Pashini Mudra

I'm here with my friends Betsy and Ilana, and we are going to demonstrate what I'm calling Paschini Mudra. It's not exactly the way the traditional pose looks, but it's close. And so what I'm going to ask them to do is to lie on their back with their knees bent and their feet on the floor. Now I put a blanket underneath Ilana's head because oftentimes this pose requires the groins be fairly open. And when they're not, what happens then is the base of the skull gets pulled down onto the back of the neck which creates a lot of tension. So I put a blanket underneath the back of her head to keep the back of her neck long. Now if you both would draw the right thigh into the belly that would be good on an exhalation. Let's take the hand around the shin or the back of the thigh to squeeze a little bit first. So let's just squeeze it in there and soften the groin as you do. And I'm going to ask Ilana to keep the bent knee foot on the floor for the entire time. And then what you do is you brace the right arm against the inside of the right leg and then bring the elbow to the back of the knee, just a little bit of the back of the thigh, just a little bit above the knee, and then cross the hand to the outside of the foot. So Betsy if you'd bring the elbow on the back of the thigh and the hand to the outside of the foot, cross it behind the ankle. Yeah there you go. And yes she'll keep this this this off leg bent but I'm gonna ask Betsy to stretch her leg out and again what you do is you hold the leg a little bit above the floor to begin. Again when when you stretch a leg out like this it's best to keep it elevated slightly to begin because that allows you to get a bigger push and a better turn. Now you can see her ankle is a little bit sickled and she needs to push to the inner foot a little bit more. That's right now turn from the head of the femur bone. Very good and now press the leg down. Now you want to give yourself a little bit of a chance you want to give yourself a chance to adjust before you really begin to push into this one. So let the thigh be a little bit away from the side of the torso and don't try to push the thigh all the way down to the floor right away. Let the groin soften and as it does then you can start to work the the arm along the inner leg toward toward toward the back of the knee and bring the back of the knee closer to the shoulder. This is a very good way to start an asana practice. It helps to open the groins. It's a little bit difficult for more beginning students which is why I'm having it with the blanket on their head and the knee bent and the foot on the floor. But if you want to try to extend the leg there's a there's sort of an intermediate way to do that and that is you could put a block out on the floor in front in front of your leg and have the heel slightly elevated off the floor. That makes it a little bit easier with the leg straight. And I would hold this one maybe a minute or two on each side. So why don't you both release the legs now with an exhalation. Take both thighs back into the belly and give that hug again to the to the legs. And always in this one you can rock back and forth a little bit which is a nice thing to do to help release the back. You want the entire back torso to spread but you also want to focus on the lower back in particular. The lumbar muscles the lower back muscles are in very close association with the with the roots of the diaphragm. So those muscles are not only affecting your posture but they also affect your breathing. So you want to feel the muscles along the lower back in particular softening and spreading across the back. And then I'll ask Ilana to bring her right foot down on the floor and then both of you bring the left arm against the inside of the left leg. Elbow to the back of the thigh, hand to the outer foot as before and then Betsy can stretch out with an inhalation. Turn the leg in as before and then press the leg down. Very nice. Now you can see that Betsy's thigh is a little bit pushed up toward the ceiling. So one thing you can do if you have the if you have the equipment is to put some weight on your on your thigh like a sandbag or two or if you're practicing with someone you could have that person actually sit on your thigh. You want to cover the thigh with a blanket first of course and then have that person sit down gently on your thigh and that provides a nice grounding to the leg and helps you open the groin. Again you want to be sure that you start off nice and easily so the thigh is a little bit away from the side of the torso and a little bit away from the floor and then as the groin begins to soften then you can start to work the shoulder along the inner inner thigh toward the inner knee. Now to be a little bit more detailed about this exercise you want to have the the thigh rotating outwardly from the inner thigh to the outer but at the same time you want to have the hip point sliding up along to the inside of the thigh. It's just like doing a lunge. So you want to sort of take the thigh a little bit away from the torso every now and then hook on to the hip point and then bring the thigh back into the torso. That's right, very good. Very nice, well done. Good and then take an exhalation and release, bring both thighs into the belly and hug. Very nicely done and then roll to the side. Exhale, head to the face on the floor as you do. Take a few breaths and then push your torso, exhale away from the floor and then sit.

Thank you very much.