Monday, March 12, 2012

No My Teacher Said Bakasana!

Bakasana
(bahk-AHS-anna) 

baka-crane

Wait am I am a crow or crane? Well, I am both with a few differences. Baka in sanskrit does translate into crane, but is commonly referred to as crow. Poor confused bird! It also depends on the teacher and class your are in as well. Bakasana is generally the first arm balanced learned going from a beginner to intermediate class.  Consider our cute little crow to the left as the intro bird and crane to the right as the full graduate bakasana. When we first learn crow we are encouraged to bend our arms to make a nice little shelf for our shins to make the pose easier to learn. Our beautiful crane has nice straight legs, well in our case straight arms which adds a whole new woah mama when playing with the balance.

I admit this is a name that would send dread up and down my spine when uttered in class. I had convinced myself that there was no way I had enough upper body strength to pull it off. Wait a sec yes I do...and if you  have been practicing your chaturangas then don't fear the bird! Approach it with a sense of humor and name the different variations that occur when bakasana is attempted.  See me favorite variations below:

Crow in the Sun- your crow is lifted, gaze set  forward, your eyes glaze over as you look down to avoid a bright light(you realized you were up), fudge... bird goes down or in my case to the right of the mat

Windex Crow-bird lifted and you lean forward to prevent from falling back or are working on jumping back into chaturanga and then smack, face plant on your mat like a bird and a windex sliding glass door

Roll back Crow-imagine the tiny crow walking out to the ledge and peering down and goes screw that and rolls back on the branch, this means we look down instead of forward and roll back on our tush

Have fun! If you try and go left, right, back or forward then give it a fun name and try again. This way when a teacher says bakasana the body won't freak. If you just think of it as bakasana then there is only one outcome possible, but if you combine bakasana with the names above then there are options. Maybe it will hit on bakasana or maybe it won't but at least it lifts some of the pressure.

My run down on bakasana position is for what works for my body. It will vary for yours but here is my basic set up:

1. Begin in downward facing and gaze forward at the space between your hands, walk or jump your feet right behind your hands.

2. Keep your feet together and make sure the arms are still shoulder distance apart with the "eye" of the elbow lining up with the center part of the hand between the thumb and index finger. At this point feel free to place a block under your feet for a perch for our bird.

3. Bend your elbows like preparing for chataranga dandasana and inch worm the knees up towards the arm pits resting your shins on the arms. Getting the knees higher up towards the arm pits will help make this easier. Now at this point think about the back side and if it is leaning back trying to stay safely by the ground. Lean forward moving the shoulders forward over the wrists.

4. Think of your upper body maintaining a round like in cat and squeezing the knees in toward the body. GAZE FORWARD! If you look down then see the about names for what may occur. Lift one foot up squeezing in towards the body heading to the tush and add the other. Think of even bringing the shoulders past the wrist more towards being over the finger tips. Core work here meaning that mula bandha and uddiyana bandha are engaged.  BREATH! Oh yeah did I mention holding your breathe will result in a shorten flight time.

5. See if you can keep your big toes touching each other like they are kissing.

6. Slowly lower back down one foot at a time or both. See easy as pie.

Again the above is what goes on in my head for when I attempt to get this pose going.  Everyday your body is different, and it may soar to great heights one day, gracefully fall or stay perched on another.  Don't let it get you down. Bakasana is one of my least favorite poses and that is why I practice it so much.  I approach it with  humor and now I can nail it 8 times out of 10 on most days.  Have fun with it and name every different variation you might encounter.  Below is my favorite video resource on Bakasana from Kathryn Budig:



Yoga for Beginners: How to Do Crow Pose with Kathryn Budig from MindBodyGreen on Vimeo.




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