YOGAYANTRA.  Urdhva  mukha  svanasana  &  dhanurasana,  May  2018  

URDHVA MUKHA SVANASANA & URDHVA MUKHA DHANURASANA

Question: Was wondering if you have any more input about what the position of the head in Urdhva Mukha svanasana, regarding the Hyoid Bone. I have this infography but cannot get it totally with it. My Answer: For the neck —as well as for the lower back, you have the front and you have the back. Take the neck: most people, when they look up ! they lengthen the throat and shorten the nape of the neck. This is wrong, we must (1) lengthen the whole neck, (2) then if thoracic flexibility allows and once in the position (urdhva mukha svanasana or bhujangasana and the other 2 prone backbends) see if we can look up (i.e. lengthen the throat) without shortening the nape of the neck.

INCORRECT (though from a famous book of yoga anatomy)

CORRECT, I am opening my chest, drawing the shoulders backward, and (doing my best to) opening my thoracic spine

Most students, as well as yoga teachers(!) jam their chest, their shoulders and their neck in this position, because they want to look up. To look up you need a very flexible thoracic spine and long pectoralis muscles. It will be the same for the waist. In urdhva mukha dhanurasana, we must keep the waist long.

Here, with a chair, I push from the chair to the head in order to ‘flatten’, to shorten, the lower back, and I use my abs in order to ‘shorten’ the belly, so that ideally, both remain equal.

This left pic (found on google) has a tight thoracic spine: look, it’s a straight line from the T12 to T1—therefore she does her urdhva mukha dhanurasana from the waist exclusively. When you do urdhva mukha dhanurasana from the waist exclusively, you shorten the lower back and you overly lengthen the ‘belly’. The two should be equal.

YOGAYANTRA.  Urdhva  mukha  svanasana  &  dhanurasana,  May  2018

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Unfortunately, yoga-practitioners are not taught properly, and I have seen a lot of injuries when starting my TTCs, or at least discomfort, that disappear during the TTC because I bother them so much, demanding that

In Urdvha mukha svanasana In Urdvha mukha dhanurasana they do not stretch their throats they do not stretch their bellies and instead they stretch their napes of the neck

and instead they stretch their lower back

To do this, start with your chin down, and you neck long, i.e. engage the hyoid bone

To do this, start with mula bandha, engage or activate (not ‘contract’) your abs, before you lift up.

Keep the more flexible part: cervical spine/lumbar spine, under control and instead open, increase the flexibility of, the more unflexible part: the thoracic spine. Does it make sense? YOGAYANTRA, May 2018