POW! (Pose of the Week)

This week's pose: Chaturanga Dandasana - because sometimes a girl wants to rock a strapless dress!

"Crocodile" pose, despite its simplicity, is a hard pose to master. It has a number of physical benefits, like improving circulation and digestion and building core strength, but the #1 reason for a girl to perfect this pose is the opportunity to get amazing shoulders for your strapless summer dresses!

The most common way an instructor will get you into Chaturanga is to lower yourself down from a plank (top of a push-up) pose. But you could raise yourself from the floor - I've had an instructor or two try this. I've also had an instructor encourage us to "scoop forward" from Down Dog to get there.

No matter how you get there, if you look at the photo of the model I've included this week (from Yoga Journal's website, btw - does this count as giving credit?), there are a lot of subtleties in this pose. You'll notice that her fingers are grounded and the digits face forward - to quote one of my fave's Diann: "...like the number 11". Her upper arm bones are at right angles to her lower arm bones, which are at right angles to the hands. The thighs are NOT resting on the ground, but hovering, directly in line with the rest of the torso. Finally, the foot bones are at right angles to the lower leg bones.

If you for some reason fail to keep these perpendicularities with the joints, you run the risk of aggravating Carpal and/or Tarsal tunnel syndromes or placing stress and strain on the shoulder. These mis-alignments, at worst, can cause injury to the joints in question, and at best, prevent you from developing the results you're looking for (awesome shoulders for that strapless dress!)

Just because this pose has it's difficulties doesn't mean that you shouldn't devote time and attention to mastering it. Time and attention are just what it will take to get it right! Spend the time, reap the rewards!

Namaste!