adho mukha svanasana, downward facing dog pose
Downward facing dog pose (adho mukha svanasana) is such a versatile pose. With very little instruction complete beginners can practice it regularly and gain many benefits from it.
Dog pose is a versatile teaching pose, too. There are tons of lessons that are easily learned in downward facing dog pose that can then be applied in more challenging postures.
But there's one tiny problem. Wrist pain.
Wrist pain aggravates so many people in both dog poses, downward facing and upward facing. If your wrists hurt in dog poses, I can almost guarantee they'll hurt in full arm balance (adho mukha vrksasana) and all of the other arm balances, too.
upward facing dog pose, urdhva mukha svanasana
You can't benefit from these poses if you can't practice them. So what should you do?
I'll give you a tip that takes a little getting accustomed to. But it activates the muscles on the under side of the forearm and wrists start to feel better almost immediately.
First, start by looking at your fingers (not your thumbs). Let's talk about the parts of your fingers so you can get the placement right.
Each finger has three bone segments. Between each segment is a joint.
There's a segment at the end of your finger, where your fingerprint would be taken. I'll call it the pad of your finger. There's a middle segment. And finally, there's the segment that's closest to your palm. This is the part of the finger on which people typically wear their wedding rings.
There are three joints, too. Between the pad of the finger and the middle segment is a joint I'll call the first joint. Between middle segment and it's neighbor is a joint I'll call the second joint. At the base of each finger is a big knuckle, the one some people like to crack loudly.
Here's the remedy to wrist pain in dog pose. Practice it first just by laying your hand on a table or on the floor. Instead of laying each of your fingers down flat on the floor, bend each second joint so it lifts up. Press down firmly with the pad of each finger and the knuckle at the root of each finger. That's it.
This is the finger position that relieves wrist pain in dog pose, and others, too.
You may need to reach across with one hand and arrange the fingers on the other hand in the beginning. But soon enough, you'll be able to do all of the poses in which you typically experience wrist pain with this finger position.
Your forearms will grow stronger and wrist pain will leave you. Then there will be nothing standing between you and your daily dog pose.
Don't just read about it. Get up. Experience it. Experience yoga!
Kevin Perry
http://www.experienceyoga.org/
p.s., Adho mukha svanasana. Adho mukha vrksasana. What's the difference? I'm sure there's an urdhva mukha svanasana. Is there an urdhva mukha vrksasana? Have fun playing with our virtual Sanskrit refrigerator magnet at http://www.experienceyoga.org/magnet/default.asp. Drag your mouse over any word root on the virtual magnet, like adho, and you'll see the pose names that contain that word root.
p.p.s., There are precise anatomical terms for each of those finger parts. Study this pic for the details.
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