The Inner Workings of a Side Stretch

This blog post is inspired by a workshop given by the late Mary Dunn (R.I.P), whose mother helped to introduce Iyengar yoga to the united states and whose vibrant leadership of the New York Iyengar Association was an inspiration to tens of thousands:

In all these side bending poses two things must be noted:

1) The extension of the arms are responsible for the stretch from the center of the side torso and up.
2) The legs and abdomen act as one unit to create the extension from the center of the side torso down.

We'll talk about each section in turn and relate these points to the pose called Urdvha Hastasana or Upward Hands Pose.

The main purpose of the arms is to pull the sides of the chest up, to effectively lift the chest off the waist. Often this is not realized to the extent that it could be becuase the upper arm bones, near the armpits tend to flare outwards a little creating an incorrect angle for this stretch. In that case the triceps and upper armbone need to be turned in slightly towards the face and then the arms need to straightened through the elbows and finger tips.

The main purpose of the legs and abdomen is to cause the extension from the center of the side torso to the hip. Suzanne Deason describes this close interaction nicely in her DVD 'Yoga Conditioning for Weightloss'. She says, Pretend as if the legs begun underneath the lower ribs.'...in other words both abdomen and legs must act as one unit and be properly aligned. The abdomen must not protrude forwards but be back towards the spine. The lower ribs too must be slightly back if there is a tendency to over arch there.  All this works together to extend the lower side torso.

What results is a sensation of, for want of a better expression, splitting the sides apart.  This can be realized in any side bending pose whether it be Gate Pose (Parighasana), Extended Side Agle Pose(Parsokonasana) or Upward Hands Pose (Urdvha Hastasana).

Stay tuned as I use a video to demonstrate the main points of this blog.

Namaste

Asha.

Comments

[mutluluk]

I especially liked your site posts, and so on through all of them beautiful

[pembemaske]

first of all for sharing useful information to friends and blog owner would like to sincerely thank you always good follow-up investigations have

[forex signals provider]

I really appreciate your post and you explain each and every point very well.Thanks for sharing this information.And I’ll love to read your next post too.