The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › The Hot Yoga Poses › Dhanurasana › Shoulder joints
The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › The Hot Yoga Poses › Dhanurasana › Shoulder joints
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Hi Gabrielle,
I wonder if you can help. I have been working on lifting my legs and chest higher up in this posture. My floor bow is not bad at all, and although I can sometimes see my feet, I’m not sure I’m doing this correctly.
We are instructed to keep our thighs aligned with the hips, but if don’t widen the space between my knees a little, I tend to get severe pain in the joints of my shoulders due to the strain of kicking my legs and pulling torso up. I can imagine this is part of the process but at the same time I was wondering whether there’s anything one can do to improve the flexibility of one’s shoulder joints…??
And also just how aligned should the thighs be with the hips in this posture – I have not really seen anyone doing this from an angle that would allow me to make a proper assessment.
As always your advice would be much appreciated 🙂
HAVE YOU SEEN THE PICS ON THE SITE????
Hi Cyberry
The real mechanism is that the kick drives the pose. These advanced folk who are in that beautiful slender tear drop shape are not always demonstrating a pose that’s driven by the legs. Of course there is strength there but it’s driven by flexibility.
That’s what you have already discovered: they are lifting their chest many in a way that goes beyond being simply pulled up by the kick of the legs. And as you note, this is affecting your ability to let your shoulders stay in that relaxed position.
Perhaps because you have some tightness there or perhaps because now you may be in a position where you are slightly powering from the arms. What do you think? I sense it could be a little of the latter. Another way of putting it is that you should be hanging from your feet! So if you are trying to pull your legs back into alignment with your arms you could be feeling strain. The thing that I like to do is to adjust my shoulders (their orientation) and this adjusts my legs into alignment. Try it and see how you go.
The anatomy of your hips may not allow you to keep your legs right in parallel and in that very flexed position. I would suggest never pushing into that pain but go to where you can and then draw the legs in but keep kicking up and back. Adjust those shoulders and keep hanging. This will open up your shoulders more. Now, do you think you need some exercises to open your shoulders more? Let me know along with your assessment of any other limitations in shoulder movement.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi Gabrielle,
Thanks for this: I tried both kicking and hanging more this weekend and it worked wonders. It still felt a little sore though. At one point I felt I could actually kick more but had to hold back because I could feel the pain starting in my shoulders and down my one arm (inside).
I’m still experimenting and trying to adjust some more (I tend to lift my chest right from the start as well – instead of letting it be drawn up gradually), but I would not be surprised if this is a combination of tightness of the shoulders and using too much arm strength.
So, perhaps some exercises to open the shoulders up might also be beneficial. If you are willing to share some tips that would be great!
Many thanks as always,
CHi Cyberry
The stretch that comes to mind right now would be as follows:
>> Lie face down head top of head touching a wall.
>> Put your hands on the wall above your head and climb them up and feel your shoulders open.
>> Your head and upper chest will rise up off the floor.
>> Let gravity take your head (relax your neck) and don’t hunch the shoulders.
>> Your hands may slip. And you may also find that after a while you can find some more stretch by walking your hands up a little more.
>> Stay in that stretch for increasing amounts of time. Perhaps progress in minute increments. Try to fit it in everyday.Let me know how you go.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
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