Posture of the month: Visvamitrasana
The stoney path to wisdom & success
Our October POM, Visvamitrasana, is named after a famous king-turned-sage, Visvamitra, whose life story is a cautionary take about power, arrogance, and the long and non-linear journey to redemption, wisdom and true success.
It reminds us that no matter how strong, smart or powerful we think ourselves to be, unless we balance these qualities with patience, humility and compassion, we may easily give into our own arrogance and take a fall when least expected. Practicing Visvamitrasana reminds us that, like any worthwhile endeavour in life, progress comes through trial and error and only focus and persistence will lead to success.
Benefits of practicing Visvamitrasana
As an advanced arm balance, Visvamitrasana is a complex combination of balance, flexibility and strength. What might initially seem like an insurmountable challenge is absolutely achievable if you continue to build your muscles through dedication and perseverance. Visvamitrasana is all about achieving something great by taking one step at a time, building strength consistently, day after day. In terms of benefits, Visvamitrasana has a lot to offer. A few of the main benefits are:
Improves balance and mental focus. Practicing Viswamitrasana requires all your attention. Any little distraction can destabilise the carefully created equilibrium and have you topple over. So practicing Viswamitrasana is a great challenge to your ability to be 100% focused and present in the moment.
Opens the chest and promotes respiration. Opening the chest in Viswamitrasana assists the lungs in opening up and allows you to breathe more deeply. Over time, this can help improve your lung capacity.
Improves overall flexibility and balance. Combining a twist with a big stretch whilst balancing on only two touch points with the ground is a great challenge to all your muscles. Viswamitrasana thereby improves both your flexibility and your balance.
Massages your abdominal organs. The twists and turns of Viswamitrasana give your abdominal organs a great massage. This can help stimulate circulation in the blood vessels of your abdominal cavity and thereby have positive effects on your kidneys, pancreas, gallbladder, stomach, small and large intestines, and liver, etc.
Opens the hips and activates the muladhara chakra. Visvamitrasana is an intense hip opener and thereby increases the range of motion in your hips, which improves circulation and supports your back muscles. In doing so, it also can help activate the muladhara chakra (root chakra) and thereby activate or enhance your vitality, vigour, and overall growth.
Helps relieve sciatica pain. Twisting and stretching in Visvamitrasana helps loosening your gluteal and piriformis muscles, which may be inflamed and press against the sciatic nerve. In addition to this, Visvamitrasana is likely to help with lower back pain in general.
Pride comes before a fall
The story of Visvamitra is a one-of-a-kind hero’s journey - initially, the hero wasn’t even very likeable: He had it all as a powerful king but was arrogant and greedy, so he was humbled by a great sage, Vasistha, and decided to give up his worldly powers in pursuit of real, spiritual strength.
The story could end here, but he was known for his bad temper, which caused him to lose his yogic powers time after time, no matter how hard he had worked and how much he had practiced. Over and over he became distracted, and over and over he paid the price and took the fall.
Thankfully, he also developed the patience and humility to try again - over, and over, and over. As we all know: it’s not about how many times we fall, but about how many times we get back up. So ultimately, Visvamitra became a sage and embodied all the qualities he had been aiming for: patience, forgiveness, and compassion.
So what can we learn from Visvamitra? Quite a few things:
Curb your ego and mind your temper. Be a decent person, or eventually, someone more powerful than you will teach you a lesson. Humility goes a long way and you will likely will have to repeat the lesson until you finally learn it.
Balance is everything. None of the elements of Visvamitrasana alone will ‘get you there’. Neither strength alone, nor technique can do the trick - you need to find the right balance between all your strengths (or muscles, or inner qualities) to achieve ultimate success.
Persistence and consistency are the keys to success! Let go of the need for instant gratification and find joy in the process of learning and growth itself, not just in achieving the end result.
Curious to learn more? Come along to Flex regularly and practice with us! There are over 25 classes/week, and we will practice Visvamitrasana daily during all of October 2021!
Our gratitude for their insights this month goes to Ashish from Fitsri.com and Jamie Martin from Pilgrimageyoga.com