Published November 15, 2026 04:12AM
InYoga Journal’s Archives series, we share a curated collection of articles originally published in past issues beginning in 1975. This article about Pasasanafirst appeared in theSeptember-October 2002issue ofYoga Journal. Find more of our Archiveshere.
Pasasana is the first pose in the Second Series of Ashtanga Yoga. To start this series, you need not only the physical ability to learn the poses but, more importantly, the correct attitude. If you take away anxiety about having to do challenging poses, take away “I-have-to-do-Second-Series” ambition, and release the fear of never achieving Pasasana, you create space for the willingness to persist, an attitude that helps you continue to try even in the face of difficulty.
It’s essential to recognize that the learning process is a process, a gradual evolution. Given that we live in an age of instant gratification, the idea of slowing down and relishing gradual progress can frighten our results-oriented minds. But the desire to be somewhere other than where we are only hinders progress toward the goals to which we aspire.
This interference of the ego is one of the ways in which perception becomes clouded. The clouding of our perception is known as avidya, or the lack of knowledge. Indian yoga teacher T. K.V. Desikachar describes the four “children” of avidya in his book Religiousness in Yoga (University Press of America, 1980). The first child, asmita (ego), always says “I know” or “I am right.” Raga (greed), the second child, wants everything immediately, whether or not the time is right. Under raga’s influence, if you want to move on to a difficult pose, you do, whether you are ready for it or not. The third child, dvesa (aversion), avoids or discards anything that seems difficult. The fourth child is abhinivesa (“clinging to life”). In our experience, this appears as fear not just of death but also of the death of a habit, a mind-set, a sense of achievement—of anything to which we’re attached. Fear has an infinite number of faces: fear of looking inadequate, fear of exploring the unknown, and fear of failing, to name only a few.
Avidya often rears up in the practice of yoga. All its forms feed our misinterpretation of reality, which is usually the source of our discomfort. The first step in finding release from avidya is recognizing the moments when we become entrapped in it. Then we build a sustaining, satisfying practice by learning to work through asmita, raga, dvesa, and abhinivesa. As we do this and begin to live in the truth, we become quiet inside. Like a child who knows they are loved, we walk through life with confidence.
The Willingness to Learn
For 99 percent of us, Pasasana is one of those poses best learned with the consistent hands-on help of a teacher and with the aid of props. It is not a pose that most of us will inhabit easily. Many students practice for years before they can do Pasasana with their heels on the floor and their wrists clasped. Because of the often slow progress and the help required in working on this pose, it provides an ideal landscape for avidya to take root and flourish. Suddenly we feel we are a less accomplished student because we need a prop or a hand to help us into the pose. For many students, the reaction to this feeling comes in the guise of avidya’s aforementioned children: stubborn insistence that we already know how to approach the pose; over-eagerness to leap blindly into an advanced expression of the pose that we’re not ready for; aversion to working with a prop, or deliberate resistance that maintains ignorance because we are scared to find out what we don’t know.
In my efforts to empower students, I give them all the tools I think are appropriate, including props. Props can be a crutch, but if they are used with intelligence, they can lessen the frustration in a pose, and this facilitates learning. To me, developing confidence in a pose through the use of a prop is learning. Sitting on a block while the body learns to open and strengthen is not a crime; dislocating a shoulder or tearing apart a knee is.
Pasasana is a perfect pose to illustrate the value of props. What is the point in trying to wrap the arms in Pasasana if your roots, your feet, are not planted firmly on the ground? Without a solid foundation, belief that you understand the pose is illusory, and your practice of Pasasana will feed into the cycle of avidya rather than serving as an opportunity for the experience of Truth.
A Step-By-Step Approach
For students beginning Pasasana, I often suggest a preparatory version in which we eliminate the wrap of the arms. We remove this difficult element of the pose in order to develop strength in the legs, challenge the Achilles tendon, and set the stage for proper twisting. To come into this Pasasana prep, stand at the front edge of your mat in Samastitihi (Equal Standing). Join the inner edges of your feet together. Spread the toes apart and feel the four corners of each foot making even contact with your mat. From the arches of your feet, lift through the core of the body. Gently draw the sides of the hips in toward the midline. This creates stability and steadiness.
Without a firm foundation, your poses can feed a cycle of ignorance, not an experience of truth.
Now begin to bend your knees. As you squat, keep both knees pointing straight ahead, and keep both the heels firmly rooting into the ground. Do not press the knees together, as this will cause the groins to tighten. With the groins soft, allow the inner thighs to descend toward the ground. Attempt to lower the thighs to a 90-degree angle. Breathe smoothly and evenly. Keeping your heels on the ground, take the left hand to the outside of the left thigh. Using the left hand as leverage, bend your right arm and bring your right elbow to the outside of your left leg. Pause for a moment and make sure that your breath has not become forceful. Stay calm on the inside; let go of struggling and forcing. To safeguard the knees and keep the hips properly level, do not let your elbow push the knees to the right. Also, keep the knees in line with each other: Do not let the right knee move in front of the left one. Use the left hand to help you move the right elbow more deeply down the leg, so that the right armpit and thigh come together like pieces of a puzzle.
To deepen the twist, move it into the upper back by leveraging the elbow and thigh against each other. Draw your right kidney area into your body and drop your shoulders way down away from your ears. Reach the top of the sternum away from your navel and spread across the collarbones. Again use the left hand to bring the right elbow farther down the leg. If the armpit and thigh make contact with each other, straighten your right arm and place the hand on the ground. (If not, continue to work with a bent arm, elbow at the side of the leg.) Line your fingertips up with your toes. Press down through whatever is on the floor. These are your roots. Begin with the feet: Press them deeply down, as though you could dig holes in the floor. Let the arches of your feet act as suction cups that draw energy up the legs. Move the shinbones in the direction of the calves and use the calves to deepen the rooting of the heels into the floor. This will stabilize the pose and help protect the knees.
Now press the palm of the right hand into the floor and drop both shoulders away from the ears. Reach your left arm high and straight up toward the ceiling. Spread tremendously through the arms.
As you work in the twist, begin low in the spine and continue into the upper back. Move the bottom tips of the shoulder blades deep into the body as the shoulders release down the back. As the shoulder blades draw in, resist the temptation to round and collapse the chest. Instead, let the action of the shoulder blades fuel the opening of the chest. The right arm and left leg act as leverage for the chest to make its ascent up out of the belly. From the twisting of the upper back, reach back with the left hand and attempt to clasp the right inner thigh. Do this by rotating the left shoulder back and moving the left elbow away from the body. Turn the head and gaze straight over the shoulder.
Breathe smoothly. Be mindful of the hips: Keep the side hips firm and do not let the left hip pop out to the side. The hips and knees should still be facing straight forward (Figure 1). After a few breaths, release and repeat the pose on the other side.
If it’s hard for you to sink to a right angle with the heels on the ground, your Achilles tendons will need to lengthen. I strongly discourage the use of a prop under the heels. In this case, a prop is a crutch, not a learning tool: It hinders the lengthening of the Achilles, which is an essential component of Pasasana.
Finding Support
Now let’s go to a wall to work with another preparation for Pasasana. The wall allows us to twist into the pose with the heels on the floor even if the Achilles tendons have not lengthened enough to permit a grounded balance in the middle of the room.
Stand sideways to the wall. Be sure the outside edge of the left foot and thigh are an inch or two away from it. Begin to squat, lowering your buttocks as close as possible to the floor. Again, keep the heels on the ground and the knees in line with each other. On an exhalation, hook the right elbow on the outside of the left thigh as far down the leg as possible. Place both hands on the wall for balance. Perhaps you can now lower the hips a little closer to the floor (knees in line, of course).
Using the hands on the wall, begin to twist from the lowest part of the spine. Press the hands into the wall and isometrically pretend to drag them down. This action will aid you in lengthening the spine, which is always the first rule of twisting. Work to bring the right side of your rib cage into the body and forward toward the wall. Let the spine move up toward the top of the head and create maximum extension from the navel to the sternum. Release the shoulders by letting the trapezius muscles cascade down the back. Slide the shoulder blades down and into the body. Move the top of the sternum farther up toward the ceiling (Figure 2). As you work to open the chest, use the grounding of the feet into the earth like a springboard. The energy of the feet, the lift of the arches, and the corresponding vitality in the legs give the pose a feeling of lightness. Hold the pose for a few breaths, then release and do the other side.
Use the grounding of the feet like a springboard: The corresponding lift of the arches and vitality in the legs will give the pose a feeling of lightness.
A third Pasasana variation teaches the wrap of the arm by using the aid of the wall for balance. For this variation, stand with the buttocks either against the wall or slightly away from the wall, and squat deeply. (Experiment to find exactly the right place for your feet.) As in the first preparation, begin by bringing the right elbow to the outside of the left leg. Move the elbow deeply down the leg to initiate this action from the back rather than just from the arm. Take the left hand behind you to the wall for balance. Use the left hand at the wall to move the left shoulder blade down the back. Drawing the left upper arm bone into its socket, move from the shoulder blade as you rotate the shoulder head straight back.
Now wrap the right arm way down and around the shinbones and rotate the palm open. Release the right shoulder down away from the ear, thus setting the right upper arm bone in its socket. Working once again from the shoulder blade, resist the right shoulder’s tendency to round forward by rotating it back against the left leg. You are attempting to climb the right hand past the top of the right thigh all the way up to the right side of the waist (Figure 3). To do this, the twist in the chest has to deepen. This is a critical part of the pose. If the hand does not reach far enough up the thigh, not only will the clasp be difficult but also the chest will round in order to compensate.
Achieving the wrap is by no means contingent upon having long limbs. For most of us, it is a result of the opening of the chest in the twist. Yes, if you have long arms the wrap is going to be much easier. But those of you in this category must make sure you are using your chest and not relying solely on your genetic good fortune.
After you’ve held this variation for a few breaths, release and repeat it on the other side.
Clasping Hands
In our next Pasasana preparation, we’ll concentrate on the clasping of the hands. To do this, get a block and move away from the wall. The block provides support similar to that of the wall, but now you have more room to work the wrap and clasp of Pasasana.
Sit on the block with your feet together and a few inches forward of the block. Root your sitting bones deep into the block and—of course—keep the knees in line with each other. Draw the right elbow down the left thigh, bringing the right armpit to the left leg. Work the twist, turning the right side of the back forward and around as though you are wringing out your torso like a wet towel. From the action of the right ribs into the body, begin to open the chest. Rotate the left shoulder back and down as you move the bottom tips of the shoulder blades deep into the body. Create the feeling of a backbend in the upper back.
Now slide the right arm far down around the shins and turn the palm open counterclockwise. Reach the hand as far around the leg as you can. As the chest opens and the shoulders move down the back, begin to reach for the clasp. Ideally, the right palm remains open and faces away from your body, and the left wrist falls into the right hand, securing the clasp. Once the clasp is in place, you have greater leverage to deepen the twist. (Those of you unable to clasp can use a towel between the hands or continue to work with the previous variation at the wall.) Keep turning the right side of the back toward the left thigh as though you could expose the entire front of your body to the left wall. Once again slide the shoulders down the back and then move the thoracic spine into the body.
Spin the wheel of your chest by rolling both shoulders back even farther (Figure 4). Breathe smoothly, which can be a challenge in a deep twist. As the breath steadies, so does the attention, and the mind quiets. When you feel calm on the inside, reconnect with the ground through your feet: Press them down firmly as you move your shinbones back and descend the weight of the calves into the heels. Attempt to lift your buttocks off the block. Do this gracefully. Discover the connection between the rooting of the feet and the energy that then ignites inside the body. This energy carries all the way up into the chest so that the body remains light and balanced over the feet. After a few breaths, repeat the pose on the other side.
When you can easily clasp the hands behind the back in the Pasasana preparation on the block, it is time to let go of all props and work in the center of the room. You may find that some of the variations were actually harder then [than] the final pose. In the variations, the work on each component part of the pose is very specific. As you isolate parts of the pose, you often find that you can actually work harder and more deeply, which provides a greater challenge and more learning.
As you isolate parts of the pose, you often find that you can actually work harder and more deeply, which provides a greater challenge and more learning.
To come into Pasasana, stand at the front edge of your mat and join together the inside edges of your feet. Move the sides of the hips toward the center of the body, letting the core of the body rise. Let the knees graze each other as you slowly bend them and track them directly in line with the second toes. Lower your buttocks as close to the heels as possible, keeping the heels on the ground and the shinbones moving back. Take the left hand to the side of the left thigh and work the right elbow down the leg. Keep the outer sides of the hips firm. Let the heels dig down through your mat. As you root the heels, lift the sternum up and away from the navel.
Now begin to wrap. In order to make the clasp, you may need to lift the buttocks up a little. Once you’ve made the clasp, work with the shins and calves to make the heels as heavy as possible. Again, you may need to lift the buttocks to achieve this. As the heels continue to press the floor, work to bring the buttocks down as far as possible (Figure 5). After five breaths, release the pose and repeat on the other side.
Embracing Your Shadow
Our yoga poses serve as metaphors—and mirrors—for our lives. The attitudes that hinder us when we approach difficult poses are probably the attitudes that hold us back elsewhere in life. When we encounter these negative attitudes, first we must recognize them as such and then we must look closely to learn how they arise from avidya. The more tools we have at our disposal to help us see clearly, the more quickly we can cut through the clouds. In fact, often it is the embrace and integration of our difficulties that deepen our connection to ourselves. A meeting with our own shadow, our own weakness or pride or fear, can be a painful encounter on our journey toward wholeness; yet these meetings teach us compassion, humility, and wisdom. When we reach a difficulty that we cannot surmount with our familiar habits, we are forced to let go of rigid beliefs that no longer serve us.
One place I often see this struggle is in students and teachers who, in the name of tradition, disregard ideas that come from a system other than their own. On the opposite side of the scale are practitioners who are disregarding tradition completely, showing no respect for any existing system. But aversion of either kind is simply a form of self-sabotage. Obviously, any practice that stems from a long lineage can be a fountain of knowledge. With all the information available to us, we must use our intelligence and intuition as we balance tradition and innovation. Can we allow ourselves to become free from what we think we know and discover what we do not know? If we take steps to free ourselves from avidya in all its forms, we can make choices progressively more grounded in health, well-being, and wisdom.
Can we become free of what we think we know and discover what we do not know?
