Yoga as Therapeutic Exercise: A Practical Guide for Manual Therapists

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