Goddess Pose
Sanskrit: Utkata Konasana
Goddess Pose opens and stretches the hips, groin, shoulders, and chest. It strengthens the quadriceps, inner thigh muscles and core. It lengthens the spine, improves posture and creates an openness in the pelvis by lengthening and relaxing muscles.
Benefits:
Utkata Konasana (Goddess Pose) or Fierce Angle Pose is a standing pose for the hips and groin that comes with additional benefits which are listed and explained below:
- Opening and Stretching: The half squat pose Fierce Angle Pose or Goddess Pose opens and stretches the various muscles (quads, hamstrings, adductors, groin, and chest) while also stretching the hips, knees, ankles, and shoulders. It builds strength and stability within the lower body and a strong base for the hips and spine.
- Women and Reproductive Organs: Goddess Pose (Utkata Konasana) stimulates the pelvis, encouraging flow of prana for better functioning of the reproductive organs. Thus, this pose helps women in improving fertility and is also beneficial to those during childbirth.
- Arthritis and Sciatica: Yoga poses that stretch the adductors (inner thigh muscles) while in a balance encourages the opening of the hips and the knees. Repeated practice of Goddess Pose will help to keep arthritis in control while also stretching the sciatic nerve to keep sciatica away. The breathing process is essential to maintain balance and focus on alignment to gain this benefit.
- Stress and Confidence: It is said that most of the body’s stress gets accumulated at the hips, close to the psoas muscles. Hence, with the practice of Utkata Konasana (Goddess Pose), the opening of the glutes, flexing of the hips, and contraction of the psoas muscles will help to reduce stress. The longer one holds this pose the faster they de-stress, helping them gain confidence and focus.
- Posture and Shape: With the practice of Goddess Pose, using the upper body efficiently will help in the maximum use of the diaphragm muscles. Breathing is more pronounced with the shoulders and arms opened up. This builds stronger shoulders and chest, thus correcting bad postures like the hunchback or stooped posture. It shapes the upper and lower body, making sure one’s posture is improved.
- Yoga Sculpt: As a variation, this pose can be done as part of Yoga Sculpt to strengthen the calves, quads and hamstrings of the lower body while the triceps and biceps, shoulders and the chest of the upper body are also worked upon. It helps to tone the various muscles when done with weights. But gaining basic strength and flexibility of the feet and knees is also essential for the same.
- Chakra and Activation: The first three chakras are activated; The Muladhara (Root) Chakra, the Swadhisthana (Sacral) Chakra, and the Manipura (Solar Plexus) Chakra. The flow of prana thus improves clearing blockages as it moves from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. It helps to keep the body in balance while activating the chakras.
- Stability, Focus, Awareness, and Alignment: Students can learn to focus on the body and the breathing process, thus building awareness. With awareness, focus and stability is also improved, and for all these, the alignment of the body is essential to ensure the posture is safe and beneficial.
Caution
The practice of Utkata Konasana (Goddess Pose) requires the strength of the feet, knees, hips, and lower back, and to many students this practice may be a challenge. Yoga teachers should keep the precautions in mind while teaching this pose. These precautions are explained below:
- Students recovering from shoulders, rib cage, hips, pelvis, knees, ankles and toes injuries should avoid the practice of Goddess Pose. Injury related to the muscles like hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, gluteus, pelvic floor, biceps and triceps, chest, groin, etc., are contraindications, and this practice should be done either with care or completely avoided assessing the injury.
- As the name suggests the practice of this pose is fierce as it stimulates the chakras, building heat in the body. Hence practicing this for a longer duration should be done under the guidance of a yoga teacher, since too much heat will also cause an imbalance in the body.
- Since the practice of Goddess Pose (Utkata Konasana) builds heat in the body, students with the history of blood pressure should avoid this practice, or better yet hold it against the wall and for a short duration.
- Students having issues with the shoulders and hips, can practice the same with the support of the wall, or can choose to have a different hand position.
- While this pose is good for pregnant women, care should be taken during the practice to not over exert the pelvic area, especially during the last trimester.
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