Wednesday 29 August 2012

Trikanasana – Triangle Pose – For Beginners


You’ve been prepared by the Standing Separate Leg Stretching for the big side ward step, so be sure to take a huge one. If you don’t, you will have to adjust your stance in the middle of the pose.
The injunction to keep your hips level and facing forward and the instruction to lunge down to a parallel position and/or hold it there will both seem ridiculous to you the first day. Cheer up. Things will get worse.

Despite my directions, beginners usually do put weight on their fingers at first to keep from falling over or collapsing. Just try as best you can, though, to bear all the weight on the bent leg, which will probably be trembling from the strain. And if you feel like the Tin Man (or Woman) when you try to touch chin to shoulder, don’ t worry. Oil can is on the way.

The triangle is quite simply a killer for most beginners. Just trying to hold it for ten seconds will at first preclude pushing stomach and right hip forward and upper body and left hip backward, not the mention pushing the right knee backward. You’ll be surprised after a week, though, at the strength you have developed. Then work on the refinements.

One side is always easier. If you’ re lucky, this may be it!

Soon you’ll begin to feel like that flower opening to the sun. Just trust the process.


Benefits

The Triangle is the only posture in the world that improves every muscle, joint, tendon, and internal organ in the body. At the same time, it revitalizes nerves, veins and tissues. It helps cure lumbago and rheumatism of the lower spine by flexing and strengthening the last five vertebrae, and it improves crooked spines. This is the most important pose to increase the strength and flexibility of the hip joint and of the muscles of the side of the torso. It also firms upper thighs and hips, slims the waistline, and improves the deltoid, trapezius, scapula, and latissimus muscles.
Read more about this poses benefits, pictures, video and tips from here!
Drawings and info from "Bikram´s Beginning Yoga Class " Book, 1978.

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