caturaṅga daṇḍāsana – part one

Practicing caturaṅga daṇḍāsana[1] (Four Limb Stick/Staff Pose) plays a vital role in doing the Sun Salutations that are central to Ashtanga and vinyasas flow yoga. The pose strengthens and tones the entire body, helps teach important alignment, and prepares you for a multitude of positions including the following:

Arm Balances – The upper body and lower-belly strength that you develop by practicing caturaṅga daṇḍāsana, combined with the confidence it instills, translates beautifully into the kind of power and core consciousness you need for arm balances.

Inversions - caturaṅga daṇḍāsana creates a stability in the shoulders, a sense of compactness at the center, and an alertness in the legs. These, along with attention to alignment, are crucial to doing safe inversions.

Backbends – The legs feature prominently in a healthy caturaṅga daṇḍāsana and in healthy backbends (in which the curve of the spine is evenly distributed). Learning to use the legs effectively in caturaṅga daṇḍāsana imprints this awareness, so that the legs can play an active role in your backbends.

Phonetic pronunciation: chuh-tu*-rung-guh dun-dah-suh-nuh (*u as in “put”) [2]

catur = four
anga = limb
danda = stick/staff
āsana = pose

Instructions for Knees to Floor Variation
This variation will take some of the difficulty out of the pose so that you can focus on the details that will protect your shoulders as you develop strength.

• Begin in plank pose
• See that your hands are directly underneath your shoulders, your feet hip-distance apart, and your heels stacked over your toes. Pull the navel in to engage your core.
• Extend your sternum forward as you press your heels back, so that you feel your body getting long and strong.
• Draw the front of your thighs toward the ceiling—but don’t allow the tailbone to follow, or you’ll wind up with your butt stuck up high in the air.
• Instead, release your tailbone toward your heels and notice how that makes you more compact at your center.
• Keeping your gaze on the floor, look slightly forward so that the crown of your head is a continuation of the line of your spine.
• From plank, drop your knees to the floor
• Maintain the lifted, engaged feeling in your lower belly – almost as though it were a tray carrying your lower back.
• Keep your toes tucked under so you can retain a sense of your heels pressing back.
• From here, reestablish your alignment: Inhale, drawing the heads of the shoulders up away from the floor and reemphasizing the lift in your belly as you direct the tip of your tailbone down.
• As you exhale, bend your elbows, keeping them drawn in against your sides, and slowly lower yourself toward the floor.
• Keep your body as straight as a plank of wood, neither letting your center sag nor sticking your butt up in the air.
• Make sure that as you lower yourself toward the floor, the heads of your upper arms remain at the same height as your elbows rather than dropping toward the floor.
• If you are correctly aligned, your belly will reach the floor before your chest does.
• Keep your elbows by your sides
• Pull up through your core
• And press back up to all fours.
• You’ll feel your triceps working (If you don’t, you have probably allowed your elbows to splay out, with your shoulders bearing the burden of the work).

Enjoy the practice!

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[1] Slightly modified from Natasha Rizopoulos’, "The Low Down" (learn to hover with grace in this character-building pose), Yoga Journal, May, 2008.
[2]Stick figure instructions, pronunciation and translation provided by Mikelle Terson, Asana Learning Deck, http://www.yogablossom.com/