Camel Pose: Prepare to Backbend

Backbends are exhilarating. They stimulate the nervous system, and might promote freer respiratory. They’re the proper antidote to a sedentary life. Camel Pose (Ustrasana) is considered one of yoga’s tougher backbends.

The Camel Pose (Ustrasana) we all know at present—as within the above photograph—just isn’t the identical because it was in its early incarnation. Whereas Camel Pose has been talked about in yogic texts since as early because the 1700s, it extra intently resembled Bow Pose (Dhanurasana) than the Ustrasana we all know at present. The normal pose seemed very similar to Dhanurasana, however as a substitute of lifting the thighs off the bottom, the thighs stayed grounded, the ankles crossed.

The primary description of Camel Pose in its present kind was by Sita Devi, writer of Straightforward Yoga Postures for Girls, in 1934. Nonetheless, the normal model continued to proliferate in some circles till the Sixties, when the kneeling model turned ubiquitous.

One factor most of us can agree on is that Ustrasana in its present kind might be intense. That’s why it’s vital to arrange the physique earlier than making an attempt to apply it.

Why Follow Camel Pose?

Like all backbends, Ustrasana relieves a number of the issues that come up from an excessive amount of sitting. Once we sit habitually for lengthy intervals, our glutes lose power as our hip flexors shorten. Bending ahead over a desk or gadget may cause our shoulders to hunch over time, giving strategy to ahead head posture.

Training Camel Pose might help reverse all these points. Listed here are a number of the advantages:

• Stretches all the entrance of the physique, the ankles, thighs and groins, stomach, chest and throat
• Lengthens the deep hip flexors (psoas)
• Strengthens again muscle groups
• Improves posture
• Stimulates the organs of the stomach

Ustrasana Cautions

As with all yoga asanas, Camel Pose just isn’t for everybody. Listed here are some contraindications for practising the pose:

• Neck or low again harm
• Excessive or low blood strain
• Insomnia
• Migraine
• Second and third trimesters of being pregnant

How one can Put together for Camel Pose

As I discussed above, preparation is vital. Right here’s how I counsel making ready for Camel Pose:

• Start with a couple of relaxed Solar Salutations (Surya Namaskara) to heat up the physique normally.
• Mobilize the thoracic backbone. The thoracic backbone (the phase of the backbone that’s hooked up to the rib cage) just isn’t able to backbending. However you’ll be able to create extra mobility in that space by twisting and aspect bending. Strive Talasana (Palm Tree Pose) for aspect bending. Any twist you select might be useful. Strive including some twists to your Solar Salutations. Revolved Lunge Pose (Parvrtta Anjaneyasana) can match properly into your Solar Salutations.
• Stretch the quadriceps and hip flexors. You are able to do this by practising Lunge Poses (Anjaneyasana), or Half Hero’s Pose (Ardha Virasana).
• Stretch the shoulders and chest. Supported Fish Pose (Salamba Matsyasana) is an effective way to ease your chest open to arrange for the pose.
• Dhanurasana (Bow Pose) is identical form as Camel Pose, however with a unique orientation to gravity, so it may be a useful prep pose as properly.

How one can Follow Ustrasana

1. Collect your props: a Yoga Mat, two Yoga Blocks and a folded Yoga Blanket. The blocks and blanket are optionally available, however it’s good to have them useful simply in case.
2. If you already know that your knees are delicate to strain, place your folded blanket in your Yoga Mat. In any other case, you’ll be able to skip utilizing the blanket.
3. Come to a kneeling place in your mat or blanket with the tops of your ft on the ground. Place a Yoga Block, at its highest top, on the skin of every foot. Be certain the blocks are in your mat, and never in your blanket should you’re utilizing one.
4. Place your arms in your pelvic rim and press downward. Think about your tailbone extending down towards the ground. On the identical time, carry your chest, lengthening your again.
5. For some individuals, together with myself, permitting the pinnacle to fully launch again, as within the above photograph, may cause dizziness or nausea. Be at liberty to maintain the pinnacle extra impartial, lengthening each the back and front of your neck. You too can transfer your chin towards your chest.
6. With out leaning your pelvis again—maintain your pelvis over your knees—bend your lumbar backbone again and attain in your blocks. Proceed lifting your chest.
7. Press into your blocks to carry the chest much more. If this feels fairly straightforward, you’ll be able to decrease your blocks to their center top. If this feels straightforward, you’ll be able to attain in your heels.
8. Take 5 to eight deep breaths. Then launch the pose and sit in your heels or on considered one of your blocks, conserving the backbone upright.
9. It may be useful to repeat the pose one or two occasions extra. Backbends typically change into extra easeful with repetition.

Winding Down

You might really feel tempted to go proper right into a ahead bend after practising Camel Pose. However it may be kinder to your again to ease into ahead bending. Earlier than ahead bending, apply a twist, similar to Revolved Stomach Pose (Jathara Parivrttanasana). Then apply a couple of seated ahead bends to elongate out your again physique and calm down your nervous system.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Follow and Yoga for Meditators, each revealed 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 Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.