Today I decided to skip ahead to one of the more difficult arm balances in this series that I'm doing. The first two were a couple of the first arm balances that people usually learn but this one is more difficult, especially the full expression of the pose. The post for today is Dragonfly and the sanskrit name for it is Parsva Bhuja Dandasana (had to look that one up).
Below is a picture of me doing the full expression of the pose on each side with my leg fully (or close to it) extended behind me. The pose is about an 8 / 10 difficulty level for me personally.
DRAGONFLY POSE / PARSVA BHUJA DANDASANA
As you can see with the pictures side by side, it's a tad bit easier to get my right leg straight as it is stronger and my left hip is more flexible which allows me to more easily keep my foot from slipping off my tricep. My left side is my non-dominant side so the muscles are a bit looser and more flexible.
The farther I lean forward towards the floor, the closer my tricep becomes to being parallel to the floor and the longer I can hold it. Below is a picture series of how to get into the pose.
POSE ENTRY AND EXECUTION
I didn't include the initial pose but usually one will start in tree pose and then hold the hands in prayer position with arms in a straight line. Then the knees are slowly bent to lower the torso towards the floor and then the upper arm is wrapped as far around the arch of the foot as possible before planting hands on the floor. Next the leg is lifted up and out to the side as seen in the 4th frame above. This is as far as a lot of people take it and if you google "dragonfly pose" this version is what will usually show up in the image results.
Doing Dragonfly with the leg out to the side is a bit less difficult and I'd say it's about 6/10 on difficulty scale for me while extending the leg straight behind me is 8/10 as I mentioned. Just for reference a difficulty level 10 pose for me would be something I can rarely ever do. I'll post one of those sometime on a day when I'm feeling like a superhero but this is what I could do today.
I hope you readers are enjoying this series. I'm gonna start using Youtube or maybe even better, Dtube, to post short yoga videos. That's on my to-do list this week is to get familiar with posting videos here. I'll finish the arm balance series with pictures though.
Namaste
