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Poses >> Gomukhasana
Teacher Cyndi Lee
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Gomukhasana
Go (Cow)
Mukha (Face)
- Start on your hands and knees. Slip your left knee behind your right knee and separate your feet. Sit down on a block or blanket.
- Try to organize your legs so your feet are equidistant from your hips. It doesn’t matter if they are more forward or back, whatever you can manage with evenness of position and equanimity of mind and breath is what we are going for.
- Flex your feet and place your palms on them. Press your feet into your hands and your hands into your feet. While doing this you may experience more activity in your legs, which in turn supports and lifts the spine without any gripping in the back muscles. Good.
- Now extend your arms straight out from your shoulders, out to the sides. Internally rotate your right arm and bend it behind you. As you do this, take care not to distort the placement of your ribs by popping them forward. Use your abdominal muscles lightly to maintain your tadasana torso and find out where your arm can go behind you with that limitation.
- Externally rotate your left arm, reach it up by your ear and bend it behind you, reaching toward your left hand. Maybe they touch, maybe they don't. You can hold onto your shirt or a belt or a towel. If you are holding hands with yourself, do it in a nice, friendly way. Try to avoid desperately grasping and gripping because who needs to practice that?�
- In the meantime, keep your legs working and your feet bright. There are a lot of body parts to keep track of so just try to relax your mind and let it expand without spacing out. Keeping your concentration while developing a sense of panoramic awareness is called dharana and dhyana in yoga.
- Come out the pose with interest in all sensations and kindness toward yourself, avoiding anything that hurts, like this. Place your hands on the floor in front of you and shift onto your knees. Uncross them slowly and then cross them with the other leg in front and do the whole pose on the other side. This will be a different thing altogether so it will be fun to see what's happening on this side.
Gomukhasana with a Twist
- Once you are in gomukhasana, place your hands in anjali mudra. Twist toward your top leg and then dip your opposite elbow and place it on the outside of your top leg. Lengthen your spine.�
- If that twist is too intense for you right now, you can place the back of your arm along the outer thigh and extend your top arm straight out from your shoulder. You can do this with a vertical spine or with a tilt to your twist.
Video and Text by Yogamates Featured Teacher: Cyndi Lee
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