Easy Twist or Parivrtta Sukhasana

Twisting also helps restore your spine’s natural range of motion, releasing much tension from the small muscles around the spine.

Although they are called spinal twists, yoga twists should include a full range of motions of the spine and major joints, including the hips and shoulders. A sedentary lifestyle causes many people to lose their full spinal motion. Some loss may occur if joints fuse due to trauma, surgery or arthritis, but most motion loss comes from the shortening of short tissues.

You need to lengthen your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia (connective tissues) to their full length at least a few times a week, or they will gradually shorten and limit the nearby joint’s mobility.

In the case of twisting, the limitation is usually in soft tissues around the spine, abdomen, rib cage and hips.

Practice at least a simple spinal twist once or twice a day, but consult your doctor if you have a spinal disc injury first, and try to seek a qualified yoga teacher if you have conditions like scoliosis, before practicing twists of any kind.

A variation of the twist Bharadvajasana (pose dedicated to the Sage Bharadvaja) done sitting on a chair is an excellent option because it is so easy to integrate into your daily life. But you need to keep in mind a few points about anatomy. The most important is to elongate the spine. When you slump, you limit the spinal rotation.

So begin by sitting sideways on a stable, armless chair, and take a moment to ground your sitting bones and draw your spine straight up toward the crown of your head. Also, make sure that your spine is perpendicular to the chair seat, leaning neither to the side nor to the front or back.

Another important point is that each section of the spine has a different rotational mobility. The cervical (neck) vertebrae, for example, are the most mobile in twisting. Because the 12 thoracic (midback) vertebrae have ribs attached, they can’t twist as freely as the neck vertebrae. And because of the orientation of the lumbar (lower spine) facet joints, the rotation of these five vertebrae is the most limited.

So to ensure that you don’t over twist in the more mobile parts of your spine, start your seated twist by bringing your awareness into your lower back and beginning the twist from there. Let the twist gradually unfold up your spine, as though you were walking up a spiral staircase, so that each vertebra participates in the twist. If instead you twist quickly and without awareness, your neck will likely do most of the twisting, and whole sections of your spine can remain “stuck”.

Once you’ve begun to rotate toward the back of the chair, you can use your hands on the corners of the chair’s back to deepen the twist in your spine and rib cage. Pull gently with the hand on the near corner and push with the hand on the far corner. Continue to sit tall, and don’t work so hard with the pulling hand that you draw that shoulder forward.

As the twist unfolds all the way up into your neck, your head will turn, but be sure to keep your eyes and gaze soft. Hold the twist on each side for a minute or so, and use your breathing to help deepen the twist: On one exhalation, draw yourself taller; on the next exhalation, twist a bit more. With regular practice of this and other simple twists, your spine will regain its full potential for twisting.

Here are a couple of seated spinal twist postures that you can practice on your own or incorporate into your yoga practice:

1. The Easy Twist (Parivrtta Sukhasana)

Cross your legs and slide your heels well apart so that each heel rests near or under the knee above it. Place your fingertips on the floor directly behind your buttocks, fingers pointing away from you.

Press both sitting bones evenly into the floor and gently draw the lower spine inward and upward.

Inhale and raise both arms toward the ceiling, lengthen upward all the way out through the fingertips.

Keeping the upper body as long and spacious as possible, exhale turn to the right. Place the left hand on the outer right knee and your right hand to the floor by your side and a little back.

Use them to lever you deeply into the twist. Keep the chin slightly drawn in and both shoulders level. Stay here for five to 10 deep breaths, inhaling as you expand, and exhaling to deepen the twist. Release on an inhalation, then repeat on the other side.

2. Marichyasana C

This posture, one of the four Marichyasana poses, opens the hips, relieves backaches and tones the abdominal organs. It also stretches the shoulders.

Sit with both legs extended out, bend the right knee and bring the right foot in front of the right sitting bone. Leave about 5 to 8 centimeters between the right foot and the inner left thigh.

Place the right hand a few inches behind the right hip, fingers pointing backward. Place your left hand on your right outer knees.

Inhale and lengthen your spine, as you exhale draw it the abdomen and turn to the right. Take several breaths to deepen the twist, using the support of your left hand to lever your chest farther right. Stay for five to 10 breaths then release and do the other side.

Twists are great balancers. They works wonders to settle you down when you are restless and agitated, but they will also give you a lift when you feel tired and lethargic. So next time you need a little pick-me-up after a long day bound to your desk, remember the spinal twists. Namaste.


The writer is a yoga practitioner and teacher. Yoga Connection is a regular column on all things yoga, appearing every second week in the Body & Soul section. For questions and comments, please email her at dasmaran@indo.net.id.
 
— Photos by P.J. Leo

Popular

Kadin urges stability after Constitutional Court ruling

Jokowi says transition to new government to begi

BCA loan disbursement surges 17.1 percent yoy in first quarter