Searching For the Origins of Standing Bow Posture

A couple years ago we did a comparison of all the postures in significant publications from the Ghosh yoga lineage. There were a couple of surprises in that search. One of the most significant was the complete absence of Standing Bow Pulling posture in any of the texts. Why was this posture missing? Where and when did it come from? And how did it become so central to Bikram Choudhury's system of 26 postures that he developed in the 1970s?

Upon further research, it seems that Standing Bow Pulling posture is a descendant of a more difficult position, Lord of the Dance. But even Lord of the Dance is a recent addition to the yoga canon, appearing only in the 1950s or '60s. It seems that Lord of the Dance popped up in south India, perhaps coming from Indian dance, contortion and gymnastics, and quickly spread. Its transition toward Standing Bow Pulling didn't come until late in the 1960s.

Let's start at the beginning...

​Obvious as it may be to state, Standing Bow Pulling and its predecessor Lord of the Dance posture (Natarajasana​) are nowhere to be found in the pre-modern texts of yoga. As physical postures were becoming more prominent throughout the development of hathayoga, they were largely seated or lying positions. Almost no postures in hathayoga are done standing.

Even as we entered the 20th century and the fathers (sadly we don't know of many mothers) of modern yoga revolutionized the discipline, the acrobatics and deep stretching that we recognize today were still scarce. Early pioneers like Yogendra, Kuvalayananda, Krishnamacharya, Shivananda of Rishikesh, Bishnu Ghosh and Buddha Bose greatly expanded the number of positions in "yoga" through the 1920s, '30s and '40s, but still there was nothing resembling Standing Bow Pulling. At that point, yoga was largely adopting the practices of calisthenics and marrying the breath with relatively simple movements of the body.

THE 1950s AND '60s
In the '50s and '60s was an explosion of examples of a posture called Lord of the Dance. The earliest published version we have seen was in a contortion manual from 1957, pictured to the right. One leg was pulled overhead while standing on the other. A beautiful and impressive posture.

Also in the 1950s were stories and photos of BKS Iyengar executing a position like this, attributed to Indian dance and its imitation of ancient temple sculpture. This, it seems, is where Lord of the Dance made its way into the yoga culture. 

from Stage Tricks and Hollywood Exercises, 1957

Vishnudevananda, Lord of the Dance, 1960

VISHNUDEVANANDA (1960)
The first published documentation of this posture by a yoga practitioner (that we know of) was in Vishnudevananda's 1960 book The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga, pictured to the left.

​There is evidence of Iyengar doing this posture previously, as explained in Elliott Goldberg's wonderful book, and even a story that Iyengar was responsible for showing Shivananda (and thereby Vishnudevananda) this position in the '50s (1).

Nonetheless, this publication by Vishnudevananda preceded Iyengar's seminal Light On Yoga ​by 6 years.

IYENGAR (1966)
In 1966 came Iyengar's game-changing ​Light On Yoga​. It was full of modernizations in philosophy, language and practice, all couched in the appearance of ancient tradition. This book revolutionized yoga and set the tone for the next several decades.

In it, Iyengar included Lord of the Dance posture, pictured to the right. It was named Natarajasana, after a name for the God Shiva, who is the cosmic dancer. Without precedent in yoga practice, it seems that this position came from dance, contortion and perhaps gymnastics.

Iyengar, Lord of the Dance, 1966

From Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha, Lord of the Dance, 1969

Easy Lord of the Dance, 1969

ASANA PRANAYAMA MUDRA BANDHA (1969)
​Just a few years later, in 1969, another of Shivananda's students published a large volume called Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha with a vast catalogue of postures and exercises (2). It included the increasingly ubiquitous Lord of the Dance, pictured to the left, done the same way as Iyengar and Vishnudevananda before.

But this is where the conversation changed and we started to veer toward Standing Bow Pulling.

In Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha, Lord of the Dance posture is preceded by a simplified version called Saral Natarajasana​, or "Easy Lord of the Dance." The word saral means "easy" or "simple" and this position is clearly intended for those who can't approach the more complex posture. This position, which seems to be the template for Choudhury's Standing Bow Pulling, was a preparation for the more difficult Lord of the Dance posture.

BIKRAM CHOUDHURY (1978)
​That brings us to Bikram Choudhury and his Standing Bow Pulling​ posture. Up until that point, there had been no demonstration of anything like it in the works of his teachers or lineage. In the publications of Buddha Bose (1938), Dr Gouri Shankar Mukerji (1963) and even Bishnu Ghosh himself (1961), a position like ​Standing Bow Pulling​ was notably absent.

​In 1978, when he published his first volume, Choudhury included the position as one of his 26 chosen exercises. Pictured to the right, it is clearly a descendent of the Saral Natarajasana, as demonstrated in the 1969 volume above. 

From Bikram Choudhury, Standing Bow Pulling Pose, 1978

Choudhury's significant innovation was retaining this variation even as progress was made. Instead of moving to the full Lord of the Dance, Choudhury's instruction is to continue deepening the preliminary position to the point where the legs are fully split, as pictured to the left.

IN CONCLUSION
​This all makes Choudhury's Standing Bow Pulling posture fascinating and very new. It seems to be based on a modification or preparation for Lord of the Dance, which itself is a recent addition to the yoga asana canon. And further, this variation continues to be deepened and elaborated until it has become essentially a new posture in its own right.

1. Goldberg, Elliott. The Path of Modern Yoga. p395
2. Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha. 2012 (1969).