Where Does It Come From? — Half Moon Sidebend

This is the second in a series of articles about where postures come from. The first was about Standing Deep Breathing: where-does-it-come-from-standing-deep-breathing.html.

​Half Moon Sidebend is done standing, which is a giveaway that this is a newer posture. It is often given a Sanskrit name, ​ardha chandrasana, which means "half moon posture." Already this can be confusing, since there are several modern postures with that name. This one bends the body to the side, so it is sometimes called parshva ardha chandrasana, or "side half moon posture." Another bends the body backward. We will cover that one next. Yet another is taught by BKS Iyengar, an entirely different position done on one leg and one hand. If that seems overwhelming, and you find yourself wondering, "which is the true Half Moon Posture?" the answer is that they are all equally new, appearing in yoga in the last 100 years or so. 

​Like the vast majority of standing postures in modern yoga, Half Moon Sidebend has no clear ancestor in classical or hathayoga. It seems to have come into the yoga world around the turn of the twentieth century, like many other practices, from European calisthenics.

The earliest example of this position that we know of comes from none other than JP Muller, an influential leader of physical culture in the early 1900s. We saw his influence last time, too, in Standing Deep Breathing.

This posture comes into yoga slowly and unevenly in the 1920s and 30s. The first Indian yogi to teach it is Yogendra, who includes it in his 1928 book Yoga Asanas Simplified. Yogendra's system has many innovations, including postures that move with the breath, which he calls dynamic asanas. He also adds several standing positions which had not previously been part of yoga. One of these is a standing side bend that he calls konasana, "Angle Posture."

JP Muller, sidebend

Yogendra, konasana (Angle Posture) 1928

Half Moon Sidebend has no clear ancestor in classical or hathayoga.

Other early modern yogis didn't adopt the sidebend right away. Important teachers in the 1920s like Kuvalayananda and Sivananda, who embraced new postures and techniques to varying degrees, neglected this one. Interestingly, several decades later, Kuvalayananda's students included this posture and claimed that he invented it. We will discuss that below.

​Krishnamacharya, another influential teacher of early modern yoga in the 1930s, did not instruct this posture as far as we know. Nothing like it is included in his publications, nor is it in the traditions of some of his prominent students, like Iyengar and Jois.

The next appearance of Half Moon Sidebend comes in 1938 from Buddha Bose. Bose was the first prominent yoga student of Bishnu Charan Ghosh, from Kolkata. It seems that this posture caught on in Kolkata before drifting back to the West and South in later decades. It is practiced by all of Ghosh's students, including Mukerji and Choudhury.

Bose adds a distinct element to the posture. In addition to its recognizable standing position and side-bending torso, he raises his arms overhead. This is different from the way that Muller and Yogendra teach it. Perhaps it is intended to make the position more beautiful or difficult, to make it more photogenic, or to change its intended effect.

​It is unclear how difficult or important Ghosh and Bose considered this posture. In 1961, Ghosh published his own little pamphlet of beginning yoga postures, called Yoga Cure. Half Moon Sidebend is conspicuously absent from it, although it includes the standing backward bend called ardha chandrasana​.

Buddha Bose, ardha chandrasana (Half Moon Posture) 1938

GS Mukerji, ardha chandrasana (Half Moon Posture) 1963

This posture caught on in Kolkata before drifting back to the West and South in later decades.

Although Ghosh does not include the posture in his little manual, his next prominent student from the era does. This is Gouri Shankar Mukerji, who went to Germany and became a medical doctor before moving back to Kolkata in his later years. At the end of his life, he tended to his aging teacher, wrote yoga prescriptions and lived a quiet life. 

His book, Yoga und unsere Medizin, was written in German. The title means "Yoga and Our Medicine." The Half Moon Sidebend that he includes there is nearly identical to Bose's. Standing with the legs together, torso bent sideways, both arms stretched overhead.

In 1970, we see the first sidebend from someone outside of Kolkata in several decades. It is worth noting again that BKS Iyengar, who wrote the incredibly influential Light On Yoga in 1966, included hundreds of postures. But none is a standing sidebend. He does have a posture called ardha chandrasana which is entirely different, done on one leg and one hand. 

BKS Iyengar, ardha chandrasana 1966

The non-Kolkata posture comes from the school of Kuvalayananda, who had died in 1966. After his death, Kuvalayananda's students seem to have added the posture. They photographed it and included it in a publication of Yoga Mimamsa in 1970.

chakrasana (Wheel Posture) from Yoga Mimamsa 1970

Bikram Choudhury, ardha chandrasana (Half Moon Posture) c. 1970

Choudhury instructs the posture exactly as one would expect from a student of Ghosh in Kolkata. 

They called the posture chakrasana, Wheel Posture. The posture is instantly recognizable as a descendent of Muller, Yogendra and Bose. Standing and bending the body to the side. A small difference can be seen in the arms, with one overhead while the other is held down by the side.

​Also around 1970, Bikram Choudhury goes to the US and refines his system of 26 postures that he calls "Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class." Right at the beginning of this class, which gains popularity through the 80s, 90s and 00s, is the Half Moon Sidebend. 

Choudhury instructs the posture exactly as one would expect from a student of Ghosh in Kolkata. Standing, torso bending to the side, with both arms overhead.

Finally, in a more recent publication from Kaivalyadhama, Kuvalayananda's shool, a familiar posture appears. It is called "Side Bending Chakrasana," and is recognizable as the school's previous chakrasana. The single arm overhead is identical to the 1970 instruction from Yoga Mimamsa, shown above. Interestingly, in this 2009 publication, it is claimed that Kuvalayananda actually invented this posture. This seems unlikely, as there are many examples of other teachers instructing this posture even while Kuvalayananda himself avoided it.

Side Bending Chakrasana, from Kaivalyadhama publication 2009

CONCLUSION
​Ardha chandrasana, the Half Moon Posture, here explained in its side bending form, appears for the first time around 1900 in the Danish physical culture of JP Muller. From there it goes to Yogendra and to the school of BC Ghosh in Kolkata. All of Ghosh's students teach this posture. Over the past century, there are variations with the arms, but the posture remains at its core a standing sidebend of the torso. In addition to Ghosh's students, Kuvalayananda's school began teaching the posture after his death.