Chaturanga Dandasana (four-limbed stick pose) contradicts the popular idea that yoga equals contortionism. Rather, this asana is about keeping everything intact: the hands and feet touch the ground while the body hangs above the ground in one piece, like the gymnastic push-up. The strength required to do Chaturanga Dandasana is not nearly as important as the ability to integrate and organize separate elements of the body so that they work together.
The word ‘integrity’ comes from Latin integratewhich means to renew or restore. Physical integrity is the renewal or restoration of the original wholeness of the body. This wholeness implies a coordination of movements, a communication between structures such as the legs and the spine. It also implies a balance between strength, flexibility and relaxation that produces a perfect tension between these three qualities. When this perfect tension is missing, we experience ourselves as incoherent or simply ‘estranged’.
Perhaps the reason Chaturanga frustrates so many newcomers to yoga is that it can only be done when there is a strong cohesive force running through the entire body, from head to toe and front to back. The integrating force along the length of the torso comes mainly from the support of the arms and the driving force of the legs pushing backward. It also arises from the relationship between the soft frontal body (the throat, lungs, abdominal organs) and the firm posterior body (the spine, rib cage and pelvic girdle).
One of the ways we establish the correct relationship between the front and back body is by making certain underlying muscle reflexes work for us rather than against us. Reflexes are a force that contributes to postural tonus, the background activity of muscles below the level of voluntary muscle contraction.
Preparing for Chaturanga
In the following preparatory exercise we explore how this reflex can integrate our body to prepare us for the practice of Chaturanga Dandasana.
Kneel or sit cross-legged on a blanket. Start by sitting upright with the crown of the head balanced over the center of the abdomen. Lift your chin and let the throat hang forward (Figure 1). Did you notice that your belly automatically came out? Now gently pull the front of the throat back, as if swallowing or sucking, while slightly tucking the chin (Figure 2). You may even want to swallow or smack the lips together to stimulate the reflex. Did you notice that the abdomen automatically moved in and back against the spine? Go back and forth between these two positions, thrusting the throat forward and then pulling it back.
How to Practice Chaturanga
Chaturanga Dandasana is usually performed after Downward Facing Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana). Common mistakes in Chaturanga Dandasana are simply bad habits adopted from Down Dog. The following exercise draws your attention to proper placement of the hands and arms. Hold this awareness as you proceed in Chaturanga Dandasana.
Kneel on all fours and place your hands in front of you, shoulder-width apart. Gently position your wrists so that the flexion creases at the top of the wrist are parallel to the wall in front of you. Without turning the wrists in or out, straighten the fingers so that they radiate in all directions. This action will help distribute the weight of the body over a wider base. Check whether you are pressing the inner wrist as much as the outer wrist. Rocking on the outside of the wrists causes wrist pain and injury in these weight-bearing positions.
Finally, lift the forearms so that the base of the palm is almost off the floor. This action allows the weight of the body to be supported by the front part of the palm and the fingers rather than just the base of the wrist. After a minute, sit back down in Child’s Pose, resting your arms completely.
Never practice poses such as Chaturanga Dandasana on a soft carpet or surface such as sand where the wrist will hyperextend below the level of the fingers. This hyperextension can cause immediate discomfort and in the long term can contribute to serious conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome, in which pressure on the median nerve in the wrist area causes pain, tingling and muscle weakness.
Chaturanga variation for beginners
Kneel again on all fours and carefully place the hands as just described. Then lean back so that the buttocks rest lightly on the heels, with the toes turned downward.
Bring the head and chest close to the floor and pull the front of the throat back toward the neck, as you did in the preparatory exercise. This action will increase muscle tone in the front of the body, especially along the abdominal muscles. While maintaining this frontal support, slide the chest forward through the arms and lower the chest to the floor in front of the abdomen (Figure 3). This point is crucial because if the belly sinks to the ground first, your upper back will be pulled into an arc. It will then be very difficult to lower the chest to the floor without collapsing the lumbar spine.
Once the torso begins to move forward, bend the elbows and keep them close to the ribs. Imagine the torso and elbows as two trains passing each other in opposite directions. As the head comes forward in front of the hands, continue in a circular motion, pushing up on all fours and back to the starting position. The pelvis and abdomen should guide the ascent. Maintain a sense of connection between the front and back of the body as you rise to avoid collapsing and breaking the strong line of force through the central axis of the torso.
One of the most common mistakes in Chaturanga Dandasana is bringing the chest and head forward over extended arms. Because lowering yourself from this position is so much more work for the arms, you will invariably try to come down by arching the upper back first and lowering the stomach toward the floor first (Figure 4 – incorrect). You can avoid this problem by synchronizing the forward movement of the chest with the bending of the elbows.
Now try the pose again, but this time focus your attention on your hands and arms. Be careful not to let the elbows flare out to the sides as you come forward, an action that causes the shoulders to turn in and the weight to fall heavily on the outer wrist. As you move your chest through the arms, be especially careful not to lift the front part of the palm and drop it into the base of the wrist. By keeping the pressure on the front part of the palm and the fingers, you not only avoid straining the wrists, but also activate the shoulders and upper chest.
A little attention at this early stage of the exercise will go a long way toward preventing painful wrist injuries. Just as practicing Down Dog prepares you for Chaturanga Dandasana, practicing Chaturanga Dandasana with hand alignment will prepare you for the more advanced arm balances such as Crane Pose (Bakasana). What you learn in the simpler postures is naturally incorporated into the more complex postures.
Experienced Chaturanga Variation
Start as in the previous variation, except this time, bringing the head past the hands and lifting the knees off the floor (Figure 5). Slide the feet back until the legs are completely straight and extend powerfully back through the heels. Breathe evenly and reach out through the head and heels.
To come out of the pose, bring the chest even further through the arms and lift in a circular motion up and back into downward facing dog.
Just as it is important for spinal health not to come into this asana with your back slumped, it is equally important that you come out of the pose using the arms, chest and abdominal muscles rather than the muscles along the back of the spine. Make sure you keep your back straight. The back will feel the least tension if you activate the front of the body, so that the throat and abdominal muscles feel connected to the front of the spine. If you find that you do not have the arm strength to stand up with your legs straight, touch the knees to the floor and make an honest effort to emerge with integrity in the spine. You will progress very quickly and gain strength and coordination if you work from a place of spinal integrity. Conversely, if you insist on bending the spine to come out of the pose, you will remain weak in the arms and upper body, and you will strain the back.
In the last variation of Chaturanga Dandasana, you come forward from downward-facing dog with your legs extended. Be sure to maintain a strong reach through the heels during your descent to lengthen the lumbar spine. Move the elbows back towards the feet and towards the ribs. If you can keep the torso as one whole, the driving force will move so clearly from the hands to the feet and from the crown of the head to the tailbone, that an unexpected lightness will fill the body. This lightness is a good indication that you have indeed joined the many parts of yourself into an integrated whole.
Achieving this type of body integration takes time and can be more difficult than the more measurable goal of flexibility. Taking something apart (as many novice mechanics have discovered) is often easier than putting it back together. For students with very loose ligaments and very flexible bodies, poses like Chaturanga Dandasana can be both a psychological testing ground and a physical challenge.
It took at least a year of practice before I could lower myself into Chaturanga Dandasana without collapsing. I remember the moment clearly as a stepping stone. Many other things seemed to ‘come together’ in my life after that, as if the coherence between my tissues produced a psychological solidity.
Necessary constraints and limitations balance mobility and freedom, just as the molecular force between particles works to unite them into a whole. The interplay between flexibility and integrity and the constant regulation of one by the other is part of the process of regaining wholeness that we call yoga.
The lessons we learn from the challenging struggle to balance these diametric qualities will be carried with us when we step off the yoga mat.
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