Understanding Chair Posture

7/10/2016

Buddha Bose, Chair, 1938

Gouri Shankar Mukerji, Chair, 1963

Chair Posture, also called Awkward Posture or Utkatasana, is a fundamental position for the body. It is safe for beginners and challenging for experienced yogis. It has been misunderstood in the past several years, turning into a sort of squatting backbend that avoids many important elements of the position.

THE SPINE
The spine in chair pose should be straight and as upright as possible. To the left you will see pictures of 3 yogis in this tradition: Buddha Bose (top left) in 1939, Gouri Shankar Mukerji (middle left) in 1963, Bikram Choudhury (below) in the 70s. Look at their spines. They are straight (with the naturally curved shape of the spine), and quite tall. None of them are leaning forward, sticking their butt out behind them or arching their back to lift their chest and shoulders.

It is also interesting to note in the picture of Choudhury (bottom) - the woman on the right side of the picture is doing the posture incorrectly, with butt out and lower back arched. Notice how different her posture looks from Bikram's (Bikram is 2nd from the right in the picture), and also how unstable and unintegrated it is. This is how many are teaching the posture now.

THE FEET
Bose (top left) and Mukerji (middle left) have their legs and feet together, with their toes slightly wider than their heels. Choudhury (below) has legs slightly apart and toes wider than heels.

This is different from how so many teach the position today, encouraging the knees and heels to be apart the width of the hips, and the toes to be turned slightly inward.

Bikram Choudhury (2nd from the right), Chair, 1970s

WHAT HAS BEEN LOST
Somehow this posture has turned into "legs apart, toes in, butt back, back arched (photo on the right)," all of which are contrary to the way the posture was practiced by these accomplished Ghosh students.

The culprit is sticking the hips/butt back to simulate depth in the posture. Sticking the hips back bends the knees, but it forces the upper body to lean forward to counterbalance. Then, to correct for the significant forward lean, the modern practitioner arches the spine to try to bring the shoulders back over the hips.

Modern chair pose. Legs apart, toes in, butt back, back arched.

Executing the posture in this way disengages both the gluteus maximus (butt) muscles and the abdominal muscles. These two huge muscle groups generally suffer from our western lifestyles, with so much sitting in chairs. It makes sense that they are weak, and the posture has altered to compensate for our weakness.

HOW TO CHANGE
To execute the posture properly, as has been done from Bose to Choudhury, the glutes and abs must engage to tilt the pelvis backward. This flattens the spine. The weight shifts back significantly, which means that the ankles must bend to push the knees forward. Notice the position of the knees of Bose, Mukerji and Choudhury. They are all significantly forward of the ankles.

Learning to practice Chair Posture this way can be challenging, especially when we've done it incorrectly for so long. Start very slowly. Bend the knees only slightly, and push them forward. Instead of focusing on your hips going back, bend your knees and push them forward. Whenever you feel your upper body leaning forward, straighten your legs a little bit, stand up, and again push your knees forward. Avoid letting the spine arch. Keep the back flat. You will notice that your abdominal muscles need to be quite tight.

Practicing this way will integrate the muscles of your pelvis and spine, strengthen your ankles and improve your balance significantly.

7 Comments

Laura Rebecca link

7/16/2016 11:36:31 am

Great article, Scott. Definitely sharing this with my fellow hot yoga teachers.
By the way, fun fact: the guy to BC's right is actor Richard Benjamin, and I'm pretty sure the woman in the foreground is Benajmin's then-wife, actress Paula Prentiss.

Tom

3/23/2018 04:48:14 am

Definitely need to change my approach to this posture. Thank you!

John Deters

7/11/2018 08:29:08 am

Hi Scott, Great article here. Although in my mind the big culprit is arching the back, I do notice that your instruction in the Ghosh Intermediate Manual is 'make sure the heels are wider than the toes'; which is the opposite of your instruction here. Perhaps you have evolved and reconsidered since the Manual was published? Thanks!!

Scott

7/12/2018 07:50:37 am

Hi John, thanks for the astute question. Concerning the positioning of the feet and toes, there are several things to consider. We have evolved somewhat in our understanding of the posture, history and biomechanics since the publication of the Intermediate Manual. Most of the students we see have underdeveloped glute (butt) muscles. Turning the toes slightly outward helps to rotate the hips outward/externally, which engages the outside of the leg and hip, including the glutes. When the toes are rotated in, with the heels wider than the toes, it puts more emphasis on the inner hip and deemphasizes the outer hip. That is a reason to turn the toes out slightly.

A reason to keep the feet perfectly straight is the knees. The straighter the knees come forward from the hips, and the straighter the lower leg is, the more evenly the muscles of the knee and thigh will engage. There are modes of physical therapy that encourage this position for the knees and feet to benefit the quads and knees.

So it depends on what you or your student need, and what you are trying to improve with the posture. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-benefits-all solution. And the more we learn, the more variations we discover!

Bruce Gooch link

1/14/2020 09:40:31 am

Dear Scott,

You have a great article on Chair pose here and some wonderful follow-up.

My question is, "Given that my students, and me, all seem to have weak glutes and abs what types of practice poses have you found useful in getting us toward a proper chair pose."

Scott link

1/15/2020 02:17:43 am

Hi Bruce, you make a good point. Most of us these days have weak, underdeveloped glutes. It is largely due to sedentary work and life styles, where we sit to work, we sit to eat, we sit to relax. Rarely do we take the hips and glutes through their full range of motion, which leads to weak muscles.

The best exercises I know for developing the glutes are squats and lunges. You can do them in movement like an exercise, or in stillness like a yoga posture. Most important, especially in squatting, is to flex/bend the hip all the way. In other words, sit down as far as you can until the knees are all the way bent and the hips are all the way bent.

I hope that helps!

Kayla S link

1/6/2021 10:02:03 am

Hello mate greaat blog post

Understanding Chair Posture

Leave a Reply.

My Favorites

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives