This Is How You Do Chaturanga
Your step-by-step guide to nailing this challenging pose
Chaturanga dandasana can be a challenging pose (one of my students described it as feeling like an ‘out of control worm!’) that requires tricep strength, core and shoulder stability.
And while it’s tempting to rush through it because, honestly, it’s a hard pose, misaligned chaturanga’s can sneak into your yoga practice and cause injury over time.
The steps below will help set you up with a stable foundation for this asana so that you can practice mindfully.
1. Begin in Plank Pose
Bring your feet hip-distance apart and stack your heels over the toes. Engage your legs. Bring your wrists underneath your shoulders and spread your fingers wide. Draw your shoulder blades down your back and towards each other while hugging your arms in. Turn your heart forward towards the front of the room and broaden through your clavicles. Then, lift your hip bones upwards towards your lower ribs, drawing the tailbone towards the heels to feel the lower belly engage.
2. Move forward in plank pose
Inhale and move forward until you are on the tips of your toes and your shoulders are over the line of the wrist creases. To keep the length in the spine, look forward and broaden your collar bones. Keep your arms hugging in and your shoulder blades drawing back and down. Maintain your core connection by lifting your hip bones towards the lower ribs.
3. Bend your elbows to lower
Exhale and begin to bend your elbows straight back behind you. Think of a bird tucking its wings snugly to the side of its body. Your elbows will be close enough to brush the sides of your rib cage as you lower down.
4. Pause with shoulders at elbow level
Pause before your shoulders drop below your elbows. Create right angles by keeping the shoulders in line with the elbows and the elbows neatly stacked on top of the wrists. (Moving forward to the tips of your toes in plank pose aids this alignment. If you lower straight from plank without moving forward first, your elbows will be behind your wrists, making it feel like you are collapsing into the pose).
5. Smile!
You’re in full chaturanga. Arms at ninety-degree angles. Lower belly switched on, with the hip bones gently lifted toward the lower ribs, allowing the pelvis to be neutral.
Troubleshooting chaturanga
Remember the student who felt like an ‘out of control worm’?
It was all about core and pelvic stability.
Sometimes the pelvis will drop to the mat ahead of everything else. To avoid this, focus on stabilising your pelvis in plank pose. Maintain this as you bend your elbows towards chaturanga (see step one).
If you feel your butt is too high and your shoulders are dipping too low, stabilise the pelvis in plank (see step one) and keep this as you bend your elbows. Stop your chaturanga when your shoulders are in line with your elbows to help prevent excess pressure across the front of the shoulder joints (see step two).
And if you’re rushing through chaturanga because you’ve had a long day and you can’t wait for savasana, lower your knees to the ground. Modified chaturanga is worth far more than the misaligned versions that can creep in when you’re tired.
To do modified chaturanga, follow the steps below.
How to do modified Chaturanga
1. Start in plank pose
Follow step one, above.
2. Inhale
Then, shift forward to the tips of your toes. Bring your shoulders over the line of the wrist creases as outlined in step two above.
3. Bring both knees onto the mat
Keeping the hip bones lifting towards the lower ribs to engage the belly.
4. Bend your elbows straight back behind you
Follow step three above, with the heart shining forward and the collarbones broad. If possible, stop when your shoulders are in line with your elbows. Hold here to build strength. Inhale through the nose.
5. Exhale
Then, keeping the elbows tight to the ribs, slowly lower yourself to the mat.
6. Smile!
You’re in modified chaturanga.
Namaste yogis!
