Wednesday, March 07, 2012

The tough, tougher and toughest of the standing crane pose



Luckily for me, I think, I am not a master yogi:) I started learning it very late, so in my forties (will be fifty, next Dec yippeee)  when most people are thinking grey thoughts I have this exciting phase of learning new things, through yoga.  So, this crane pose is one such pose. The picture below is the easy version, because it has both hands to support you in a tricky place. Of course, moving the head to the leg is the next exciting part and is the tough part of this pose. Beyond flexibility, this is actually about dealing with the fear of tilting over.
The second stage is where you leave one hand to hold the ankle. I have started my groups on this pose and you can see the timidity of the back leg in most others who otherwise can hold their leg straight enough (when they walk, are they walking with knee bent, I want to ask those who argue with me:) 

The last stage you see in the collage up, is where you must release both hands to hold the ankle. That is very exciting because the fear factor of the pose kicks here the most.. And of course, after holding to draw the head to the thigh. As you can see, even through the cut image in the second half of the collage, the leg has already dipped low:(

Working on it, working on it:)

What you need for this pose:
  • At least a minute or more in the basic crane (with both hands on the ground).
  • Lots of surya namaskars, for flexibility.
And then of course, regular practice.

Happy sadhana!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've just entered the Crane Pose Challenge at http://www.konkura.com/challenge/?uid=d027d660-d700-4e32-8e4d-c320d65b1a7a&t=The+Crane+Pose+Challenge ? Can anyone do over 2 minutes?

Anonymous said...

What is the Sanskrit name for this pose?

Crane mostly seems to be used for a pose rather like Crow (Kakasana or Bakasana). It's very confusing ...

YOGA IN EVERYTHING said...

Why don't u spend some time trying to find the name then, Sherlock Holmes..