Padmasana - Lotus pose

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

My observations:

Padmasana----When getting into the asana, you put your left foot on top of you right thigh and then put the right foot on top of your left thigh; but not the other way. What I mean is I have always observed "“LEFT LEG FIRST” and then the “RIGHT LEG”

Half Padmasana-----When getting into this, you put your left goot on top of you right thing; not the other way.

Did you happen to observe this as well? Is my observation just a co-incidence. I wonder why it is done this way and not the other way? Would it be wrong to put the right foot on left thight and then the left foot on right thight to get into this pose?

#2

That depends on the school of yoga that you are studying. Many feel it has to do with the direction that the energy path ways flow into the body. Some schools of yoga say to even everything out and go back and forth.

If you bought the Ashtanga stuff we talked about, you would put the right first always due to the Nadi’s.

#3

David Williams, the Ashtanga yogi ( Check out his website of him in his younger days ( he’s in his 50’s now ) told me over the phone once, when he was visiting from Hawaii and kind enough to personally answer my e-mail I sent to his website, that Pattabhi Jois didn’t like for him to do both sides; he said that crossing the left over the right ( as I remember ) hurt the liver. David Williams said that he didn’t agree and always did both sides equally. So this post isn’t promoting either way but just reporting an interesting aside. Until I understand the way it may hurt I’ll have to keep being symetrical. Namaste

#4

[QUOTE=TonyTamer;20675]David Williams, the Ashtanga yogi ( Check out his website of him in his younger days ( he’s in his 50’s now ) told me over the phone once, when he was visiting from Hawaii and kind enough to personally answer my e-mail I sent to his website, that Pattabhi Jois didn’t like for him to do both sides; he said that crossing the left over the right ( as I remember ) hurt the liver. David Williams said that he didn’t agree and always did both sides equally. So this post isn’t promoting either way but just reporting an interesting aside. Until I understand the way it may hurt I’ll have to keep being symetrical. Namaste[/QUOTE]

Thanks for replying this post. Would you mind to clarify what position hurts the liver as per Pattabhi Jois? I mean doing left first and then the right hurts the liver or doing right first and then the left hurts the liver?

#5

I was thinking about that this morning and wanted to at least clarify the actual left vs. right. According to what I understood from David Williams , along time friend and student of Pattabhi Jois, the right leg initiates the movement going over the left and then the left leg goes on top of the right. He said, and didn’t or couldn’t adequately explain ( and I didn’t ask for further explanation-it was a long distance call from a notable yogi who was kind enough to let me talk to him-though he didn’t know me so I basically listened more than anything else ) that it was some Ayurveda belief that his master held and he basically disregarded it himself and did both ways. That was the extent of our discussion of the lotus position. We were talking more about Mula Bandha. That was some time ago and I hope I have acurately reported it. Namaste