How to Use Uddiyana Bandha in Yoga: Tips, Technique, Correct Form, Benefits and Common Mistakes

The Uddiyana Bandha is a powerful practice that raises the energy in the chest while forcefully pinching off energy in the abdomen.

If done correctly - and it requires some practice to nail down - the Uddiyana Bandha can balance your body's pranas. It can be used as a counter pose to back bends and standing poses, like uttanasana (standing forward bend), dandasana (staff pose) or virabhadrasana II (warrior II).

Let's start with why Uddiyana is one of the most important practices in yoga. It tones your abdomen, gives you a strong energetic lift, strengthens backbends and awakens kundalini. Also, remember that you're working with gravity here.

As such it's better if you lie down on your back; however, some flexibility can help, so if you're new to this practice or have a bad back, you may find it's more comfortable to sit against the wall and lean back.

What is Uddiyana Bandha?

Bandas are locks or bonds that are used as part of yoga and pranayama practices. They can help stimulate energy in the body and also cleanse energy channels.

Here's a recap of the four key locks:

Root Lock
Throat Lock
Abdominal Lock (also called the "crown lock")
and the Great Lock (meaning it incorporates all three previous locks).

Uddiyana Bandha is one of three bandhas or life-force locks, often practiced in yoga. It can be a powerful pose if done correctly, but it's best to master the other two first.

How to Perform Uddiyana Bandha Kriya?

In step-by-step guide, you'll learn how to do the standing abdominal lock, but you can also do the same in a seated position:

Here's how it's done:

With your feet shoulder-distance apart, slightly bend your knees, and lean forward, placing your palms on your thighs close to your knees.
Extend your arms straight in front of you, with a slight bend at the elbow.
Keep your abdominals pulled in and up, as if trying to make your waist smaller.
Breathe out slowly till you can't breathe any longer. Hold your breath while bending forward at the waist and placing your hands on your thighs near your knees.
To release your abdominal muscles, slowly exhale as you completely release them.
Repeat a few times. Uddiyana Nauli will help not only to release energy but also moves your energy from the belly and up your body.
This exercise is also a great way to work your lower abdominal and focus on the contact with your muscles that can be difficult to activate.
Uddiyana Bandha creates massage for your abdominal muscles and lower back.
Practicing both in sequence and with effort, and doing it regularly, can help keep your alignment correct

Tips and Techniques: Uddiyana Bandha (Abdominal Lock)

Bandha work is often done in Iyengar yoga separately from asana, frequently at the conclusion of an asana session. Ashtanga Yoga offers an alternative strategy. Mula and uddiyana bandhas are recommended for use in Ashtanga throughout each posture.

This is a fundamental principle of Ashtanga. Uddiyana bandha is described quite differently in Ashtanga texts, though. It's typically defined as greater abdominal toning, drawing the stomach towards the spine rather than up and under the ribs. As a result, respiration can continue normally when the bandhas are engaged.

Benefits of Uddiyana Bandha

The Uddiyana Bandha is a way to engage your abdominal muscles. It tones and creates space for the abdominal organs, so that they don't have to work as hard when lifting into inversion poses. That way, you won't get injured, and you can fly easily into inversion poses.

The Bandha is great for lowering blood sugar levels, relieving constipation and calming irritability and temper. By creating a vacuum in the chest, it improves circulation to the abdominal organs.

This exercise is the best way to awaken and improve the functions of your internal organs. It also improves the function of your respiratory diaphragm, which is stretched as much as possible when you exhale.

In addition, this pose massages the heart and helps improve its function. These two benefits alone make the practice invaluable and deserving of a regular part of your meditation routine.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

To avail the pose's optimum benefits, you should do it early in the morning with an empty stomach and bowels. You have to try not to let air in when you inhale. That's why we're told to lock our airway at the glottis or hold our nose and mouth at the end of an exhalation.

The most common mistake most of us make is not relaxing their abdomen during mock inhalations. If you keep your abdominal muscles rigid or even try to push in with them, the abdominal organs and abdominal wall cannot be sucked in and up.

Takeaway

This pose can warm up your abdominal organs and help you relax from your morning meditation. It has been said that practicing the Uddiyana Bandha at least once a day can keep your mind focused throughout the day.

Don't beat yourself up if you don't get it right away. The poses take time to master, so start slowly, and work on your posture rather than straining yourself. Just trust the process, and go from there.