Hanuman Gadha

How can a stick help our practice?

Sometimes in our yoga, there’s an excess of “yang”, the male Energy. Too much focus, or focus on the physical pose, on the muscles, and less on sensations.

An essential study on the alignment that can, by proposing the pose almost as an ideal, stifle the part that comes from personal experience.

A tendency to keep the movement rigid, on straight lines, and not acknowledge the curves.

We are certain that there’s a need for balance, that is after all the meaning of ah and that in the hatha yoga, male and female, sun and moon.

What to do, then?


The answer came from Indian mythology!

Hanuman, the monkey warrior, was an ardent devotee of the God Rama. When Rama’s spouse, Sita, was abducted, Hanuman is the one that saved her, reuniting the spouses. In the symbolic vision, therefore, Hanuman is the one that brings Sita and Rama together again,

the female to the male.

Since Hanuman’s weapon – the gadha – is a mace, we thought of working with a stylized version of the mace:

a simple stick!

As in the symbol from the greek tradition -of a snake coiled around the stick- we use this most simple instrument (symbol of male Energy) to call in a game of opposites the female Energy, sinuous, soft.

Through the stick, our yoga changes.

At first, with a new awareness of our bodies, a different awareness brought forth precisely by how the gadha helps the poses, making us feel them more deeply, sometimes subtly changing them.

Then, the yoga becomes more fluid, and the stick draws in the air the wave of this fluidity.

A comprehensive work, then, that trains strength, tone, limberness and most of all, awareness.

Hanuman Gadha is a wonderful integration for Yoga Teachers, to bring in their classes and in their personal practice.