Click “Ashtanga Yoga Road” above to subscribe! When we stand, walk or run, our feet are our foundation; When we began to cook soup, the long Ashtanga yoga road also started with a single step.
On two feet with 26 bones and more than 100 groups of muscles from heel to toe, we started to build a balanced and stable foundation.
We all know that feet are the foundation of the body when the human body stands, but the story is far more complicated than this.
Feet are not only the foundation of standing on the body level, but also a focus of human body energy.
As the main connection between the body and the earth, the energy of everything enters the body from here, and energy can also leave the body through the feet…
If we imagine there is a “foot chakra”, Then this chakra is likely to be split in two, with half of the balls on both feet; But when our feet are together, the two balls of feet together become a complete “chakra”, and the energy center is complete.
And this movement is the beginning of the whole Ashtanga yoga sequence: samathiti mountain style.
In fact, the original meaning of Samathiti in Sanskrit is “equal standing”…
Samathiti starts with two feet, and Ashtanga yoga practice starts with equal standing…
However, few people focus on the feet.
I think the current yoga practice is driven by social media and commercial operation, which puts the cart before the horse, Practitioners mostly go for more postures, seek more spicy practice experience, and make the practice very complicated…
All kinds of fancy handstands, arm balance, and front and back casual wear…
But at the same time, little attention is paid to the state and awareness of the feet.
The feet in the postures are like a pair of unnecessary chicken ribs growing at the end of the body.
Although the above sounds like a joke, it can be said that this is true.
For example, when many students are doing chaturanga, climbing a dog, bending backward, standing upside down, and balancing their arms, they will click and scratch on the ground according to the skills taught by the “big guy”.
But how many people will be aware of the foot movements in the exercise? A few days later, I began to complain: my shoulder hurts, my waist hurts…
What’s wrong? It’s so simple to pay attention to the shoulders and the waist, but not the feet.
In fact, the more attention a practitioner pays to his feet, the more developed his awareness of his feet is, the easier it will become to practice; Where do you start? First of all, we start from the two basic movements of feet: hooking feet and stretching feet.
Of course, there is another one between the two: hooking feet – in fact, there is no such word, I made it up.
And, of course, the neutral natural position of the foot.
In the process of our practice, if you can be aware of the state and movement of your feet at all times, you can explore the impact of different foot movements and positions on posture during the practice, and this practice will enable you to learn to use your feet as an important means of empowerment in posture; It is not only stable when standing as a foundation, but also can help other body movements, especially arm balance and handstand posture when feet are in the air.
In a specific movement of a posture, some teachers may teach you to stretch your feet, some teachers may teach you to stretch your feet, and some teachers may teach you to stretch your feet.
The teacher’s help is very important, but more importantly, we should experience and master how we interact with a certain part of the body through a long time of practice, and we can skillfully control the foot movements to create different effects.
Hook feet hook feet is to extend the heel in the opposite direction of the body, the upper part of the foot to the body.
In any action of bending the knee forward to exceed the ankle, the position of the foot is very important in the hook state, such as utkatasana magic chair, pasasana lock type and virabadrasana Warrior One or Two.
Active foot hook is also often used in sitting and standing positions, especially when the hamstrings are not under pressure: for example, dandasana, marichasana c and d.
Hook feet will pull the back of the whole thigh, and the tension will be transferred to the back of the hip; The muscle lines on the instep connect the front muscle lines of the body, and the muscle lines on the sole of the foot connect the back muscle lines of the body; Therefore, when we hook our feet, the joint pulling of the back of the whole body – from the sole of the foot to the lower leg to the thigh to the back of the hip and even to the back of the waist – will tighten; This is why in the sitting and standing forward bending posture, the feet are naturally hooked without active force; Because if you take the initiative to hook your feet too hard and make the hamstrings too stressed when sitting, standing and bending forward, it may damage the tendons of the hamstrings attached to the femur, causing pain in the lower buttocks.
Some teachers would suggest that you relax your feet when sitting, standing and bending forward.
In fact, you should keep your feet neutral and not push your heels forward with force rather than really “relax”.
However, in Dandasana and Marichasanac, the tension of hamstrings is not so great, so you need to take the initiative to hook your feet.
Stretching the feet is the reverse action of hooking the feet, that is, the toes actively point away from the body, while the heels pull back towards the body.
Stretched feet are very common in handstand positions.
The toes extend infinitely toward the sky, leading the body upward, bringing the extremely light posture.
Stretched feet not only activate the front of the body, but also drive the light upward energy..
