Pose of the week: paschimottanasana (seated forward fold)

As the weather gets colder and our bodies begin to crave warming and grounding foods, paschimottanasana serves that same purpose but as a pose. The act of folding forward is introspective, we fold onto and towards ourselves by hinging over our legs and flexing our toes towards our torsos;  and we also move inwards in regards to perspective, it is a moment to come back to the breath and your intention. Unlike back bends which are heart openers, forward folds protect our heart making us feel secure and safe. Because of this, paschimottanasa calms the nervous system as we fold and ss the sits bones root down and the backs of the legs press towards the earth we feel  grounded physically as well as emotionally. 

 

 

 

This is a great diagram for coming into the pose from dandasana!

I am sure my yogini Meghan would not believe that this is my pose of the week because when we were working on this at TT (teacher training) we made adjustments on each other so that we were in the pose without a curve in the spine. I got as far forward as the man in figure 3/3, I was bummed. I had this beautiful image of me laying out over my legs with a straight spine and my nose to my knee. EGO check and runners hamstrings- I swore I wouldn't ever teach it. I was just joking of course, because as the saying goes, "the poses you like the least are the ones you probably need the most." Amen- here is to practicing my Poschimottanasna. 

Benefits:

• helps with digestion (can aide in weight loss)
• combats anxiety, depression, insomnia
• helps relieve menstrual aches and pains
• relieves headaches and certain back pains
• can increase appetite
• stretches HAMSTRINGS
• legnthens out spine
• releases shoulders

Coming into / out of the pose:

• sit on a blanket with your sits bones at the very front edge of the blanket
• with legs out in front of you, remove the junk in yo trunk so that you can feel both bones on the blanket.
• sit up nice and tall as you inhale
• flex your feet, toes towards your face
• exhale pull bellybutton towards spine and HINGE AT THE HIPS
• keep your back straight for as long as possible, once at that limit take a nice long inhale and legnthen
• exhale drawing your naval in again, fold deeper into the space you just created and feel free to round the spine (rounding evenly thoughout) 
•  either relax the arms along side the leg or reach for the feet

Modifications: 

• use a strap around the feet if you can not reach them on your own-- you are not driving a herd of wild reindeer so relax your arms and hands on the strap to a gentle grip.
• if you can easily reach your feet you can place a block on the other side of your feet and reach for the block
• You can prop yourself up for a restorative variation by placing bolsters on your legs and relaxing onto the bolster.

Forward folds are great counter poses for twists and back bends. This is a mild forward fold and is used to counter camel, danurasana (bow pose), simple seated twists, and ardha matsyendrasana (half lord of the fishes)

photo 1:http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5148/5762110332_2e15f0220c.jpg

photo 3: http://compassionworks.com/832/