ardha matseyandrasana | Home Yoga Practice

After work I had a bit of time for practice this afternoon. I have been subbing heavily and taught eight classes this past week! Needless to say my personal practice has been neglected. Partly because of lack of time and partly because of sheer exhaustion. I absolutely love teaching, but it takes a lot of energy to do that many classes coupled with a full time job and family duties.

As I approached my mat, I wanted to work steadily and not strenuously. After supta padangusthasana, I was inspired to do twists. I started light, with Bharadvajasana I which is a simple upper back twist. I then remembered one of Laurie Blakeney’s classes where she spent 45 minutes on Jatara Parivartinasana, and thought I would have a similar practice with one or two twisting poses.

I haven’t done much Bharavajasana II since my assessment and not sure why. I remember it was one of my most challenging poses as I could only grasp the foot on one side and not the other. After trying it I realized I cannot grasp either foot now. So I went back and forth between the two sides using a strap around the foot. While I was preparing for my assessment, I neglected to notice how nice Bharavajasana II is for the hips and lower back. Even though I ended never finding my foot, the going back and forth was a satisfying practice. Below is Faeq Biria’s flawless pose.

I then kneaded Ardha Matseyandrasana into the mix. That is another challenging twist for me. I aspire to have a pose like Birjoo Mehta as he has a similar build than me and can easily negotiate the pose with a few choice props.

I can’t even get my hand to the knee, so I use a strap around my front foot and hold that.

The nice part of ardha matseyandrasana is it gives a strong spine twist complete with “cracking.” It reportedly does wonders for the gastric region as well.

I found that the constant repetition for one hour in these two poses (sometimes one after another, and sometimes two times each) and losing track of how many I have done, I sensed that tato dvandvānabhighātaḥ state mentioned in the sutras where one is not concerned about the dualities. It didn’t matter if I caught my foot in either poses, just the practice was enough to reach the mental state.

It is interesting to note that Bharadvaja, of whom the asana is named, was one of the authors of the Rg Veda which is one of the world’s oldest texts (1700-1100 BC). He was considered a rishi who attained extraordinary scholarship and had a powerful meditative practice. Very fitting that studying and reaching a peaceful state can both be achieved in the pose dedicated to him.

“Twenty five percent of the bones in your body are in your feet,” Kofi Busia began as he started the class in Supta Padangusthasana (reclined big toe pose). In tonight’s class, no strange sequences, but just straight up classic yoga asanas in what appeared to be a forward bend sequence. Kofi talked at length about the relationship between the feet and the hips.

He talked about how arthritis in the hips is directly related to how you use your feet incorrectly while walking. “The difference between us and our simian friends are that our feet stay rigid when we lift them off the ground,whereas a primate’s feet go limp,” said Busia as he related that concept of how we stand straight in Tadasana by using this rigidity in our feet like we do when we anticipate stepping on the ground. He talked about how in walking and running, our nervous system anticipates the “heel strike” of hitting the floor repeatedly, and how the bones slot into each other to accommodate each step.

Kofi’s sequence was subtle in how it released the hips. We did standing poses Utthita Trikonasana, Utthita Parsvakonasana, Virabhadrasana II, Utkatasana, and Prasarita Padottanasana, the rest were seated forward bends and reclined “difficult poses” like Supta Virasana and Matsyasana. In tonight’s class, I chose to to Supta Virasana without props (he does not give instructions on how to do the poses). Soon afterwards, he had us in Matsyasana as seen below.

I love the internal process of these reclined Padmasana postures. You can literally feel every fiber of your groins release as the knees and the outer thigh get heavier on the ground. This can be painful at first, and all I could visualize were my thick thighs from years of competitive bicycle racing in my youth unwinding like a large dense python.

Kofi then did Salamba Sirsasana and Salamba Sarvangasana in succession. He held us in Halasana forever (see Poses You Dread). I went through the whole gamut of emotions in this pose. What every Kofi was saying just sounded like listening to an Encyclopaedia Brittanica CD about hip structures playing in the background. This Halasana was so internal that I experienced glimpses of Pratyahara.

He then had us do a drop back setu bandha which I felt was very liberating. He held us here forever too.

Then, out of left field, he has us do Ardha Matseyandrasana II. I was never able to do this pose well and tonight I got my hand to the thigh! This seemed to be the target asana and the prize he was preparing us for all class.

The twist was effective in releasing my tight back from the previous night’s class. I was able to ask him what the word he used last night for muscles. It was “mamsa” which is Sanskrit translated into flesh or meat and refers not just to the muscles, but to the ligaments and tendons. It is an aruyvedic term. Kofi appears to use many ayurvedic principles in his teaching.

There is always that sadness when class is over and another year will go by before I see Kofi again. The concepts I will take from this workshop will be that it is sometimes okay to do things in an unorthodox way when you know enough to keep yourself safe. I also have the confidence in “earning” an new posture in Ardha Matseyandrasana II.