Supta Ardha Padmasana: A Lotus for Each Physique

Half Lotus is historically practiced in a seated place. Nevertheless, I prefer to apply it mendacity down for a number of causes. First, mendacity in your again removes the restriction of the ground underneath your legs. It permits your prime leg to cross your backside leg extra simply. Second, mendacity in your again provides you suggestions as as to whether your again is in a wholesome place. Many individuals spherical their spines after they attempt to kind Half Lotus from a sitting place. It’s a lot simpler to take care of a impartial backbone when you’re mendacity down. Lastly, having either side of your SI joint on the ground retains the joints in a impartial place.

In 2001, I co-taught a trainer coaching with Donna Farhi in Vancouver, BC. The 50 attendees have been skilled yoga academics and physique employees from everywhere in the world. Through the coaching we inspired trainees to query educating methodologies that shoehorn college students right into a one-size-fits-all mannequin.

One false impression we talked about was the perceived necessity of training what might be yoga’s most emblematic pose: Padmasana (Lotus Pose). That day we spent two hours training the poses Donna practices to prep her physique for Lotus. Once we tried Padmasana towards the tip of the category, I observed that regardless of the depth and expertise of attendees, solely three out of fifty folks might really do it safely.

This was very stunning to me. Beforehand, I’d been underneath the impression that anybody who tried exhausting sufficient and practiced proper might ultimately do Lotus. This can be true for some folks—Donna informed us it took her 10 years of cautious, affected person apply to ease her hip joints into Padmasana.

But it surely’s not true that anybody can kind their legs into Lotus place, regardless of how dedicated their apply. Because of a workshop I took with Paul Grilley on anatomy for yoga, I discovered that tightness in mushy tissue is just not the commonest cause folks can’t do Padmasana. In response to Grilley, it’s all within the bones.

Why Lotus Pose May Be Out of Attain

Some our bodies won’t ever have the ability to do full Lotus. This isn’t as a result of the homeowners of those our bodies are inferior yogis or that they’re not attempting exhausting sufficient. It might be as a result of their hip joints are fashioned in such a method that they don’t permit the quantity of exterior rotation required to sit down in Lotus.

There are various elements—all inside the realm of regular—that affect the quantity of exterior rotation in your joints. The depth, placement and orientation of your hip sockets can affect whether or not your thighs are likely to rotate inward or outward extra simply. The form and rotation of the heads and necks of the femurs additionally have an effect on the rotation, as does the form and rotation of your shaft of the femur bones. You possibly can see some bone samples that exhibit among the doable variations that affect mobility on Grilley’s web site.

Supta Ardha Padmasana—A Lotus Pose for Each Physique

Fortuitously, there’s no pose in yoga—together with Padmasana—you should do with a purpose to be a “good” yogi. Yoga has by no means been about what your physique can or can’t do.

All that mentioned, I’ve discovered that most individuals are able to and might profit from training Supta Ardha Padmasana, Supine Half Lotus (SHL). Amongst different advantages, SHL stretches the piriformis muscle tissues, exterior rotators that cross the sacroiliac (SI) joint. When the piriformis is tense, it may press on the sciatic nerve, probably inflicting sciatica, and can even contribute to sacroiliac dysfunction. Working towards Supta Ardha Padmasana can generally alleviate sciatic ache and might relieve extreme torque in your SI joint.

Half Lotus is historically practiced in a seated place. Nevertheless, I prefer to apply it mendacity down for a number of causes. First, mendacity in your again removes the restriction of the ground underneath your legs. It permits your prime leg to cross your backside leg extra simply. Second, mendacity in your again provides you suggestions as as to whether your again is in a wholesome place. Many individuals spherical their spines after they attempt to kind Half Lotus from a sitting place. It’s a lot simpler to take care of a impartial backbone when you’re mendacity down. Lastly, having either side of your SI joint on the ground retains the joints in a impartial place.

The right way to Apply Ardha Padmasana

1. Start by mendacity on the ground on a Yoga Mat or Blanket. Bend each knees and place the soles of your toes on the ground.
2. Cross your proper ankle all the best way throughout your left thigh in order that your ankle, not your foot, is resting on the thigh. Many individuals choose to position their proper ankle a couple of inches from the knee, whereas others (like me) choose to position the ankle nearer to the left hip joint. Attempt it each methods, or at factors in between, to see what feels finest for you.
3. Thread your proper arm by the opening behind your proper knee and seize the again of your left leg. Wrap your left hand across the again of your left leg and interlace the fingers of each fingers. In case your fingers don’t join you possibly can join them with a belt or a yoga strap.
4. That is essential: Flex your proper ankle and preserve it flexed the complete time. This retains each your knee and ankle secure.
5. Draw each legs in towards your torso, enjoyable your shoulders and arms. Take deep stomach breaths, creating house on the inhalations, and settling into that house in your exhalations.
6. Take 5 to 10 deep breaths earlier than releasing your legs and letting each toes relaxation on the ground. Take a couple of breaths merely mendacity in your again to really feel what modified. How are the 2 sides of the pelvis resting on the ground? Does one aspect of your physique really feel longer than the opposite? Whenever you really feel prepared, transfer to your second aspect.
7. If at any level throughout SHL you are feeling even the tiniest discomfort in both knee, please let go of the pose. There is no such thing as a such factor as a “good” knee ache. Lotus might be exhausting on knees—much less so when you’re mendacity down and training just one leg at a time—however please do be cautious.

The Most Frequent Misalignment

Many individuals apply Padmasana with their toes, quite than their ankles, atop reverse thighs. If the soles of their toes are dealing with upward, you’re training this misalignment. This can be a recipe for overstretched ligaments in your ankles and doable knee destabilization. One individual I do know sat this manner for an hour and ended up having bilateral knee surgical procedures in consequence.

That’s the reason so many skilled practitioners have been unable to do Padmasana in Donna’s trainer coaching. We made certain that individuals have been training wholesome alignment rules after they lastly positioned their legs in Lotus. Working towards Padmasana with wholesome alignment, along with your ankles flexed and sitting on prime of your thighs, is simply doable for folks whose hip joints externally rotate very simply. Many individuals can do the misaligned model of Lotus, however not that many individuals have the acute vary of movement required to do it with the ankles—not the toes—on prime of their thighs.

There’s Greater than One Solution to Apply Lotus Pose

Whereas Instagram images of individuals doing Lotus Pose in bikinis on sunset-lit seashores could conjure romantic concepts about its significance within the canon of yoga poses, please do not forget that it’s not for everybody. Whether or not or not your physique can do Padmasana—or some other pose—is just not a measure of both your character or value as a yoga practitioner.

Supta Ardha Padmasana, although, could be a wholesome staple in your repertoire of asanas. It confers most of the advantages of Padmasana, however few of its potential dangers. What issues is just not whether or not you have been born with a skeleton that may transfer in a specific method. What issues is the care, respect and mindfulness you carry to no matter pose you’re training in a given second.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the creator of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each printed 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 Crimson Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards in 2010.