Parsva Balasana: Hen Canine Pose

Likelihood is Parsva Balasana (Hen Canine Pose) doesn’t have a 2,000-year historical past within the yoga custom. Extra seemingly, the idea of a chicken canine—image of one in every of their favourite pastimes—might have come from the British who colonized India, as did so a lot of yoga’s extra gymnastic poses.

This doesn’t diminish its worth, nevertheless. Parsva Balasana confers many advantages. Training Hen Canine Pose:

• strengthens and stabilizes the core.
• strengthens the low again.
• challenges, and due to this fact will increase, your capacity to stability.
• might promote stability between the proper and left lobes of your mind by the contralateral relationships between the legs and arms.

As a core stabilizer, Hen Canine Pose is less complicated in your again than crunches or sit-ups. The important thing to partaking your core in Hen Canine Pose is to recollect to make use of your hyoid bone. A small, u-shaped bone on the high of your throat, the hyoid bone is finest identified for its affect on swallowing. Nonetheless, this small bone—the one bone within the physique in a roundabout way related to a different bone—can also be key in figuring out our posture.

When the hyoid bone is drawn in on the high of the throat, the entire digestive system and core muscular tissues tone again to provide frontal help to your backbone. When the hyoid bone pushes ahead, because it does once you throw your head again, these buildings push into your entrance physique. Do this experiment:

1. Lie in your stomach on a yoga mat.
2. Carry up into Sphinx Pose, so that you simply’re supported by your forearms.
3. Tilt your head again so far as it should go, and concentrate on how your stomach rests in your mat.
4. Now carry your head to an upright place, so that you simply look straight forward.
5. Draw the hyoid bone again on the high of your throat and really feel what occurs in your stomach.
6. Commute between the 2 head positions to really feel the distinction in your core.

I focus on intimately the significance of hyoid bone positioning in an article about Chaturanga Dandasana. It’s essential to know the connection between your head place and core stability in just about each yoga asana. However In poses akin to Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose), Urdva Mukha Svanasana (Upward Dealing with Canine Pose), Chaturanga Dandasana and Hen Canine Pose, it’s particularly vital since your core is very topic to the pull of gravity and the load can put stress in your backbone. Drawing your hyoid bone again causes your core to tone again into your backbone, stabilizing your core and defending your backbone.

1. Come to your palms and knees on a nonskid yoga mat. It’s possible you’ll need to place a yoga blanket below your knees for further padding.
2. Lengthen your proper leg straight again, straightening your knee. There’s no must attempt to carry the leg above your pelvis. This may truly trigger stress in your low again. Let your leg be parallel to the ground.
3. Lengthen your left arm ahead, straightening your elbow. Once more, there’s no must hyperextend your shoulder joint by lifting your hand larger than your torso.
4. Floor firmly by your proper palm and left knee, shin and foot, rooting them into your mat.
5. Concurrently lengthen the proper leg backward and left arm ahead, preserving the again of your neck lengthy and drawing your hyoid bone again into the throat.
6. Keep for five to 10 deep breaths, persevering with to floor the proper palm and left knee, shin and foot as you lengthen the left arm and proper leg.
7. Return to all fours. Relaxation right here when you like, feeling the results of the pose. You too can relaxation in Balasana (Baby’s Pose) when you desire.
8. Observe Hen Canine Pose on the opposite aspect.

Hen Canine Pose is acceptable for all practitioners, from starting to skilled. Add it into your observe to strengthen and stabilize your low again and core.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced instructing in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third guide is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and people sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards in 2010.