Goddess Pose, or Utkata Konasana, is a hip opener and lower-body strengthening pose that can be adjusted to fit almost any practice.
When you break down the Sanskrit - Utkata Konasana - it actually translates into:
Utkata = Powerful/Fierce
Kona = Angle
Asana = Posture
This makes sense when you look at some of the primary the goddesses in Hindu mythology. Durgha, the mother goddess, is shown with ten arms and she rides a lion. She is also referred to as the warrior goddess, and her images generally show her in battle, complete with a sword, shield, bow and arrow, axe, and spear.
Lakshmi is the goddess of prosperity and wealth. Saraswati is the goddess of learning/knowledge, music, art, and poetry.
Kali is the goddess of death and destruction. She is most often portrayed as blue-skinned, with a sharp teeth, three eyes, ten arms and legs, wearing a necklace of severed heads, holding another severed head in one hand, along with a bow and arrow, sword, axe and spear in her other hands.
While other ancient cultures may depicted their goddesses as ethereal, gentle beings, this is not the case for Hindu culture.
The physical benefits of Goddess Pose are pretty powerful, too! They include:
Strengthening of the legs, glutes, calves and ankles.
Stretching and opening of the hips and chest
Lengthening the spine
Stimulating the respiratory and cardiovascular systems
This pose also engages the muscles of the pelvic floor, meaning it can be especially beneficial for pregnant women, and can help with relieving menstrual pain.
Additionally, Goddess pose activates three of the seven chakras - the Root Chakra, the Sacral Chakra and the Navel/Solar Plexus Chakra - all of which tend to hold most of a body's emotional energies.
Goddess pose has many variations, including both arm and leg options. Arms can come to heart center - as in the photo above - or arms can come out to the sides, bending 90 degrees at the elbows, like goal posts. Here you can also link breath to movement by flowing between arms extended upwards, and then back down to goal posts, squeezing the shoulder blades each time.
For the lower body, you can alternate coming onto your toes, taking one heel off the ground at a time, or both feet at once - also as in the photo above. You can flow here, as well, coming up onto your toes as you inhale, and then back to heels as you exhale. Or, another option, is to flow between Goddess pose and Star pose - inhale to straighten the knees and bring the arms up and into a V, then exhale back down into the squat.
Don't let the name fool you - Goddess pose is indeed a fierce pose that both women and men can benefit greatly from - physically and emotionally.
-Charlene
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