Learn how to practice and teach Extended Hand to Big Toe Pose (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana I) with detailed anatomy and informed verbal cues to help you and your students enter and exit with safe alignment.
Sanskrit name: Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana I (leg to the side)
English translation: Extended Hand to Big Toe Pose
ABOUT THE POSE
- Asymmetrical standing balancing pose
- Stretches the hamstrings and strengthens the buttocks, abdomen, and back
Practice and Teach Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana I
Instructions from Tadasana
- Bend your right knee and catch your right big toe.
- Distribute your weight evenly across the ball of your standing foot and heel. Straighten your standing leg and firm your outer hip.
- Once stability is established here, straighten your lifted leg. Press out through your lifted heel.
- Open your lifted leg to the side. Lengthen your inner thigh and engage your outer buttock. Press the top of your standing thigh back.
- Roll both shoulders back and lift your chest. Equalize both sides of your waist.
- To exit the pose: Bring your lifted leg forward and release it to Tadasana.
- Repeat on the second side.
WATCH FOR
- Tightness in the hamstrings. Modification: Use a strap around the lifted foot.
- Shortened waist on the lifted-leg side
- Uneven weight distribution on the standing foot
- Collapsed chest
INTERESTED IN ADVANCED STUDY, OR BECOMING A YOGA TEACHER?
