Upward-facing dog prepares you for more of a challenge in backbends

Yoga magazineQ archives The series is a curated collection of articles originally published in back issues beginning in 1975. This article about the Upward-Facing Dog Pose first appeared in the May-June 1991 issue of Yoga magazine.

An introductory backbend, Upward Facing Dog Pose (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana) can teach us basic principles that can then be applied to more advanced poses. In searching for the essence of the asana, we often ignore an obvious source of information, namely the name, the fundamental key to the exercise left to us by the ancient masters. Next time your dog or cat is stretching, let him teach you to do the Upward Facing Dog Pose.

Our four-legged friends live with a 90-degree angle between their torso and back legs. For them, Upward-Facing Dog Pose is not a backbend, but a way to extend the joint between the torso and legs, bringing the two in line with each other. A skilled animal practitioner of this pose will forcefully extend his hind legs so that they vibrate dynamically with energy and appear to grow several inches. In contrast, human practitioners tend to get distracted by the movement of the chest and spine, and forget about the legs.

I believe the key to safely practicing backbends lies in the work of the legs. When the work of the legs is insufficient, the lower part of the spine becomes inactive. Like an elastic band being pulled at one end (chest) without being secured at the other end (legs), the spine moves in space but does not really extend.

How to Train an Upward Facing Dog

The Upward Facing Dog combines two equal, dynamic, opposing stretches: legs back, chest forward. Obviously, this procedure will stretch the area between the two: the lumbar spine. However, the basic back bending motion should come from the middle and upper back, not the lower back.

The beginning of the difference

To train the spine and legs to function properly in Upward-Facing Dog, practice the position with the hands on the seat of the chair rather than the floor (Figure 1). This difference makes the angle between the spine and legs less acute, thus reducing pressure on the lower back. Furthermore, the height of the body allows the feet to still support some of the weight. This pose, practiced with hands on the floor, can challenge upper body strength to the point that the beginner becomes distracted from making more precise movements. This variation will allow you to build some upper body strength, while learning to open the chest and extend the legs.

Set up your chair so the backrest is against the wall so the chair doesn’t slide. Place your hands on the chair so that your wrists face each other and your fingers curl on either side of the chair seat. Now step your feet back, letting your pelvis swing down and forward into the pose.

When you straighten your knees, your shoulders should reach directly over your hands. If necessary, adjust your position by walking your feet closer or further away from the chair, until your arms are perpendicular to the floor.

Now extend your legs behind you until they shake and feel like they have grown three inches! The current of the extension through the legs should be so strong that the knees will not bend if a 25-pound weight is placed on the back of the legs. See if you can work your legs with this activity, raising the inside of your knees toward the ceiling.

With this leg movement, you have created a half extension of the pose. To create a forward movement of the torso that opposes the backward movement of the legs, picture a dog tucking its tail between its legs. While extending the legs as just described, see if the tailbone can create equal and opposite movement. The legs move away from the chair and the knees rise toward the ceiling, while the tailbone moves forward toward the chair and down toward the floor. Thus, from its base, the spine is absorbed into the body.

Now let the mid-chest area continue what the tailbone started, by allowing the area between your shoulder blades to move up and up. This action will raise the breastbone and move forward. While you are doing this procedure, do not hold your arms so tightly to the body that the skin of the torso cannot move. Rather, the skin under the back of the armpit should roll toward the front armpit, pulling the torso forward to be at least in line with the arms, or even in front of them.

Pain in your lower back may indicate that you need to extend your legs more forcefully, or that your torso is sagging as shown in Figure 2: Instead of lifting off the floor, this poor student is hanging off of it. Dynamically press your hands down onto the chair (or onto the floor, if your hands are on the floor), and feel your body lift as if you were being lifted by your armpits. If, after carefully working with all the instructions in this section, you still experience lower back pain in posture, seek help from an experienced teacher.

Intermediate practice

More experienced students should perform this pose with hands on the floor, toes pointing forward, as shown in Figure 4. Roll the feet so that the tops of the feet, rather than the soles of the feet, touch the floor. Maintain all actions described in the beginner’s version: extend the legs, lift the back of the knees, tuck the tailbone, release the underarm skin, and move the breastbone forward.

Additionally, intermediate students can use this pose to check correct rotation of the legs in backbends. To begin this exploration, stand up Mountain pose (Tadasana), the basic standing pose. With your fingertips, gently touch the upper inner back of each leg (the flesh just below the crease of the buttocks, at the back of the thigh, near the midline of the body). Now contract your buttocks, making them very hard. Many of you will be aware that (1) the upper inner part of the thighs also moves toward each other and (2) the upper part of the thigh bones is pushed forward. If you continue to pay attention while stretching your glutes, you may also find that (3) the kneecap tends to rotate outward and (4) the weight swings forward and shifts to the outer edges of the feet.

Making your buttocks solid in back bends is healthy. However, none of these four accompanying procedures are helpful. If these four actions occur in advanced backward flexion, the knees will spread apart, weight will roll to the sides of the feet, and there may be pain around the lumbosacral or sacroiliac joints. For this reason, some teachers ask students not to tighten their buttocks in backbends.

However, I suggest that the key to practicing painless backbends is to keep your buttocks tight, but cutting out the four unnecessary actions described above. To do this, we must learn how to transform movements made without thinking into subtle, sophisticated, conscious actions. Through this process, we learn not only about the legs in backbends, but also about the possibility of precision in all of our actions.

Try pressing your glutes into Mountain again, but this time rotate your feet until they are pigeon toes (big toes touching and heels about eight inches apart). Notice that with the feet in this position, the weight stays on the inside borders of the feet, and the knees roll toward each other. The forward thrust of the thigh bones is also reduced, and the upper inner thighs remain well separated. By turning your feet inward, you create powerful internal rotation of the heads of the femur (thigh bones). While the front femurs are now moving toward each other, the back femurs are actually farther apart at the top, creating freedom in the sacral region.

Now try doing the Upward Facing Dog Pose with your legs in this position. Flip your feet into a pigeon shape and press them into the wall (Figure 3). Notice that the buttocks become firm, but the upper inner part of the back thigh bones can resist the tendency to squish together.

For the duration of the pose, you should feel a constant rotation of the thighs, with the right thigh rotating counterclockwise and the left thigh rotating clockwise. As you develop this action, you will feel your knees rolling toward each other, with the inside knees going up toward the ceiling and the outside knees going down toward the floor.

Thus we have seen time and time again that the legs are the anchor for backbends. It extends backwards when everything else moves forward; They become fixed and the spine becomes flexible; They turn inward when everything else in the body opens outward.