Caturanga Dandasana

When the muscles of your outer body are working in optimal balance with one another, you will have amazing access to this inner strength. Caturanga with too much outer body effort will habitually overuse the front of your body—particularly the front of your shoulders, arms, and chest—in an attempt to muscle the pose. Your breath may become ragged, you may experience great aversion to the pose, and you may even injure yourself.

To approach Caturanga with a focus on inner strength rather than outer muscles, lie on your belly and allow your outer body to soften. Consciously firm your muscles onto your bones and dynamically draw energy from the periphery to the core of the body. When this drawing in is performed through balanced action of the working muscles, the back of your body will come into play as much as the front.

Practice Caturanga without bearing your full weight. Still lying on your belly, bring your hands alongside your lower ribs with your palms down and fingers pointing toward your head. Your forearms should be vertical, with your elbows right over your wrists. Keeping your belly on the floor, tuck your toes under and lift your thighs and upper body off the floor.

As you lift your upper body and head, there will be a tendency for the heads of your arm bones (the place where they meet your torso) to drop forward toward the floor. Draw the muscular energy from your hands into your elbows and from your elbows into your shoulder blades.

Your lower shoulder blades will move deeper into your back. Your arm muscles will tone in toward the bones. The movement of your lower shoulder blades deeper into your back will loop through your body to the front, lifting your ribs and collarbones and creating broadness across the front of your chest and your heart.

Lift the heads of your arm bones to the same height as your elbows, coming into a small backbend with your upper back. Then allow your inner body to expand into the support of your upper back. Maintaining the muscular supports you've established in your upper back let the "wing span" of your shoulder blades increase.

In the beginning, you may feel that you need to make quite a bit of effort in your middle and upper back to maintain all these actions; you may even feel a sensation of slight tension. Over time, though, your back will become stronger and the actions will require less effort and feel more natural.

Caturanga Dandasana preparation: Plank Pose

To come into Plank Pose, begin in Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog). Bring your shoulders forward over your hands and lower your pelvis toward the floor until your body makes an even, slanted line from head to feet.

There are two ways to come into full Caturanga Dandasana—from above and from below. From above, you can lower yourself into Caturanga from Plank. Alternately, you can start from the floor and lift yourself against gravity; this method is more challenging but ultimately will integrate your body more strongly into the pose.

To move into Caturanga from Plank Pose, you'll need to move slightly forward on your toes as you come into the pose so that your elbows end up over your wrists. Be vigilant about keeping your upper arms back and your elbows close to your body as you lower yourself.

Come into Caturanga Dandasana from the floor. Beginning from a foundation of Caturanga, inflate your kidney area and your legs and spine will energize, and your body will lift into the pose.

If you fall back into performing Caturanga Dandasana solely with the powerful frontal torso and arm muscles, the pose comes entirely from willful effort. Your arms drop excessively forward, your shoulder blades move away from your back and widen out to the sides. You lose integration with the back of your body. Integrate your shoulder blades into your back, increasing stability of your shoulder blades, arms, and upper back.

The toning of your outer body enhances the peacefulness of your inner body. Appropriate toning of your muscles toward your bones, without aggression or rigidity, calms your nervous system and allows you to feel safe and in harmony with the powerful energies flowing around you and through you, even in a fiery pose like Caturanga.

Caturanga and other poses that demand such attention to the balance between effort and surrender can teach you dharana-concentration or focus. In such difficult asanas, you can be like the eye of a hurricane, with sensations, emotions, and even discomfort whirling around your center while you remain quiet and expansive within.