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The grip in Padangustha Dhanurasana, Natajarasana and Eka pada raja kapotasana
Backbending is a bit rusty at the moment. With the colder mornings I'm leaning towards a light VK asana practice, including the subroutine I'm writing on for the Practice book, followed longer pranayama and meditation sessions. I'm never quite sure if back bending affects my sleep pattern so tend to avoid them and mostly stick to primary with a couple of light drop backs. That leaves Saturday ( finish work early) and my day off. So kapo for now seems to be just my toes and there's not much of a backbend in these but I still seem to have the grip and the shoulder rotation and that's what I wanted to feature
The padangustasana Dhanurasana is from last night, the rest from earlier in the year (as it happens I slept wonderfully and felt a lot less stiff than most mornings this winter).
Sweaty hands and feet by this stage of the practice are the biggest problem.
The same tricky grip as from Eka pada raja kapotasana and Natajarasana
1. Lift your leg up behind you bending the knee and bringing your heel towards your buttock but turn the foot outwards. Rest the back of your hand against the outside of your ankle.
2. Turn your hand palm outwards and take hold of the top of your foot.
3. Rotate your elbow outwards and your bring the foot up. At this point you'll need to begin the backbend to make the space for the elbow to come out and the shoulder rotate.
4. Stretch up out of your hips, tilt the pelvis down and begin to arch the back as if you were preparing to drop back into urdhva danhurasana, continue to bring the elbow out and over to end up above your shoulder.
5. Natajarasana
Eka pada raja kapotasana
Here's the grip in slowmo in Natarajasana and Eka pada raja kapotasana
In the Vinyasa Krama context I tend to do these as part of a backbend focused practice. I'll emphasise the backbend hand variations in Tadasana, do most if not all of the Bow sequence which includes all the salabhasanas. Then I'll switch over to the Meditative sequence for for vajrasana to loosen the quads and do the kapo's before coming back to the dhanurasanas from Bow, including padangustasana dhanurasana above. I'll finish off with Natajarasana, drop backs and then a long long paschimotanasana and inversions.
Getting both legs at the same time is tricky. I do a couple of eka pada raja kapo's to get the shoulder rotation happening then do a couple of Eka pada dhanurasanas, one side at a time is easier I find, than both together. Starnge that eka pada dhanarasana comes later in Advanced B than padangustasana Dhanurasana.
Ok, I've never really understood to beginning grip, so thanks for that. On raising the elbow... this just doesn't seem possible! I hit a wall. I have very flexible shoulders though, as well as a decent backbend, Is there some further technique for getting the elbow up, or is that just damn hard? Looks like you just wrench into it...
Hi james. i should say more about that raising of the elbow, I find I need to do it in Eka pada raja kapotasana before i can do it in Raja Kapotasana or even natajarasana and often i can't get it both sides on natajarasana for some reason.
Try it now, just sitting, imagine your reaching around with the grip to grab your foot and now start to take your elbow up and ove. There's that point where it stops but if you make some space for the bottom of your shoulder blade perhaps with a little lift around the back of the ribs and a slight twist then the elbow manages to come over. That's what your aiming at but while actually holding on to the foot, trying to make the space for the shoulder blade to move and allow the shoulder to rotate.
Another way to look at is when you take your jacket off, imagine a tight jacket, and you shuffle off one shoulder reach around and hold not the sleeve and then make space in your back to allow you to wiggle the shoulder out. It's different but there's still a sense of trying to make space to give your arm and shoulder more movement play with it.
padangusthasana is hard because you have to make that space on both sides at the same time, tricky.
Backbending is a bit rusty at the moment. With the colder mornings I'm leaning towards a light VK asana practice, including the subroutine I'm writing on for the Practice book, followed longer pranayama and meditation sessions. I'm never quite sure if back bending affects my sleep pattern so tend to avoid them and mostly stick to primary with a couple of light drop backs. That leaves Saturday ( finish work early) and my day off. So kapo for now seems to be just my toes and there's not much of a backbend in these but I still seem to have the grip and the shoulder rotation and that's what I wanted to feature
4 comments:
Oh thanks! I still don't think I'll be able to do it. Maybe I'll try again Saturday when I do my next advanced...
Getting both legs at the same time is tricky. I do a couple of eka pada raja kapo's to get the shoulder rotation happening then do a couple of Eka pada dhanurasanas, one side at a time is easier I find, than both together. Starnge that eka pada dhanarasana comes later in Advanced B than padangustasana Dhanurasana.
Ok, I've never really understood to beginning grip, so thanks for that. On raising the elbow... this just doesn't seem possible! I hit a wall. I have very flexible shoulders though, as well as a decent backbend, Is there some further technique for getting the elbow up, or is that just damn hard? Looks like you just wrench into it...
Hi james. i should say more about that raising of the elbow, I find I need to do it in Eka pada raja kapotasana before i can do it in Raja Kapotasana or even natajarasana and often i can't get it both sides on natajarasana for some reason.
Try it now, just sitting, imagine your reaching around with the grip to grab your foot and now start to take your elbow up and ove. There's that point where it stops but if you make some space for the bottom of your shoulder blade perhaps with a little lift around the back of the ribs and a slight twist then the elbow manages to come over. That's what your aiming at but while actually holding on to the foot, trying to make the space for the shoulder blade to move and allow the shoulder to rotate.
Another way to look at is when you take your jacket off, imagine a tight jacket, and you shuffle off one shoulder reach around and hold not the sleeve and then make space in your back to allow you to wiggle the shoulder out. It's different but there's still a sense of trying to make space to give your arm and shoulder more movement play with it.
padangusthasana is hard because you have to make that space on both sides at the same time, tricky.
Hope that helps, let me know if it does.
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