Yoga
Floating Trikonasana: aka Floating Triangle Posture
Trikonasana… where to start!?! Hands down, I find Trikonasana to be one of the most difficult postures in yoga for me. Other postures, perhaps considered more ‘traditionally challenging’, I find I can enjoy a lot more. This is because yeah their hard, but once I’m in them I can really feel the benefit and release. But to this day when I practice Trikonasana, I can feel my body asking, ‘whhhyyyy??’ in a very whiny voice. I continue to include it in my personal practice because I know it is a fantastic all over body strengthener. Combining what is essentially an open twist of the torso with a powerful standing posture.
I’m afraid that, too often when I teach, I see my students approach Trikonasana all wrong. And I really feel for them, because when I started out in my yoga journey I too got it so soooo wrong! Like always, we are guilty of searching for the perfect photo finish in a posture. We want our fingertips to touch the floor, and when we get them there, we want to fist pump with joy and cry ‘full yogi level reached!’ However, just because your fingers can touch the floor doesn’t mean that you are actually in the full and correctly aligned Trikonasana posture. If anything, you are most likely endangering your lower back and encouraging muscle imbalances in your pelvis and torso. It was only as I undertook my teacher training back in 2011 that I realised the error of my ways (and therefore how much harder the posture is – and I already thought it was pretty hard in the first place!) and learnt slowly how to correct them.
Enter: The Floating Trikonasana
**Hushed awe descends**
STEP 1: START WITH A SOLID BASE
Start with your legs in similar stance to how you would begin Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana II), with the feet perhaps slightly closer together. If you drew a line backwards from your front heel it should intersect with the arch of your back foot. Spread your toes wide and feel the weight spread evenly through your feet. Activate and engage through your legs, your kneecaps should be drawing up towards you hips and you should feel like you are sucking up the Earth’s energy straight through the soles of your feet up to your hips.
STEP 2: TORSO AND ARMS ENGAGE!
Next switch on those abdominal muscles! Feel your navel draw into towards the back of your spine as you engage your core. Feel the sides of your torso lengthening as you straighten your spine as much as possible, crown of your head floating a millimetre closer to the sky.
Now this is where things get a little different… Instead of extending your arms out from your shoulders in a straight line, take your hands behind your head, with your elbows pointing out in opposite directions. POWER POSTURE! This will help to further engage the muscles in your upper torso (particularly your Lats – or Latissimus Dorsi for those in the know). By now you should be looking like an absolute Greek God!
STEP 3: EXTEND THOSE ANGLES
Here we approach getting the posture much in the same way as we would traditionally. Let’s say we are standing with our Right leg forward and Left leg behind. Send your right elbow forwards allowing you to learn your torso further to the side, over your front leg. Meanwhile send your left hip backwards, towards the wall behind you. Note you should be moving completing in one (lateral) plane right now. So no sticking that butt or chest out. I like to tell my students to imagine that they are inserting themselves into a giant human sized toaster. We are aiming for a nice even golden brown level of toastiness here, no burnt bottoms or heads.
Now tilt your torso over your front leg, keeping your chest open towards the left side of the room, work your elbow closer towards the earth and stop when you can no further. Now you should be really feeling that strain through your abdominals and torso, as you work towards not collapsing into a heap on the ground. Don’t let those legs get slack and sloppy and endeavour to keep both sides of your torso as straight as possible. And then hold, you are now in Floating Trikonasana! Oooh I know it’s not easy….
STEP 4: EXTEND THOSE ARMS AND PREPARE FOR THE EGO CHECK
Now staying exactly where you are, moving neither torso or hips, release your arms into the more traditional Trikonasana posture. Left arm reaching up to the sky, Right hand reaching towards the Earth, and just ever so gently resting on the inside of your leg. Your leg should not be a shelf upon which all your weight is resting. Where is that right hand actually resting?? I bet you it’s somewhere by your thigh, knee or if you are already a hardworker in your Trikonasa perhaps your calf or ankle. Are your fingers touching your yoga mat? Hell no!! So why on earth should they be when your normally move into your traditional Trikonasana? It’s because you wanted a photo finish and you cheated, by either moving your hips out of alignment or allowing the right side of your torso to bend of curve excessively. Don’t feel bad, we all have a tendency to want to cheat a bit in yoga, but let Floating Trikonasa be your ego check next time you practice yoga. Trust me, not only will your body get way more benefit out of the posture but you feel better also for having practiced with a bit more honesty and self-truth. After all, that is what yoga is at its core, a journey inwards to learn more about the honest and real you.
Mimi xx