Yoga as Therapeutic Exercise: A Practical Guide for Manual Therapists

(Jacob Rumans) #1

Selected aSelected asanas̄̄sanas Selected aSelected āsanas̄sanas


or touching one leg. Paścimottānāsana is an intense
stretch of the back of the body.
The posture develops mobility and teaches relax-
ation while stretching intensively. It is an asymmet-
rical posture, and teaches finding the center in an
asymmetrical position.

Getting into the posture


  1. Sit with straight legs.

  2. Keep your left leg still; bend your right leg into
    Vrāsana, the heel close to the hip, the toes
    facing backwards.

  3. Slightly lift your right buttock, place your flat
    fingers on the right calf muscles, the tips of the
    fingers in the back of the knee.

  4. Gently pull the calf away from the knee and
    outwards.

  5. Lower your right buttock at the same level as the
    left buttock.

  6. Remove the right hand from the right calf.

  7. Let the outer right thigh sink towards the
    floor.

  8. Keeping your weight evenly on both buttocks
    and both legs and maintaining the neutral
    lumbopelvic position, raise both arms, feeling
    a continuous stretch from the hips to the
    fingertips (Figure 7.65).

  9. Maintaining this lifting in your trunk, lower your
    arms, tilt your pelvis forwards, put the tips of
    your fingers beside the buttocks on the floor to
    give an impulse for lifting your trunk from your
    fingertips (Figure 7.66).

  10. Maintaining the length of your front trunk

    and both buttocks evenly on the floor, and
    the legs together, tilt your pelvis forwards and
    walk your hands forwards beside the left leg,
    if possible beyond the foot, as you exhale
    (Figure 7.67).

  11. Continue point 10 as long as there is room for
    stretching your back and the back of your left
    leg.


Figure 7.65

Figure 7.66
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