Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar)

Pronunciation and meaning

Surya Namaskar: SOOR-yah nuh-muh-SKAR. Surya has two syllables, and namaskar rhymes loosely with car.

Surya means sun and namaskar means greeting or bow. It is not one posture but a short sequence of postures linked to the breath, often repeated several times to warm the body.

How to do Sun Salutation

1. Stand in Mountain Pose with your feet together or hip-width apart. Breathe in and sweep your arms up overhead.
2. Breathe out and fold forward from the hips, bending your knees as much as you need to bring the hands to the floor or to blocks. Breathe in and lift halfway, hands on the shins, with a long flat back.
3. Breathe out and step back to Plank, then lower with control: either straight down with elbows hugging in, or knees, chest and chin to the floor.
4. Breathe in and lift the chest into Cobra, with the elbows bent and the legs resting on the mat.
5. Breathe out, lift the hips and press back into Downward Dog. Stay for three to five breaths.
6. Step your feet to your hands, breathe in to a half lift, breathe out to fold, then breathe in and rise all the way up with the arms overhead. Breathe out and bring the hands to the chest. That is one round.

Make it easier

• Keep the knees down in Plank and lower knees, chest and chin, a gentle version that builds strength over time.
• Put blocks under your hands in the forward fold if the floor feels far away.
• Swap Cobra for a small Cat-Cow on hands and knees if lying on your belly or bending back does not suit you.

Pregnancy and after birth

Pregnancy. Adapt. Take a wider stance, step instead of jumping, keep the knees down, and skip lying on your belly in Cobra; use Cat-Cow on hands and knees instead. Slow the pace so you never feel breathless, and check with your OB or midwife before you start.

After birth. Adapt. When your doctor or midwife has cleared you, start with one or two slow rounds with the knees down and no jumping. Watch for doming along the middle of the belly in Plank, and ease off if you see it.

See prenatal yoga notes by trimester before you adapt a pose.

Common mistakes

• Rushing so the breath and the movement fall out of step. Slow down until they match.
• Dropping from Plank to the floor with the elbows flaring wide and the lower back sagging.
• Straining the lower back in Cobra by pushing up with straight arms. Keep the elbows bent and lift with the upper back.

Sun Salutations are often the first thing you move through in a Vinyasa class, because they warm the whole body in a few minutes. Learn the order slowly, one breath per movement, and the sequence soon runs by itself.

Many Vinyasa classes begin with them, so learning the order well pays off every time you practise. To pace your rounds at home, try the timer with a step card for each pose. On slow mornings, start with the wake-up stretches you can do in bed and add a round or two of this once you are warm.

The fold after the arms sweep up is the standing forward bend, knees as bent as you like, and it is worth learning on its own first. Most of the shapes in a round appear on the yoga poses chart with English and Sanskrit names, and a slower hatha class holds the same hatha yoga poses for several breaths instead of flowing through them.

The lowering between Plank and Upward-Facing Dog is Chaturanga, which is worth learning slowly. Lifting the back knee in the lunge of a Sun Salutation B variation gives you Crescent Lunge, the high lunge. Five rounds each of A and B open the Ashtanga primary series.

Sun Salutation A, B and the twelve-step version

All three link one movement to one breath. If a teacher calls out a version you do not know, follow the breath and copy the shapes, and you will usually catch up within a round. To keep A and B beside your mat, print the Sun Salutation A and B cards: every position as a numbered figure with its breath.

Where does the Sun Salutation come from?

Bowing to the sun is an old devotional practice in India, but the sequence as most classes teach it took shape in the early twentieth century. Bhawanrao Pant Pratinidhi, ruler of the small state of Aundh, promoted a daily routine of sun salutations as exercise in the 1920s and 1930s, and T. Krishnamacharya built similar sequences into the teaching that later spread through his students.

A ten-minute morning practice before work

In the Philippines the morning is the coolest part of the day, and ten minutes before the commute is easier to keep than an evening plan that traffic can wipe out.

1. Stand in Mountain Pose for five breaths.
2. Two slow rounds of Sun Salutation A, knees down in Plank.
3. Two rounds of A at your normal pace.
4. One round of B, or a third round of A.
5. Downward Dog for five breaths.
6. Sit or lie down for one minute and let the breath settle.

If the room is already warm, open a window or switch on a fan and keep a towel nearby for your hands. The Surya Namaskar timer can pace the rounds for you.