Hanumanasana
Hanumanasanasana is a full front split, which represents the pose Hanuman made to cover the shore to shore distance, from India to Lanka, to rescue Sita, Ram’s wife, who had been kidnapped by the demon Ravana.
The story tells, that Hanuman was a vanara (monkey) superhero, half God half human, whose father was Vayu and mother a mortal vanara woman, Anjana.
He was strong, brave, fast but unable to fully remember his own divinity. As a child, he was naughty like a monkey, full of energy and determined to find answers about himself. When he met Rama he recognized his divinity from the first glance, all his questions disappeared and he became spiritually devoted to Rama.
So when the time came, and his friend Rama was in need Hanuman helped him to rescue his beloved Sita. Ramayana describes what Hanuman did for Rama was literally a leap of faith.
With a force that made the sand fly and the waves run backward, he stretched his mighty legs. The power of his back leg propelled him skyward, while his front leg re-e-e-ached to touch Lanka's shore. As Hanuman wasn’t aware what he was truly capable of, he was unsure how that journey would end up, but his faith kept him going. He was spurred on by love and devotion to Rama.
“Many of us shrink before impossible tasks or even tasks that are just a bit hard, because we are just like Hanuman. We easily forget that there is a part of us that is also divine and can accomplish the impossible,” says Alanna Kaivalya, author of Myths of the Asanas.
It’s not an easy pose for me, and I have to distract my mind to keep it for a while.
So, while practicing, I like to think about qualities of the posture that we may embody in our practice.
Here are mines:
• finding my own reason for practice, smth more than just a flexibility
• knowing my own boundaries, knowing what I can do and accepting what I can’t
• establishing a solid base from which to rise, engaging legs and bringing hips in a square
Next time working upon your Hanumanasana consider, may be you can imagine a tail extending from the base of your spine. Lengthen your "tail," from the coccyx to the tip, as if it were streaming out behind you from the force of your leap. Lift up through the crown of your head. Create maximum length in your spine.
Continue lifting it up through your rib cage as you bring your arms overhead. Broaden your upper shoulder blades. Stretch your outer collarbones toward your inner arms, and lift your sternum. Keep extending up through your arms as you join your hands overhead.