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Exhaling, reach for the big toes. The low back must be kept flat. To round the back in a seated forward bend is the equivalent of bending down from a standing position to lift a heavy object off the floor while rounding the back and keeping the legs straight. To avoid the danger of disc bulge and prolapse (see page 37, and figure 6, page 38) it is necessary to keep the low back straight in any weight-bearing situation. This includes all forward bending postures and also leg-behind-head postures like Ekapada Shirshasana. In postures where gravity is the only load, such as Karnapidasana and Bujapidasana, the spine can be safely flexed.

Without resorting to bending your back and/or using a strap, you have two options if you are too stiff to reach the big toes in Pashimottanasana. One is to bend the knees and take the toes. This enables the pelvis to tilt forward, which is the imperative first stage of a forward bend. Keeping the iliac crests (upper front of the hip bones) in close proximity to the thighs, work on slowly straightening out the legs. Press out through the base of the feet and, at the same time, reach the sit bones away from the feet. The pubic bone slips down between the thighs. The other option is to take hold of the shins, ankles, or whatever you can reach. With a firm grip, slowly work your way forward as the hamstrings lengthen.

Some students will find their hamstrings so stiff that the pelvis tilts posteriorly when sitting on the floor with legs straight. This means that gravity is working against you. In this case, it is advisable to elevate the sit bones by sitting on a folded blanket. This helps to bring the pelvis upright, enabling proper alignment of the spine. Whichever approach you choose, with the inhalation lift the chest and straighten the arms.

YOGIC CONTEXT

The Use of Props

All asanas are designed to form energetic cycles — especially postures like Pashimottan asana and Baddha Padmasana, where the hands are connected to the feet. The earth, being receptive, draws out our energy. These bound postures recycle energy that is otherwise lost. Yogis often meditate on a seat that consists of consecutive layers of kusha grass, deer or tiger skin, and cotton to insulate them from the earth. These energy cycles are thought to have a profound influence on the pranic sheath (pranamaya kosha), which is reduced when the energy flow is interrupted through belts and straps.

The use of a strap or belt might seem like an easy solution for students with stiff ham-strings who find it difficult to reach their toes with their back straight. However, as Shri K. Pattabhi Jois has pointed out, the use of props interrupts the energy cycle of the posture.

Look up between your eyebrows as you pull up on your kneecaps, and draw your shoulder blades down your back. Lengthen your waist, letting the lower ribs reach away from your hip bones by releasing the psoas muscle. The psoas is the only muscle that connects the lower extremities to the spine, which makes it an integral stabilizing core muscle.

ANATOMICAL FOCUS

Psoas — The Seat of the Soul

The hip flexor muscle group includes the rectus femoris of the quadriceps, the sartorius, the tensor fascia latae, and the deeply internal psoas muscle. Continuing to contract the rectus femoris after it has tilted the hips in a forward bend causes it to bunch up in the front of the hip and prevent one from working deeper into the posture. The psoas muscle originates from the sides of the body of T12 (the last thoracic vertebra), where it touches the diaphragm and all five lumbar vertebrae. It runs along the back of the abdominal cavity (the front of the spine) through the pelvis and inserts at a mount on the inside of the thighbone (femur), the lesser trochanter. It flexes the hip joint and laterally rotates the femur in the process.

When the thigh is fixed, as in standing and seated postures, the psoas is flexed. Ida Rolf states that a healthy psoas should elongate during flexion and fall back toward the spine.¹³ It is necessary to release and lengthen the psoas, once the hips are tilted forward, in order to deepen any forward-bending postures.

The superficial muscles of the body relax completely after they have been worked, but the deep muscles always retain a certain tension, even at rest. This is especially true of muscles that originate on the spine, like the psoas. They are therefore prone to spasm if worked intensely. The conscious relaxing of these muscles is as important as exercising them.

The psoas is the deepest muscle in the body. Its importance is such that it has been described by some as the “seat of the soul.” To see the psoas in action one has to imagine the graceful gait of African or Indian women carrying large water containers on their heads. To do this, the head has to maintain a continuous forward motion without any sudden jerks. The movement is only possible with a strong but relaxed psoas muscle. The psoas swings the pelvis forward and backward like a cradle. This swinging action initiates the movement of the legs with the rectus femoris (the large hip flexor at the front of the thigh) only coming into action well after the psoas. The swinging of the pelvis creates a wavelike motion up the spine, which keeps the spine healthy and vibrant, and the mind centered in the heart. If you have ever tried to walk with a large object balancing on your head you know how difficult this makes it to follow the tangents of the mind. Connecting with the core of the body (the psoas) shifts the attention from the mind to the heart — this is why the psoas is regarded as the seat of the soul.

The other extreme can be observed when we watch an army march. Soldiers are required to keep the psoas hardened. Being constantly shortened, the muscle spasms and is weakened. In the military attention posture, when the chest is swelled, one naturally dips into the low back, which also weakens the psoas muscle. When marching, the pelvis is arrested and the thighs are aggressively thrust upward and forward. This movement only uses the rectus femoris. The spine is frozen, and this keeps the soldiers’ attention in their minds. In this state the mind can more easily be convinced to be noncompassionate to fellow human beings, who are instead labeled as the enemy.

If we all walked with our psoas active and our spines caressed with the wavelike motion this produces, our minds would possibly arrive at a state of silence. We would then see every human being as part of the same consciousness that animates us all. One of the reasons our Western culture has conquered much of the world with its arms is that we have abandoned natural awareness and have fallen under the tyranny of the mind. Yoga calls for restoring this awareness, which draws us to naturally abide in nonviolence. Nonviolence becomes a nonimposed ethical law.

As one starts practicing yoga it is very important to abandon the Western aggressive conquering attitude of wanting to derive an advantage out of yoga, but rather to approach the postures from a deep surrender into what is already here. All forward bends inspire this attitude. If, rather than developing yet another wish — such as to lengthen the hamstrings, which actually shorten and contract with greed — we let go into the knowledge that everything we may ask for is already here, the hamstrings will release by themselves. Ambition shortens hamstrings.