How to Achieve the Perfect Staff Pose
Dandasana or Staff Pose is a foundational seated pose that provides the structural basis for all seated poses.
Benefits
- Strengthens the back muscles
- Stretches the shoulders and chest Improves posture
The Pose
- Sit on the floor with your legs together and extended in front of your torso
- If you are uncomfortable or leaning backwards, sit on a bolster or block to lift the pelvis
- Option to sit against the wall for this pose
- Careful not to put your lower back against the wall
- Put a rolled up towel between the wall and lower back
- Sit towards the front of the sitting bones, and adjust the pubis and tail bone equidistant from the floor
- Without hardening the belly, firm the thighs, press them down against the floor (or your support), rotate them slightly toward each other, and draw the inner groins toward the sacrum
- Flex your ankles, pressing out through your heels
- To lengthen your front torso perpendicular to the floor, think of energy streaming upward from the pubis to the sternum, then down the back from the shoulders to the tail bone
- Then imagine the tail lengthening into the floor
- Beginner variation: To enable a better stretch in the groin and thighs, lay one to three 10-pound sandbags across the tops of your thighs at the hip crease to help ground your thighs.
Breaths: Hold for 3 to 5 breaths
Avoid
- Any wrist or lower back injury