Root Lock/Lift (Sanskrit term: Mula Bandha)
Root Lock/Lift (Sanskrit term: Mula Bandha)
We’ve been focusing on the energetic knots or granthis, specifically the first knot located in the root chakra area. Root Lock/Lift affects your physical, energetic, and mental bodies. (For the purposes of this section, I’ll use “Root Lock” and “Root Lift” interchangeably. They refer to the same thing.) As mentioned in both the opening section and the Chakrascope section, the first “protective” knot/threshold in your energy body is located in the root chakra. Practicing root lift is said to help release the first knot so your energy can flow freely. So let’s focus on the “Root Lock Pose”!
Root lock is said to affect the mental/emotional body by helping to release stored emotions held in the muscles of the perineal and pelvic floor. Emotional releases can occur while practicing root lift, clearing the energy.
Root Lock/Lift grounds you. I encourage my students to engage root lift and belly lock (udiyana Bandha in Sanskrit) throughout their yoga practice holding them at a low level of about two on a scale of 1 – 10. It makes your poses more efficient, safer, and powerful. My suggestions to practice root lock/lift is based upon a gentle practice vs. some of the more advanced practices. (See the “Try this” demo suggestion below.)
Alignment Cues: Gently engage and lift the muscles of the pelvic floor—the muscles located in the diamond from the pubic bone in front, the tailbone in back and the sitting bones on either side. This activates your inner thighs and core which then stabilizes your pose. Root lock is sometimes referred to as being similar to “kegel” move with the comparison of how it feels to stop your flow of urination. “Root lock is the contraction of three small muscles within the perineum. Picture the base of your pelvis as a diamond, with a line drawn horizontally across the middle to create two triangles. The upper triangle is the perineum. The lower triangle is the sphincter muscle, which should remain relaxed.” (Beth Shaw’s YogaFit®).
Active muscles: levator ani, coccygeus, pyramidalis (wraps into lower belly)
Benefits:
- Stimulates the root chakra energy
- Calms your mind
- Increases emotional and physical strength
- Stabilizes and balances your mind enabling release of insecurity and negative emotions
- Helps control anger
- Enhances concentration
- Prevents you from wasting energy
- Enables you to practice yoga more efficiently and I would add that holding this lock at a low level through your yoga practice helps it to become habitual in your everyday life when you are exerting effort physically, protecting your back from harm and bringing power to your whole body. After 30 years of yoga, I notice I now engage root lift automatically if I start to slip or fall.
- Prevents weak pubococcygeus muscle (PC muscles), incontinence, and reproductive organs dropping
Beginners:
- Closing your eyes can help you focus on contracting the correct muscles.
- Inhale in, exhale three quarters, and cough. The result helps you feel what root lift feels like.
Mula Bandha power flow: For more challenge, check out this great flow by one of my favorite teachers—Sadie Nardini:
Try this:
As a way to bring home the effect of holding root lift and belly lock, try this fun demo with a friend:
- Connect your index and thumb together. Without holding either root lift or belly lock, have a friend try to pull your fingers apart.
- Now do that same exercise again but this time hold root lift and belly lock before your friend tries to pull the fingers apart. Notice a difference? You bet! –A BIG difference! THAT is the power of Mula Bandha (root lift) and Udiyana Bandha (belly lock)! (Sounds more powerful when you say it in Sanskrit, doesn’t it? Say it like “kowabunga!” with some sass!)
I will never forget doing this in class one time and a student was so amazed at the increased strength in her fingers while holding the bandhas that she blurted out excitedly: “What just happened here?!” This exercise really brings home the power of the bandhas to increase the efficiency of your yoga practice as well as the protective strengthening power it will bring to your everyday life once it becomes an habitual “hold” for you as you exert physical effort.
Contraindications and cautions: Approach the practice of all bandhas/locks cautiously, especially without the direct guidance of an experienced teacher.
Spiritual aspects of Root Lock/Lift: Root lock/lift activates the root chakra and, with continued practice, helps release the knot/granthi there, allowing your energy to flow freely. We must unlock the blocks in all three knots to release your potential energy stored there and become all that you were meant to be. Some refer to this as “enlightenment”. Chakra meditation, yoga asana, and pranayama are all ways to clear your blocked energy. Clearing the way for your potential to rise—your spiritual, emotional, and physical potential—is, in my opinion, why we are here.
Sources: http://www.jaisiyaram.com/yoga-poses/mula-bandha.html
http://blog.gaiam.com/blog/bandhas-101-how-to-amplify-the-benefits-of-any-pose/
http://www.myyogaonline.com/videos/yoga/mula-bandha-power-flow
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f37/the-secrets-and-science-of-mula-bhanda-7673.html
www.sensational-yoga-poses.com/mula-bandha.html
