Supta Kurmasana

[Guest guest]

Anyone care to share any hints on how to get the

hands together in supta kurmasana? Do you cross your

ankles and then try to clasp your hands, or do you grab

your hands first and then cross your feet?<br>I can

get my feet crossed, but my hands remain an agonising

inch or two apart. Is this another one of those "Just

be patient" situations, or is there some ashtangi

secret no one's shared with me?

[Guest guest]

i can't do it without assistance but have been

told what to try to do--needless to say, easier to say

than do.<br> <br>to get the arms to fully wrap around

the legs and abd, you would need to narrow the

diameter of the legs and body as much as possible. to this

end, an early goal should be to get to the point in

which your shoulders will slide under the backs of your

knees rather than next to them. much hip opening work

there for most of us. one of the recent yoga journals

had as their posture of the month one of the leg

behind the head postures from second series. they gave a

lot of prepatory steps that people can take to work

towards that stage of flexibility.<br> <br>whether you

can get your shoulders under or not, the next step to

keep your diameter small is to squeeze the

thighs/knees to the midline, not with your arms but with your

legs. this requires a lot of energy--it's where i fall

apart. they are big muscles that you will be holding in

a state of contraction. the natural tendancy is to

try to do it all with your hands and arms. good luck

there. let your legs help you, not work against you.

they have to be as active here as in any other

posture.<br> <br>now, what comes first the hand lock or the

feet overlap behind the head? i'm pretty sure you are

supposed to get the hands first but since i'm not close to

either i'll defer that "what is right" question to the

gumbies

[Guest guest]

after kurmasana, lengthen your torso as far out

from your hips as possible....your feet a little more

than shoulder's width. Try first to get maximum

passage of your shoulders worming past your inner thighs

and to the ground. Without that, the hands won't

meet. They probably won't meet anyway if you can't do

kurmasana with shoulders on the ground.<br><br>Get your

hands clasped first, then cross your feet. It's much

easier that way.

[Guest guest]

it was interesting to watch the second class at

carlsbad get into this posture. there was one group that,

after kurmasana, would sit upright, take their legs and

manually put them behind their heads and then they would

lay forward and lock the hands behind the back.

another group would stay in the kurmasana position, slide

the hands around the back and lock, then work the

feet on their own into a crossed position behind the

head or in front of the head, depending on their

capability.<br>i guess in any large group, there's never going to

be just one right way.

[Guest guest]

I get a strange knee pain/sensation trying to

wiggle into this pose, was wondering if anyone knows

anything about it.<br><br>As I inch my feet together, I

get a weird feeling like an electric shock zipping

from my knee down a litle way into the exterior top of

the right calf. Never happens on the left. The

teacher has not been able to identify the sensation. Any

ideas/recommendations? Is anything about this dangerous for the

knee?<br><br>As far as clasping hands, my face and chest get to

the floor, but shoulders are far from being under my

legs, and the hands are not near reaching each other

yet. Tight shoulders, loose hamstrings.

[Guest guest]

Bandawoman, me too, tight shoulders, loose

hamstrings. Can't help you with the electric shock symptom;

maybe it's some kind of misguided kundalini energy

stuck in your leg Hey you were right about your

weather conspiracy theory. "It rains" is the best thing

those Seattlites could think of to keep people away.

They tried the same thing in vancouver. So, do you get

the Savage Love column in Boston?