Bird of Paradise Pose or Svarga Dvijasana is an advanced yoga pose that feels challenging. This pose is usually entered from Virabhadrasana 2 pose; While balancing on one leg, extend the opposite leg upward, and hook the arms under the top leg.
This asana makes the posture wonderful while standing as well as balancing. It directly targets your waist, hamstrings and the area around the hips and pelvis. It also improves your balance and teaches patience, mental strength and flexibility.
Svarga Dvijasana Basics
| Sanskrit Pronunciation | Svarga Dvijasana |
| Meaning | ‘Svarga’ = ‘Heavenly world’ ‘Dvija’ = ‘twice born’. |
| Pose Type | Balancing, Standing |
| Pose Level | Advanced |
| Style of yoga | – |
| Other Names | Paradise Bird Pose, Svarga Dvijasana, Bird of Paradise Pose, Svarga Dvidasana |
| Stretches | The pelvis, hamstrings, gluteus maximus, triceps and biceps, and shoulders |
| Strengthening | The core and back |
| Duration | 30 second to 3 minutes |
Svarga Dvijasana Meaning
In Sanskrit, ‘Svarga’ = ‘Heavenly world’ or ‘Paradise’, and ‘Dvija’ = ‘twice born’.
This pose is compared to the ‘Bird of Paradise’ flower – a tropical flower. Here our body resembles this flower, the petals are repeated with the protruding leg and the stalk is repeated with the balanced leg. the bind, created by your arms opens your heart to vulnerability.
Practice Guide For Bird of Paradise Pose (Svarga Dvijasana)
The Practice Guide to Perform Bird of Paradise Pose serves as a valuable resource for yoga enthusiasts seeking to advance their practice, offering a structured and detailed approach to mastering this challenging yet rewarding yoga pose.
Preparatory Poses
- Mountain Pose (Tadasana)
- Extended Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)
- Standing Hand to Big Toe Pose (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)
Steps To Do Bird of Paradise Pose
1. Begin in Tadasana (mountain pose) with your feet together and distribute the weight evenly in your feet.
2. Keeping the feet a few feet apart stand with extending the spine upwards and go forward as you exhale to go into Uttanasana.
3. As you exhale take the torso deeper down and neck and face deeper inside towards your thighs.
4. Bring the right hand from the front and take it inside out through the right leg and from behind interlock the left hand bringing it from around the waist while bending the knees a bit.
5. With the hands interlocked around the right leg, raise the right leg slowly with inhalation from the floor and bring the torso upright taking
7. the weight of the lifted leg into your interlocked hands and exhale standing upright.
8. lift the right leg completely taking it towards your right side extending it out while flexing the hips.
9. Work on interconnected hands to achieve better balance and maintain balance using the core muscles.
10. Make sure that the shoulder is stretched back, the raised leg is fairly straight and is not bent too much at the knee.
11. Slowly lift the chest out and gaze forward into the abdomen.
12. Hold the right leg up for about 30 seconds while slowly gaining confidence, and slowly work to a deeper extension with each exhalation.
13. While exhaling slowly, bend the right knee and place the foot down on the floor, stop here and completely relax the hips and legs.
If one needs support to begin with, it may be useful to use a wall to keep the raised leg in place.
Follow-up Poses
- Eagle Pose (Garudasana)
- Downward-Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
- Dolphin Pose (Ardha Pincha Mayurasana)
- Corpse Pose (Shavasana)
Bird of Paradise Pose Benefits
Bird of Paradise is a great pose to challenge the stretch of your glutes, groin, and hips as the legs extend overhead. This will also help you massively stretch all the core and abdominal muscles.
On top of all that, this asana is great for every muscle that gets stretched while making this Bird of Paradise pose.
Since this pose requires a lot of core strength to balance yourself on one leg, Swarga Dvijasana works on the oblique muscles, abdominal muscles as well as the core strength of the back muscles.
You also need to be aware of keeping your back straight by extending your spine and opening your chest to stand in Bird of Paradise.
Swarga Dvijasana opens the hips and lower back with deep extension of the legs and the practice improves flexibility.
There is no doubt that mastering this pose generally requires working on awareness of a fit body.
Precautions
- Pregnant women should avoid this asana completely, it is uncomfortable for the mother and the fetus.
- However it is not recommended to practice this posture in case of headache, insomnia, high or low blood pressure.
- If your body is not flexible, there is a high possibility that one of your muscles may get pulled.
- Swarga Dvidasana is a complex Yoga Pose for beginners, so it is not a challenge for you.
Conclusion
Swarga Dvidasana Complex Yoga Pose for Beginners is a very challenging asana, which will greatly test your flexibility and balance. In addition to balance and flexibility, patience and regular practice are extremely important when practicing this pose safely. Bird of Paradise pose works wonders for opening the chest and hips as well as relaxing the muscles of the back, arms and legs.
