Pashima Mudra

Namaste. Today we're going to look at a very important mudra, the back mudra, pastima mudra. This mudra is good for mild ailments of the back, all the way to very severe ailments of the back. So no matter what the condition is, and this mudra can be done sitting, laying down, up against the wall, whatever you need, whatever is going on with your back, right? So I'll show you the first, the easy hand. Let's take the left hand. The left hand is basically in what looks like a chan mudra. It's not considered chan mudra, but it looks like one. Remember you're making a circle with the fingers, so the digits are not flattened. You want to make sure that there's an arc all the way around. This is the first hand. The second hand is a little more creative. The second hand you're going to take your pinky finger and touch it to your thumb, and then take your middle finger and touch the pinky and the thumb, and then extend the index finger and the ring finger. Now you can see that with my hand, because of my, because of my back, it's not going to open all the way. I can get it to stretch. If that's you too, you can take your hand and actually create the stretch for your back. So I've got one turned down so that I can give traction to my finger, and I've got the other facing up. And I'm just going to relax here for a moment and allow the workings of this mudra to start to actually release deep in the spine. And even though I have abnormality in my back and I have, my bones aren't necessarily normal, it's still assisting the nerves in my back. So it's helping the muscles and the nerve, the connective tissues of the back to be more open and more revitalized. So this is always the way that I take this mudra. Now I have students that initially take this mudra and they have very little movement in their finger, but over time they develop great flexibility. So it varies. But what I do know for myself is that this really helps when my back is tired. It helps when my back is achy. It helps when I've overdone it in my back. This is a beautiful mudra. You do want to create this type of help in the hands though. Taking the mudra here, you can see it's already opened up so much more, but just taking the mudra here isn't quite as effective as really allowing the finger to open up. Now let's switch the hands. So you're going to release the hands, give them a little wiggle. Take the right hand into this chin mudra position and the other hand's going to go into the more complicated mudra. So the pinky finger touches the thumb and then the middle finger touches both the pinky finger and the thumb and then you extend the index finger and then you extend the ring finger. And again if it's tricky, you just go ahead and create the tension and the traction for that finger. And what happens is as the prana learns to move through that finger more effectively, it's learning to move through the back body more effectively. This is also a mudra that can assist different organs of the body because the nerves are running through the spinal cord to go to the different organs. So if you have maybe a problem with your kidneys, this mudra actually will assist freeing up the nerves for the kidneys that are in the spine. So it's really a remarkable mudra. You can take this mudra, like most mudras, four times a day. You'll start out with a little bit of time, maybe five minutes, depending on how well your hands can receive the mudra. Of course if it gets tired, you're going to rest the hands. You feel that fatigue run through. And remember sometimes, particularly if a mudra is particularly uncomfortable or difficult, you might even get like a feeling of a sudden fever. You might get the chills. You might feel a little nauseous in your stomach. These are all actual positive indicators that something really powerful is happening. So err on the side of being comfortable but also understand that if you're feeling those things, it's not necessarily a bad thing. It means that the body is starting to wake up on a deep level. So go ahead and flip both hands up now and open them and then turn the palms down. The mudra for your back. Enjoy. I hope you have great success.

Namaste. Peace out.