Supta Ardha Padmasana: A Lotus for Each Physique

In 2001, I co-taught a instructor coaching with Donna Farhi in Vancouver, BC. The 50 attendees had been skilled yoga lecturers and physique employees from everywhere in the world. Throughout 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 practising what might be yoga’s most emblematic pose: Padmasana (Lotus Pose). That day we spent two hours practising 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 shocking to me. Beforehand, I’d been underneath the impression that anybody who tried laborious sufficient and practiced proper might finally do Lotus. This can be true for some folks—Donna advised us it took her 10 years of cautious, affected person follow to ease her hip joints into Padmasana.

However it’s not true that anybody can kind their legs into Lotus place, regardless of how dedicated their follow. Due to a workshop I took with Paul Grilley on anatomy for yoga, I discovered that tightness in gentle tissue isn’t the commonest purpose folks can’t do Padmasana. Based on Grilley, it’s all within the bones.

Why Lotus Pose Would possibly 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 house owners of those our bodies are inferior yogis or that they’re not attempting laborious sufficient. It might be as a result of their hip joints are shaped in such a method that they don’t permit the quantity of exterior rotation required to take a seat in Lotus.

There are lots of elements—all throughout 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 display a number of the doable variations that affect mobility on Grilley’s web site.

Supta Ardha Padmasana—A Lotus Pose for Each Physique

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

All that stated, I’ve discovered that most individuals are able to and may profit from practising Supta Ardha Padmasana, Supine Half Lotus (SHL). Amongst different advantages, SHL stretches the piriformis muscular tissues, exterior rotators that cross the sacroiliac (SI) joint. When the piriformis is tense, it will possibly press on the sciatic nerve, presumably inflicting sciatica, and may also contribute to sacroiliac dysfunction. Practising Supta Ardha Padmasana can typically alleviate sciatic ache and may relieve extreme torque in your SI joint.

Half Lotus is historically practiced in a seated place. Nonetheless, I wish to follow 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 offers you suggestions as as to if 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 keep up a impartial backbone if you end up mendacity down. Lastly, having either side of your SI joint on the ground retains the joints in a impartial place.

Methods to Observe Ardha Padmasana

1. Start by mendacity on the ground on a Yoga Mat or Blanket. Bend each knees and place the soles of your ft 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 desire to put their proper ankle a couple of inches from the knee, whereas others (like me) desire to put the ankle nearer to the left hip joint. Attempt it each methods, or at factors in between, to see what feels greatest for you.
3. Thread your proper arm by way of 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 palms. In case your palms don’t join you’ll be able to join them with a belt or a yoga strap.
4. That is necessary: Flex your proper ankle and hold it flexed the whole time. This retains each your knee and ankle secure.
5. Draw each legs in towards your torso, enjoyable your shoulders and arms. Take deep belly 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 ft 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? Once you really feel prepared, transfer to your second aspect.
7. If at any level throughout SHL you’re feeling even the tiniest discomfort in both knee, please let go of the pose. There isn’t any such factor as a “good” knee ache. Lotus could be laborious on knees—much less so if you end up mendacity down and practising just one leg at a time—however please do be cautious.

The Most Widespread Misalignment

Many individuals follow Padmasana with their ft, reasonably than their ankles, atop reverse thighs. If the soles of your ft are going through upward, you might be practising this misalignment. This can be a recipe for overstretched ligaments in your ankles and doable knee destabilization. One individual I do know sat this fashion for an hour and ended up having bilateral knee surgical procedures consequently.

That’s the reason so many skilled practitioners had been unable to do Padmasana in Donna’s instructor coaching. We made certain that individuals had been practising wholesome alignment rules after they lastly positioned their legs in Lotus. Practising Padmasana with wholesome alignment, along with your ankles flexed and sitting on prime of your thighs, is just 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 intense vary of movement required to do it with the ankles—not the ft—on prime of their thighs.

There’s Greater than One Option to Observe Lotus Pose

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

Supta Ardha Padmasana, although, is usually a wholesome staple in your repertoire of asanas. It confers most of the advantages of Padmasana, however few of its potential dangers. What issues isn’t whether or not you had been born with a skeleton that may transfer in a selected method. What issues is the care, respect and mindfulness you deliver to no matter pose you might be practising in a given second.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and started educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Conscious Yoga, Conscious Life: A Information for On a regular basis Observe and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook 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 folks sextet Pink Rock Rondo, whose DVD gained two Emmy awards.