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Day 21 - Abhijata Backbends

Tamara Hockey

Updated: Mar 11, 2023


Today I ventured into the institute for practice as I was meeting Raya to discuss collating and sharing my notes from my time in the medical class with Guruji and Stephanie Quirk working on poses for Diabetes. Perhaps it was coincidence or perhaps my practice was observed, as many of my mistakes appeared to be corrected in Abhi's class this evening. In the afternoon we took a trip to FC Road to do some shopping for the bits and pieces we will be bringing home as our thoughts start to turn towards the inevitable journey back to real life. The weather is getting more and more oppressively hot as the season changes and I am struggling to cope with the heat (I'm thinking longingly of plunging into an ice cold lake when I get back to UK as is part of my daily routine). Abhi picked up on the weary faces infront of her and started the class with Pratyahara actions of withdrawing the senses and taking a few minutes of quiet to recover.


I discovered it is very difficult to chuckle while balancing upside down in Sirsasana when just at that moment the pose had started to go beyond it's best, she told us 'If your normal face has now turned into your Dracula face, it is time to come down!' This urge to giggle was made worse by the fact I could hear Sue a few feet away chuckling too.


The class concentrated on lengthening the abdomen towards the chest in backbends and felt uncannily like we were preparing for Tadasana / Urdhva Dhanurasana drop backs in tomorrow morning's class. We will see tomorrow whether this is correct!


Day 21 – Abhijata Backbends

  • Swastikasana invocation – We have a couple of minutes to sit quietly, so use it wisely – maybe you’ve had a long working day or you’re exhausted from the heat. So use this time to recover, of course you have to still maintain the upright spine so that the energy flows properly there. But withdraw the eyeballs so that instead of looking outwards, they look into the blackness. Bring the senses of perception into a state of Pratyahara so that they can rest and recover.

  • AMVirasana – Keep knees slightly apart so that trunk can extend forwards properly.

  • AMSvanasana – Press the palms, take proper distance and from the outer hips LIFT UP!

  • Uttanasana

  • Prasarita Paddottonasana – From the sides of the navel descend downwards, don’t hold yourself tight in the abdominal area.

  • AMSvanasana – Crown of the head facing down, back of head / ears down.

  • Sirsasana (Menstruation Chair Viparita Dandasana) Those of you who are at the wall, come away from the wall and learn the balance. Ascend the sides of the trunk up. Exist is the sides of the body, not in the centre. Don’t let the eyes look to the left and the right side, keep the gaze steady and centrally placed so that you can compare the left and right side of the body. As students on the path of yoga we have to develop the skill of self-reflection. If I ask you to lift the shoulder blades, what is the potency of that lift on the right and the left side. Are both shoulder blades equally concave? Is the inner lift the same on both sides?

If your normal face has now turned into your Dracula face, it’s time to come down!


  • Chair Viparita Dandasana (Menstruation Forward Bends 3 minutes timing each side) Bent legs, hands pressing back rest of the chair. Don’t go in with an arch in the lumbar – like Supta Virasana / Supta Baddha Konasana lengthen the buttocks away from the waist. The back should be absolutely comfortable otherwise you’ll be counting the seconds until you can come up. Lower shoulder blade caught on the edge of the chair. Widen the chest area and extend the throat back, chin away from the chest. Observe which direction the upper chest is going? Lower chest? Abdomen? Press the hands and learn to move the abdomen towards the chest side. Then very carefully, maintaining the abdomen towards the chest side, extend the legs one at a time. Keep every cell on the abdominal band moving towards the head side.

  • Chair Eka Pada Viparita Dandasana – Start with one leg through the chair and the other bent with the foot pressed against the back rest. Extend the up leg (you can rest it against the back rest of the chair, but keep it straight) Chest like a waterfall towards the head side and now understand the direction of the lower abdomen – is it easier to extend it towards the chest side? (it was).

  • Tadasana back arch (Preparation for dropping back) just so that you can feel the direction of the abdomen.

  • Repeat Chair Viparita Dandasana with bent legs, this time sacrum curvature so coming much further off the chair (take more height on the chair or on the floor as needed). Here she noticed that for some the abdomen was hard / puffed / tight and they weren’t able to breathe freely. This is what happens if buttocks do not go in nicely, so she got us to come up and stand in Tadasana and feel what happens if you deliberately make the mistake of letting the buttock fall back. Can you feel how the abdomen drops? Now how do you correct that dropping abdomen? We tighten the buttocks and the same action has to be there on the chair.

  • Chair Viparita Dandasana - Legs Parallel, feet on the wall or ledge. Sacrum on the edge of the seat of the chair, so that pelvis is up and lower back is elongating. With your exhalation, soften the abdomen. It has to be like a Pranayama class – the diaphragm has to spread to the sides. As you exhale can you lengthen the sides of the naval / abdomen and even the pubic region? See that when you come up, you first crawl back into the chair. If you were not breathing, if the diaphragm was tight, or temples puffed, you may find you get a headache.

  • Tadasana back arch – abdominal length, legs remain straight.

  • Standing poses to feel the abdominal length moving to the chest side – Explore – Is there freedom? All on left side as a flow (not coming up in between) Ardha Chandrasana – Unfold the body, abdominal length, bottom sternum to top – into Parsvakonasana – into Trikonasana Unfold! – into Virabhadrasana 1 with the abdominal length – into Parsvottonasana – Parivrtta Trikonasana and Parivrtta Parsvakonasana. Then repeat sequence on the right side.

  • Supta Virasana – Here she told the assistants that if they could see someone’s abdomen was hard and lumbar was arching up, they should put a rolled or folded blanket under the lumbar so that body was supported and diaphragm could rest / relax and then student could extend their arms and catch the heels of the assistant who would draw them back and create more length.

  • Matsyasana – First fold legs into Padmasana and then lie back. See if you just get the knees down at any cost, how the lumbar arches up and the abdomen drops down towards the legs side. Support may be needed for the spine to be quiet in the pose. When the pose is wrong, whole system gets negatively affected – abdomen drops, diaphragm is hard, breathing is affected. Be aware of what you are doing in the pose and what effect it is having.

  • Padangustha Dandasana –Don’t just throw the head back – what about creating the lift and length on the abdomen? Try bending the knees to get the lift and length and then maintain as you straighten the legs. Then try in a second forward bend – you can choose Janu Sirsasana, Trianga Mukha Eka Pada Paschimottonasana, Ardha Baddha.

  • AMSvanasana

  • Chair Sarvangasana – Compare your Chair Sarvangasana with the pose you would be experiencing if we were doing Independent Sarvangasana. What is gained from using the chair and what is lost? Addominal length is there, but the verticality of the pose is lost. What is your breathing like in Chair Sarvangasana compared to how it would be in the classical pose? Eyes? Spine? Abdomen?

  • Bent leg Savasana – front seat of the chair into the crook of the back of the knee, remove the bolster from under the buttocks. Once again go for withdrawal of the senses – in Swastikasana I asked you to let your eyes look at the blackness – repeat that and compare how this feels now compare with the start of the class – What transformation has taken place?




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