Asanas (yoga poses)
Downward Facing Dog (Sanskrit name: Adho Mukha Svanasana)
The first time I experienced down dog was from watching a yoga video I downloaded when I was younger. I remember feeling somewhat strained in the pose yet confident that I was doing it all correctly. I think I may have been a bit overconfident in my practice when I started. It wasn’t until I attended an actual asana yoga class, for maybe the 15th time, that I was corrected by the teacher, who instructed me to bend my knees and push my chest toward my heels. Then she pushed on my back as I did this. And wow! I finally felt the openness of my shoulders. The stretch up the back of my legs became much more intense, yet more comfortable at the same time. It was at this moment that I realized that all the instruction I had been hearing in the previous classes about opening the shoulders down and back finally made sense to me. This just goes to show you that you can only truly learn an asana from experience. And of course a little help from a good instructor. Today I have done down dog thousands of time and still every time I enter it I go through the same process and am always able to explore the pose further. The most beautiful thing about yoga is that the learning and personal development never ends.
Downward facing dog is a core yoga pose which helps to strengthen and stretch the whole body. In some yoga traditions they call this asana the triangle pose (not to be confused with Trikonasana) because as the legs and arms reach down, while the tailbone points up, the body forms quite a distinct triangle shape. To properly enter down dog one must first find an appropriate distance from their hands to feet. The best way to find ones individual distance is to enter child’s pose (where one sits back on the heels) and reach the arms forward as much as possible, placing the hands shoulder distance apart on the mat, arms off the ground and still seated on the heels. From here, tuck the toes. Keep this distance. Push firmly into the mat with the hands, straighten the arms, allow the shoulder blades to open towards each other and down the back, point the tailbone high in the air and while straightening the legs work to press the heels to the ground.
Down dog is an excellent opening posture as it engages and stretches many of the muscles along the back side of the body including the calves (gasterocnemius), hamstrings, buttocks (gluteus maximus), lateral sides (latissimus dorsi) and shoulder muscles (deltiods) as well as opening the ankles, hips, shoulders and wrist joints. This asana has numerous physical benefits on our muscular, digestive and immune systems.
Classified as an inversion, down dog exhibits calming and relaxing effects on the central nervous system. Energetically, any time the heart is over the head this produces a calming effect on the nerves and relaxes the mind. Also, in this and other inverted postures, gravity pulls down on the diaphragm in the opposite direction, emphasizing exhalation in the asana, which assists in the elimination of toxins out of the body.
To assist in the maintenance of healthy down dog should be performed for at least 1-2 minutes each day. Observe a tired puppy arise from an afternoon nap and you will most likely see him beautifully display this integral pose. Nature truly shows how natural it is to stretch and limber the body for any activity that may be encountered during the day. So I strongly hope that you will join me in practicing this asana every day and come to love and honor it as much as I have :-)
-Andrew Hall, Vagabond Temple Yoga and Meditation Retreat Center, Sihanoukville, Cambodia
