TheHotYogaDoctor

In Pranayama, is it okay for your wrists to curve up around your jaw?

Thanks
Susan

Hello Susan

I understand that you are a Bikram yoga teacher asking for some further tips for your classes. Thank you for asking.

When you are moving your arms in Pranayama I don’t think there is much room for thinking what should be moving in what way. We each have our own degrees of flexibility and movement in the myriad of joints from the shoulders down to the fingertips. So, we really do what we can. Someone with inflexible fingers will have an entirely different envelope of movement to someone with inflexible wrists.

Work the arms up. And rather than worry about curving wrists I would be paying more attention to how the elbows can move up at the same time as relaxing the shoulders down and back. This is far more impactful on the pose and the benefits that can be gained.

Namaste
Gabrielle

Hi Gabrielle,
As always, thanks for your insight and your responses. I do realize some of my questions are about very knit-picky details, but they are just some of the wonderments I have had from time to time throughout my own practice. In this pose for example, I noticed than my wrists tend to curve up a lot around my chin. I then wondered if maybe my hands/fingers had anything to do with my shoulders and whether or not I was carrying tension there or maybe hunching them up during the breathing exercise. what i have come to understand, through your response to my quesiton and by paying close attention to my body during this exercise, is that i have very stiff and inflexible fingers, and that seems to be the main cause of my wrists curing around.

anyway, thank you again.

susan

Woo hoo!

What a great observation!

You are sooo right. If you try to push to a point without respecting the body’s current limitations (at that moment) then you can find yourself creating problems rather than resolving them. So yes, if you were not to listen to your body about your inflexible fingers then chances are that your shoulders would rise up and cause head, neck and shoulder strain, in your efforts to get your elbows up. Your body is the way it is!

Thanks for letting me know

Namaste
Gabrielle