ultimately helps you fi nd the fullest
expression of the pose.
To start to awaken your psoas, it
helps to know where it is in the body.
This muscle originates from the 12th
thoracic vertebra (T12) and the lumbar
vertebrae (L1 through L4, with a deep
layer originating from L1 through L5),
and it runs along either side of the spine,
behind the stomach, intestines, and
female reproductive organs. From the
spine, the psoas continues forward and
down, crossing over the front of your
sacroiliac joint and joining with the
iliacus muscle (which originates on the
inside of the pelvis, or the ilium). The
psoas and iliacus work together so
closely that they’re often referred to as
one: the iliopsoas. The iliopsoas then
runs over the brim of the pelvis to insert
into the lesser trochanter, a knoblike
structure on the upper inside of the
femur (thighbone).
It’s because the psoas crosses multiple
joints that it’s able to move the body in
so many ways. For starters, the psoas
acts to fl ex the hip: Contracting the
psoas either bends the trunk forward or
draws the knee up. If you contract your
psoas on one side, it laterally fl exes the
trunk, as in Extended Triangle Pose.
Contract the psoas on both sides, and
you’ll be able to tilt the pelvis forward,
bringing the thigh and the torso toward
each other, as in Paschimottanasana
(Seated Forward Bend).
The process of awakening your psoas
begins with learning how to access it at
will. You can use certain cues within
your yoga poses to do this, even if you’ve
never intentionally activated this muscle.
Interestingly, what I’ve found with my
students and in my own practice is that
shortly after you start to engage the
psoas intentionally in certain yoga
asanas, you will fi nd that the brain starts
to engage it unconsciously, even in other
poses. It’s as if the brain is saying, “OK,
so now we’re using the psoas in yoga
poses,” and starts to anticipate using this
muscle. I call this “body clairvoyance”
meaning that the unconscious mind seesclearly what to do and then does
it automatically. So essentially, by
awakening your psoas, you’re trying to
learn how to more readily access the
muscle’s unconscious actions, ultimately
creating the ability to consciously,
voluntarily, engage it.
As with any muscle, you want to
be able to balance contracting and
stretching the psoas. This helps keep
the psoas in balance, which goes a
long way toward stabilising the spine
and pelvis and preventing lower-back
and pelvic pain. The poses on page
46 help to awaken the psoas, activating
different parts of the muscle so that it’s
ultimately easier for the brain to fi re
it up.OUR PROS Teacher Ray Long, MD, is an
orthopedic surgeon in Detroit and the founder
of Bandha Yoga, a website and book series
dedicated to the anatomy and biomechanics
of yoga. Model Caitlin Rose Kenney is a yoga
teacher based in Boulder, Colorado.