YOGAYANTRA. Urdhva mukha svanasana & dhanurasana, May 2018 URDHVA MUKHA SVANASANA & URDHVA MUKHA DHANURASANA Question: Was wondering if you have any more input about what the position of the head in Urdhva Mukha svanasana, regarding the Hyoid Bone. I have this infography but cannot get it totally with it. My Answer: For the neck —as well as for the lower back, you have the front and you have the back. Take the neck: most people, when they look up ! they lengthen the throat and shorten the nape of the neck. This is wrong, we must (1) lengthen the whole neck, (2) then if thoracic flexibility allows and once in the position (urdhva mukha svanasana or bhujangasana and the other 2 prone backbends) see if we can look up (i.e. lengthen the throat) without shortening the nape of the neck. INCORRECT (though from a famous book of yoga anatomy) CORRECT, I am opening my chest, drawing the shoulders backward, and (doing my best to) opening my thoracic spine Most students, as well as yoga teachers(!) jam their chest, their shoulders and their neck in this position, because they want to look up. To look up you need a very flexible thoracic spine and long pectoralis muscles. It will be the same for the waist. In urdhva mukha dhanurasana, we must keep the waist long. Here, with a chair, I push from the chair to the head in order to ‘flatten’, to shorten, the lower back, and I use my abs in order to ‘shorten’ the belly, so that ideally, both remain equal. This left pic (found on google) has a tight thoracic spine: look, it’s a straight line from the T12 to T1—therefore she does her urdhva mukha dhanurasana from the waist exclusively. When you do urdhva mukha dhanurasana from the waist exclusively, you shorten the lower back and you overly lengthen the ‘belly’. The two should be equal.