hala ashana

HAL ASHAN(The Plough )

In this asana the spine is stretched fully in a curve. It becomes more elastic and its overall functioning is improved. Like in Sarvangasana Jalandhar Bandha is performed and the same advantages are achieved.
All the muscles from toes to waist are also stretched helping improvement in the functioning of veins.
This asana is also useful for gastric troubles, digestion problems

Description of the asana

1. Lie down on your back with your legs together and your palms on your sides.
2. Inhale & raise your legs up.
3. Exhale first and then inhale.
4. Bring your hips up off the floor.
5. Support your back with your hand, keeping your elbows as close to one another as possible.
6. Without bending your knees, exhale and bring your legs down behind your head.
7. If you cannot yet touch the floor with your feet, keep on breathing in this position.
8. If your feet comfortably reach the floor, walk them as far behind your head possible.
9. With your feet curled under, push your torso up and your heels back.
10. Now clasp your hands together.
11. Breathe slowly and deeply.

Caution

Avoid jerks or speedy movements as it might cause some injury to the backbone. So the movements should be controlled at every stage of this asana.
People suffering from spleen ,lever complaints, breathing difficulties, hernia or are having nasal congestion should do this asana after consulting Yoga expert.

Pranayama

Basic Breathing (Pranayama)
Yogic breathing or pranayaam revitalises the body steadies the emotion and creats great clarity of the mind. Yoga breathing exercises are performed sitting down with the spine neck and head in a straight line in the lotus pose.

Kalpabhati

Kalpabhati is a kriyas of purification besides being a pranayama. The forced exhalation rids the lower lungs of the stale air making way for a fresh intake of oxygen rich air in cleansing the entire respiratory system. This is a wonderfully invigorating exercise to begin your pranayam. By increasing the amount of oxygen in the body its effect is to clear the mind and improve concentration.


Kapalbhati
Benefits


1. Effective for cardiovascular problems.
2. To clear the mind and improve the concentration
Description of the asana
1. Sit in ardha padmasana (lotus )--But if you have knee ache,sit on a bench or chair.Keep the feet crossed on a rug or a carpet.
2. Take two normal breaths.
3. Inhale, Now exhale, pulling in your abdomen and inhale, relaxing your abdomen.
4. Repeat 20 times, keeping a steady rhythm and emphasising the exhalation each time.
5. Inhale fully and hold your breathe as long as you can.
6. Slowly exhale.

Anuloma Viloma

In this alternate nostril breathing exercise, you inhale through one nostril, retain the breath, then exhale through the other nostril in a ratio of 2:8:4. If you are really healthy, you the will breathe predominantly through the Ida nostril for about one hour and fifty minutes, then through the other nostril. But in many people this natural rhythm is disturbed. Anuloma Viloma restores an equal flow, balancing the flow of prana in the body.

Description of the asana
1. Close your right nostril with your thumb and keeping it closed breathe in through the left nostril counting up to four.

2. Hold your breath and count to sixteen while opening the right nostril and closing your left with your third finger.

3. Breathe out slowly through the right nostril to a counterfiet.

4. Repeat the exercise but breathe in through the right nostril and out through the left.

Brahmari

It's a kind of meditation which improves concentration memory and confidence. This extended exhalation makes it a very beneficial exercise for pregnant women, in preparation for labour. Sometimes known as the humming breath, Brahmari also gives a sweet clear voice and is highly recommended for singers.

Description of the asana

To practise Brahmari

1. You partially close the glottis as you inhale through both nostrils, making a snoring sound

2. Then exhale slowly, humming like a bee.

3. The inhalation clears and vibrates the throat area.

4. Humming while you breathe out, enables you to spin out the breath and make a longer exhalation.

5. You should repeat Brahmari five to ten times.

Uddyiana Bandha

The Stomach Lift, Abdominal Lift (Uddyiana Bandha)

This is considered one of the very essential yoga exercises and is practiced not only for its physical values but also for the way it influences our psychic development.

Technique

The stomach lift really consists of two separate exercises.

First exercise. While standing with your feet about a foot apart and your knees slightly bent, lean forwards a little from the waist and place your hands just above your knees.

Inhale deeply by pushing your abdomen forwards, and then exhale by pushing your stomach in. Don't take another breath; instead, push in your stomach even more, so that it becomes hollow, and hold your breath for about ten seconds.

Second exercise. Do the same as above but, instead of holding your Stomach in after exhaling, rapidly push your stomach in and out ten times without taking another breath.

Stand up straight and resume normal breathing.

Benefits

1. This asana massages and tones up the internal organs in the abdominal area.
2. It also massages the heart, making it a stronger, more effective pump. Your circulation will improve and you will have less chance of having a heart attack.
3. It relieves constipation, gas, indigestion and liver trouble.
4. It tones up the nerves in the solar plexus region.
5. It reduces abdominal fat and strengthens the abdominal muscles.
6. It helps the correct functioning of the adrenal glands and sex glands.
7. It develops spiritual force.

Abdominal Lift for Internal Cleansing:

Take several glasses of water, at room temperature, with about a quarter of a teaspoon of salt per glass, and then do the contracting and relaxing movements several times in standing, sitting, and lying position.

Caution

Don't do this exercise if you have a hernia or serious heart or abdominal problems.

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Padma Ashan ,lotus position

Padma Ashan

This is probably the most well known pose routinely used by Budha and is a very popular meditation pose. This is not always easy for Westerners to master. It may take time for the ligaments to become extended so that the Lotus Pose is comfortable. If one cannot master the Lotus Pose, any of the other seated poses will do quite well for the purpose of meditation. Start slowly and acquire proficiency over a period of time. This is one of the basic yoga postures

Technique:

1. Keep the right foot on the left thigh
2. Start bouncing the right knee. If the bouncing knee easily touches the floor, then bend the left knee, take hold of the left foot with both hands, gently glide it over the crossed right leg and place it on the right thigh.
3. This will give symmetrical placement of the legs and you are in lotus position.
4. The hands should be kept on the knees with palms open, and the thumb and second finger of each hand should touch forming a letter O.

Benefits:

1. This is an extremely good pose for meditation and concentration.
2. It has a calming effect on the mind and the nerves.
3. This pose keeps the spine erect.
4. Helps develop a good posture
5. Helps keep the joints in flexible condition.

SIDDHASANA

Among the all eighty-four postures, Siddhasana is considered as best. Rest the heel of left foot in between the anus and reproductive organ and put the right foot on the reproductive organ in such a way that it doesn’t hurt the organ. Toes of both the feet should stay between the thigh and the hip girdle. This is the basic posture of Siddhasana.

It resembles crossed-legged position popular among the students. While practicing this posture, rest your chin against the lower part of the neck. Now you are in ‘Jalandhar-bandha’. Now, draw the air in your belly upward. This is ‘Moola-bandha’. Focus your sights between the eyebrows but start this posture only when you have practiced ‘Traatak’ for more than one hour or your eyesight will weaken. Put both your palms on the thighs but fold the index finger inward so that it comes to touch the base of the thumb. It will prevent the life from flowing out of your hands.

Utility -
Continuous practice of Siddhasana helps a Yogi attain full control on his mind even if he doesn’t resort to means like Pranayam.

Siddhasana can be practiced both in the morning and in the evening. Its time can be stretched from a few minutes a day to up to an hour.

Sushumna, the main nerve of the body remains straight during Siddhasana and breaths become regular.

All the major nerves of the body get purified through Siddhasana.

Both the lungs and the heart get stronger and as a result breathing becomes regular and deep.

Motility of the intestine increases. Hence, digestion improves and one gets rid of constipation.

Common diseases like cough, cold, enlargement of liver and fever because of it, chronic fever, indigestion, loose motions, fall of semen in sleep, impotency, frequent urination, disorders of the urinary bladder etc. are corrected automatically through the practice of Siddhasana.

Adho Mukha Vrksasana

Adho Mukha Vrksasana (full arm balance) is a good asana to learn to open your shoulders and to develop arm and wrist strength. The preparatory poses for full arm balance are Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog pose) and plank pose. You should develop stability and arm strength in these asanas before attempting full arm balance.

You should practice with your back to a wall until you develop the ability to balance without the wall. Even when you are using a wall, try to minimize its use. Try to learn to swing your feet up to touch the wall as softly and silently as possible. Initially, it will be easier to swing one leg up first with the other following behind it. Coming up with both legs together is the more advanced way of entering the pose.

To swing your legs up successively, first place your hands and walk in toward your hands with your feet as much as possible before kicking up. Have your hands about one hand-length away from the wall to begin with. Having your hands closer to the wall makes it more difficult to swing up into the pose. Lift your hips as high as possible before bouncing up into the pose. The higher you get your hips, the easier it is to get up. Take one leg straight up behind you as far as possible, bend the other one, and use your lower leg to bounce you up. When you have raised your upper leg as high as you can behind you, try not to drop it again to gain momentum to bounce up. Your upper leg pulls you up as your lower leg pushes you up. The more height you can get in the upper leg to begin with, the less the lower leg will have to bounce you up. Remember to change legs each time you go up to develop both sides evenly and avoid repetitive stress injury. Do these same leg actions also to get up into Pinca Mayurasana.

If you are unable to swing your legs up into the full pose yet, you can still work on the pose by practicing Ardha Adho Mukha Vrksasana by placing your hands on the floor one leg-length away from the wall, heels of your palms toward the wall, and walking up the wall with your feet until your hips are at a 90 degree angle and you are doing full arm balance in your upper body. Similarly, you can practice in a doorway, with your back to one side of the doorway, walking up the other side of the doorway with your feet. Then it is easier to swing your legs up into the full pose from this shorter distance than it is to come up all the way from the floor.

Spend some practice sessions just bouncing up into full arm balance and then coming right back down and repeating. One good way of working in this pose is to kick up with your left leg and your right leg follows and then drop your left leg and your right leg follows to the floor. Then repeat that action 10 times. Then switch with your right leg coming up first and coming down first not holding the pose very long just working on entering the pose from both sides. The more you practice like this, the more gracefully you will be able to come up into the pose. Try to learn to step up gently and gracefully into the pose rather than throwing yourself toward the wall.

Coming up with both legs at the same time at the wall is a more difficult maneuver. You have to bounce them up together with bent knees and then straighten them up the wall. Much more difficult still, after you are able to balance in the center of the room, is to come up with straight legs as in the classic way to enter Sirsasana.

Using a belt around your arms about 1/2 an inch above your elbows may make it a little more difficult to move up into the posture (though for some people it is easier), but it will allow you to double your time in the pose once you are up by reinforcing your arm position.

If you use a wall, be close enough to the wall to prevent backbending. A common mistake is to be too far away from the wall and to rest the heels on the wall, arching backward and hyperextending the spine.

Once you are in the pose, try to get a feeling for the balance by taking your feet away from the wall. One way to do this is by moving one foot away from the wall and extending upward maximally with it, then the other foot, and eventually taking both feet together away from the wall. Perhaps more properly, however, you should take both your feet away from the wall together. When working on balance, one trick is to come a little closer to the wall than normal and to place the top of your head on the wall for balance, bringing your feet and everything else away from the wall, using your head on the wall for balance. Then slowly lower your head away from the wall when you're ready.

If you practice full arm balance with your hands on blocks turned on their sides (gripping the blocks), it will take some of the weight out of your wrists, though it will be a little more difficult at first to raise your feet up. Have the blocks touching the wall for support. Practicing the pose on blocks creates a psychological feeling of lightness.

Most often this pose is done with the crown of the head toward the floor, ears in line with the arms, though in the classical pose, you turn your head and gaze toward the floor. If you chose the latter method, take care not to compress the back of your neck

Actions of the hands, arms, and shoulders

Using the wall as a reference, this pose can be done with your fingers directly facing the wall, with your hands turned outward (90 degrees, for instance), or even with your fingers pointing 180 degrees directly away from the wall (with the volar aspect of your forearms facing the wall). The point of turning your hands in different directions is to work on mobility in your upper arms, shoulders, and neck region. Also, turning the hands outward somewhat, up to 90 degrees, helps some people maintain the straightness of their arms. Most people find the pose easiest when turning the hands outward at least partially, next most difficult with the fingers facing directly to the wall, and the hardest with the fingers facing 180 degrees away from the wall. Whichever direction you choose for your fingers, you want to guage the distance between your arms by what distance will keep them each vertical, perpendicular to the floor, not just by the space between your hands.

Stretch your hands on the floor as in Adho Mukha Svanasana, stretching your fingers forward with your middle fingers parallel if your fingers are facing the wall. Bring your weight into your metacarpals, not so much into your carpal or wrist bones. Just like in Adho Mukha Svanasana, you want most of your weight to be born by your palms and metacarpal bones and not by your wrists.

Maintain your elbows and shoulders directly over your hands. Lift the skin of your forearms away from the floor. Lift your shoulders up strongly away from your wrists by contracting your inner deltoid muscles. Keep raising your collar bones higher and higher to their maximum height throughout the pose. Stretch your outer armpits strongly. Open your armpits maximally and feel that they become thinner and thinner as you stretch upward. Raise your trapezius muscles. Feel your outer shoulderblades move downward in the direction of your arms while your inner shoulderblades lift upward toward your feet.

Actions of the torso, hips, and pelvis

Just before you swing your legs up into the pose, bring your pelvis directly over your shoulders and arms and keep it there during the pose. Keep your hips directly over your shoulders. Lengthen your body maximally upward from your hands up through your heels and the balls of your feet. Lift and lengthen the sides of your trunk.

Lift your pelvis upward, taking its weight off your torso, and allowing you to lengthen your spine as much as possible. Tuck your tailbone in to counteract your thigh bones moving backward, but do not push your groins forward. Minimize the arch in your low back.

Actions of the legs and feet

When upside-down, there is the tendency to lose the consciousness of the legs since they are no longer supporting the weight of the body. You should pay attention to lifting your legs out of your pelvis toward the ceiling and engaging your leg muscles to the bones just as consciously as in the standing asanas. Squeeze your muscles into your legs and up toward the ceiling, lengthening your legs through the balls of your feet. Keep your legs active by squeezing your thighs, knees, lower legs, and ankles together. Take your thigh bones deep into the backs of your legs just as in the standing poses.

Turn your thighs inward slightly so they face front as in Tadasana. Extend your heels toward the ceiling maximally. Slide your heels up the wall more and more so that your back body lifts higher and higher. Raise your heels to raise your hips. Reach upward through the insides of your feet and legs a little more than the outsides.

Come out of the pose by coming down with both legs straight if possible and landing gently in Uttanasana. If you cannot come down gently with both legs, come down by lowering one leg as much as possible while keeping the other one up in the pose, landing as softly as you can with each leg successively. Remember to alternate which leg you come down with each time you do the pose. Make it a general rule to do Uttanasana after this pose.

One to two minutes is a good time to aim for in this pose. Guruji Iyengar can do five minutes even past eighty years old.

If you have significant wrist discomfort after the pose, have a partner grasp your forearm and hand and pull them apart strongly, as if to separate them at the wrist and repeat that on the other side.

yoga,medidation,pranayam,health,ayurveda,

Adho Mukha Vrksasana (full arm balance) is a good asana to learn to open your shoulders and to develop arm and wrist strength. The preparatory poses for full arm balance are Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog pose) and plank pose. You should develop stability and arm strength in these asanas before attempting full arm balance.

You should practice with your back to a wall until you develop the ability to balance without the wall. Even when you are using a wall, try to minimize its use. Try to learn to swing your feet up to touch the wall as softly and silently as possible. Initially, it will be easier to swing one leg up first with the other following behind it. Coming up with both legs together is the more advanced way of entering the pose.

To swing your legs up successively, first place your hands and walk in toward your hands with your feet as much as possible before kicking up. Have your hands about one hand-length away from the wall to begin with. Having your hands closer to the wall makes it more difficult to swing up into the pose. Lift your hips as high as possible before bouncing up into the pose. The higher you get your hips, the easier it is to get up. Take one leg straight up behind you as far as possible, bend the other one, and use your lower leg to bounce you up. When you have raised your upper leg as high as you can behind you, try not to drop it again to gain momentum to bounce up. Your upper leg pulls you up as your lower leg pushes you up. The more height you can get in the upper leg to begin with, the less the lower leg will have to bounce you up. Remember to change legs each time you go up to develop both sides evenly and avoid repetitive stress injury. Do these same leg actions also to get up into Pinca Mayurasana.

If you are unable to swing your legs up into the full pose yet, you can still work on the pose by practicing Ardha Adho Mukha Vrksasana by placing your hands on the floor one leg-length away from the wall, heels of your palms toward the wall, and walking up the wall with your feet until your hips are at a 90 degree angle and you are doing full arm balance in your upper body. Similarly, you can practice in a doorway, with your back to one side of the doorway, walking up the other side of the doorway with your feet. Then it is easier to swing your legs up into the full pose from this shorter distance than it is to come up all the way from the floor.

Spend some practice sessions just bouncing up into full arm balance and then coming right back down and repeating. One good way of working in this pose is to kick up with your left leg and your right leg follows and then drop your left leg and your right leg follows to the floor. Then repeat that action 10 times. Then switch with your right leg coming up first and coming down first not holding the pose very long just working on entering the pose from both sides. The more you practice like this, the more gracefully you will be able to come up into the pose. Try to learn to step up gently and gracefully into the pose rather than throwing yourself toward the wall.

Coming up with both legs at the same time at the wall is a more difficult maneuver. You have to bounce them up together with bent knees and then straighten them up the wall. Much more difficult still, after you are able to balance in the center of the room, is to come up with straight legs as in the classic way to enter Sirsasana.

Using a belt around your arms about 1/2 an inch above your elbows may make it a little more difficult to move up into the posture (though for some people it is easier), but it will allow you to double your time in the pose once you are up by reinforcing your arm position.

If you use a wall, be close enough to the wall to prevent backbending. A common mistake is to be too far away from the wall and to rest the heels on the wall, arching backward and hyperextending the spine.

Once you are in the pose, try to get a feeling for the balance by taking your feet away from the wall. One way to do this is by moving one foot away from the wall and extending upward maximally with it, then the other foot, and eventually taking both feet together away from the wall. Perhaps more properly, however, you should take both your feet away from the wall together. When working on balance, one trick is to come a little closer to the wall than normal and to place the top of your head on the wall for balance, bringing your feet and everything else away from the wall, using your head on the wall for balance. Then slowly lower your head away from the wall when you're ready.

If you practice full arm balance with your hands on blocks turned on their sides (gripping the blocks), it will take some of the weight out of your wrists, though it will be a little more difficult at first to raise your feet up. Have the blocks touching the wall for support. Practicing the pose on blocks creates a psychological feeling of lightness.

Most often this pose is done with the crown of the head toward the floor, ears in line with the arms, though in the classical pose, you turn your head and gaze toward the floor. If you chose the latter method, take care not to compress the back of your neck

Actions of the hands, arms, and shoulders

Using the wall as a reference, this pose can be done with your fingers directly facing the wall, with your hands turned outward (90 degrees, for instance), or even with your fingers pointing 180 degrees directly away from the wall (with the volar aspect of your forearms facing the wall). The point of turning your hands in different directions is to work on mobility in your upper arms, shoulders, and neck region. Also, turning the hands outward somewhat, up to 90 degrees, helps some people maintain the straightness of their arms. Most people find the pose easiest when turning the hands outward at least partially, next most difficult with the fingers facing directly to the wall, and the hardest with the fingers facing 180 degrees away from the wall. Whichever direction you choose for your fingers, you want to guage the distance between your arms by what distance will keep them each vertical, perpendicular to the floor, not just by the space between your hands.

Stretch your hands on the floor as in Adho Mukha Svanasana, stretching your fingers forward with your middle fingers parallel if your fingers are facing the wall. Bring your weight into your metacarpals, not so much into your carpal or wrist bones. Just like in Adho Mukha Svanasana, you want most of your weight to be born by your palms and metacarpal bones and not by your wrists.

Maintain your elbows and shoulders directly over your hands. Lift the skin of your forearms away from the floor. Lift your shoulders up strongly away from your wrists by contracting your inner deltoid muscles. Keep raising your collar bones higher and higher to their maximum height throughout the pose. Stretch your outer armpits strongly. Open your armpits maximally and feel that they become thinner and thinner as you stretch upward. Raise your trapezius muscles. Feel your outer shoulderblades move downward in the direction of your arms while your inner shoulderblades lift upward toward your feet.

Actions of the torso, hips, and pelvis

Just before you swing your legs up into the pose, bring your pelvis directly over your shoulders and arms and keep it there during the pose. Keep your hips directly over your shoulders. Lengthen your body maximally upward from your hands up through your heels and the balls of your feet. Lift and lengthen the sides of your trunk.

Lift your pelvis upward, taking its weight off your torso, and allowing you to lengthen your spine as much as possible. Tuck your tailbone in to counteract your thigh bones moving backward, but do not push your groins forward. Minimize the arch in your low back.

Actions of the legs and feet

When upside-down, there is the tendency to lose the consciousness of the legs since they are no longer supporting the weight of the body. You should pay attention to lifting your legs out of your pelvis toward the ceiling and engaging your leg muscles to the bones just as consciously as in the standing asanas. Squeeze your muscles into your legs and up toward the ceiling, lengthening your legs through the balls of your feet. Keep your legs active by squeezing your thighs, knees, lower legs, and ankles together. Take your thigh bones deep into the backs of your legs just as in the standing poses.

Turn your thighs inward slightly so they face front as in Tadasana. Extend your heels toward the ceiling maximally. Slide your heels up the wall more and more so that your back body lifts higher and higher. Raise your heels to raise your hips. Reach upward through the insides of your feet and legs a little more than the outsides.

Come out of the pose by coming down with both legs straight if possible and landing gently in Uttanasana. If you cannot come down gently with both legs, come down by lowering one leg as much as possible while keeping the other one up in the pose, landing as softly as you can with each leg successively. Remember to alternate which leg you come down with each time you do the pose. Make it a general rule to do Uttanasana after this pose.

One to two minutes is a good time to aim for in this pose. Guruji Iyengar can do five minutes even past eighty years old.

If you have significant wrist discomfort after the pose, have a partner grasp your forearm and hand and pull them apart strongly, as if to separate them at the wrist and repeat that on the other side.