FIRST CONNECTIVE SECTION

BACKBEND SEQUENCE

Here begins the group of eight intermediate backbends that form the first essential sequence of the Intermediate Series. Backbending, when linked together with leg-behind-head postures, makes the spine supple and strong and purifies the nadis and chakras, which run along the central energy channel (sushumna). Illustrating this point, the Northern Indian school of yoga calls Urdhva Dhanurasana “Chakrasana,” a name that points out the capacity of backbending to open and charge the chakras.¹⁰

Backbending is related to openness and vulnerability. Openness is here defined as the ability to receive what is offered. It relates to what Sigmund Freud called the “oral phase” in the maturing process of the individual, when saying yes, receiving, and being open are the predominant responses. When an infant is breastfed, the contact to the environment, solely represented by the mother, is made through the oral orifice.

A propensity to backbending is often accompanied by what Wilhelm Reich and later Alexander Lowen called an “oral character.”¹¹ The oral character is related to relativism or, in yogic terms, excess pranaflowing through ida, the lunar or left nostril. The relativist and the oral character tend to say yes to the position of another individual and accept it, even if that position could potentially be dangerous and should be rejected. The character tends to find it difficult to reject in others and themselves behavior that is wrong.

The oral character is not as apt at standing its ground, taking a position in life, or defending what is right and of questioning and opposing what is wrong. If the whole population consisted of individuals with oral tendencies, no despots or dictators would ever have been overthrown, and no revolutions would ever have been staged, in the social, scientific, spiritual, or any other arena.

Thus, backbending is most effective when it is matched and balanced with an improvement in opposing actions and posture groups, such as leg-behind-head and arm balances.

Backbending is pranic in that it supports the “up-breath,” the upward flow of energy that is related to the inhalation. What is generally called “oral” in psychology is in yogic terminology produced by the vital air prana.¹²

It is thought that insufficient bonding with the mother leads to the inability to take a receiving stance later in one’s life. In our experience, individuals with an open backbend find it easy to accept others without judgment, and there is at least anecdotal evidence that progress in backbending is related to acquiring a more open and sympathetic character. Since it improves our feminine qualities, backbending seems to help us to see value in the opinions of others even if these opinions are contrary to our own. As backbending softens what can be called the “armor” or “cage” of the heart — that is, the rib cage — it makes us compassionate and helps us to open our hearts to those disadvantaged or in need.

However, not everyone who has an open backbend is a genuine, loving human being, and not every stiff backbender is a selfish, hung-up miser. One’s backbending seems to improve if one imagines the qualities and attributes associated with backbends while performing them.