Posture of the month: Upavistha Konasana
Side Splits!
This November, we will practice Upavistha Konasana - the Side Splits. As an advanced hip opener this may feel daunting, but we will practice the preliminary postures together and improve your abilities by deepening, stretching, and opening up!
In Sanskrit, the ancient language of the yogis, Upavistha Konasana means 'Wide Angle Posture', from Upavistha (open or wide), Kona (angle) and Asana (seat or posture).
Upavistha Konasana is believed to stimulate both the Muladhara chakra (root) and Anahata chakra (heart), so let’s have a look at what that means…
Benefits of practicing Upavistha Konasana
Photo by Angel Balashev on Unsplash
(1) Balance and support: Strong and flexible hips make for a balanced body. Upavistha Konasana stretched and strengthens the inner thighs, upper thighs, hips, and pelvic floor muscles, so they can give proper support to the spine and upper body.
(2) Releasing tension: Practicing Upavistha Konasana makes us aware of tight, flexible, and stretched muscles, while challenging us to coordinate our breath with our movement. This way, we learn to sit with tension, breathe into it and relax.
(3) Self-control, joy and confidence: If you sit on your desk a lot, you are likely to hold a lot of tension in your hips and psoas muscle. Upavistha Konasana helps release these tensions while teaching you self control and, as you deepen your practice, giving you confidence in your abilities, and great joy in your achievements.
(4) Stimulating life energy: Stimulating your root chakra contributes to a firm and grounded sacrum. Open your Muladhra chakra to encourage prana to freely flow through all your energy channels.
Energising your root chakra
Sitting at the bottom of our spine, the Muladhara chakra is at the very base of your body’s chakra system. It is associated with the earth and your physical body, and directly relates to your sense of safety and groundedness - the very foundation of your being.
Also known as the base chakra, it encapsulates your lower back, lower spine, kidneys, bladder and adrenal glands. It is connected to your survival instinct, your confidence and your sense of self… the feeling of belonging in this world.
Have you ever experienced an intense moment of ‘fight, flight or freeze’ and afterwards heavily felt it in your lower back / kidney area...? A spike of fear and an intense rush of adrenaline? That’s right there in the root chakra and to re-balance it, you need to come home to a sense of basic safety (food, shelter and all) and ground yourself.
Often being assigned the colour red, your Muladhara chakra represents your strength, vitality and instinctual nature. Emotionally, it relates to the energy of anger. This can come out in healthy or unhealthy ways, depending on how confident and grounded you are. If unbalanced, it can express itself as rage, frustration, passive-aggression or - on the weaker end - as a lack of boundaries and being a pushover. If well-balanced, you notice your anger arising without giving in to it, set healthy boundaries, fiercely stand in your truth and protect yourself and others from harm.
Connecting to your heart chakra
The heart chakra (Anahata) is connected to love, compassion, beauty and wonder and is seen as a bridge between the earthly and the spiritual realms. It determines your relationships with other people which, of course, are a reflection of your relationship with yourself.
As you are cultivating empathy, compassion and discernment, you are able to forgive and accept both yourself and others. If your heart chakra is open and in flow, you are radiating openness, feel deeply connected, and cultivate harmonious relationships with your environment and the people around you. And should something bad happen, you are able to go through all the stages of grief and arrive at a place of peace and tranquility.
When your heart chakra is blocked, you will notice difficulties in your relationships, like jealousy, codependency and hatred or - in the other extreme, a desire to withdraw and close off your heart and emotions. In closing off your heart, you appear tight in your upper body because you are slouching, with your shoulders dropping forward. If this is a continued situation, your lung capacity, your circulation and your immune system can suffer. To heal, you need to straighten yourself both physically and emotionally, regain your courage and willingness to be vulnerable, and learn to trust that even the most broken of hearts can mend and love again.
Whilst sometimes depicted as pink, the Anahata chakra is linked to the colour green, which represents growth and expansion and brings the energies of freedom and development as a building block of acceptance for yourself and others.
So are you ready to ground yourself and open your heart, all at one? Then come along to Flex regularly and practice with us! There are over 25 classes/week, and we will practice Upavistha Konasana daily during all of November 2021!
Our gratitude for their insights this month goes to Gretchen Stelter from Healthline as well as Diana Houston for her articles about the chakras.