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THE ANATOMY OF A POSE
Chaturanga Dandasana | Low Push up
Everyone has a love/hate relationship with this pose and,
it changes with each practice. Some days you hit it exactly right and other days, it just doesn't feel strong, centered, balanced ...
Baron Baptiste says this pose comes apart in your head.
Are you calm and non reactive? Are you relaxed?
Or, are you clenching your jaw, your shoulders, your neck?
The answers lie in how you set up your body
and mind to start the pose.
1. First stack your shoulder joints, elbows and wrists in
one line as you come in to high plank.
2. Slide your shoulders down your back, keep them drawing down, while activating your lats, the muscles under the armpits.
In the moment, this is hard to remember. The easiest way to engage them is to press your pinky fingers in to the mat, and lift your chest.
3. Firm your thigh muscles, think of lifting the back
of the thighs as if to touch the ceiling.
4. Firm up your stomach with a slight lift of
your hips and your belly.
5. Start to move forward using the strength of your legs by
squeezing your thigh muscles in to the bone, feeling the
strength of your fingers by spreading them.
6. Set your gaze forward as you come to the tip tops of your toes, going past the balls of your feet, bending your elbows and lowering about 5 " from the floor. At this point the elbows should be in line
with the torso with your gaze still set forward.
7. Feel your weight evenly distributed on your hands and feet.
8. Now feel your strength, your purpose.
Breath more, struggle less ... the most essential elements of the pose.
This will help you to find success in the pose.
9. If you do not have the strength in your shoulders to fully come
in to this pose, the modification is to place your knees down,
keeping everything else the same as you lower to the floor.
You modify, but you don't avoid.
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