The goal posts of the hockey net are a goalie’s best friend.
The Penguins left winger cut across the ice from the left wing and shot the puck toward the far top corner of the net. The Montreal goalie moved to block it. The Penguins centre waiting in front of the net deflected it. The puck rang off of the goal post.
Goalies love their goal posts. They give them a love tap every time they go on the ice. You will love your own goal posts in Dandasana.
What is Dandasana
Dandasana (pronounced dahn-DAH-sah-nah) is a seated pose that you enter in between each seated posture. Before you start a seated pose and after you finis a seated pose you are in Dandasana. If you are doing a vinyasa type of a yoga practice you start and finish your seated vinyasa in Dandasana. You do Dandasana a lot more often than any other posture when you are doing sitting postures.
Dandasana is a fairly easy posture to do. There is no binding, no twisting and no lifting involved.
Dandasana seems pretty easy to do.
How to do Dandasana
You start with legs together and straight out in front of you on the floor with the soles of your feet perpendicular to the floor.
Once you get your legs in the right place you bring the top of your hips straight up and down like your feet and you have your torso directly over your hips. Now that the torso is in place it is time to get your arms in the right place.
Let your hands rest lightly on the floor beside your hips with your fingers spread and pointing forward.
Once your arms are in place lift your chin slightly and gaze to the horizon.
Where are the goal posts in this pose
Your arms are on either side of you as you rest in this pose just like the goal posts are on either side of the goalie’s hockey net.
The goalie’s goal posts are always in the same place and setup the same way no matter which rink you go to. You setup your arms in Dandasana the same way every time.
Your arms are the goal posts.
How do you setup your goal posts
Your Goal Posts are vertical
They do not lean forward, backward or side to side. So the first thing that you need to do is get your arms straight up and down. Have a look at the alignment of your arms and move your hands and shoulders around until your arms are vertical.
Your Goal Posts have a solid foundation
To establish a firm foundation, spread your fingers wide and stretch your palms. The weight from your arms should be spread all over your palm from the top to your wrists and from your thumb to your little finger.
But for some getting a solid foundation can be a problem because their hands do not reach the mat.
Why don’t my hands reach the floor?
The usual reason that your hands do not reach the floor is your shoulders. There is a lot of tension in your shoulder muscles and your shoulders are lifted up towards your ears. Another rarer reason that your hands are not on the floor is because your arms are short compared to your torso.
You can fix both of these problems. First let’s work on the tension in your shoulders.
How to get your hands on the floor
To remove the tension from your neck and shoulders bringing your shoulder blades together towards your spine and down your back towards your hips. At the same time you are working on lowering your shoulders lift your ribs to remove any rounding you may have in your upper back.
It may take a while for the muscles in your neck and shoulders to relax enough for your arms to descend to the floor. In the mean time you can use the spider hands. Spread your fingers wide and lower them down towards the floor like the legs of a spider. With any luck your fingertips will touch the floor and you will be able to put some weight into your hands.
If the spider is suspended in the air you can take another action and use a block to support your hands.
Avoid these mistakes
– round your back
– lean backwards
Place a block on either side of you where your hands will be landing and rest your hands on the blocks. As your shoulders get more flexible replace your current block with a thinner one.
There are a couple of common mistakes that we make in an attempt to get our hands on the mat.
Round your back to get your hands on the mat
Rounding our back to get our hands on the mat is a bad plan. Rounding your back causes stress and tension in the muscles of your upper back and neck. Also this movement compresses the abdominal area. Neither of these actions is a good thing.
It is better to keep the back tall with the natural curves in our spine. Follow the suggestions above to get your shoulders down away from your ears or use some blocks to support your hands.
Rather than rounding their back some people will lean backwards to get their hands on the floor.
Lean back to get your hands on the mat
Leaning back, just like rounding your back is not a good plan either. Leaning back will put a lot of weight into your hands and wrists. Your hands and wrists should be resting lightly on the floor.
Once again following the advice above keep your torso tall and lower shoulders down your back away from your ears. If your hands are still up in the air use a block to close the gap.
Summary
The goalie’s goal posts are vertical and securely anchored so too should your arms. At least you do not need to worry about having hockey pucks bouncing off of them.
Next Step
Ask your teacher to check out your arms in Dandasana and help you to get them in the place.
Additional Reading
The article “Why the Baby Toe is so important in Dandasana ” shows you how to get the maximum benefit for your legs in Dandasana
