YOGA: Bandhas, an introduction to Yoga Locks by Shane Knox

Transcript

Hi, I'm Shane Knox with Sage Studio. I wanted to take just a second to cover the bundas, the locks that we use in our yoga practice. There are three locks that we use. And the purpose of the locks or bundas is to move the energy up from the root chakra, channeling it up along the shushna, that inner channel, rising it up into the higher chakras so that we're feeding our centers of compassion expression intuition connection to the divine, taking it from base survival and moving that energy up. On a purely physical level, the bondas really help us to elongate the spine. They make our poses stronger. They allow us to be more upright and to create space for the breath. So in each of the bondas, there are three of them. The first one is mula which is at the root chakra. This is at the space at the base of the spine in the center between the legs. For females, it would be the posterior side of the cervix. For men, it would be the perennium. And it's like a keal exercise. So when we engage mulab, we're lifting the pelvic floor, squeezing it upwards strongly. The easiest way to associate the feeling is if you're trying to stop the flow of urine. So if you think about on an exhale, you're lifting the pelvic floor, engaging it strongly, moving that energy upward. Then the second bond is urana bond or the belly lock. That one we want to pull the stomach strongly back to the spine. We're pulling the energy back and up as though we're trying to pull all of the organs of the belly up into the rib cage. Ideally, those two locks will work together so that on an exhale, we're lifting the pelvic floor, squeezing the stomach back strongly, moving the energy up to these higher chakra points. The third of the bondas, the locks, is called jalandara bond. It's probably the least understood of all of them. It's called the chin lock. And a lot of times you'll see people just dropping the chin straight down and trying to dig it into the chest. This isn't actually what we're going for here. We want a long spine and if we move the skull slightly back so that the vertebrae of the neck are in line with the entire spinal cord then slightly tucking the chin we've successfully created jalandarab. So moving the energy up here and sealing it here seals that energy into the canister of the torso so that when we're done with our yoga practice, we actually feel more energetic than any other type of exercise. Like if we went to the gym, you might be tired after that. With the locks and the energetic movement, it allows you to have increased energy after your practice. So all three locks together are called mahabanda, the great lock. And with that, we would have the arms extended. We're sitting either in padmasana lotus pose or a simple easy pose sucasana cross leg. And we want to inhale deeply. And as we exhale, we're engaging the pelvic floor, pulling it upward, squeezing the belly back. The skull moves back and the chin drops slightly, holding the breath out. And then we breathe in when we need to. One more time. lifting, pulling back and up. The skull is pulling back. Shoulders are back and down. And we're holding the breath out. Root lock, mahabha, belly lock, uranab. The neck lock is jalandara. And all three of them together is called mahabh. These are the locks. I'm Shane Knox. The same studio.