Asana Column: Parsva Bakasana (Side Crane Pose)

Find the interplay between effort and ease in this challenging arm balance.

By Beryl Bender Birch

Once you've clasped your wrist or prop, use an inhalation to lift your sternum. To aid that lift, straighten your arms and use the clasp to work your arms isometrically; try to draw your right arm to the right and your left arm toward the left, even though the clasp prevents the arms from moving. Look up; then, as you exhale, bend forward even more, drawing your chin toward your shin. Use your arms and abdominal muscles to move you down into the posture, but keep extending your spine to avoid overrounding your back.

Eventually, you may become strong and flexible enough to press your belly and chest into your thigh, draw your chin to your shin, and direct your drishti, or "gaze point," out past your nose toward your toes. But if you can't come down the whole way, keep the back of the neck long rather than looking toward the toes.

Once you're as deep as you can get in the pose, hold it for five to 10 breaths. Keep your mouth closed and your eyes open—not the other way around! Then come out of the pose, returning to Dandasana before doing Marichyasana I on the other side.

Marichyasana I helps prepare the body for Parsva Bakasana in several important ways. First, it stretches the lower back and the hip extensors (the largest buttock muscles and the hamstrings), which helps the opposing hip flexors, especially the psoas, contract completely—an action you'll need to pull your knees toward your chest in Parsva Bakasana. Second, the contraction of the belly necessary to pull you into the forward bend in Marichyasana I strengthens the abdominal muscles, so they can also help you form as compact a shape in the arm balance as possible. Third, the isometric contraction of the arms and shoulders in Marichyasana I helps build the strength you'll need to lift the full weight of your body into the arm balance and hold it there. Finally, the posture asks you to extend your spine up and out of the pelvis. This movement relieves compression around the sacrum and sacroiliac joints, and frees the lumbar (lower) and thoracic (middle) spine for the twist in Parsva Bakasana.

Strengthening the Arms

After practicing Marichyasana I on the second side, set up for Bhujapidasana by coming into Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend) with your feet slightly more than hip width apart. Then bend your knees, draw your torso between your legs, work your shoulders behind your knees, and place your palms on the floor behind your feet about shoulder width apart. Make sure your palms are flat on the floor and your thumbs face forward; don't come up on your fingertips or point your thumbs back. In a few moments, you will be trying to lift up into Bhujapidasana, and if you fall with your thumbs pointing back, you can seriously injure them and your wrists.

Squatting down a little more, work the backs of your thighs as high up on the backs of your arms as you can; ideally, the legs will come almost up to the shoulders. If necessary, use a few extra breaths to bring your legs, one at a time, higher up on your arms. Then bend your knees a little more and squeeze your inner thighs into your upper arms, resting your legs more fully onto the arms. Allowing all of your weight to come onto your arms, try to lift your feet and balance on your hands.

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