Salabhasana - Locust pose - For Beginners

The undulations, heavings, rollings, and gruntings as you try to maneuver your arms into this new and unusual position are marvelous to see and hear. Try this technique: From your position of relaxation on your stomach, push your right toe into the floor to lift right hip and roll your body slightly to the left. Then slide the right arm directly under you with the palm flat on the floor. Lower your right hip onto the hand and arm. Then push with the left toe, roll your body onto the right arm, lift the left hip, and slide the left arm under you, palm down. Get the little fingers touching and elbows as close to each other as possible. Then lower your left hip onto the left arm.

You will thus have both arms nicely pinned, and you will suddenly feel like a trussed goose. Your head will be bobbing around trying to look casual, and your elbows will most likely begin to protest the position in which they find themselves. Put your chin solidly on the floor and wait for what follows.

Yoga Catch 23: the raising leg of a beginner is always followed by an attached hip. Why? Because raising the hip makes it easy to lift the leg. However, Yoga isn´t interested in what is easy. So keep both hipbones touching your forearms.

As with the Standing Bow Pulling and Balancing stick, this is a straight up-and-down, forward-and-back pose, no ballet turnouts. The bottom of the raised foot and the back of the leg and knee move straight up toward the ceiling, while the leg remaining on the floor stays totally relaxed.

At the same time, feel as though someone has hooked your big toe to wild horses and they are pulling it through the back wall. In the other words, stretch, not height, is the important thing.You may feel cramps at first. Flex and wiggle the foot to relieve them.

If you aim or a slightly pigeon-toed feeling you will produce the perfect "straight-up-and-down." A pigeon-toed feeling will also allow you to keep both hips on the arms more comfortably.

The third part of Locust is usually voted " Pet Hate Number One". Eventually it will be as easy as falling off a log. Until then, if you have been fussing about your aching elbows, lifting both legs and your hips off the floor will give you something new to complain about.

It is, of course, entirely possible that you won't be able to lift the legs off the floor at all. It is possible you won't even be able to figure out how to lift them. Don't give up hope. It's a simply a matter of patience. Almost like a person recovering the use of limbs after paralysis or illness, you must keep at it until the brain muscle linkage is reestablished and you can send messages to the correct muscles at will. The ideal way for those legs to go up is for the muscles of the lower back and abdomen to pick them up. So talk to tour belly as well as to your spine and lower back.

Try pressing the floor hard with palms and arms, use the grimace of your face, mighty grunts - anything to lift your legs. Try lifting on exhalation instead of inhalation. Getting them totally off the towel by hook or by crook and holding them there for ten honest counts is the name of the game

Despite the temptation, don't drop your legs to the floor. Also, collapsing out of this one could put a dent in the floor.

There is some GOOD NEWS!! First off your elbows won´t hurt after about a week, and neither will your tennis elbow, if you happen to have had on. Second, your legs are always much higher in actuality than they feel to you. After a few weeks of practice, sneak a peek sideways into the mirror. You will be pleasantly surprised - and spurred on to even greater accomplishments.

Benefits

The Locust Pose has the same benefits as the Cobra, but it is even more potent in the cure of any back or spinal problem, such as gout, slipped disc, and sciatica. It cures tennis elbow and it also excellent for firming buttocks and hips!

Read more about this poses benefits, pictures, video and tips from HERE

Drawings and info from "Bikram´s Beginning Yoga Class " Book, 1978.