Advanced Practice: Opening the Front Body (Back Bends)
This advanced practice begins with standing poses and inversions to activate the torso and integrate the legs while strengthening the upper body and opening the chest and shoulders. It follows with a series of back bends over the chair to open the abdomen, hip creases, chest and shoulders while minting integration of the limbs into the spine, ending with Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow Pose) from the floor. It ends with a short series of supported forward bends and restorative poses to widen the back and settle the energy.
Intermediate Practice: Separating the Thighs and the Abdomen (Backbends)
This intermediate back bends practice begins with wall work to wake up the shoulders, hips and torso. It follows with standing poses to strengthen and integrate the legs arms and back while lengthening the thighs and opening the chest. Supta Virasana (Reclined Hero Pose) and Viparita Dandasana (Inverted Staff Pose) are included to deepen the opening of the front body before a floor sequence of baby back bends, using a bolster for support to encourage release of over-work in the back. The practice ends with some brief restorative work to bring the body back to balance.
Basic Practice: Opening the Hip Creases and Lengthening the Torso (Back Bends)
This basic back-bending practice begins with simple reclined poses to soften and open the abdomen and chest. Standing poses follow to encourage the separation of legs and torso while establishing the dynamic oppositions necessary for the floor work to come. Warrior Pose 1 and lunges stretch out the fronts of the thighs and more explicitly open the hip crease. In the floor work, the opening of the chest in relationship to the widening and freeing up of the abdomen, and the lengthening of the thighs is introduced while breaking down the component parts of Dhanurasana (Bow Pose), before practice the poses on its own. A short sequence of restorative poses softens and widens the lower back in preparation for final relaxation.
Basic Practice: Softening, Lengthening and Widening the Back
The goal in this practice is to keep the back as soft and wide as possible while lengthening the sides of the torso, and especially the sides of the waist towards the head.
Keep your buttocks and lower back soft and wide as you find support from your inner thighs.
Keep your mid-back soft and wide by allowing your font ribs to drape down towards your hips.
Soften and widen the space between your shoulder blades.
Soften and widen your hip creases as you release your front thighs towards your knees and lift your abdomen towards your head.
5 Poses to Open the Hips
When people say they want to “open” their hips, they usually mean they want to stretch them out on particular way. For a hip joint to be truly “open” it needs to have good range of motion throughout all its possibilities. The thigh and pelvis have six basic movement possibilities relative to each other:
- Flexion: the thigh and abdomen move closer together in front of the body and the hip crease deepens.
- Extension: the thigh and the lower back move closer together behind the body and the hip crease opens.
- Outward (Lateral) Rotation: the front of the thigh bone turns away from the mid-line of the body in the hip joint.
- Inward (Medial) Rotation: the front of the thigh bone turns towards the mid-line of the body in the hip joint.
- Adduction: the thigh bone moves towards or across the midline of the body in the hip joint.
- Abduction: the thigh bone moves away from the midline of the body in the hip joint.
Basic Practice: Moving the Front Body into the Back Body and Widening the Back
The Warrior Poses in this practice have a back-bending element to them. In order to create support for the back body, we will be bringing the front body back into it. Consider these point as you go through the poses:
- Widen the collarbones and the chest and move them towards the back.
- Cinch in the sides of the waist as you lengthen the torso from hips to head and move them back.
- Soften and widen the lower back and the buttocks.
In addition, to open up the front of the hip, think of moving the thigh away from the abdomen and the abdomen away from the thigh, especially in the back leg of lunges and standing poses.
Basic Practice: Cinching in and Lengthening the Waist
In this practice we are going to focus on creating strength in the torso, not by squeezing the abdomen and pelvic floor, but by lengthening the sides and cinching the waist in.
In each of these poses, think of moving the thighs and abdomen away from each other and keeping the hip creases as soft and wide as possible.
In poses that require more abdominal strength, draw the navel into the spine and roll the tail towards the pubic bone or heels, whichever seems more accessible, while keeping the abdomen itself wide and the sides strong.
Keep the neck, throat and jaw soft. (more…)
Basic Practice: Baby Back Bends
You can think of this as a continuation of our previous practice. Consider the following as you practice the poses:- Reach through the back leg as you lengthen the abdomen towards the head to open the hip crease.
- Find support from the strength of the inner thighs and soften the hips and buttocks.
- Lengthen the front of the body while keeping the back body wide and un-crunched.
- Be as economical in your efforts as possible. Lift the legs without pushing into the floor or over-working the lower back
- Lift the legs with the inner thighs.
- Turn the thighs in towards the mid-line of the body, softening and widening the lower buttocks and the lower back.
The Sequence:
Simple Vinyasa:
Utthita Trikonasana (Extended Triangle Pose)
Utthita Parshvakonasana (Extended Side Angle Pose)
Parshvottanasana (Intense Side Stretch Pose) flat back variation only
Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle Pose)
Plank Vinyasa:
- Come out of the pose by lowering yourself to the floor with control to rest on the abdomen
Shalabhasana Cycle:
Adho Mukha Shvanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose)
Uttanasana (Intense Stretch Pose)
Setu Bandha (Bridge Pose)
- Come into the pose with three blankets on a folded mat under the shoulders and the feet on a chair.
- Either have the chair against a wall and practice with the wrists belted at shoulder width, or hold onto the chair legs.
Ardha Halasana (Half Plough Pose) over a chair
Adho Mukha Sukhasana (Downward Facing Comfortable Pose) with the forehead on the chair
Shavasana (Corpse Pose) with the legs on the chair
Basic Practice: Warrior Pose 3
In each of these poses, focus on the following points:
- Reach through the back leg as you lengthen the abdomen towards the head to open the hip crease.
- Find support from the strength of the inner thighs and soften the hips and buttocks.
- Lengthen the front of the body while keeping the back body wide and un-crunched. (more…)
Intermediate Practice: Balancing the Hamstrings 1 (Back Bends)
In this practice, we are continuing to work with the idea of separating the abdomen and thighs, but we are going to fold in an awareness of the backs of the legs, the hamstrings. In each of your poses, consider the following:
- Balance the support of the inner and outer hamstring tendons at the back of the knee, where the hamstrings are most prominent as they attach to the bones of the lower leg. Some of us will over-work either the inner or outer hamstring tendon in a pose, putting uneven stresses on the the knee and the backs of the thighs. Whichever tendon is working harder, roll it forward to soften it and roll the other one back to take up some of the work. Which tendon needs to go forward will vary according to the kind of pose (forward bends often over-work the inner knee tendon while back bends over-work the outer). It also might vary according to your own tendencies. You might find one leg needs to do one thing while the other needs to do the opposite.
- Soften and widen the entire plane of the hamstring, the “hamstring wall,” to open up the back of the leg evenly and to allow it to receive the thigh bone, rather than bunch up away from it.
- Soften and widen the entire plane of the buttocks, the “gluteal wall.”
- Slide the hamstring up towards the sitting bone underneath the gluteal wall. Very often the outer fibers of gluteus maximus and the outer hamstring get bunched up and undifferentiated. Keep the two walls as soft and wide as possible.
- To simplify, you might think of sending the hamstrings towards the hips as you send the quads towards the knees, all the while softening and widening the gluteal walls as you widen and firm the inguinal ligaments. (more…)
© 2010 Witold Fitz-Simon.
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