What are Bandhas?! Mulabandha and Uddiyanabandha Explained in Detail!

Transcript

[Music] welcome back friends so there's another piece of fundamentals that i'd like to share with you called bandas i talked about it in our very first video when we talked about hand activation that we have these energetic locks in the body that help move that help trap energy and move it upwards rather than letting all the energy move out we're taking energy and we're lifting it up the theory being that the ascension of energy up through the crown of the head is what's going to lead to enlightenment and the liberation of your soul and also to the cleansing of your body and your organs if we go back to like the origins of yoga philosophy but in the physical practice of arm balancing bondas energetic locks are what create lightness in the body it's what creates this feeling of being able to fly rather than being like heavy so the two major uh bandas think of it as as existing at the base of your spine now imagine this is your pelvic floor your pelvic floor is a collection of muscles right at the base of your pelvis they go from forward to back from side to side and they create a basket that hold your sex organs in and that hold all of your other organs in from just falling out falling out your butt okay sorry i told you i was inappropriate most of the time but i like me that way interlace your so interlace your fingers and just like create this visual of this basket at the base of your spine and finding mulabanda is very specific and a little bit weird so just bear with me right close your eyes you can release your hand basket and just bring your hands to your uh to your thighs now moulabanda really is is this sensation of an upward lift from your pelvic floor and engaging all of the pelvic floor muscles can be a little tricky and they're very much tied to the muscles of excretion okay so for a moment imagine you have to go pee but there's no bathroom uh oh so squeeze your p muscles yeah so really just the front and then release and then again don't go pee squeeze your p muscles and then release great so that was the front of your pelvic floor now let's think about the back of the pelvic floor so it's going to be your anus and your sphincter muscles so imagine you've got to go number two you just had like a big cup of coffee except you're stuck in traffic and there's no bathroom oh oh squeeze your number two muscles but try not to squeeze your p muscles at the same time just the back and then release good times you guys this is what we're doing in class today squeezing your butt muscles one more time squeeze your sphincter and feel that lifting in and up and then release good now think about squeezing your p muscles and your poo muscles at the same time front and back go and release one more time squeeze and release good if your eyes were closed open your eyes excellent so we got the front we got the back none of those are mulabanda but it's close so imagine this is your p hole this is your pooh i love this stuff imagine mulabanda is in between so men you've got the perineum which is in between the two women i guess we have it too but it's like less a part of our conscious anatomy so imagine lifting the perineum in and up it's not so much a squeeze it's an upward lift i like to close my eyes because it helps with visualizing so imagine someone reached from the inside down hooked their finger around the perineum and pulled up yeah close your eyes locate your p muscles locate your poo muscles and then think about the center in between those two and see if you can lift in and up it might even cause your navel your belly button to kind of draw back and then release it's a very subtle practice almost like kegels lay these but not quite kegels are squeezing in this is lifting up try again in between the front and the back see if you can pull in and up and release one more time pull in and up and release ain't that good times okay so now we've got a little bit of awareness in the pelvic floor let's see how this applies grab some blocks if you don't have blocks grab some books some uh just gonna say vhs tapes but we don't have those anymore everybody has books so grab a stack of books or two yoga blocks okay come to a cross-legged seat and bring your blocks next to your uh next to your body you're gonna place your hands down and then don't do anything like ignore everything we just did with mulabanda and just push down into your hand see if you can lift your butt off the floor and then lower yourself down good again take a breath in as you breathe out push into your hands lift your butt off the floor good and then lower yourself down this time we're gonna add mulabanda we're gonna add the upward lift of the space between your front and back excretion muscles okay take a breath in as you breathe out push down lift up and then squeeze and lift from the inside notice how much higher your hips got notice how much lighter your pelvis feels and then lower it down oh isn't that interesting let's do it again take an inhale exhale push down into your hands lift your butt up pull it up i literally gained two inches of extra height how many inches do you gain centimeters good and then lower it one last time take a breath in exhale push down lift up moulabanda lift it all up take a breath and then release good work if that was a lot on your wrists roll them out so i hope you were able to feel how when you engage mulabanda your pelvis lifts up more this is going to be super relevant in a lot of our arm balances and when we talk about floating forward and back on the map okay urianabanda urianabanda is a different beast woody anabanda is right here at the solar plexus and instead of talking about the pelvic floor lifting up and down it's talking about the diaphragm and the diaphragm and the pelvic floor work together right they expand and they contract to create this cavity of air and support for your organs inside the body i'm having fun with my pelvic floor and my diaphragm hands so i'm gonna get half naked here so i apologize but i want you to see so urinabanda is a little tricky to find it is all about lifting the diaphragm up and creating suction remember how we talked about suction in the hands here we created some suction in the pelvic floor you're gonna create suction in your diaphragm okay and we're getting real specific with it right now because i want you to understand how it works but when you actually do it in an arm balance it's not this obvious but you're going to be thinking about the actions thereof okay so for urianabanda i'm going to come on to a diagonal so you can see my belly urinabanda is applied on an exhale it's done either standing in a squat or kneeling like this you can't do it standing up you've got to be sort of hunched over to create as much space in your rib cage as possible okay so it's going to be difficult i can't literally can't talk and do at the same time because it needs to be with no breath um so i'll show it and then i'll explain what i'm doing okay so i'm gonna take a big inhale i'm gonna exhale all the air out pay attention to my belly [Applause] okay so what i did is i took a deep breath in i exhaled all of the breath out with no breath i took my diaphragm and pulled it in and up it's as if you want to take a pretend breath but you're actually not letting any air in you're doing the action of taking a breath you might feel it at the back of your throat you might feel like this discomfort um it is it can be a little alarming so if you have anxiety or um any kind of like yeah any kind of anxiety disorder just be gentle with this it can bring up a lot of feelings because there is no air um so you exhale all the breath out you pull your diaphragm in and up hold it and to release you take an inhale and it allows everything to come back okay so let's do it a couple times together come to a crouch or to a squat hands on your thighs take a deep breath in exhale all of your air out hold the breath out with no breath pull the diaphragm in and up so you create this vacuum seal it pushes your organs out of the way and it creates this upward lift of the diaphragm so feel free to try that as many times as you want if you don't get it and it's not working in your body um totally cool totally normal it's a little bit esoteric and it takes a minute to get used to it so if you're stuck on udianabanda come into the facebook group tell us your troubles and i will do my best to help you troubleshoot it and we're also going to talk about this when we do our live workshops so be sure to tune in or watch the replays if you can't be there live but the idea being that when you are floating to the front and top of your mat when you're entering into an arm balance that's going to require a little bit more lightness really push the breath out pull up through urinabanda and notice how much lighter you get same thing with mulabanda right if your butt and your hips are feeling heavy especially women one thing i hear a lot from my students is i feel bottom heavy i feel my hips are pulling me down engage mulabanda engage the pelvic floor find that lift from in between the front and the back muscles yeah and all of these are tools to help you get lighter okay welcome to bondos and i'll see you later