GREAT HERO POSE 3 (aka WARRIOR POSE 3) (vīrabhadrāsana 3)
vīra = a brave or eminent person, hero, chief
bhadra = blessed, auspicious, fortunate, prosperous, happy; good, gracious, friendly, kind; excellent, fair, beautiful, lovely, pleasant, dear; skillful in; great
Vīrabhadrāsana is popularly known as the Warrior Pose, though it doesn’t seem to me that the character of Vīrabhadra is either a warrior or great hero. There are several different versions of his story. They usually involve the deity Śiva, his spouse Satī (virtuous, faithful), and Satī’s father Daksha (able, intelligent), a son of Brahma and one of the fathers of the human race.
As characters, Daksha and Śiva are at opposite ends of a very broad cultural spectrum. The former is a member of the elite Vedic establishment, while the latter is a rebellious counter-culture type, once known as a hippie, with the difference being this particular hippie is in charge of the Universe. Predictably Daksha and Śiva don’t get along, and in the various stories about them, one always seems to be offending the other. So it happens that Daksha organizes a great sacrifice and invites all the sages and gods except one–can you guess who? Śiva couldn’t care less, but Satī, whose name means faithful, feels insulted that her husband was left out and crashes the sacrifice to give her father several pieces of her mind. Daksha though has his own ax to grind about his reprobate son-in-law and publically humiliates his daughter. Satī decides to teach him a lesson he’ll never forget, and jumps into the sacrificial fire where she’s immediately burnt to a crisp. So there.
Now Śiva, who loves his wife dearly, goes berserk, and boiling over with anger and craving revenge creates the monster Vīrabhadra, intending to sic him on Daksha and his sacrifice. Vīrabhadra is pictured in various ways, some fairly tame, others over-the-top extreme. In a latter description, he’s given a thousand heads and eyes, is armed to the teeth, smeared with ashes, and burns like the hellish fire that devours the universe at the end of its cycle. In the course of disrupting the sacrifice, he pulls out the Sun god’s teeth, cuts off the Fire god’s hands and tongue, crushes the Moon god with one of his toes, chases off the king of the eagles, and for the crowning blow, so to speak, he separates Daksha’s head from his body.
After all this there’s often a relatively happy ending. Satī is reborn as Parvati and is re-united with her husband. Daksha is revived though his head is nowhere to be found, so it’s replaced by that of the first living creature that wanders by, which turns out to be a goat. Well, I did say “relatively happy.”
PRACTICE
1. Vīrabhadrasana 3 is by custom entered into beginning with Vīrabhadrasana 1. In this practice though, we’ll start with a simple lunge. Bring your right foot forward, fix the knee over the heel, press your hands on the floor on either side of the foot, stretch back from your tail bone (coccyx) along the back of the left leg through the heel, and rest your torso on the right thigh. As you reach back through the left heel, think of lifting oppositely through the top sternum (manubrium).
2. Bring your hands to your right knee, right hand on the outer knee, left hand on the inner, and squeeze. While doing so, twist your torso a bit to the right, and lay as much as you can the mid-line of the torso down on the mid-line of the thigh. This should help bring the right foot directly under the pelvis in the pose. This means if you could see yourself in the pose head on, the standing foot is below the mid-pelvis (perineum), not below its hip. The standing leg then should be slightly angled relative to the floor, not perpendicular. Then with an inhale, stretch your arms forward, parallel to the floor. You can either keep the arms shoulder width apart, or press the palms firmly together.
3. Now comes the key adjustment for the pose. Look down to see where your torso is relative to the floor. Shift slightly forward onto the right foot, but don’t disturb the torso, keep it fixed in place where it is. Inhale, and again, without moving the torso forward, push back on the head of the right thigh bone (femur), and lift the strong left leg parallel to the floor as you straighten the right knee. Put another way, the torso ideally shouldn’t move forward as you lift into the pose, the thigh bone should move back, “locking” the head of the bone in its socket.
4. You can look at the floor or forward as you prefer. Make sure your pelvis is more or less parallel to the floor, the raised leg hip tends to tilt higher that the standing leg hip. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute. Then with an exhale, slowly bend the right knee and lightly lower the left foot to the floor, back to the lunge. Reverse the legs and repeat on the left side for the same length of time.
PREPARATORY EXERCISE
Vīrabhadrasana 3 is without doubt one of the more challenging of the standing poses. As I noted in (3) above, the key to its success is the “locking” of the femur head in its socket. To learn to do this try the following:
1. Stand with your feet slightly apart and parallel to each other. Inhale, lift the top sternum, then exhale into standing forward bend (uttanasana). Bend your knees slightly and cross your forearms behind your thighs and hold the elbows. Resist the crossed forearms into the thighs, and against that resistance, push back on the very top thighs. Be sure you’re NOT simply pushing back on the knees. Repeat several times until you’re confident you can re-create the movement without using the forearms. If you have the right idea, when you push back on the thighs, you’ll feel a spontaneous lengthening of the lower belly away from the pelvis.
2. Then touch your hands to the floor (or a block support if you can’t easily reach the floor). Bend your right knee slightly and step your left foot back a foot or so. Very slowly against the now imagined resistance, inhale and push back on the top thigh to straighten the knee. As you do this, lift the left leg parallel to the floor. Hold briefly, then exhale, bend your right knee and slowly lower the tips of the left toes to the floor.
3. As soon as the toe tips touch, immediately inhale and straighten the knee against resistance and lift the left leg again. Repeat several times, then switch legs and repeat for the same number of times. Remember it’s important here to learn to push back on the topmost thigh, NOT the knee. Once you feel comfortable with this exercise, apply it to the main pose.
FOR BEGINNERS
It just might be, despite your best efforts, that you’re not quite ready to complete the full pose. Here are two simple variations that will approximate the pose and give you a feel for what it’s like.
WITH A CHAIR
1. Position the chair in front of you, its back side turned toward you. Ideally, the chair needs to slide on the floor, so place it off your sticky mat. I even like to place a folded blanket under the chair’s four feet to help with the sliding.
2. Starting again in lunge, first squeeze the knee and turn the torso. Then reach out and either hold the top edge of the chair back, or press the outer wrists on the top edge of the back, palms facing. Repeat the instructions for the full pose, except of course, as you straighten the front knee and lock the femur head in place, push the chair away from you and lenghten the arms fully. You can stay a fairly long time if using a chair support, one to two minutes. When you have your balance, you might try releasing some or all of your contact with the chair back. To come out, either lengthen back to lunge or stand the left foot on the floor beside the right.
WITH A WALL.
1. Press and spread your hands on a wall about hip height. Be sure the hands are equally distant from the floor. If your shoulders are tighter, you can turn your hands outward slightly. In any case, press the bases of the index fingers firmly into the wall. Step back to a right angle, arms and torso parallel to the floor, legs perpendicular. Be sure not to sag into the space between the shoulder blades (scapulas). Resist the undersides of the arms away from the floor.
2. Slide your right foot to the left so the inner feet touch. This should position your right foot under the center of the pelvis. Inhale and raise the left leg parallel to the floor, pelvis remaind parallel. Press back through your raised heel, and at the same time press your hands into the wall. Imagine there’s a string attached between the left heel and the right femur head. As you reach strongly through the heel, imagine it’s tugging on the femur head, drawing it deeper into the socket.
3. Hold for a minute or so, lower the left foot to the floor, back under its hip. Then slide your left foot to the right and repeat on the second side for the same length of time.