Seated Staff Pose might look easy, but it’s an intense strength-builder for the upper back, chest, and abdomen. This pose is the foundational posture for all seated poses, including twists. Because it provides the structural basis for all seated poses, it is essentially the seated version of Mountain Pose (Tadasana).
Its Sanskrit name, “Dandasana” (dahn-DAHS-uh-nuh), comes from two words: “Danda” (meaning “staff”) and “asana” (meaning “pose”). Dandasana helps to prepare the body for deeper poses, while enhancing your ability to focus on precise alignment in your body.
Benefits of Staff Pose
Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.
Osho
Dandasana stretches and strengthens the shoulders, upper back, chest, and abdomen. It improves posture and alignment, and is also known to be therapeutic for sciatica and asthma.
This pose helps to calm and steady the mind, encouraging calm focus.
Practicing the pose with a smooth and steady breath can relieve stress and improve concentration.
Cautions
Do not practice this pose if you have a wrist or low back injury. Always work within your own range of limits and abilities. If you have any medical concerns, talk with your doctor before practicing yoga.
Instructions
1. Begin by sitting on the floor with your legs extended out in front of you. If your hamstrings are tight, sit on a bolster or blanket so your torso can be upright and vertical. You can also sit with your back against a wall with your shoulder blades touching it, leaving a space between the wall and your low back.ow back.
2. Sit forward on your sit bones and draw your thighs to the floor. Flex your feet and press out through your heels. Keep your big toes, inner heels, and inner knees together.
3. Strongly engage your thigh muscles around your thigh bones, and activate the muscles surrounding your knee caps. Press your thigh bones firmly down into the floor. Make sure your legs do not rotate outward.
4. Stretch your heels away from your body and tilt your pelvis slightly forward, extending the distance between your heel bones and sit bones.
5. Do not collapse your low back. Work to lift your torso up from the base of your pelvis. Keep your weight evenly distributed across both sit bones.
6. Place your hands on the floor alongside your hips, pressing through your palms with your fingers pointing forward.
7. Broaden across your collarbones and lift your chest. Then, broaden across your shoulders. Draw your belly button in toward your spine. Anchor your body through your tailbone and sit tall.
8. Keep your torso perpendicular to the floor, and lift the crown of your head to the ceiling. Keep your chin parallel to the floor and gaze steadily straight ahead, toward the horizon. Hold for up to one minute.