Posture of the month: DwiPada Viparita Dandasana (Two Legged Inverted Staff Pose)
Bent back and wide open heart
This August, we will practice DwiPada Viparita Dandasana, a deep and challenging back bend and hip opener. In Sanskrit, DwiPada Viparita Dandasana means 'Two Legged Inverted Staff Pose', from Dwi (two), Pada (foot), Viparita (inverted), Danda (staff) and Asana (seat or posture).
In essence, you are looking at a combination of Sirsasana (Headstand), which was our July POM, and Urdhva Dhanurasana (The Wheel) - that’s where the back bending comes in. As they say: If you can perform both of these individually, you should be ready to give this advanced asana a go!
The benefits of practicing DwiPada Viparita Dandasana
As an inversion, deep back bend and hip opener, DwiPada Viparita Dandasana will certainly challenge you. Please make sure that if you have any back, shoulder or hip injuries you ask your yoga teacher for viable alternatives until you are fully healed. Here are the benefits you might see if you practice this posture regularly:
Similarly to the Wheel Pose, it stretches and strengthens your shoulders, neck and back, as well as the muscles in your arms and legs.
In stretching your abdominals, it helps you improve your core stability and is said to support you in reducing abdominal fat.
Similarly, the deep belly stretch may help alleviate menstrual cramps and the effects of menopause.
Your posture might get better as your flexibility is increasing.
Similar to last month’s Handstand, you need a lot of concentration and focus to practice DwiPada Viparita Dandasana, so you are likely to see improvements here, too.
As a deep heart opener, it may initially help you release long-held emotions. Following on from there though, it is said to soothe both body and mind.
What is it about Heart Openers?
If you are attending yoga classes regularly, you will have heard them comment about ‘opening your heart’ in certain postures. It’s usually the back bends, where you stretch your ribcage, arms back, and widely open your chest. It can be uncomfortable in the moment, but boy does it feel good when you release it and feel that delicious width and space, and can breathe so deeeeeply!!
When we go through emotional trauma (think the loss of a loved one or a job, a breakup, an intense fright,…), our body, as a coping mechanism, will go into fight, flight or freeze mode. These emotional states are often accompanied by our muscles inadvertently contracting. Once it’s over, they may get released on the surface. But some of it may get locked in more permanently, and we don’t fully open up or soften again unless we take specific action like yoga, massages etc.. This is why we sometimes can experience intense emotional releases like sobbing and tears in the middle of a yoga class: As the muscles release, the emotions can resurface and finally be looked at and let go.
To open your heart again after hurt, pain, betrayal or loss can be difficult. You may consciously want to forgive, but be drawn back to sad or angry memories, and unable to let go. However, as Leonard Cohen once sung: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” In a way, your deepest wounds can become our biggest opportunities for growth, and shape you into the best version of yourself, if you let them. In approaching the process mindfully and giving yourself space, you can learn to forgive, find peace and let people in again. Appreciate what you have all the more deeply, and relish moments of love and joy.
When you practice back bends in yoga, you help your heart chakra on a physical and energetic level to open wide - for yourself, and for those around you.
Image by Yanalya
So are you ready to put your head down into DwiPada Viparita Dandasana? Then come along to Flex regularly and practice with us! There are over 25 classes/week, and we will practice Headstands daily during all of August 2022!
Our gratitude for their insights this month goes to Desiree Rumbaugh at the YogaJournal and Yogapedia.