Pose Meaning

Adho – Forward; Mukha – Face; Svana – Dog
The asana is pronounced as A-doh MOO-kah shvah-NAS-anna
Adho Mukha Svanasana (AH-doh MOO-kah shvah-NAHS-anna), also commonly known as Downward Dog is the most basic and widely-used yoga pose. The name comes from the Sanskrit words adhas meaning ‘down’, mukha meaning ‘face’, svana meaning ‘dog’ and asana meaning ‘posture’ or ‘seat.’

Adho mukha svanasana posture replicates a dog bending forward, hence the name downward facing dog pose, often practiced as part of a flowing sequence of poses, especially Surya Namaskar, the Salute to the Sun. The asana does not have formally named variations, but several playful variants are used to assist beginning practitioners to become comfortable in the pose.

This asana can be practiced by any beginner too and with all its benefits, one should include it as a part of daily yoga practice.

Origin

 

The name is not found in the medieval hatha yoga texts, but a similar posture, Gajāsana (Elephant Pose), was described in the 18th century Hațhābhyāsapaddhati; the text calls for it to be repeated “over and over again” from a prone position.

Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi popularised the Sun Salutation in his 1928 book. The sequence uses Downward Dog Pose twice (numbers 4 and 7).

A similar pose, together with a 5-count format and a method of jumps between poses resembling Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga’s system, was described in Niels Bukh’s early 20th century Danish text Primitive Gymnastics, which in turn was derived from a 19th-century Scandinavian tradition of gymnastics; the system had arrived in India by the 1920s. Indian gymnastics, too, had a system of postures, called “dands” (from Sanskrit दण्ड daṇḍa, a staff), linked by jumps, and one of the dands is close to Downward Dog. In addition, in the 1920s, Bhawanrao Shriniwasrao Pant Pratinidhi, the Rajah of Aundh, (1868–1951; in office 1909–1947) popularized and named the practice of Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation), describing it in his 1928 book The Ten-Point Way to Health: Surya Namaskars. Downward Dog appears twice in its sequence of 12 postures.

Steps

Step 1: Come onto the floor on your hands and knees. Set your knees directly below your hips and your hands slightly forward of your shoulders. Spread your palms, index fingers parallel or slightly turned out, and turn your toes under.

Step 2: Exhale and lift your knees away from the floor. At first keep the knees slightly bent and the heels lifted away from the floor. Lengthen your tailbone away from the back of your pelvis and press it lightly toward the pubis. Against this resistance, lift the sitting bones toward the ceiling, and from your inner ankles draw the inner legs up into the groins.

Step 3: Then with an exhalation, push your top thighs back and stretch your heels onto or down toward the floor. Straighten your knees but be sure not to lock them. Firm the outer thighs and roll the upper thighs inward slightly. Narrow the front of the pelvis.

Step 4: Firm the outer arms and press the bases of the index fingers actively into the floor. From these two points lift along your inner arms from the wrists to the tops of the shoulders. Firm your shoulder blades against your back, then widen them and draw them toward the tailbone. Keep the head between the upper arms; don’t let it hang.

Step 5: Adho Mukha Svanasana is one of the poses in the traditional Sun Salutation sequence. It’s also an excellent yoga asana all on its own. Stay in this pose anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. Then bend your knees to the floor with an exhalation and rest in Child’s Pose.

Practicing of this pose calms the brain and helps relieve stress.

Benefits

1. Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
2. Energizes the body
3. Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, and hands
4. Strengthens the arms and legs
5. Helps relieve the symptoms of menopause
6. Relieves menstrual discomfort when done with head supported
7. Helps prevent osteoporosis
8. Improves digestion
9. Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue
10. Therapeutic for high blood pressure, asthma, flat feet, sciatica, sinusitis

Tips

• If you have difficulty releasing and opening your shoulders in this pose, raise your hands off the floor on a pair of blocks or the seat of a metal folding chair.
• A partner can help you learn how to work the top thighs in this pose. First perform Adho Mukha Svanasana. Have your partner stand behind and loop a strap around your front groins, snuggling the strap into the crease between your top thighs and front pelvis. Your partner can pull on the strap parallel to the line of your spine (remind him/her to extend the arms fully, and keep the knees bent and chest lifted). Release the heads of your thigh bones deeper into your pelvis and lengthen your front torso away from the strap.

Contraindications

• Avoid doing this asana if you suffer from high blood pressure, Carpel tunnel syndrome, detached eye retina, weak eye capillaries, dislocated shoulder / shoulder injury or diarrhea.

Your body exists in the past and your mind exists in the future. In yoga, they come together in the present.” ― B.K.S.Iyengar