Yoga Pose Focus: Chaturanga Dandasana

create your own sun salutation:)

"It is when we are in transition that we are most completely alive." 

-- William Bridges

Yoga is movement and adaptation

Yoga is so much about posture and stillness, but it is also about regaining balance among constant change. This is one of the gifts of surya namaskar, a.k.a. sun salutations. It can be so satisfying to move through that sequence of postures that is so popular in vinyasa and other types of flowing yoga. But did you know that there are different variations and that traditional surya namaskar, if done too much and without adequate preparation, can be hard on the body? Chiropractor and yoga teacher Garrett Neill writes in detail on this in his article 9 Chaturanga Alternatives.

Just as Neill says, it’s not that sun salutations and chaturanga are necessarily bad; it’s more about frequency and suitability. Do we really need ten, twenty, or thirty sun salutations in a class? How fast or slow should we do them? What if part of that sequence doesn’t feel right in our bodies? It’s specifically one pose in the sun salutation that can be a strain for so many people: chaturanga dandasana.

Yoga is alignment

Even if you can do chaturanga with the appropriate strength, coordination, and alignment, it’s nice to know some alternatives as described in Neill’s article linked above. I’ll walk you through a few of the alternatives mentioned in his article in the video below.

Yoga postures and sequences can have more variation than we think. It’s easy to assume that alignment in yoga postures is prescribed; you might wonder, ‘where exactly should I place my foot?’ or ‘should I push through my hands or pull back through my hips?’ The answer to these types of questions is very often, ‘it depends.’

I won’t go in-depth here, but I will just say that the priority in your body should be comfort. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t be challenged or feel like you’re exerting effort; effort and challenge can be so satisfying in yoga, and also can be just what you need to grow and go deeper physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. But there is such thing as too much, and that’s where variations come to the rescue.

Laurel Beversdorf puts it so well in her article on alignment: “In truth, alignment is just a point along a spectrum of possible positions.” So, as I always say, feel free to play with alignment; it’s your body and only you can feel what’s going on in it.

Starting small before going big

In sun salutations, we have big sweeping movements as we go from tadasana to urdhva hastasana, uttanasana, and then jump or step back to plank (if that was a big line of gibberish to you, Google sun salutation and study the different postures in the sequence:). Then we get into chaturanga and though it feels sorta like a big move, it requires a lot of little muscles to engage and coordinate. It can feel like a lot of pressure on the wrists and sometimes it can strain your shoulder. If that’s the case, start small!

Instead of chaturanga here are some options:

1. do bird dog

2. rest in child’s pose

3. do side plank to one side, then the other

It’s a good idea to try these options individually before inserting them into a sun salutation. Then, when you feel comfortable, try them in a sun salutation or two. Here’s a little demo in the video below, though.

This is the final post in a 3-part series to prep my readers for an online class I’m offering tomorrow in support of The Longest Day, a fundraiser for Alzheimer’s Association. Read the first post here and the second one here. For more information on the fundraiser, check out this link: https://www.facebook.com/donate/1200648750493557/ 

Thank you!