With this interesting legend behind it, this pose is quite beneficial and considered very good for the arms and wrists. It makes them stronger and more flexible. Even though it is quite complicated pose and one might need extra dedication and practice to master it, it can be perfected with proper guidance and training.
Follow the following steps to perform this asana -
Start this pose by making yourself comfortable by coming to the cross legged position.
Then bend the right knee and bring the sole of your right foot near the right buttock.
After this let the right arm thread below your right knee and raise the right foot's sole off the ground, and make your shin parallel to the ground.
Try to bring your right knee as high as possible to your right arm. You can even bring the knee over the right shoulder.
Now let both your palms be planted on the ground and straighten your left leg.
After this press into your palms and raise your body off the ground.
Raise the left leg and bend it and after this let the left ankle hook around the right one.
Now bring your torso forward so that it becomes parallel to the ground and then bring both of your legs to come to the right side of your body.
After this ensure that both your legs are straightened.
Once you have come to this position stay in the same position for around 30 to 60 seconds. In the meantime keep your breath smooth and even. After this bring your body back to the ground.
Now repeat the same steps for the other side.
The main anatomical focus areas of this asana are the following body parts - wrists, arms and abdomen.
There are several benefits of this asana. Some of them are as follows -
It strengthens the wrists and the arms.
It also helps to tone the abdominal muscles.
It is known to tone to inner thighs.
It helps to improve the sense of balance which is helpful for other asanas.
It provides stress relief and makes your mind and body tension free.
It improves strength, flexibility, concentration, balance and perseverance.
It is a perfect bend of playfulness and seriousness.
Though this pose is very beneficial and helps a lot, it needs to be avoided under certain circumstances. One needs to avoid this if they have a wrist, elbow or shoulder injuries and it might cause more harm to them. It should also be avoided by those who have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Also it is very important to ensure that you perform this posture under the guidance of an experienced and certified yoga instructor as it is extremely important to ensure that you do this pose correctly, or else you may end up injuring yourself. So for a proper yoga practices, it is advised to all to take help from the yoga instructor or from any experience yoga practitioners, who can help to perform it in a perfect way for benefit.
Sometimes beginners might find it difficult to balance in this pose. In such cases they can rest the bottom hip and outer leg on a bolster to ensure that they can maintain proper balance while doing this pose. Initially if you are having difficulty performing this pose, do not strain yourself too much. First try practicing forward bending and standing poses like Marichyasana I and prepare your body and strengthen it for this pose. If you are having difficulty lifting your leg first works on to make it more flexible and then attempt this pose. You may try out some initial beginner's poses.
You can modify this pose to ensure that it becomes easy and adaptable, especially to the beginners. Some of the modifications that you can do are continuously practicing to lift the hips and leg off of the ground to master the pose. You can also use blocks underneath your hands for extra height if you cannot swing your feet to the side, but can lift your hips and lock your ankles.
Before doing this pose one can practice certain preparatory poses to ensure that they are able to do it properly. Some of the preparatory poses to this asana are - Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend), Chaturanga Dandasana (Four Limbed Staff Pose), Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) and Utthita Parsvakonasana (extended side angle pose). All these poses helps to prepare the body with the required strength and flexibility to perform the pose.
This pose can be followed up by the following poses - Dwi Pada Bhujasana (Two Handed arm balance) and Bhujapidasana (Shoulder Pressing Pose).