Gomukhasana

Hi we're here with Ilana and Betsy and this is going to be the cow face which in Sanskrit is called of course Gomukhasana. Go, G-A-U or G-O as it's spelled is the Sanskrit root of the English word cow and mukha it can be interpreted in various ways face opening mouth in this case of course it's interpreted as a face so this is cow face pose and the interesting thing about this is that in the old days there was no hand position as there is now so we'll demonstrate the hand position as the modern version so I will ask my good friends to stretch their legs forward and then bend their knees and bring their feet on the floor and then I'll have them pass their left heel underneath the right knee to the outside of the right hip and then cross the right knee on top of the left knee. Now there's various ways that you can deal with this of course if you look in Laidan Yoga BKS Iyengar's book what you'll see is that his heels are underneath his buttocks which is of course pretty much impossible for most people that is a pose in and of itself called Sankatasana the compressed pose the heels to the sides of the hips are pretty much good enough we were taught in earlier in the early days that it's it's good to have the heels equidistant from the hips and use the the top the top leg heel is a little bit farther away from the bottom leg heel that also doesn't really make that much difference but if you can manage that as Betsy's working over here that's probably a good thing to try so in the old days when you see pictures of how they perform the pose originally what you'll see is that their hands are stacked on on on their knees in front now I don't know this matters but I assume that when the right knee is on top you want to have the right hand on top of the left and vice versa but of course in the modern version the arms are locked behind the back or the hands are locked behind the back so technically the modern version should be called Bada Hasta Gomukhasana the bound hand cow pose cow face pose so in order to do that I'm going to ask my friends to take their right arm straight out to the side parallel to the level of the shoulder like this so the by the way the right leg is the top leg here so that means the right arm should be at the bottom arm and I'm going to ask them to roll the arms in so the palm will turn back toward whatever is behind and exaggerate the movements with the right shoulder really rolls forward that's right now with an inhalation sweep the arm around behind the back of the torso bring it parallel to your waist so the forearm is right across the waist to begin and then take your free hand and grab onto this flap of skin here in the front this is pectoralis major and lift it straight out of the armpit and roll it over the top of the shoulder and down the back you want to feel that the right elbow the back of the right elbow is reaching down toward the floor and then take the forearm and slide it up the back of the torso and bring the forearm into the channel of the spine if that's possible try not to let the elbow move so far away from the side of the torso when you do this now I'll ask Alana to take the belt that's in front of her and drape it over her right shoulder this is for the more the less flexible student now take the left arm and stretch it straight up toward the ceiling with an inhalation and again turn the arm from the shoulder blade not from the wrist the elbow or the shoulder joint but from deep inside the back since you physically feel the scapula moving away from the spine and then exhale and bend the elbow and reach down for the second hand now Betsy's going to make the clasp it's usually done this way with the fingers hooked and she's going to take the the bottom elbow straight down into the floor and reach the top elbow in the opposite direction toward the ceiling and again you've got to watch the ribs in front to make sure that they don't they don't push forward there's a tendency when you do this exercise to push the elbow back away from the torso and I'd rather you do it this way and take the elbow and bring it forward into the torso and roll the shoulder back and down so you create more space across the upper chest very nice now again if you would please bring these ribs in just a little bit so that you want to let the you want to let the lower spine in particular rest back on the forearm that's behind the torso and this is called Gomukhasana or Bada Hasta Gomukhasana if you prefer very nicely done now for beginners when they take their arms out what you want to do is you know when it's when you take a band-aid off a hairy part of your of your body like your forearm you want to pull it off really fast so when you have beginners coming out of this exercise what you want to say is one two three and out fast let go even faster than that on the second side all right let's switch over lean forward and cross the legs in the opposite way very nicely done left leg up right leg down very good again let's let's review let's wait let's just review the the original pose just to make sure we've got it so again when you see pictures of the pose that's done according to the way is described in the old texts you'll have you'll see the hands pressed against the knee like this let's have the left hand on the high oh very good that's it this is the cow face pose the way it was done in the in the late 17th century but now in the 20th century or 21st I guess we'll take the left arm and we'll stretch it straight out to the side and again it's a very exaggerated internal rotation of the arm so you turn the shoulder way forward that's it and then sweep the arm around behind the back bring it parallel to the waist and remember to keep the elbow in tight to the side of the torso now let me let me refine this movement with your arm around behind the back like this take your free hand and just hook on to this skin I'm gonna tickle your armpit just like that and pull it out you want the shoulder to roll up the front and down the back and then take the back elbow and reach it down toward the floor and then again you take the forearm and slide it up the back of the torso into the channel of the spine and remember now you want to bring the elbow forward into the torso and roll the head of the humerus bone back and down yes very good and then take the free arm up inhale turn it now you should be able to feel the right shoulder blade with the back of your left hand moving away from the spine and then bend the elbow exhale bring the head down oops it's your belt very good now there's various you can you can try various things when the arms are in place this way you could if you care to lean a little bit over to the bottom elbow side so she's gonna lean a little bit to her left and then she'll take up the right elbow and she'll really reach it up toward the ceiling like that oh very nice yes you can do that or you come back to center inhale and start to bring the torso forward and you can lay the torso down toward the inside of the top thigh and as always Betsy makes this look a little bit easier than it actually is very nicely done beautifully done go mukasana the cow face pose good and then inhale come up so the cow face by the way if you look at someone like this from the front you'll see the lips and you see the ears one up and one down there you go very nice cow faces and of course the ohm is moo backwards thank you very much you release the arms to the next elation lean back a little bit stretch it lift the knees up and stretch the legs forward very nicely done thank you very much cow face go mukasana