four footed poses

why do I love four footed poses?

because they are so restorative,

that's why

I first learnt the value of four footed poses, especially the cat pose, over forty years ago, from Dr Swami Gitananda. And this has influenced my yoga teaching drastically, since then.

Why are they restorative? I did a post here during The Lockdown which explains the physical benefits really well. To put it in a nutshell, keeping our nervous systems balanced and strong is of 100% importance for our equilibrium. And for the workings of our body. 

Ananda Ashram, which is Dr Swami Gitananda's lineage, recommends walking around in the all fours pose. Which of course, is exactly the same as when a baby crawls. During the crawling stage of baby's life, rapid development takes place on many levels, due in part to the nervous systems, and body-brain co-ordination from the movement of hands and knees. Baby is constantly learning new skills and exploring. (as well as being unbelieveably cute). Part of this is from the activity of the Central Nervous System which of course is within the spinal cord and also the brain.

I know that most of us will never do this, but - if you have lower back issues, try crawling. The swaying of your hips will help to regenerate the nerves around that area of the spine, and in some cases it can realign the spine. 

Not all babies crawl. Apparently I didn't. Some bottom shuffle which is a similar effect, some just get up and toddle-walk. This post is not to say that all babies must crawl - far from it!! 

The cat pose is not the only four footed pose. There are other, less well-known ones, and these are for lung health. Physically, our lungs and heart "sit" together. We take our first breath to begin our life outside of Mother's womb, and we take our last breath in tandem with our heart stopping. 

And we have a beautiful system of capillaries carrying blood from the heart, which spread out over the lungs. I am currently looking at this  regarding my own lungs as them having rivers of love-blood flowing from my heart to spread their heart qualities through my whole breathing system. I developed adult onset asthma twenty years ago from the-virus-from-hell, which was so ironic considering I'd also regularly done strong yoga breathing (pranayama). I did cat pose - more than twenty a day, to get my lungs working well again after that virus, starting with a couple and working up as I got stronger. 

Our breath sustains us with the life force (prana) within the air, and conversely, we can have breathing problems when traumatic events happen. For our adversely affected emotions are so linked with our own personal "breath of life". 

Although people mostly get taught the more advanced yoga breathing techniques, for lung restoration, especially after illness (not during the illness) I 100% recommend the simpler following poses. Again, learnt from Dr Swami Gitananda, and from one of his old books, circa early 1970s. 

breath forcing poses: 

Whereby the pose itself forces our breath into a specific part of the lungs. Hold each pose and do up to six deep breaths in each one. 

1) forces air into the lower parts of the lungs where so much of the important work is done

2) the air is forced into the mid part of the lungs

3) upper lungs

apologies for the weird bit under this photo

Please feel free to contact me if you ever have any questions about what I write on this blog, and if you need any guidance with your yoga practice.

** an easy yoga routine with cat pose in and a secret technique is here

** stress release breathing that you can do anytime, anywhere here

** link to my lifestyle blog here