Bound Angle Pose

Baddha Konasana
Bound Angle Pose

Description in Yoga Journal  

Benefits of Bound Angle Pose

I teach two versions of the seated version the Bound Angle Pose:   

1.  Sit up straight.  Keep your heels and the soles of your feet together.  Chin slightly tucked and the crown of the head lifted, ears over shoulders.  Keep the abdominals tucked.  Allow the knees to gradually lower down to the floor.  Relax, Release and stretch!  This is a gentle static isometric stretch of the adductor muscles (inner thighs) in the groin area and a hip opener.  Inhale and exhale gently as you hold the posture for 1 to 3 minutes.  Try not to force the knees down to the floor.  Relax and release! Let gravity do the work of lowering the knees towards the floor.  Hands are placed on the floor at the sides of the hips, or behind the back as shown above. 

Some folks also lean forward while keeping the back straight, or round the back as they lean forward and draw the head towards the floor while keeping the knees drawn down to the extent that they can do so.  They try to bring the head in front of the knees. 


2.  Sit up straight.  I don't recommend leaning to far forward in this version.  Keep your heels and the soles of your feet together.  Chin slightly tucked and the crown of the head lifted, ears over shoulders  Keep the abdominals tucked.  Place your hands on the inside of your knees and press down at the same time as you tense and draw the knees upward.  The muscular lifting effort of the upper legs resists the force downward on the legs with the arms.  This is called oppositional or resistance stretching.  Press down on the legs and lift the legs up simultaneously as you slowly exhale, then relax, release the downward pressure on the legs, and slowly inhale.  Some folks prefer a two breath cycle of simultaneously pressing the legs down and pushing/lifting the legs up.  Do this for 5 to 8 repetitions.

Yoga: Research, notes, lists, bibliography, links.  By Mike Garofalo.

Qigong (Chi Kung), Chinese Health Exercises.

There is also a supine (lying on back) version of this pose, relaxing and releasing (1), including using props under the torso while lying on your back.  

The first version (1) of the Bound Angle Pose is suitable for people with osteoarthritis, as shown below in the instructional video.

Help with Arthritis: Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Yoga, Walking, and Diet   Bibliography, links, resources, recommended books, information, quotations, tips, and research.  By Michael P. Garofalo.

Improving Balance in Seniors

 Balance

Maintaining and Improving Your Balance
Methods, Exercises, Concepts, Causes
Better Balance for Seniors and Avoiding Falls

By Michael P. Garofalo

Bibliography Links Resources Information

Quotations References Commentary

Instructor Qualifications of Michael P. Garofalo

 

 

The Walk, the Hills, the Sky

"The ideal aerobic exercise is walking.  Virtually everyone can do it, almost anywhere.  You should have little difficulty elevating your heart rate into your training range on a sustained basis, and it does not put undue strain on any of your joints." 
-  Terry Grossman, M.D., Fantastic Voyage  

"If you want to know if your brain is flabby, feel your legs."  -  Bruce Barton   

"It’s all still there in heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure–they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days and years to come." 
-  Edward Abbey

"Every day, in the morning or evening, or both, take a walk in a safe and peaceful environment for less than an hour.  The can be a great fountain of youth.  Choose a place to walk that has no kind of disturbance.   Walking done in a work environment and when your mind is busy is different; it is not as nutritious as the walking you do for yourself in the morning or evening in a quiet, peaceful, and safe place."
-  Master Hua-Ching Ni, Entering the Tao, 1997, p. 135  

"When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the waterside.  But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a county turnpike toad.  I never saw daffodils so beautiful.  They grew about the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake."
-   Dorothy Wordsworth

Ways of Walking

Seeing, Looking, Watching

Head High and Energy Lifted

 What Does "Xu Ling Ding Jin" Mean?

"One of the most vexing phrases in this body of texts appears in Wang Zongyue's "The Taijiquan Treatise."  This is the phrase that I've translated "An intangible and lively energy lifts the crown of the head."  The actual phrase in Chinese is xu ling ding jing.  Xu means "empty," "void," "abstract," "shapeless," or "insubstantial."  Ling can mean "neck," "collar," "to lead," "to guide," or "to receive."  Ding here means "the crown of the head."  Jin is a word that should be familiar to most Taijiquan practitioners, meaning "energy" or "strength."  To translate this phrase literally in a way that makes sense is seemingly impossible. ...  To demonstrate the difficulties presented in translating the phrase, I've assembled for comparison a number of different renderings:

Yang Jwing-Ming translates xu ling ding jin as:
"An insubstantial energy leads the head upward."

T.T. Liang renders it:
"A light and nimble energy should be preserved on the top of the head."

Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo translates the phrase:
"Effortlessly the jin reaches the headtop."

Douglas Wile translates the phrase variously:
"The energy at the top of the head should be light and sensitive."
and
"Open the energy at the crown of the head."

Guttmann gives one rendering as,
"... the head is upheld with the intangible spirit."
Elsewhere, he gives it a fairly plausible if incomprehensible literal rendering as a noun phrase:
"Empty dexterity's top energy."

Huang Wen-Shan translates it as:
"The head-top should be emptied, alert, and straight."

Robert Smith's version has it:
"The spirit of vitality reaches to the top of the head."

Jou Tsung Hwa's rendering is similiar:
"The spirit, or shen, reaches the top of the head."

Finally, in one of the freer renderings I've seen, T. Y. Pang renders the phrase:
"The spine and the head are held straight by strength, which is guided by the mind."

As the reader can see, the range of nuance in these diverse translations of this one phrase is considerable.  Virtually all of the readings are interpretive; that is, the four-character phrase as it has been handed down will not yield a dependable reading based on the characters alone.  One can only conclude that this phrase is a remnant of an oral formula whose original structure eludes our knowledge.  Our understanding of it inevitably depends upon the context─ the following phrase about sinking the qi to the dantian─ and upon commentaries of former masters, including Yang Chengfu's elaboration in the first of his "Ten Essentials."  The concept is also linked to differently worded but related phrases appearing in other classics, for example, "the spirit (shen) threads to the crown of the head" (shen guan ding) in the "Song of the Thirteen Postures," and the phrase about "suspending the crown of the head" (ding tou xuan) appearing in both "The Mental Elucidation of the Thirteen Postures" and the "Song of the Thirteen Postures." "

Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan  By Fu Zhongwen, pp. 182-183. 

Mastering Yang Style Taijiquan  By Fu Zhongwen.  Translated by Louis Swaim.  Berkeley, California, Blue Snake Books, c 1999, 2006.  Bibliography, glossary, 226 pages.  ISBN: 9781583941522.  VSCL.  Fu Zongwen (1919-1994) was a student of Yang Cheng Fu.  Translations of many Tai Chi classics are included.  A list of 85 movements are provided.  251 movement analysis illustrations.  Over 76 of the illustrations are traced and drawn from photographs of Yang Chengfu.  Detailed descriptions of the long form, pp. 26-162.  Push hands information.  Yang Tai Chi essentials.


Cloud Hands Taijiquan

Valley Spirit Qigong

Somatic Practices for Health, Well-Being and Mindfulness

Tao Te Ching Translations



  

Tucking the Tailbone

The Myth of Tucking the Tailbone from Chi Arts

I could quote from many qigong and taijiquan books about this topic. 

Read the above article for a very interesting discussion of this topic.

What do you think about the topic?