How To Do Ardh and Purana Ustrasana?

 

Ustrasana is one of the difficult asanas in yoga. It has been named so because the pose depits a camel. It is not something which can be done with perfection and with ease in one go. It might require some preparation before one can actually get to do it. Before doing this asanas, it is important that yo do not have any spine related problem since the spine is required to stretch or bend a little backward along with the head. So, the muscles around the neck and cervical region along with those of spine, lower back and stomach area get stretched. 

While Ustrasana can be done by most of the people, some people who are not able to do it can do the Ardh Ustrasana (or Half Camel Pose) and slowly try to achieve the complete posture.
Let us first describe the Complete Ustrasana. Please have a look at the image on top.

The beginning
You can make the beginning by sitting either in Vajrasana (in which you can sit on both your legs bent backwards) or by remaining standing on your knees. The blade of the foot from ankle joint to toes shall also rest on the ground in both the positions.

Attaining the posture
While sitting in Vajrasana or standing on knees, you shall first raise the ankle with the toe fingers remaining on ground. This uplifts the ankle to some extent.

Take you hands backwards and make a grip on the raised ankle. This is easy to do while you are still sitting in Vajrasana. However, when you are standing on knees, this might be a little problematic. If you are not able to do it while standing on knees, please check the Ardh Ustrasana below.
Slowly raise the body from Vajrasana to align the chest and the thigh in straight verticle line while moving the head back. If you find it difficult to attain the posture due to constraints in stretching the body for the first time, it is okay to do it as much as can be done.
The head shall be bent backwards in alignment with the backward arch of the spine. Those who have problems of high blood pressure shall avoid too much moving back of head.

Ardh Ustrasana
Ardh Ustrasana is the Half Camel pose. This is attained in two ways.
While standing on the knees, you can just place the hand palms on back of lower spine and bend backward to the extent you can with head also moving backwards to the extent it can. This is shown in image below.
The second way of doing Ardh Ustrasana is to use only one hand to go back and touch the ankle of same feet while keeping the other hand lifted up. This allows to develop flexibility slowly in both the arms. This is shown in image above.

Coming back
You can come out of this asana by slowly removing hand from ankle, one hand at a time, and bringing it to normal position by taking a round angle from upwards.