Mastering Chaturanga is critical not only for the evolution of your physical yoga practice, but for your long-term enjoyment of yoga itself.
As Lao Tzu says, “The journey of a thousand miles must begin with one step.”
And in the case of Chaturanga, this couldn’t be more true.
I see this ad nauseam in yoga classes everywhere and I don’t want you to make the same mistake. Someone comes into yoga as a brand new student and can’t do Chaturanga correctly. What ensues is generally some anger, frustration, and just an overall sense of inadequacy, a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea. It can actually cause some serious anxiety for some people. But you have to understand this, you are not the first one to walk into a yoga class and not be able to do a yoga pose. This is why you step onto your yoga mat to begin with, to learn.
Chaturanga is an enormous hurdle for most people, and if you are reading this, probably you too.
If you can’t do Chaturanga now, there is no shortcut, there is nothing you can do to make yourself do it perfectly tomorrow. It doesn’t happen that way.
Yoga happens with consistency, not force.
You must not mindlessly consume yoga poses, you must see yoga as an investment in your long term health. When you start to approach your practice this way, you will start to understand Chaturanga better. You will start to be okay with the simple fact that it may take three, four, or five, or even ten months to learn Chaturanga optimally. If you stick with to it, one step at a time, the wait at the end will be well worth.
I can help you get started, today.
Chaturanga with the knees down on the floor. It’s amazing how many people I see that underestimate this version of it. You can build strength rather quickly by making intelligent, timely adjustments.
So here is the setup:
Start from your Plank Pose, drop your knees down to the floor. So at this point you should be doing plank with your knees down on your yoga mat. Great.
Before you go anywhere from here, I want you to feel some subtleties in just this position.
- Even though your knees are on the ground, can you still feel the balls of your feet touching the ground and your toes lightly gripping the floor?
- Can you feel the insides of your knees lightly touching each other and your inner thighs squeezing to together and rolling in slightly?
- Can you feel the slight rolling in of your inner thighs causes your belly button to draw up slightly?
- Do you carry tension in your shoulders? And if you do, can you feel the relaxing and softening of your shoulders by simply dropping the knees down to the floor?
- Can you feel the muscles and the bones in your forearms squeezing toward one another slightly?
- Can you feel the perimeter of the hand pushing into the earth with slightly more weight on the inner hand than the outer hand, but at the same time, the very center of the palm lifting up a tad? If you can feel this, are you familiar with the 3 fundamental bandhas or locks in yoga, Mula Bandha, Uddiyana Bandha, and Jalandhara Bandha? Well, you have just discovered a not so well-known bandha, Hasta Bandha or the hand lock. More about this later.
This is why taking one step at a time is important. When you are on that journey of a thousands steps, sure, the destination is important. But, what about everything you see along the way? The cobblestone path. The imperfections of the stones that make it difficult to walk. The brownish yellow weeds growing between the cracks of the cobblestone path you are walking on. The multiple species of multi-colored flowers in the dirt just beyond the path you are walking on. The various types of hundred year old trees with vibrant green leaves all varying in height in the background. Or even further in the background, the pointed and rounded mountain tops, some with glistening white snow coating the peaks and others with the jagged rock fully exposed.
You look straight up. The sky is blue. The clouds in the sky that resemble the shape and texture of fluffy white pillows. The orange and yellow colored sun tucked behind the clouds but so bright it could be smiling at you. Do you see it? The red wine and gum ball blue colored exotic birds soar about you. The flamingo to your left, doing yoga himself, balancing on one claw. The snake the size of a small drain pipe slithering in the rubble next to the flamingo. The old men hunched over carrying what looks like from a distance carrots in burlap sacks attached to wooden poles on their backs. The green stems poke out slightly though the ragged weaving. The one man with a long and pointy silver beard and gold lined wizard-like purple robe slammimg a trident into the earth. And the children, both boys and girls, kicking a worn basketball together in the dirt.
Can you feel this? Is this picture starting to feel so real that it’s coming alive in your head?
This is what happens when you take one step at a time. And hey, guess what? The journey can actually be quite enjoyable. In fact, doesn’t it seem almost disappointing to reach the destination after carrying on like that?
That beautiful pictured painted in your head are the details of Chaturanga.
This is the way I see yoga.
This is the way you will understand yoga.
It starts with one step.
A thousand miles later you will be there and will have absorbed every detail along that cobblestone path.
Okay, so from that first position above, now bend your elbows and slowly start to lower your shoulders. As you lower yourself down, keep the elbows pinned in the ribcage the entire time.
You don’t want your elbows to start splaying out to the sides. That will collapse your shoulders and disengage your core muscles.
The shoulders should end up no lower than the elbows. Chaturanga is different from a push-up. You are not trying to lower yourself as much as possible you are trying to establish a right angle with the elbows stacked over the wrists and in line with the shoulders.
Repeat that prep position until you get comfortable with it. Be consistent. Don’t give up easily.
There are two ways that you can practice this exercise:
1) Slowly lower yourself until your shoulders come in line with your elbows. Then slowly push yourself back up. Repeat as much as you see necessary.
2) Lower yourself down and hold yourself at the bottom, the bottom refers to the position where the shoulders are in line with your elbows, no lower than that. Build up tolerance to hold this, maybe even initially just one extra breath, but over time, 3 breaths, 5 breaths, 10 breaths, 50 breaths maybe!
The second exercise you can do to prepare yourself for Chaturanga utilizes blocks.
If you don’t have blocks, they are useful. Never think you’re too advanced for blocks, that’s poisonous. Everyone can use blocks, I use blocks all the time.
I once had a student tell me, “Brian, get that out of here, I don’t need it, I will never use a block” while his hip twisted out of position and his top shoulder, I think it was Triangle Pose he was doing, was barreling over his torso told the floor. He learned eventually, well hey, if I use this I’ll actually improve. Use blocks, they are good.
Now, with all that said, grab two blocks.
This is how the setup goes. Start yourself in plank again. What you’re going to do is set the two blocks down on the floor, or your mat, shoulder distance apart in front of you. Recall in plank that the creases of your wrists are parallel with the front of your mat. Your palms are flat on the floor with the middle finger tips touching the back edge of the block so that if you were to lower your shoulders the fronts of your shoulders would rest on the blocks. Which is exactly what you’re going to do.
This time you are not bringing the knees down to the floor, at least at first. Your goal is to lower yourself as slowly as possible unit the fronts of the shoulders rest on the blocks. If you find this a tad bit challenging, try the first exercise and build up the strength that way. And take your time. If you can do it, congratulations, now lets do the next part.
And you probably notice, if your shoulders get to the blocks successfully, they are probably slightly lower than your elbows. That’s okay. And you’ll why below.
With your shoulders resting on the blocks and without re-straightening arms, try to lift and hover the shoulders above the blocks just an inch. It’s hard. This is the next level of strength that you must develop in order to conquer Chaturanga. With that said, if you are hovering above the blocks successfully even for a second, that is the full Chaturanga just entering it from a different way. Challenge yourself to hold that position 5 seconds, 10, seconds, whatever seconds you want. It will make you real strong and set the foundation for strength with which your entire yoga practice is based on.
So one other tip to get you on your way, if you find the first exercise challenging still even with the knees down, combine the two. Set up the blocks just as you would in part 2, but do it with your knees on the floor. Consider that the pre-step to get you to step 1.
So remember:
“The journey of a thousand miles must begin with one step.”
Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is your Chaturanga.
Be patience, take the first step, don’t get frustrated, enjoy the journey.
Keep at it.
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