, especially if it’s coupled with tight hamstrings.

A couple paragraphs ago, I mentioned lumbar spinal flexion (convex curve) in Navasana. While it’s not healthy to flex the spine to an extreme in Navasana, a little bit of flexion, so that the lumbar spine is straight, is okay. In fact, that small bit of flexion will enable the abdominals to engage a bit more than if we’re trying to maintain our lumbar (concave) curve. In order to maintain a concave curve, we have to balance on the front edges of our ischial tuberosities (aka “sitting bones”). Have you ever tried that? In my experience, it’s not at all conducive to balancing.

How to Practice Navasana

1. Gather your props: a Yoga Mat is all that’s necessary.
2. Start in a seated position in the center of your mat.
3. Bend your knees and place the soles of your feet on your mat.
4. Place your hands behind you on the floor so that your torso leans back at a diagonal.
5. With your hands still on the floor, lift your legs. Bend your knees so that your shins are parallel to the floor. Your weight should be in your glutes. Avoid trying to balancing on the forward edge of your ischial tuberosities.
6. Take a breath or two in this position. This pose can be a helpful prelude to practicing Navasana. It engages the abdominals without producing any back strain.
7. If you feel ready, lift your arms up and extend them straight forward at shoulder level. Your palms can face your legs, or face up or down, depending on what feels best for you.
8. Take 3 to 5, or more, deep breaths here.
9. Then release the pose and rest with your feet on the floor, hands behind you on the floor. Repeat if you like.

In 2001, I co-taught a teacher training with Donna Farhi in Vancouver, BC. The 50 attendees were experienced yoga teachers and body workers from all over the world. During the training we encouraged trainees to question teaching methodologies that shoehorn students into a one-size-fits-all model.

One misconception we talked about was the perceived necessity of practicing what is probably yoga’s most emblematic pose: Padmasana (Lotus Pose). That day we spent two hours practicing the poses Donna practices to prep her body for Lotus. When we tried Padmasana toward the end of the class, I noticed that despite the depth and experience of attendees, only three out of 50 people could actually do it safely.

This was very surprising to me. Previously, I’d been under the impression that anyone who tried hard enough and practiced right could eventually do Lotus. This may be true for some people—Donna told us it took her 10 years of careful, patient practice to ease her hip joints into Padmasana.

But it’s not true that anyone can form their legs into Lotus position, no matter how committed their practice. Thanks to a workshop I took with Paul Grilley on anatomy for yoga, I found out that tightness in soft tissue is not the most common reason people can’t do Padmasana. According to Grilley, it’s all in the bones.

Why Lotus Pose Might Be Out of Reach

Some bodies will never be able to do full Lotus. This is not because the owners of these bodies are inferior yogis or that they’re not trying hard enough. It may be because their hip joints are formed in such a way that they do not allow the amount of external rotation required to sit in Lotus.

There are many factors—all within the realm of normal—that influence the amount of external rotation in your joints. The depth, placement and orientation of your hip sockets can influence whether your thighs tend to rotate inward or outward more easily. The shape and rotation of the heads and necks of the femurs also affect the rotation, as does the shape and rotation of your shaft of the femur bones. You can see some bone samples that demonstrate some of the possible variations that influence mobility on Grilley’s website.

Supta Ardha Padmasana—A Lotus Pose for Every Body

Fortunately, there’s no pose in yoga—including Padmasana—you need to do in order to be a “good” yogi. Yoga has never been about what your body can or can’t do.

All that said, I have found that most people are capable of and can benefit from practicing Supta Ardha Padmasana, Supine Half Lotus (SHL). Among other benefits, SHL stretches the piriformis muscles, external rotators that cross the sacroiliac (SI) joint. When the piriformis is tense, it can press on the sciatic nerve, possibly causing sciatica, and can also contribute to sacroiliac dysfunction. Practicing Supta Ardha Padmasana can sometimes alleviate sciatic pain and can relieve excessive torque on your SI joint.

Half Lotus is traditionally practiced in a seated position. However, I like to practice it lying down for several reasons. First, lying on your back removes the restriction of the floor under your legs. It allows your top leg to cross your bottom leg more easily. Second, lying on your back gives you feedback as to whether your back is in a healthy position. Many people round their spines when they try to form Half Lotus from a sitting position. It is much easier to maintain a neutral spine when you are lying down. Finally, having both sides of your SI joint on the floor keeps the joints in a neutral position.

How to Practice Ardha Padmasana

1. Begin by lying on the floor on a Yoga Mat or Blanket. Bend both knees and place the soles of your feet on the floor.
2. Cross your right ankle all the way across your left thigh so that your ankle, not your foot, is resting on the thigh. Many people prefer to place their right ankle a few inches from the knee, while others (like me) prefer to place the ankle closer to the left hip joint. Try it both ways, or at points in between, to see what feels best for you.
3. Thread your right arm through the opening behind your right knee and grab the back of your left leg. Wrap your left hand around the back of your left leg and interlace the fingers of both hands. If your hands don’t connect you can connect them with a belt or a yoga strap.
4. This is important: Flex your right ankle and keep it flexed the entire time. This keeps both your knee and ankle stable.
5. Draw both legs in toward your torso, relaxing your shoulders and arms. Take deep abdominal breaths, creating space on the inhalations, and settling into that space on your exhalations.
6. Take 5 to 10 deep breaths before releasing your legs and letting both feet rest on the floor. Take a few breaths simply lying on your back to feel what changed. How are the two sides of the pelvis resting on the floor? Does one side of your body feel longer than the other? When you feel ready, move to your second side.
7. If at any point during SHL you feel even the tiniest discomfort in either knee, please let go of the pose. There is no such thing as a “good” knee pain. Lotus can be hard on knees—less so when you are lying down and practicing only one leg at a time—but please do be cautious.

The Most Common Misalignment

Many people practice Padmasana with their feet, rather than their ankles, atop opposite thighs. If the soles of your feet are facing upward, you are practicing this misalignment. This is a recipe for overstretched ligaments in your ankles and possible knee destabilization. One person I know sat this way for an hour and ended up having bilateral knee surgeries as a result.

That is why so many experienced practitioners were unable to do Padmasana in Donna’s teacher training. We made sure that people were practicing healthy alignment principles when they finally placed their legs in Lotus. Practicing Padmasana with healthy alignment, with your ankles flexed and sitting on top of your thighs, is only possible for people whose hip joints externally rotate very easily. Many people can do the misaligned version of Lotus, but not that many people have the extreme range of motion required to do it with the ankles—not the feet—on top of their thighs.

There’s More than One Way to Practice Lotus Pose

While Instagram photos of people doing Lotus Pose in bikinis on sunset-lit beaches may conjure romantic ideas about its importance in the canon of yoga poses, please remember that it’s not for everyone. Whether or not your body can do Padmasana—or any other pose—is not a measure of either your character or worth as a yoga practitioner.

Supta Ardha Padmasana, though, can be a healthy staple in your repertoire of asanas. It confers many of the benefits of Padmasana, but few of its potential risks. What matters is not whether you were born with a skeleton that can move in a particular way. What matters is the care, respect and mindfulness you bring to whatever pose you are practicing in a given moment.

Snakes get a bad rap. True, the bites of the venomous varieties can wreak deadly havoc. But most snakes are not poisonous. Some are even beneficial, especially in our yards and gardens. As predators, snakes help control the populations of the hungry pests that consume our fruits and veggies. Today, we’ll explore the benefits of Ardha Bhujangasana (Half Cobra Pose or Sphinx Pose).

One might think that naming Half Cobra Pose “Sphinx Pose” could be a way of avoiding the scary connotations. But I think it has more to do with the arm position that mimics the Great Sphinx of Giza. In fact, in India, cobras are not symbols of evil. Instead, they are celebrated each summer in a festival called Nag Pachami. There, thousands of cobras are gathered and brought to the temple of Shiva to be fed milk and regaled with flowers. Humans spend a day snake dancing in the streets that are lined with snake charmers. When the festivities end the cobras are released unharmed back into their habitat.

Benefits of Cobra and Sphinx Pose

Cobra Pose (Bhujangasana) and its cousin, Sphinx Pose, are two variations of the same pose. As such, their benefits are similar. For practitioners with back issues such as scoliosis, herniated disc or other back injuries, however, full Cobra is contraindicated. In these cases, moving slowly and mindfully into Sphinx Pose can allow a practitioner to reap the benefits of Cobra, without the risks.

Bhujangasana looks like a cobra raised to strike—or to dance. When cobras dance, they raise one third of their body length, while the other two thirds stay grounded. It’s that grounding of the majority of the lower body that allows the upper body to rise toward the sky. The same is true for humans practicing Cobra Pose. It is the grounding of the lower body that creates the lightness in the upper body.

In the case of Sphinx Pose, more than two thirds of the body remain on the ground. This creates even greater stability, and much less curvature in the lumbar spine.

Practiced with care, Sphinx can strengthen the spine, stabilize the sacroiliac joint, stimulate the vital organs, strengthen the glutes and simultaneously energize and calm the nervous system. Practiced with aggression, it can also bite, contributing to back strain and wear and tear in the hip joints.

How to Practice Sphinx Pose

1. Gather your props: Yoga Mat, folded Yoga Blanket (optional). A Yoga Blanket can be helpful if your anterior superior iliac spine (hip bones) are uncomfortable on the floor.
2. Spread your mat out on the floor. If you choose to use a folded blanket, place it across the center of your mat.
3. Lie face down on your mat. If you’re using a blanket, place your pelvis fully on the blanket.
4. Ground your pelvis and legs.
5. Lift the upper body only as high as you can without using your arms. Then place your forearms on the ground so your torso stays at the same height. For now, don’t push up with your forearms. This means that your forearms may be placed well in front of your shoulders.
6. Notice what you feel: are your glutes working here? Can you breathe easily?
7. Take a 5 to 10 deep, relaxed breaths. Then release back down to a prone position, resting your forehead in your hands.
8. If you want to explore moving more deeply into the pose, ground your hips and legs again.
9. This time, lift your upper body again, but place your elbows under your shoulders so that you’re lifting a bit higher. Take care not to disengage the work on the legs and glutes. Continue actively grounding the lower body. (Sometimes when we start to add the support of the arms, we tend to disengage the lower body. This negates the strengthening benefits of Sphinx Pose.
10. Take 5 to 10 deep, relaxed breaths. Then release back down to a prone position, resting your forehead in your hands.

If I were to rate yoga’s asanas in terms of how complicated they are, Revolved Triangle Pose (Parvrtta Trikonasana) would hover around the top. Revolved Triangle is a standing pose, a balancing pose, a spinal rotation, a leg stretch and a breathing challenge. Whew!

Of course, the plethora of elements that make up the pose also provide unique benefits. Here are some of the ways Parvrtta Trikonasana can increase your physical and mental wellbeing:

• Strengthens feet, ankles legs, hips and abdominals.
• Improves flexibility in the spine, hamstrings, shoulders and upper back.
• Twists improve mobility in the thoracic spine, a part of the spine that can sometimes become less mobile over time.
• Revolved Triangle Pose challenges balance and improves core stability for better balance.
• Increased mobility in the thoracic spine and rib cage facilitates deeper breathing.
• Revolved Triangle requires concentration and therefore, helps build concentration.

Parvrtta Trikonasana Elements and Cautions

Because Revolved Triangle Pose is both challenging and complicated, it’s helpful to prepare your body by practicing all the elements of the pose separately. So what do I mean by the “elements” of the pose? The elements of the pose are all the various movements and challenges in the body that make up the pose. When we break a pose down into its constituent components, we can practice each one separately, in a less challenging format so that the body is more prepared to put them all together in Parvrtta Trikonasana. Here are the basic components:

• Standing
• Balancing
• Calf, hamstring, hip stretching
• Spinal rotation

Like every yoga pose, Revolved Triangle Pose carries with it cautions. It’s not always appropriate for everyone. Here are a few situations when you might want to approach the pose with care or skip it altogether:

• Injured or compromised neck
• Injury to the hamstrings
• Sacroiliac issues (Any spinal rotation can be hard on the SI joint.)
• Pregnancy (Twists of any kind are contraindicated in the first trimester. After the first trimester, once the abdomen begins to expand, this pose becomes really difficult.)

A Sequence to Prepare for Revolved Triangle Pose

Here’s a short sequence to prepare your body for Revolved Triangle.

1. Easy Pose (Sukhasana): Take a few minutes to settle your body/mind in Sukhasana. Revolved Triangle Pose requires concentration, so be sure to keep your mind in your body throughout this sequence.
2. Revolved Easy Pose (Parvrtta Sukhasana): This pose introduces a gentle spinal rotation. Practicing Revolved Easy Pose with a long, upright spine reminds us how our spine should feel in Revolved Triangle.
3. Mountain Pose (Tadasana): Tadasana helps us establish balance and collect our minds. The next six standing poses emphasize balance, leg strength, flexibility and finally, spinal rotation.
4. Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend (Prasarita Padottanasana): This is a great warmup for stretching the hamstrings.
5. Warrior II Pose (Virabhadrasana II): Warrior II warms up the entire body—especially the legs, hips and core.
6. Side Angle Pose (Parsvakonasana): Parsvakonasana adds a side-body stretch to Warrior II.
7. Triangle Pose (Trikonasana): Triangle Pose stretches the hamstrings, and promotes lengthening in the spine.
8. Warrior I Pose (Virabhadrasana I): Warrior I orients the feet, legs and pelvis to what will be the foundation for Revolved Triangle Pose.
9. Revolved Side Angle Pose (Parvrtta Parsvakonasana): This pose is just as complicated as Revolved Triangle, but without the added challenge of hamstring stretching.
10. From here you can move on to Upright Revolved Triangle Pose.

Begin with Upright Parvrtta Trikonasana

I love this variation for preparing for Revolved Triangle. Because you don’t bend forward in this variation, you can really focus on the rotation. It’s far easier to create the rotation first and then move into the forward bend than it is to try to rotate your torso when you’re already bending forward.

1. Place a nonskid yoga mat parallel to a wall.
2. Stand with your feet hips-width apart at the front end of your mat with your right side facing the wall.
3. Step your left foot straight back 2-3 feet, keeping your feet hips-width apart from side to side, and pointing your left foot mostly forward. It will need to angle outward slightly.
4. Plant your left foot. Then begin internally rotating the left leg (toward the wall). Begin at the ankle, then rotate the shin, knee, thighbone, pelvis, and finally, the ribcage. Place your hands on the wall at chest level to facilitate the twist.
5. Keep your head in a neutral position, so that you’re looking at the wall.
6. Stay upright and breathe into the twist, lengthening your spine as you ground the feet.
7. Stay for 5 to 10 deep breaths.
8. Rotate your torso back to the center.
9. Step your left foot forward and stand in Tadasana, checking in with what you feel. How did the twist change you?
10. Now walk to the other end of your mat and stand in Tadasana with your left side facing the wall and repeat the pose.

Full On Parvrtta Trikonasana

1. Repeat steps 1 through 7, but this time, place a yoga block so that it’s standing on end between your feet before you start. If you find later on that you can lower the block to one of its shorter levels without compromising the length of your torso and your ability to breathe easily, feel free to do this.
2. After you’ve done steps 1 through 7, ground your feet and extend left arm out in front of you, extending the entire torso, head to tail, along with it.
3. Keep extending outward as you lower your left hand and place it on your block.
4. Place your right hand at the wall to stabilize your balance and to facilitate the spinal rotation. Extend your pelvic floor back, away from the head.
5. Draw the hip of the right leg back.
6. Take 5 to 10 deep breaths here.
7. Lift your torso up, unwind the rotation of your ribcage, and step your left leg forward.
8. Stand in Tadasana for a moment to check in with how you feel after the pose.
9. Repeat on the other side.

Practicing these two poses before trying this in the middle of the room helps prepare your body and teach you a step-by-step method for moving into the pose, without having to worry about your balance.

If you want to try practicing in the center of the room, follow the same steps as above, except, of course, eliminating those that depend on the wall. If your breathing feels relaxed and your torso is long, you can try another variation. Place your block on the outside of your foot as in the above photo.

How to Decompress

Decompressing after Revolved Triangle Pose is just as important as sound preparation. After one or more Revolved Triangles, give your body a chance to cool off before a nice, long Savasana. Your hamstrings and hips will be ready for some nice, relaxing forward bends, so feel free to linger in these poses. These are just my suggestions. Any of your favorite forward bends will do.

• Head-of-the-Knee Pose (Janu Sirsasana)
• Cow Face Pose (Gomukhasana)
• Seated Angle Pose (Upavista Konasana)
• Seated Forward Bend Pose (Paschimottanasana)

Supta Baddhakonasana (Reclining Bound Angle Pose) is most often practiced as a Restorative pose. In the ultimate restorative version, we use all the good stuff—Yoga Blocks, a Standard Yoga Bolster and a Yoga Blanket or two. But we can also practice Supta Baddhakonasana in a more simplified way. A Yoga Mat and a couple Yoga Blocks just might be enough for you to enjoy an easeful respite in the pose.

As a very bendy person, I historically resisted using support under my thighs in Supta Baddhakonasana. Blocks under the thighs were for stiffer folks, I thought. But recently I’ve noticed my sacroiliac (SI) joints feeling achy after practicing it. As I thought about what might be the cause, I realized that it might be the extreme angle of my thighs.

My thighs fall easily to the floor in the pose. As a result, I can feel that my glutes actually compress my SI joint. If I stay more than a minute—and I always want to stay more than a minute—my SI joint suffers. Placing a Yoga Block under each thigh still confers the pose’s many benefits, but without the drawbacks. I’ve begun suggesting that all my students—especially the bendy ones—support their legs in the pose.

Supta Baddhakonasana Benefits

Supta Baddhakonasana is one of only a small handful of yoga poses that are appropriate to practice after eating. By expanding the abdomen, it facilitates the flow of energy and food matter into the lower quadrants of the abdomen, where the small and large intestines live. In my experience, the spaciousness this pose creates helps stimulate movement to assist the let-go process.

Supta Baddhakonasana relieves the contracted or heavy sensation we often feel after over-eating, and can relieve menstrual cramps. Because this pose is very relaxing, it helps move us into the rest-and-digest (parasympathetic) side of our autonomic nervous system, which stimulates digestion and helps relieve stress.

How to Practice Reclining Bound Angle Pose with Yoga Blocks

1. Gather your props: Yoga Mat, two Yoga Blocks and a Yoga Blanket (optional). I like to place a folded blanket under my head and neck for a bit of extra support and comfort.
2. Sit in Dandasana (Staff Pose) on your mat. Place the soles of your feet together and bend your knees out to the sides. Place a block under each thigh. Make sure that the blocks are far enough under your thighs that they are supporting them.
3. Place your hands behind you and lean back. Then bend your elbows so that you’re resting on your forearms with your fingers pointing toward your glutes.
4. Now push your fingers into your glutes to encourage your tailbone to point toward your heels.
5. Lie back onto the floor, placing a folded blanket under your head and neck if you like.
6. Relax here and breathe for 2 to 10 minutes.
7. To leave the pose, place your hands under your thighs. Use your hands to support your legs as you move them toward your chest. Then place your feet on the floor, hips-width apart, with your knees upright, in Constructive Rest Position. Relax here as long as you like.

Why is Lunge Pose (Anjaneyasana) such a yoga practice staple? Lunge poses, in all their variations, are core to vinyasa practices and Hatha practices alike. Anjaneyasana lends itself to lots of different variations. There are high lunges and low lunges, forward bending and backbending lunges. And there are several forms of Revolved Lunge Pose (Parvrtta Anjaneyasana). Combining Lunge Pose with spinal rotation is, quite simply, a winning combination.

Lunge Pose is a powerful way to counteract the effects of habitual sitting. I’ve found that Lunge Pose is the most accessible way for my students to stretch their hip flexors, muscles that can shorten over time if when we sit all day long. Because the bend of the back knee is fairly open, people with range-of-motion issues in their knees can practice pain-free lunge poses.

Likewise, sitting and bending over keyboards, counter tops, steering wheels, etc., can cause our thoracic spines to begin to curve forward over time. Practicing twisting yoga poses helps keep our thoracic spines supple. Rotating the spine is one way to release tension in the soft tissue around the spine and increase our general mobility, particularly in the upper body. Twisting stimulates circulation, especially in the muscles, fascia and organs of the abdomen and thorax. Spinal rotation also compresses our internal organs to stimulate digestion.

How We Twist

It’s important to understand where rotation actually takes place in the spine. A popular alignment “rule” instructs you to keep your hips squared while twisting in order to create more of a twist in the lumbar spine. Unfortunately, because the facet joints in the lumbar spine prevent that section of the spine from twisting more than 1 to 2 degrees, the result of this action, over time, is to cause the sacroiliac (SI) joint to bear the twist. Rotation of the SI joint can, over time, destabilize the joint and cause dysfunction, which can cause a number of painful conditions, such as sciatica.

The thoracic spine, the part connected to the ribcage, is designed for rotation. So when you twist, keep in mind that this is where you should focus your efforts. Rather than keeping the pelvis squared in twists, allow it to move in the direction of your intended rotation, while focusing the twist in the thoracic spine.

Parvrtta Anjaneyasana is a great pose to explore this concept because your hips have lots of room to move.

How to Practice Revolved Lunge Pose

Gather your props: a Yoga Mat and a folded Yoga Blanket (optional) for under your knees.

How to Approach Revolved Lunge Pose

1. There are several ways to enter a Lunge Pose. You can approach it from Tabletop Pose (Bharmanasana) by simply stepping your left foot forward. You will be bearing weight on your right knee and left foot.
2. You can also start in Downward Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana). From Dog Pose, extend your left leg up toward the sky, then swing the leg forward, setting your foot down in between your hands.
3. You can also start from Mountain Pose (Tadasana). Fold forward into Standing Forward Bend (Uttanasana). Bend your knees so that you can place both hands on the floor next to your feet. Step your right leg back three or so feet, so that your left shin is vertical. Place your right knee on the floor.

Add a Twist

1. From Lunge Pose, with your right knee on the floor and the left foot between your hands, lift your torso to an upright position.
2. Rotate your torso toward the left leg. Lengthen your torso as you rotate, allowing your pelvis to rotate along with the torso. Your left hip will be higher than your right hip.
3. Keep your right leg active. Extend back through your right heel.
4. Place your right elbow on the outside of your left thigh. If this causes your breathing to become restricted, lift up a little higher, and place your right hand on the outside of your left thigh instead.
5. If your elbow is on the outside of your thigh, as in the photo at the top of this post, place your hands together in front of your chest in Anjali Mudra (Prayer Position).
6. Breathe and relax. You may feel that your torso wants to move in and out of the twist as you exhale and inhale. Relax your pose enough so that you can feel your body oscillate in rhythm with your breath.
7. Take 5 to 10 deep breaths.
8. Unwind, turning the torso back so that it’s resting over your left leg.
9. Return to Tabletop Pose, Downward Facing Dog Pose or Standing Forward Bend Pose. Relax here for a few breaths to feel the effects of Revolved Lunge Pose.
10. Repeat on the other side.