Utthita Hasta Padangusthasna is pretty clearly one of the more challenging postures of the ashtanga
standing sequence it of course gets introduced early on in the students journey through the
primary series and it tends to be seen as a big one for students of almost all levels really
that's just because of the nature of how much concentration and effort it requires and the fact
that the slightest lapse in concentration will mean that you have to reset yourself rebuild the
whole posture right from the ground up so let's take a look at the vinyasa count to get a bit
of a road map for all the positions that need to get touched on and honored and understood in the
utthita hasta padangusthasana sequence so we'll start out as usual in Samastitihi and provided
that you have enough space around you to do the whole pose there should be no real need to shuffle
forward or back before you begin the pose first position. [EKAM] inhale taking hold of the right
big toe lift that leg high and catch your balance standing upright this will be your base position
that you'll have to keep returning to so feel the sense that you're well balanced before moving on.
[DVE] exhale everything from about the waist and down will stay in relatively the same place
but just allow your lower back to round as you reach forward with the chest
and of course with the chin as you try to make contact with the shin, if it doesn't quite touch
that is also fine just go down as far as you feel stable in the pose and hold for five breaths
[TRINI] inhale return to the base position stop hold your balance [CHATVARI] exhale expanding the
leg out to the side try to isolate this movement from the hips so you're not twisting into the
pelvis or skewing it up to follow the movement of the leg shift the gaze to the opposite side taking
parsva drishti and hold for five breaths [PANCHA] inhale bring your leg back to the base position
[SAT] exhale reach the chin forward try to touch [SAPTA] inhale using the strength of the leg to
hold the leg slowly release the big toe and catch your waist with both hands with the right leg
completely straight point the toes and hold for five breaths very common here is to start feeling
tired or unstable at about breath two or three but realize that you do have a lot more energy in the
legs than you might realize so just a little bit of mind control is often the key to staying here
for five full deep breaths and then with control exhale and release the foot down to the ground
vinyasa counts Astau through Chaturdasa are all the same positions but on the left side so [ASTAU]
inhale take your left big toe [NAVA] exhale hold for five breaths [DASA] inhale come up
[Ekadasa] exhale take the leg out to the side shift the gaze and hold for five breaths
inhale bring your leg back [TRAYODASA] exhale try to touch [CHATURDASA] inhale come up balance hold
for five breaths and then exhale Samasthiti so as is quite often the case in ashtanga yoga if you
have trouble moving through a particular section of the sequence examining the vinyasa count is an
exercise that can reveal those key moments where you need to develop proficiency then at least
when you show up to the pose you'll know that you have all the right pieces to the puzzle and they
just need to be connected correctly on the day in this case that key position that needs to be on it
is the base position and this is a super important one not just because you need to keep returning to
it in between each of the states of the asana but also because it's just the easiest it's the
most intuitive place in the sequence to really catch your balance and you can feel a sense of
connection from the grounding force in your standing leg that runs all the way up along
the straight line right to the crown of the head and if you can get comfortable here you'll start
to see that the various states of the asana are just variations on this same stable and
familiar feeling that you have in this position so let's have a look at some of the energetics
and alignment specifically for the base position so taking the big toe and lifting that leg realize
that there is going to be a perfect height for you to take the leg it's going to be approximately
with your outstretched hand at shoulder level or maybe a little bit higher perhaps with the big toe
at eye level and if you have more mobility more flexibility than that then realize that it's not
the goal to challenge your range of motion here that's going to be a very destabilizing way to
approach this part of the practice to constantly be trying to take yourself to the extremes of your
range of motion on the other hand if you don't have the mobility to get to that ideal height
then what you'll tend to feel is that that puts a lot of strain on your ability to balance in
the pose the leg will feel like it's pulling you forward and down away from your center of balance
so your ideal way to practice the bass position would be to just stand all the way upright to
slightly bend the knee if you need to and use this primarily as a balancing posture just trust
that practicing this posture and all the other postures in the sequence will ultimately make
this ideal base position much more accessible to you over time so once you get to your ideal base
position you can start to engage in a little bit of energetic push and pull and really just hone in
and find your perfect center line of balance and that would be by pulling back with the shoulder
as though you're trying to pull the hip back into a socket while simultaneously pressing
into the ball of the foot and those two opposing forces create this feeling of control perhaps you
might even describe it as bunda where you know specifically where your balance point is you can
feel that and if you're either side of the balance point you're still energetically engaged enough
to pull yourself back to your central line of balance and especially if you do start to lose it
going one way or the other you can just exercise a little bit more pull with the shoulder or a little
bit more press into the ball of the foot and that should bring you back to that feeling of balance
once you've established that energetic connection then you can start to expand and transition into
all of the other stages of the pose but really feeling connected first is going to be the key
to moving through everything with proficiency all so i'll leave it at that for today feel free
to pop me a message in the comments if you like subscribe for more videos see you in the next one!