Many asanas in yoga are dedicated to animals. Today we will look at camel pose. Practise it regularly and you will not only fill important endocrine glands with energy, but also learn to see the bright side of life, to feel joy and pleasure instead of sadness and suffering. Nune Rojas, creator of the YogaHormonal hormonal yoga method, explains what makes this pose special.
To begin with, as always, a little history.
Yoga is credited to the supreme deity Shiva. In the Mahabharata he is also called Yogeshvara, which translates as Lord of Yoga. Once, while Shiva was teaching his doctrine, Ananta, the serpent of infinity, hid nearby. She eavesdropped on what he was saying in order to seize the secret knowledge. Having heard enough, Ananta tried to slip away. But Shiva noticed her. As a punishment he ordered her to pass the teaching on to humankind. And so this heavenly cobra with a thousand heads crawled to the nearest village. The villagers were not fond of ordinary cobras as it was, so on seeing such a monster they pelted Ananta with stones. She returned to Shiva, and he suggested she take human form. Doing as the lord commanded, the heavenly cobra managed to pass the knowledge on to people.
This story is still recalled in the prayer before practice. The words “Abahu purushakaram” mean “to the one who took human form at the hands of the almighty”. After her transformation Ananta came to be called Patanjali, and she is now depicted as a human being seated on a coil of the serpent’s body.
To awaken devotion in a yogi’s heart, the poses were given names carrying spiritual or mythological meaning. By developing your personal relationship with the divine forces and the ancient sages you can deepen your practice. But only one of the four categories of asana is actually connected with deities. The other three represent inanimate forms, animals, or human beings.
The dominant category is the “animal” one. It contains 12 poses in all. One of them is called Ustrasana. We often practise it in YogaHormonal hormonal yoga classes. Ustra means “camel”. In this pose the back arches and the body takes on a rounded shape, like a camel’s hump.
In the sacred text of the Skanda Purana the word “ushtra” is used metaphorically for the qualities of a camel. In Hinduism, those who study the sacred texts are divided into higher and lower types according to the qualities they acquire through that work. Among the lower types there is a category called “Ushtra”. Just as a camel picks bitter fruit and avoids sweet varieties, listeners of the Ushtra type cannot take in the sweet and joyful aspects of scripture and instead fix on its bitter parts.
So, let us do Ustrasana. Kneel with your legs hip-width apart, straighten your torso and lengthen upwards through the crown of your head. Place your ankles on the floor parallel to each other, heels up.
Engage your thigh and buttock muscles, draw in your abdomen, and direct your tailbone inwards and down. Open your chest, drawing your shoulders back.
Keeping the spine lengthened, lean back, arching through the thoracic region. If your palms reach the sacrum and that is enough, stay in the intermediate position. If you can, lower your hands onto your feet.
Concentrate most of your body weight in your knees. Your palms press into your feet, your spine lengthens from the tailbone to the crown, and your chest lifts upwards.
In this position, breathe in the “kapalabhati” manner for 10–20 seconds. Then breathe in deeply and contract the pelvic floor muscles. Relax on the exhale and picture the stream of breath filling the neck (the thyroid) and the centre of the head (the pituitary) with light.
Come out of the pose smoothly, avoiding any sharp jerks.
Practising Ustrasana fills the endocrine glands with energy. It also develops particular qualities that let you avoid the fate of the “ushtra” and help you choose the “sweet” fruit.
