Skills That You Can Learn From Peacock Pose | How to Do Pincha Mayurasana?

Peacock Pose is an advanced yoga asana. When doing this, you must have been quite accustomed to performing yoga poses already. How to do this depends on your stability and balance.

You will augment your balancing skills, when you perfect or even master this position in your scheduled yoga workouts. Your core will definitely fortify itself and stability will follow.

This type of posture is called Pincha Mayurasana, in common English term, the Peacock Feather pose.

In imagining how this is executed, think of a peacock. You will now have an idea. A peacock, before showing its great and beautiful feathers, is observed to be lifting high enough its tail.

Thus, the tail will be in its upright position. This is called in yoga parlance as the Pincha Mayurasana.[1]Maruyasana, Wikipedia

Similar to the cliché “the grandeur that was rome”, this peacock’s pose holds as its own grandeur.

This, likewise, evinces a bold showcase of one’s strength. As adopted model in yoga pose, we, as humans, should reveal our own strong character, much greater fierceness in every challenging situation.

What is Peacock Pose?

The Peacock Pose, or Mayurasana, is a yoga stance performed at an advanced level. It is a posture in yoga practice that emulates peacock’s beautiful stance. Therefore, this is not for the beginners or novice in yoga.

While doing this pose, your arms, toes, and especially your shoulders brace and absorb the weight of your whole body channeling the same onto your arms.

With the help of your core strength, you can also hold onto that position. Thus, it is observed that this asana can stimulate digestion, among other benefits.

How to Do Peacock Pose?

Please do take your time in going over the caveats, preliminaries, and safety precautions before engaging yourself in this posture.

Injuries

When you have injuries, especially if you suffer from fracture, deep bruises, or trauma in your hands or arm, do not even try this pose.

Health Issues

Similarly, when confronted with medical issues or other health problems, refrain until you fully recover.

These include health issues in your digestive tract or circulatory system or you are constantly suffering from abdominal pains.

You must avoid, though, this peacock pose when you also have back problems.

Menstrual Cycle

During menstruation, this is also not advisable.

Pregnancy and Heart Problems

In addition, if you are pregnant or having heart ailments, stay away from this pose, or any other yoga postures that will negatively affect or exacerbate your conditions.

Preliminaries 

This is a next-level yoga posture, being performed by advance practitioners.

This will primarily build your core power and balance. You will benefit by having that newfound stability.

Hence, in order to properly execute this, you must have arms, wrist, and upper body strength, fluidity, and flexibility.

Doing constantly these asanas, the Four-Limbed Staff Pose [Chaturanga Dandasana] and Upward Facing Dog [Urdhva Mukha Svanasana] will improve your arms, wrist, and upper body strength and you balance as well.

Child pose can also assist you as it will flex and extend your back. For added resistance, you can roll your mat and place it below your knees when doing Balasana. Locust [Salabhasana] and Cow [Gomukhasana] Pose can also do the trick.

Safety and Posture Assistance

While you are already an advance yoga practitioner, yet first starting to perfect the peacock pose, you may want to have a pillow by your side, placing it in front of your face/head, to provide cushion in case you fall.

For purposes of aiding your balance and fixed stance, you may utilize yoga strap.

Use it to bind your arms. This will assist your pose and avert the gradual flip, or even sudden jerk, of your arms to lose their grip on, or support to, your upper body, thus, losing your position.

Just be safe. Falling is an inevitable scenario when starting out executing this pose.

Performing the Pose

1] Kneel on the floor

It is about time. You are now engaged to do the peacock pose. Initially, you must kneel on the floor, then, sit on top of your heels.

Slightly bend down to touch the floor with your hands flat face palm. Your hands must be in front of you and your fingers pointing to your knees.

Try to move your hands close to each other so that you’re the same and your fore arms will touch each other. Kind of tilt your elbows little bit inwards to your body.

2] Bend forward and Continuously Bring your Elbow Inwards

Now, at this juncture, gradually bend your elbow and try to achieve a right-angle position by inching it towards your abdomen or belly.

Kindly maintain the angle of your elbows at this point.

Position your knees and slowly slide them, until your legs are bent forward with your knees in front of your both hands.

While in this stance, try to stand on your toes but your heels and the rest of your feet not touching the ground. In this way, you can adjust easily.

You will notice that, as you move your elbows to your center, with your upper body slightly lower, it is easier to make the next move, owing to the support on your position.

3] Lean over to your triceps or upper arms

To intensify, you should press your belly onto your elbows. You have to brace and support your torso with your triceps.

Since this is an intense position, ladies may reduce the tension by putting their arms near the side of their body to somehow relax the pressure a bit.

4] Keep and Hold Your Abdomen or Belly In

You are now advancing. When you hold your stomach, your current position needs you to mimic a tripod, constituted by your abdomen and your two shoulder blades.

Keep pressing your stomach onto your elbows to support your weight. Your legs and feet are above the ground.

5] Rest your Forehead on the Ground and Stretch your Legs

At this point, you are now supporting your own weight. Your arms are absorbing your them.

Try positioning your head forward and slightly parallel to the floor.

This will allow you to extend your legs level behind you bringing all the weight to your forehead, toes, and hands.

Keep your balance nd engage your core.

6] Squeeze your shoulders and arms back to the fold of your chest 

Squeeze back again your upper arms and shoulders to your chest where your elbows are trying to touch each other, thus, your arms form the legs of the tripod again.

Your weight of your lower body is channeled to your shoulders and stomach particularly engaging the core muscles.

7] Do not Forget your Glutes and Utilize them

Engage our glutes. Lift up slightly, if you can your legs and hold the same for a while.

Make your body rigid as a result of engaging your glutes and core muscles. You are in a position akin to plank yet your feet and legs are above the ground.

Your shoulder blades, belly, and butt must be touching an imaginary straight line parallel to the ground.

By practicing this, you will attain strength and balance so that you can seamlessly support your weight even if your feet are above the ground.

8] Raise your Head and Legs

While in last position, slowly lift up your head. Try to look in front of you. Stretch your anterior neck muscles. Then, move forward and place your weight entirely on your arms.

Your legs must be parallel to the floor. Your body are keeping its stiffness at this moment.

Straighten up your toes in line with your shin. Hold your weight forward and fortify your arms to support your stance.

Try to control your elbow so as not to bend drastically as this will cause your fall.

9] Keep your Position for at least 10 Seconds

Now the breathing part to keep your position. Inhale and exhale strategically and engage your core.  Hold your position while breathing for at least 10 seconds.

Afterwards, gradually put down your forehead and feet to the ground. Slowly go back to your kneeling position before you raise your body extricating itself from your arms.

Benefits of Pincha Mayurasana

When you are already practicing this asana and gradually having the knack of it, you will little by little observe that your shoulders are becoming stronger.

Getting stronger each day

Because so much weight of your entire body will rest on your shoulders while performing this pose, such area of your body will develop enough power to keep that position for a certain moment or even for longer periods of time.

Presents Challenge

Yoga practitioner, especially those in the advance level, wants to again and again challenge themselves through performance of difficult yoga positions.

Thus, peacock pose presents that kind of trial to yogis. More than that, with the challenge also comes fear—in this case, the doubt of falling.

While this pose may mimic other poses, such as Vrksasana, Maruyasana is quite distinct in the sense that in the former, the arms are not bent unlike in the peacock position.

Initially, Best to Start with Guidance and Support

With all these pieces of information, it is best still not to do yet this asana on your own, perhaps at its initial stage when you want to start doing it. In short, this may be difficult to execute alone. Guidance and support are preferred.

Although, if you still want to do Maruyasana alone, you may opt to use the wall as your momentary support.

Help and assistance of other people are also welcome. They can even attend to you when you sustain an injury, although you should not be thinking of it.

While it may seem doable when you see from a distance and thinking it as a simple posture only, it is still different when you are actually performing it.

Stress Buster and Tension Reliever

Stress reliever of buster, this yoga pose certainly earns that moniker. This eventually reduces pressure, tension, and the like when consistently being practiced.

The pressure in your shoulder will go away as you master the pose. Muscles, although engaged, are doing their functions within your body. This will make you acknowledge that your limits are only your perception.

Immense relaxation is forthcoming after yoga session [or even while in the performance particularly engaging in pranayama]. This position in Maruyasana contributes to the calming of your body and mind.

Toned Body 

The peacock pose engages your chest muscles. When it does, it assists your ribs to support the position, thus, improving the flow. Likewise, as a snowball effect, your shoulder, upper arms and back also benefit.

Owing to this, as your chest and stomach engage, assisting your ribs, your posture will drastically improve, hence, your torso and abdomen will be toned, of course, coupled with other yoga exercise in a certain yoga session.

This pose, together with other, in a constant and consistent workout will nurtured not just your body but your overall well-being.

Leg Muscles Workout

Your legs and buttocks are also functioning when you are in the middle of this peacock pose.

As mentioned, this pose may also help to correct body posture since it will align your legs, lower back, and buttocks as well.

Your thigh muscles will also fortify themselves as the are being utilized for balance and stability purposes.

Consequently, your thighs will greatly benefit from this peacock position.

Promotes Blood Circulation

This posture also improves and nurtures blood circulation in the body. Fresh Blood flows down to the head, greatly helping blood and oxygen circulation.

Therefore, with the proper circulation of blood in the body, it will rejuvenate the latter and refresh the mind.

References

References
1 Maruyasana, Wikipedia

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