Asana Column: Parivrtta Parsvakonasana (Revolved Side Angle Pose)

This pose can improve digestion, cleanse abdominal organs, and enhance spinal flexibility and alignment.

By John Schumacher

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The universe moves in many ways: straight lines, curves, circles, ellipses, and apparently chaotic patterns. But when I contemplate the movement of things within and without myself—something I do fairly often as a yoga teacher—the pattern I encounter most frequently and ubiquitously is the spiral. The word spiral comes from the Latin spira, meaning to coil, and these coils are everywhere. From the immense Spiral Nebula to the minute spiraling strands of DNA, all of creation simultaneously spins and soars, twirling and swirling in a grand cosmic dance.

In yoga, no poses so clearly embody the essence of the spiral as twists do.You can find twists within every category of pose: standing, seated, inverted, and reclining. They are powerful cleansing poses, working deeply on the internal organs in a "squeeze-and-soak" action. As you squeeze a sponge to rid it of dirty water, the twists squeeze the abdominal organs, forcing out toxins and waste. Then when you release the twist, fresh blood rushes into those organs, bathing the cells with oxygen and nutrients.

Parivrtta Parsvakonasana (Revolved Side Angle Pose) is an intense twist and, in my opinion, the most difficult of the basic standing poses. It challenges the practitioner's flexibility, strength, sense of balance, and presence of mind. Since this is a difficult asana for even the most experienced practitioner, some intermediate steps can help you learn to better perform the actions of the pose.

Chair-itable Support

You'll need a chair for this first variation. Begin by standing in Tadasana with your chair about 2 feet to your right and slightly behind you, facing the same way you are. With an inhalation, step or jump the feet about 4 to 4 1/2 feet apart and extend your arms out to the sides, parallel to the floor, palms down. Then place your hands on your hips and turn the right foot out 90 degrees. Raise your left heel and turn it out so that it's parallel with the right foot. Revolve your hips 90 degrees to the right so that they face squarely in the same direction as your front foot (or as close to that alignment as you can get). Bringing your left and right hips equidistant from the wall is the ideal alignment because it allows you to balance the stretch evenly along your spine.

To help you square your hips fully, roll the back thigh inward so that your left kneecap faces in the same direction as your feet. To help you balance, step your left foot a little to the left so that it's directly behind your left hip instead of behind your right heel. Move the chair as necessary so that the center of your right foot is placed in front of the center of the chair.

Balance evenly on the inner and outer edges of your feet. Stretch your back leg by pressing your front thigh muscles (quadriceps) into the thigh bone (femur) and the femur into the hamstrings as you draw the femur upward toward your hip socket. Without relinquishing any of the actions of the back leg, move your tailbone forward toward the pubis and lift the front of the hip bones to elongate the front of the spine.

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