Folks, we’re back and we’re going over the Yoga-Esque exercises popularized by Matt Furey and known as the Royal Court Exercises.

In this part, we will review the Hindu push-ups.

Okay, now for THIS exercise, Matt was absolutely right.

(Who knows, you may be right in your description of Hindu squats, all I know is that they don’t seem worth it, hence the ‘sumo’ method mentioned above.)

Now back to the Hindu pushup, like all great bodyweight exercises, you’ll not only build immense upper body strength (hey, it’s a pushup), but you’ll also increase flexibility throughout your body (yes, legs included). and it strengthens virtually every muscle and because of the ‘down dog’ inversion, you get an added advantage of blood flow to the head i.e. brain and face.

Then let’s get started.

This is how to perform a Hindu push-up (Dand)

-Start as if you were about to do regular push-ups, then spread your legs or feet as far apart as you can. (When I do these bad boys, I spread my feet first and then put my hands on the ground, but whatever works for you…)

-Now walk your hands towards you so that you are in an inverted V position as in the
1. Downward Facing Dog in the Sun Salutations Series
2. First Position of the 5th Tibetan rite.

-Okay, empty your lungs, then start bending your elbows so that your body moves forward. Your hips will lower towards the ground.

-However, before your head hits the ground, begin to arch your spine so that you face the ceiling.

– Stretch your arms and give your back a nice cobra pose, stretch and INHALE.

(You can read elsewhere online that you exhale here, however inhalations are always when the lungs are naturally in an expanded position while exhalations are on the opposite side.)

-Keep your arms straight and push your butt back to the starting position as you EXHALE.

Now, if you refer back to the previous article, you’ll see that I said you want to do half the number of squats in the Hindu push-ups.

So if you did about 40 squats to start with, 20 pushups, and so on!

In the next article I will discuss Bridge Exercises.

To Health, Naturally,

Foras Aje