Matsyendrasana

Hi, we're here with Ilana and Betsy, and we've finished now with the forward bending exercises, and this is a transitional pose. This is the one twist in pretty much the one real twist in the sequence. Nowadays it's called Arta Matsyendrasana I, because there have been other twists added to the Asana repertoire, but in the old days this was called just plain old Matsyendrasana, and it literally means Lord of the Fish, and it's a very long story behind that, but the name belongs to the first, the human progenitor of Hatha Yoga, is the different stories about how we came to be that, but he got the information, he got the teaching from Shiva, and we often find that in traditional yoga the initial teaching does come from a deity. In the case of Hatha Yoga we have Shiva, in the case of the Yoga Sutra we have a personage by the name of Hiranyagarbha, which means the golden seed or the golden womb. So if you both would stretch your legs out into Dandasana, please, and then bend your knees, bring your feet on the floor, not very close to the sit bones, just bend your knees, bring your feet on the floor, and I'm going to ask you both to swing the left heel underneath the right knee to the outside of the hip, and in this position you'll have to swing this knee right across in front of the torso, opposite the belly button. Now for my more flexible helper over here, she's going to step this right foot to the outside of the left thigh, and put the foot on the floor. For my less flexible example over here, she's going to just bring her heel in front of the ankle and not cross over, many times less flexible people in the hips anyway, have a little bit of difficulty getting that foot on the floor outside the thigh. Now when you see pictures of this exercise done, you'll often see that the practitioner has taken the arm to the outside of the of the of the of the raised knee, and I actually don't like that very much, and I'm going to ask my two helpers to bring the left arm and wrap them around the bent knee. I was told one time that Mr. Iengar said that the arm goes to the outside of the knee for the camera, and for the inside of the knee for the pose, so that's the way we're going to do it today, and what I would like them to do is to try to get the shin of this of the right leg notched into the elbow crease of the left arm, and then cover the right thigh with the left hand. Yes, very nice. Now for Betsy, who's doing a little bit more of an advanced version, what you what you're not able to see, but I can, is that her outer right hip has popped up off the floor a little bit too much, so she's going to take that outer hip and drop it down toward the floor to lengthen along the right side of the torso. When she does that, you may notice that the inside of her right foot pops off the floor, so she has a little bit of a conundrum. How could she drop the outer right hip if you bring the thumb into the hip crease and push down? Yes, and now can you really stomp? Yes, on the inside of that foot, so you want two things to happen, the outer hip and the inner foot to press down, and then when you have that twist going, you want to be sure that you're lifting the front of the torso up along the inner thigh before you try to twist a good deal. Remember that in twisting, the first thing that you want to do is create space between the vertebrae. If there's no space, there's no twist. Very nicely done. Now for her, for Betsy, what I would like her to do is to take the left hand and hold on to the right thigh. Yes, good. Now from the mid back, between the shoulder blades, can she push this elbow toward Ilana and get a little bit more, yes, more twist in the upper back. Beautifully done. Now can you turn your head to the left and peek down over the shoulder toward the left big toe? Yeah, very nice. Matsyandrasana. Now for Ilana, you can see that she's leaning back a little bit away from the inner thigh, so can she soften the inner right groin, and can you take the belly up along the inner thigh a little bit more? Yes, you can. Good. Now can you also push out from the left elbow, from the mid back, through the left elbow, I should say, and let this whole left half of the back release away from the spine? Put your right hand on the floor outside the hip. Now can you push your torso up along the front? Yes, but see again what you're doing is the chin, so take the chin down, uh-huh, and lift the top of the sternum bone up. From right here, yes, very well done. Now can you turn the head to the left and peek down? Hello. Well done. Good. Matsyandrasana, Lord of the Fish, very nicely done. Actually, I'll release the twist and stretch the legs forward. Beautiful. Now there is a way to work this that is pretty interesting. You can use a belt, and let me show this with, let me show this with Ilana. So if you would bend your knees, bring your feet on the floor, and then we're doing the left side, so slide your right heel under first, and then take your left foot in front of the ankle as we did before. Now open the belt, if you would please, and wrap it around your left ankle. Half and half, so it's, yeah, so the ends match. Very good.

And then cross it over the right thigh and around behind the back of your torso, yes. Make sure it's low on the pelvis, down by the tail, this digital tail, and then take your right arm around the left shin, mm-hmm, and then grab on to the strap with your right hand. Very nicely done. Ah yes, beautifully done. Now you give a good tug on that strap so that it firms against the back of your pelvis. Can you get it a little bit lower? Even more, yes, that's it. Very nice. And then lean back a little bit, away from the inner thigh, uh-huh. Take this right shoulder and ah, yes, but bring the ribs around toward the inner, ah, very nicely done. Now can you take the space between the shoulder blades and open it up into the right elbow? Yeah, very good. Nicely done. And let's have that inner left foot a little bit more actively pressed into the floor. Very good. Now soften the inner left groin and let the belly button slide up the inner thigh toward the inner knee a little bit more. Yes, uh-huh, ah, and then lean back again. Very nicely done. Now turn the head to the right and look down. Oh, there you go. Very well done. Remember that when you, if you're going to turn the head, the chin, as you can see, dips down toward the shoulder. If your chin pops up toward the ceiling, it's not so good for the neck. You can see it on her too, on Betsy. This is Matsyendrasana, the Lord of the Fish, the human progenitor of Hatha Yoga, who lived possibly in the 10th or 11th century CE. Beautifully done. Thank you. Let go. Straighten your legs into Dandasana.

Well done. Thank you.