4 Limbed Staff

TRADITIONAL ALIGNMENT

Foot to Hip : Feet flexed around hip width. Knees extended legs strong, hips neutral.
Spine : Neutral. Find length & balance. Support the spine with engagement of core muscles. Neck long neutral.
Shoulder to Hand : Shoulders neutral. elbows flexed and drawing into the sides. forearms pronated, weight spread through hands.

INTEGRATION

Chaturanga Dandasana : ('catur' - four, 'aṅga' - limb, 'danda' - staff, 'asana' - pose) or Four-Limbed Staff pose and also known as Low Plank. The pose resembles a staff, stick, rod, or pole. In Chaturanga the hands and feet are on the floor, supporting the body, which is parallel to and lowered toward, but not touching, the floor. It looks much like a push up, but with the hands quite low (just above the pelvis), and the elbows kept in along the sides of the body.

Chaturanga is great for building total body strength particularly the upper body and is a great prep for arm balancing postures. Chaturanga is part of the Sun Salutation and Vinyasa Sequence, it is mostly used to transition from plank to prone postures and back again. Warm up via easier variations such as 3/4 press or Knees Chin Chest if needed. Good alignment in plank will set the student up ask them to maintain the plank like position whilst moving in to chaturanga.

EXPLORATION

Foot to Hip : Play with foot position, knees bent vs straight, pelvic tilts.
Spine : Cat Cow.
Shoulder to Hand : Raise on to fingertips. Widen/narrow hands. Stagger hands.

MODIFICATION

- Perform kneeling (3/4 press / knees chin chest) Using the knees brings the support further up the body so less effort is required to support the spine.

ADVANCEMENT

Crocodile hops for increased power.
Single arm doubles the pressing strength in the arm used as well as making the pose more unstable so will need to work to stabilise the body.
Single leg also makes the pose more unstable working to stop the pose from collapsing on one side. The leg if raised will work to fight gravity and the supporting leg will also be taking more load.
Add scorpion twist

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