3 8 Y O G A J O U R N A L . C O M J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 5

basicschaturanga to updog

by Jason Crandell

Eyes, forehead, and jaware soft and receptive

Top of the chestlifts and expands

Shoulders are directlyover the wrists

Weight is dispersedevenly between fingers, palms,and wrists

Lower belly liftsgently into the body

3 8 Y O G A J O U R N A L . C O M J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 5

Spine is arcing evenly

Sacrum lengthenstoward the heels

Lower back is long

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If you’ve ever taken a flow class, you’ve no doubtheard the teacher call out “Chaturanga, Upward-Facing Dog, Downward-Facing Dog”—over and overagain. Known as a vinyasa, this sequence is ofteninserted between poses, making them the mostrepeated poses in a flow-based class. When done correctly, they build suppleness, strength, and

endurance. They also require the spine to extend, as you arch into UpwardDog, and then lengthen as you move into Downward Dog—ultimatelybringing it into a neutral position. These poses cleanse the palate of thebody so it’s ready for the next pose.

Chaturanga and Upward Dog are difficult and demanding for any practitioner, and repeatedly slogging through them can feel like an uphillbattle. Ever feel your neck tense and your shoulders hunch as you takea nose-dive into Chaturanga, ultimately collapsing into a heap on thefloor? Or press into Upward Dog and feel a sudden twinge in your lowerback, causing you to rush back to Downward Dog to find some ease?These common—and natural—mistakes can be avoided if you learnproper alignment and build strength to sustain it through the entire flow.In the long run, mindlessly racing through these poses can lead toinjuries—typically to the delicate shoulder joints and the lower back.

Learning these poses in detail can be challenging, particularly in a flow class where the rhythm often takes precedence over the subtlenuances of the postures. So as you watch your fellow students movethrough Chaturanga and into Upward Dog, you might feel pressuredto fake the poses and keep up with the class, rather than stand out

J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 5 Y O G A J O U R N A L . C O M 3 9

You’ve done Chaturanga and

Updog hundreds oftimes, but are youdoing them right?Learn the secretsof f lawless f low.

Flow Motion

Tops of the feetpress into thefloor

DON’T hunch your shoulders or strain your neck to look up.

DO keep the shoulders directlyover the wrists.

Legs rotate in and strongly extend

4 0 Y O G A J O U R N A L . C O M J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 5

B A S I C S

and press the base of each one into thefloor in order to distribute the weight ofyour upper body.

Next, bring your awareness to your bellyand pelvis. Tuck your tailbone slightly andgently firm your lower belly (just belowyour navel). These two actions are vitalin both Chaturanga and Upward Dogbecause they elongate and support yourlower back.

Now, slide your shoulders away fromyour ears and squeeze the bottom tips ofyour shoulder blades together. Feel howthis awakens your upper back as it broad-ens your chest. Gaze forward as you relaxyour jaw, soften your brow, and even outthe texture of your breath.

With your knees on the floor, moveyour chest forward and down as you slow-ly bend your elbows and squeeze yourupper arms into the sides of your body.Moving your chest forward and down—as opposed to only down—will keep yourelbows aligned over your wrists andmaintain the natural supportive architec-ture of your shoulders and arms. As youdescend, keep your hips in line with yourshoulders and chest.

Continue to move your chest forwardand down until your upper arms are par-allel to the floor—but not any lower (yourelbows should form about a 90-degreeangle). Remain here for two full breaths,staying with the intensity of Chaturangainstead of rushing through it. Breatheevenly and soften your facial muscles whileyou navigate the difficulty of this moment.If it’s too hard, back off and maintain yourbody’s integrity rather than overworkingthe pose, which leads to collapse or strain.If you’re unable to keep your upper armsparallel to the floor, back out of the poseby lifting higher up instead of crashingto the floor.

After a couple of breaths in modifiedChaturanga, lower all the way to the floor.Then press back into Balasana (Child’sPose) for a moment of rest.

ONWARD TO UPWARD DOG

When practicing backbends it’s not the depth of your backbend that mat-ters. It’s more important to distribute thecurve evenly along the full length of the

MODIFIED CHATURANGA DANDASANA

)(

Pose BenefitsMODIFIED CHATURANGA

Strengthens and stabilizes the shoulders,chest, arms, and abdomen

Produces heat in the body

Prepares you for full Chaturanga Dandasana

UPWARD-FACING DOG POSE

Strengthens and stabilizes the shoulders,chest, arms, and abdomen

Cultivates suppleness in the spine

Stretches the pectoralis muscles and thedeep muscles of the abdomen

ContraindicationsFOR BOTH POSES

Wrist injuries

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Shoulder injuries

Lower back pain

Spinal disk injuries

as the solitary neophyte. But I urge youto resist this temptation.

Instead, I beg you (as I do my own students) to learn them slowly and to mod-ify them. Rather than fake their motionsand bypass their difficult aspects, devel-op these postures with finesse and mind-fulness. In fact, if you allow yourself to benew—and a little lost—rather than bluff-ing the motions, your learning curve willbe steeper. As you learn this modified version of Chaturanga and spend timehovering just above the floor allowing yourarms to quiver, you’ll build strength. Andas you extend your stay in Upward Dog,you’ll create the opening in your chest andupper back necessary to master more com-plex backbends. Give yourself time topause, rewind, and replay the poses andone day, without gritting your teeth orholding your breath, you too will lowerwith control into Chaturanga and floateffortlessly into Upward Dog.

CHART YOUR CHATURANGA

Come onto all fours with your palmsdirectly underneath your shoulders andyour knees several inches behind yourhips. Rest your shins and the tops of yourfeet on your mat. Spread your fingers wide

FULL CHATURANGA DANDASANA

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going to the dogs

YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED that thereare quite a few poses named after our animal friends. Along with the dog, thisasana menagerie includes other mam-mals (cow, camel, cat, horse, lion, mon-key, bull), birds (eagle, peacock, gooseor swan, crane, heron, rooster, pigeon,partridge), a fish and a frog, reptiles(cobra, crocodile, tortoise), and arthro-pods (locust, scorpion, firefly). There’seven a pose named after a mythic sea monster, the makara, the Hinduzodiac’s Capricorn, which is pictured as having the head and forelegs of adeer and the body and tail of a fish.

Of course, the animal most reveredby Hindus is the cow. Everything associ-ated with or issuing from the cow is

considered holy, even thedust stirred by its passing

and the hoofprints leftbehind. Alas, the dog—despite the contempo-rary popularity of its

eponymous pose—doesn’t fare as well in

India, where many folks con-sider Fido unclean and go to greatlengths to avoid the slightest contact.But here and there in the old books wefind a dog that someone loved. Onefamous instance occurs near the end ofthe Mahabharata, India’s monumentalnational epic. The god Indra invites thehero-king Yudhishthira (pronouncedyou-dish-TEER-ah) into heaven, if onlyhe’ll “cast off” his loyal canine compan-ion. The righteous king refuses, saying,“I do not wish for prosperity if I have toabandon a creature who is devoted tome.” As it turns out, the dog is noneother than Dharma, the god of virtue;upon hearing these words, he assumeshis true form and says to Yudhishthira,“There is no one in heaven equal toyou.” R I C H A R D R O S E N

spine. This is difficult to do in UpwardDog because you’re supporting the weightof your entire torso with your arms andlegs. But don’t be discouraged—UpwardDog strengthens your shoulders, arms,and abdomen, even if it’s not your deep-est backbend.

Before tackling Upward Dog, consid-er this anatomical information. Your pel-vic bone is one of the heaviest bones inyour body—and it’s more or less your cen-ter of gravity. This means that withoutproper support, it tends to sink towardthe floor. While it’s common to work hardin your upper body in order to stay lifted,the key to supporting your weight inUpward Dog is to use your belly and legsto hold the pelvis stable. Thismakes the posture easierand more sustainable.

From Child’s Pose,come back onto yourhands and knees. Movethrough modified Chat-uranga, hovering two inch-es above the floor. Then transition intoUpward Dog by straightening your armsand stacking your shoulders directly overyour wrists. Your shoulders may end upin front of your wrists, which leads tostrain. So look down at your hands togauge where your shoulders are and adjustaccordingly by moving yourself forwardor back.

Now that your arms and shoulders areproperly aligned, you can focus on yourlegs. To counteract lower back compres-sion in Upward Dog, keep the sacrumbroad and long. To keep it broad, rotateyour legs internally by spinning the out-sides of your thighs toward the floor andpressing the pinky toes into the mat. Tokeep it long, draw your tailbone towardyour heels—as you did in Chaturanga—and draw your lower belly up into yourbody. After these refinements, straightenyour legs vigorously, lifting your shins andknees off the floor. As you do this, don’tsqueeze your buttocks. It may be difficultto keep the buttocks soft and the legs firm,but squeezing the buttocks will jam thelower back.

At this point, the only things touchingthe floor are the tops of your feet and the

palms of your hands. To complete UpwardDog, make a few last adjustments in yourupper body: First, observe how yourweight is distributed on your hands andwrists. Is it concentrated on your wrists?Localized on one side of your palm? Or isit dispersed evenly? Make subtle shifts inyour hands and arms until the weight isevenly distributed and no part of yourwrists are being stressed. (You can check

B A S I C S

4 2 Y O G A J O U R N A L . C O M J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 5

Online ExtraTo read more Basics columns,

visit www.YogaJournal.com andclick on “New to Yoga” in

the navigation bar at the top.

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this by looking at your mat—if you see aneven handprint, you know you’ve got it.)

Stay in the pose as you lift, broaden, anddraw your chest forward. Lift your col-larbones as if they were going to loop overthe top of your shoulders, and slide yourshoulder blades down your back. As youdid in Chaturanga, draw the lower tips ofyour shoulder blades toward each otherand firm them into the back of your chest.Bring your shoulders down and back andobserve how this helps lift your chest even more. Lastly, with your head placeddirectly over your shoulders, gaze forwardand up. Avoid dropping the back of yourskull toward your shoulders. Instead,maintain an easy, natural curvature of yourneck as you look up.

After three to six breaths in Upward-Facing Dog, bring your knees to the floorand transition into Child’s Pose.

ALL TOGETHER NOW

Now that you’ve practiced Chaturangaand Upward-Facing Dog separately, youcan link them together and incorporateyour breath into a flowing sequence.

Begin on all fours with your wristsdirectly under your shoulders and yourknees about a foot behind your hips. Drawa full, smooth inhalation into your body.As you exhale, bend your elbows and loweryour chest downward (and forward) untilyour upper arms are parallel to the floor.Inhale and straighten your elbows untilyour shoulders are directly over yourwrists. Continue inhaling, filling yourlungs to the brim, and lift the top of yourthighs and knees away from the floor.Exhale and shift back onto all fours, or,as you do in Sun Salutations, come intoDownward-Facing Dog.

Practice these poses consistently andthey’ll feel less clunky and more silken.When this happens and the postures feelnatural and graceful, congratulate yourself(humbly) and begin to lift and straightenyour legs as you practice Chaturanga. Mostimportant, enjoy the feeling of flow in yourbody at every stage. !

Jason Crandell teaches yoga in San Francisco andaround the country. You can contact him atwww.jasonyoga.com.

J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 5 Y O G A J O U R N A L . C O M 4 3

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