Opening Your Front Body Can Make You as Evasive, and Deadly, as a Snake

In Capoeira, we work to close the body to protect ourselves from malicia and mandinga. But to play like a malandro, we need to be able to open our ourselves up to attack, drawing the other Capoeirista in, to set up our own kicks and take-downs. Successful mandinga requires a quick mind and a fluid spine that can change direction in the blink of an eye. Backbends are ideal preparation for this kind of jogo, as they teach you to open your front body, safely and with grace, so you can turn around and throw a kick or sneak in for the vengativa. A bendy back can also be very useful in floreios, making your jogo only more flashy and beautiful. By bringing some grace and flow to the roda, you can disarm your classmates with dazzling acrobatics and malandragem.

If you have been practicing along with previous columns, you have balanced and released your spine through twisting, and have learned to elongate as you arch. In "baby" backbends you have learned to use the strength in your legs to support release in the front body. Now you are ready to try some more intense arcs. It is best to practice these poses after your training sessions, to be sure you are good and warmed up! Practice some twists beforehand to fully prepare your spine.



Camel Pose: Learn to Arch Your Upper Spine and Engage Your Legs to Release Deeply

This backbend gives you a lot of freedom of movement in the chest and upper spine, without straining your shoulders or letting tightness there restrict your movement. It is also great training in using your legs to support your back. This is a variation on the pose that uses a wall as a prop, or guide, to help you isolate your dorsal spine.

1. Begin kneeling, with your knees directly in the crease between the floor and the wall. Your nose should just brush the wall. Make sure your knees are hip width apart. You can tuck your toes under, or point your feet, but most people find tucked more accessible. And by pressing into your toes and the balls of your feet, you can fire up your quadriceps and activate your leg strength, allowing your chest to lift and your spine to extend.
2. Bring your hands to your sacrum, and use them to help you draw your tailbone down and in, slightly pressing your pubic bone into the wall. Drop your bunda away from your back waist, as you lift your back ribs and press your lumbar spine into your hands. Your tailbone keeps moving down and in throughout the pose. Your sit bones, however, widen as you release your bunda.
3. Draw your elbows back toward one another, lift your sternum and spread your collarbones. Reach your triceps down toward your elbows. Begin to raise your gaze. Keep elevating your chest and start to press your shoulder blades deep into your back. As your gaze finds the ceiling, lengthen the back of your neck and slide your shoulders down away from your ears. Keep the bottom tip of your sternum drawing toward the wall, as the top of your sternum stretches up and back.
4. Lift the sides of your chest, the front of your armpits, as far as you possibly can. Feel as if someone is boosting you up from the back of your armpits. Keep rooting down through your and legs and arching up and back. Squeeze your thighs toward one another.
5. Once you are looking at the wall behind you, release your hands, and lower then down onto your heels. Use your hands here as leverage to lift your lower spine more and curve back further. Remember to ground down to rise up, engaging your quads.
6. If you want to go for something quite dramatic, begin to walk your hands in towards the back of your knees. Super flexy types may even be able to release the top of their head to the floor, between their feet.
7. Whenever you have reached your maximum arc, without compromising your lumbar spine, hold the pose for five slow, deep breaths. When you are ready to come out, bring your gaze down further, lower your head a little bit further down, press into your feet, and lift up from your sternum. Your head rises last. Rest for a few breaths between poses.

Full Wheel: Lift Up Into Ponte From the Floor, Elongating Your Spine to Arc Evenly

Practicing your ponte (bridge) with yogic precision will allow you to feel fully open and supported in the roda, and free to move in any direction with grace and power. You will be able to flow in and out with speed and ease, so you can respond to the kick swiftly and put other Capoeiristas on the run.

1. Begin lying on the floor, with your knees bent and your feet flat. Scootch them in toward your bunda, hip width apart. You want your toes pointed straight forward here, so since you can't see them, turn them in until you feel a smidge pigeon-toed. Slide your torso away from your feet an inch or so, dragging it along the floor so your bunda slides away from your low back, and the front of your armpit opens. Bring your hands next to your ears, fingers pointing to your shoulders, and elbows rising straight up toward the ceiling. If your shoulders are very tight, you can point your fingers out to either side.
2. Press into your hands and feet, so your hips begin to rise straight up. Release your neck back; slide onto the top of your head. Rest here for a moment, keeping the weight of your torso in your hands, and your neck and head light. Ground the base of your thumb and index finger, and slide your triceps toward your elbows. Draw your upper arm bone into the shoulder socket. Line your arms up so your elbows are right over your wrists and your upper arms are parallel to one another.
3. Lift your whole body up by pressing into your hands and feet evenly. Use your leg muscles: press the ball of your big toe into the floor and squeeze your thighs toward one another as if there was a yoga block between them. Keep your arms parallel to each other; keep the thumb knuckle grounding down.
4. Lengthen your spine: reach your tailbone toward your knees and your chest forward, in the direction of your gaze. Release your bunda and roll your inner thighs down. Also draw your tailbone into your body and your outer hips up. Keep sliding your shoulders away from your ears, and suction your shoulder blades into your back. Feel, once again, as if you're being lifted up from behind your armpits, extending your upper spine further.
5. At your maximum height hold for at least five slow, deep breaths. To release, tuck your chin and slowly, gently, lower your spine down one vertebra at a time. Do not draw your knees into your chest until you have finished all your backbends! Feel free to swing your knees from side to side, like windshield wipers.

Drop Backs: Find Ease and Lightness in Floreios by Learning to Release Back into Ponte

To prepare yourself for macacao, backwards walkovers, and sdobrados, practice dropping back from a standing position into ponte. The key, here, is to remember to use your legs! And make sure you lift up out of your low back, curving your spine from tailbone to skull in a graceful arc.

1. Begin standing with your back to a wall. (The best way to figure out how far away to stand is to do a wheel pose with your hands at the wall, and then come down out of the backbend, and stand up without moving your feet.)
2. Bend both knees, and press your hands together in front of your chest. Lengthen your tailbone and lift your pubic bone. Keeping your feet hip width apart, engage your kneecaps fiercely, squeeze your thighs toward one another, and lift your low belly. Lighten your sternum, letting it rise up as you open the front of your armpits. Press your hands together and draw your triceps down to your elbows.
3. Elongate the back of your neck as you began to lift your gaze up and back, until you can see the wall behind you. Raise one arm until your fingertips touch the wall. Then bring your second hand to the wall as well, so they are shoulder width apart. Ground your feet, and pressing down elevate your hips, brighten your chest, and begin to bring more weight into your hands.
4. Walk your hands down the wall. Draw your face and your sternum toward it. Once again the bottom of your sternum moves toward the center of the room, while the top stretches toward the wall. Keep your knees bent and as much weight as possible in your legs. When your hands reach the floor, come into your full wheel pose and lengthen your spine as much as possible. Try bringing your chest closer to the wall.
5. When you feel comfortable and confident dropping back at the wall, you can begin to walk your feet a little further into the center of the room, starting with your hands lower down the wall each time. Eventually you will want to try it without any support at all. In the beginning, have a friend spot you, by supporting your hips and lower back so they stay long and lifted as your torso releases back.

Once you are done with your backbending practice, you can draw your knees into your chest and rock side to side, pressing your sacrum into the floor, giving your low back a little massage. Then be sure to do some deep twisting! It will leave you ready to train again the next day, free of soreness or stiffness. And soon you will fly into floreios with ease, and slither around the Roda full of malicia, keeping all the other Capoeiristas on their toes.


Previously:
Yoga For Capoeiristas - Twists
Yoga For Capoeiristas - Backbend Preparations
Yoga For Capoeiristas - Standing Poses
Yoga For Capoeiristas - Hip Openers
Yoga For Capoeiristas - Forward Bends
Yoga For Capoeiristas - Stretching & Sun Salutations


Britt Carlson is an editor and former literary agent. She is also a YA certified yoga teacher specializing in alignment-based vinyasa and yoga for children. She teaches at Mala Yoga, Shambhala Yoga and Dance and for Bent on Learning, all in Brooklyn, NY.


Capoeira photo by capoeira-world.com via CC BY-SA 2.0
Yoga photos by Bedirhan Cinar