The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › The Hot Yoga Poses › Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Paschimottanasana › knees bended or straight?
The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › The Hot Yoga Poses › Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Paschimottanasana › knees bended or straight?
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Hi Gabrielle,
In standing separate leg stretching pose I can grab my feet with straight legs. However, if I grab my feet with bend legs, I feel a difference in the stretching in my lower back from when I grab my feet with straight legs (then my back is more rounded). I suspect the pose is more correct with bended legs, because I think I stretch my lower back more, but since the instructor always says ‘bend your legs if you need to’, I’m not sure.
What do you think?
Hope to hear from you,
best wishes,
JetaHi Jeta
Your suspicions are correct. A straight back with bent legs in this pose trumps straight legs with a rounded back, every single time. As you have indicated, it literally feels much better and you can really enjoy that stretch. Strangely in this position (contrary to most people’s logic) the all over stretch even through the bent legs is superior.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Jeta
Your suspicions are correct. A straight back with bent legs in this pose trumps straight legs with a rounded back, every single time. As you have indicated, it literally feels much better and you can really enjoy that stretch. Strangely in this position (contrary to most people’s logic) the all over stretch even through the bent legs is superior.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂
Whoa! Wait. What?So you’re saying that a person who CAN grab their feet – with straight legs – should BEND their legs again in order to get their spine straight? Ok, that will certainly feel different. But I always thought the point of this particular posture was that, once your legs are straight, you can use both gravity and the strength of your arms to straighten your spine out. Your spine hangs off your hips and legs like a frame and gets pulled longer and longer. It’s just a question of order of operations; eventually the back and legs should BOTH be straight. And Bikram always said, “first legs stretching, THEN hips stretching, THEN lower spine stretching, then WHOLE spine stretching, EVENTUALLY whole BODY is stretching…”
Am I wrong about this?
J
Hi Juliana
No, I don’t think you are wrong about this. But I do KNOW there are other ways to approach this pose. With the way I suggest any BODY of ANY flexibility can get a risk-free stretch through the whole body and not just one that can (and often does) hurt the lower back and exacerbate sciatica and other conditions.
If you are a student that is already flexible or open enough to enjoy the full stretch then it’s hard to imagine there is another way. If that’s not you then this is a way to enter and enhance – not just a way to stop when it hurts because it simply works the backs of the legs and hopefully one day will stretch your back out too! 😉 Most people’s bodies could benefit from this improved stretch now (and not just hope that one day they will be flexible and their back straight). Actually this will help you become overall more flexible more quickly.
Bikram’s version of the dialog that you refer to is not correct in this case. Most people do have a rounded back if their legs are straight. It is not simply about getting a stretch it is about getting a pragmatic delicious ecological and functional stretch that relies on MORE than just the simplified stretching mechanism of trying to bend in half, but a more complex and elegant solution for the whole body – flexible or not.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Juliana
Bikram’s version of the dialog that you refer to is not correct in this case. Most people do have a rounded back if their legs are straight. It is not simply about getting a stretch it is about getting a pragmatic delicious ecological and functional stretch that relies on MORE than just the simplified stretching mechanism of trying to bend in half, but a more complex and elegant solution for the whole body – flexible or not.Well yes, I do agree that most people will have a rounded back when their legs are straight – at FIRST! But then they have two whole delicious sets of the posture to work on lengthening out the spine. Heck – most people will have a rounded back even when their legs are NOT straight! But that’s where the work of the posture is…
And there are plenty of other opportunities within the series to come at this stretch from a different angle (which is more or less what you’re suggesting, I think). In padahastasana, in the very beginning, you start by sandwiching your body down your legs, and THEN work on locking your knees. So maybe, by the time you get to the separate leg stretching in the second half of class, you are warmed up enough to try stretching your body in a different way.
I expect that we will have to agree to disagree, since I am clearly a dialogue girl and you are clearly not. But I have to make the case for the dialogue, cause in my very short 5 years of practice I have yet to be convinced that any of it is actually WRONG. I just keep following it, and it keeps WORKING!!
Best,
JulianaP.S. “Ecological”? Hah! Who could argue with THAT, right?! I think the dialogue version is efficient, economical, effective, and great company for a long walk on the beach at sunset… 😉
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