Uttana Padasana--the Leg Lift--is a simple, safe and effective posture that has been forgotten by modern western iterations of Ghosh Yoga.

This is a posture that was demonstrated and instructed by Buddha Bose, Dr. Gouri Shankar Mukerji, Dr. PS Das, and Bishnu Ghosh himself. It is among 32 exercises that Ghosh considered appropriate to teach to the average population.

The position strengthens the hip flexors and the abdomen, helping to stabilize the spine. It is practically without contraindication, meaning it is safe for just about everybody.

INTENTION
​This posture compresses the intestines, encouraging movement that aids digestion and elimination, removing air.

Most of the power of this posture comes from the breath. Once you are holding the knees tightly, relax the abdomen and breathe deeply into the belly. The belly will push against the thighs, building pressure within. This creates internal heat and massages the intestines.

Keep the spine as straight as possible.

BREATH
Breathe deeply into a relaxed abdomen. Inhale and exhale slowly and completely.

BENEFITS
This posture improves digestion and reduces bloating in the belly. It stretches the hips and knees. It strengthens the breathing muscles, including the diaphragm. It improves lung capacity and breath control.

Excerpt from the Ghosh Yoga Practice Manual - Beginning.

Is knowledge unchanging?

If knowledge does not change, how and why do we learn? Can we improve our knowledge?

If knowledge changes, why do we revere old texts? Haven't we evolved beyond ancient ideas?

If knowledge does not change, is all progress an illusion? Are we simply lying to ourselves to create a false sense of meaning? Is our meaning defined by our progress?

If knowledge changes, must we constantly readjust to new realities? What defines those realities, if not our knowledge?

People often reference the use of breath when delineating a yoga practice in comparison to other forms of exercise or movement. This results in phrases like "take a deep breath" being common teaching cues. While breathing deeply can be effective sometimes, it is not always appropriate. Breathing and holding a posture both require specific muscular usage. When the muscular engagement of a specific posture conflicts with the how the muscles of breathing operate, we run into physical issues. A great example of this is Plank pose. 

There are two ways in which the body breathes. First is in the chest. (This is how we breathe in an exercise like Standing Deep Breathing.) Breathing in this way uses the intercostal muscles, which are made up of several sets of muscles that expand and shrink the ribcage and chest cavity. Using the intercostal muscles effectively requires that the abdominal muscles are relaxed. The second way in which the body breathes is known as "abdominal" or "belly" breathing. This breathing uses the diaphragm and the transverse abdominis. (This is how we breath in Kappalabhati.) 

When we do Plank pose, we largely rely on the rectus abdominis, or six-pack muscle, to stay engaged. This engagement slightly pulls our ribs down and in, toward our pubic bone, which keeps our spine straight. Without this engagement, we would do something resembling a sway back. The rectus abdominis is however, intricately connected to the transverse abdominis which is not just a breathing muscle but, especially in a pose such as Plank, also a muscle of stability. 

When breathing, it is next to impossible to inhale without the transverse abdominis relaxing, especially in abdominal breathing. However, this is also the case if you breath into the chest, since the abdominal muscles have to release for the ribs to lift. So, considering all of these muscular functions means that any inhale you take in Plank pose (especially a deep one), will cause the abdominal muscles to relax. Since the abdominal muscles are what support this position, breathing in this posture will actually destabilize the spine and release the structure of the posture.

Contortion, or extreme flexibility, has existed in practice for a long time. It was a part of circus acts, acrobatics, street acts and other performative physical displays. In the early part of the 20th century, when the Ghosh Yoga lineage was developing, contortion started to influence the physical culture movement in India.

As Elliott Goldberg suggests in his book The Path of Modern Yoga, it was physical culturists who first accepted “contortion tricks as a new norm for flexibility.” One reason for this  was the opinion that contortion had a positive impact on health. A few teachings even mirror those of Bishnu Ghosh and his colleagues in therapeutic yoga.

First, that forward bending, backward bending and twisting the spine are of primary importance to health. And second, that stretching and compressing muscles in the body squeezes out blood and allows a flush of fresh blood when released. (This idea, often called the tourniquet effect, is questionable.) Both are ideas that have since made their way into modern asana practice in the Ghosh lineage.

While health claims were one of the selling points, contortion was adopted largely for public display. Stunts and tricks were performed for audiences large and small, sometimes on television programs or tours, with the hope of gaining recognition. This is still the case today, as the motivation behind which yoga postures to incorporate into practice oscillates freely between health benefits and impressive, performative physicality.

It is true that some postures we practice today, even impressive ones, have roots in yogic texts compiled prior to the 20th century. But taking a look at several references, we can clearly see that contortion exercises influenced positions that are widely practiced today. This is the case for advanced postures like Dancer, intermediate postures like Pigeon and even beginning postures such as Eagle. 

Once we are using the body to breathe fully and properly, we start to affect the depth and frequency of the breath. This does two things: It changes the chemistry of the blood, which has lots of impacts on the function of the rest of the body; and it begins to bring us in touch with our autonomic nervous system, the part that controls our sub-conscious breathing and heart rate.

OXYGEN & CARBON DIOXIDE
​You may hear people talk about "oxygenation" of the blood through deep breathing, but that is not really what happens. Due to something called the (nerd alert!) oxygen-hemoglobin dissociation curve, it is next to impossible to change the amount of oxygen in our tissues in any meaningful way. Hemoglobin---the protein that carries oxygen in the blood---holds on tighter to oxygen when there is less coming in through the lungs. When there is lots of oxygen coming in, the hemoglobin allows it to come and go freely. This results in a steady supply of oxygen to the cells and tissues of the body, regardless of how much we breathe.

The real chemical element that changes when we do breathing exercises is carbon dioxide. When we breathe more than normal, we expel lots of carbon dioxide from our system, changing the chemistry of the blood. Less carbon dioxide makes the blood alkaline, resulting in a cascade of secondary effects in our nervous system, lungs and brain. We often feel it as "light-headedness."

When we breathe less than normal---the ultimate goal of yogic pranayama practice---carbon dioxide builds up in our blood, making it acidic. This creates a similar but opposite cascade of effects in the nervous system, lungs and brain. It causes dilation of the vessels in the brain and the desensitization of the peripheral nervous system. We feel it as a calm (or even numb) body and an alert mind. Does that sound like meditation to anyone?

Once we are aware of the effects of our breathing on our brain, we start to control it. This is when we enter Level 3, where the true practice of Pranayama begins.