The verse and its meaning · Yoga in Practice · Yoga in Practice — Mudra and Bandha

The Root Lock at the Heel

Hatha Yoga Pradipika 3.61

अथ मूलबन्धः पार्ष्णिभागेन सम्पीड्य योनिं आकुञ्चयेद्गुदम्। अपानं ऊर्ध्वं आकृष्य मूलबन्धोऽभिधीयते ॥

Meaning · English

Now the root lock. Pressing the yoni with the heel's part, let the anus be drawn in. Drawing apana, the downward-moving breath, upward: this is called the root lock.

The name comes first. Mula means root, and bandha means a lock or a binding. The root here is the base of the trunk, where the body meets the ground when one sits. The verse gives three instructions in a fixed order. First, press the yoni with the heel. The commentary reads the heel-part as the area below the ankle bones, and yoni as the place between the anus and the genitals. Second, draw the anus in and contract it. Third, draw apana upward. Apana is the tradition's name for the breath-energy that moves downward and out. It carries away what the body lets go. The text then names the whole act mula bandha. So the lock is the pressure at the heel and the inward draw of the anus, taken together with the upward pull of apana. The verse gives no reason of its own beyond this naming. The commentary only restates the order: pressing the place with the heel comes first, and the contraction follows from it. The verse says nothing here about how long to hold, about the breath, or about the seat. Those come from a teacher. What it asks of a practitioner is a small, exact action at one spot, repeated with attention.

The body part is easy to find. Sitting on the floor, one heel can rest against the soft area between the anus and the genitals. That is the perineum. The heel gives a steady, gentle pressure from outside. From inside, the muscles of the pelvic floor and the ring muscle around the anus draw in and lift slightly, as if stopping the flow of wind. The thighs, buttocks and belly can stay soft. The spine stays tall. The verse gives no breath instruction. Teachers usually have the lift done on a held or a quiet breath. That is the teacher's method, not the verse's. For the mind, the shape narrows attention to one small, definite place. That is hard to do while thinking of anything else. The upward draw of apana is the tradition's account of what is happening. It is not a description of muscles or gas. The tradition holds that the downward current is turned upward, and that is the point of the lock. Held too hard or too long, the grip tires the pelvic floor and tightens the belly and breath. A light, even contraction is the sound way to work.

The Pradipika names no fruit in the verse. It says only what the lock is and what it does: the downward-moving apana is drawn upward. In the tradition, that reversal is the purpose of the practice. The text treats it as a preparation inside the larger scheme of the seals and locks, where the breath-energy is gathered and turned toward the central channel. Any further promise belongs to the verses around it and to the later commentators, and should be read there, not assumed here.

A man braces before lifting something heavy. Without being told, he tightens low in the trunk. That is the pelvic floor working. Today's physiotherapy knows these muscles well. They support the bladder and bowel, and they work with the deep belly muscles and the breath. Training them to contract and, just as importantly, to let go is ordinary clinical advice, taught under the name pelvic floor exercises. In that sense the inward draw of the lock matches something real. What has no modern match is apana, the upward turning of a breath-energy, or the idea that the lock redirects it. Pressing a heel into the perineum has no established value of its own, and constant over-tightening can make the muscles sore. The tradition's account stays the tradition's. The muscle action is the part that can be seen and taught today.

This is not medical advice, and a page cannot correct a pose the way a teacher can. Learn the root lock with one. Stop at any pain, and never force the pressure or the contraction. Take extra care with pregnancy, recent surgery or injury in the pelvis or belly, haemorrhoids or other pain around the anus, a very tight or sore pelvic floor, and high blood pressure if the contraction is held with the breath. Sitting on the heel for long can also hurt the knees and ankles. Straining or long holds do harm. Gentle and brief is the safer way to begin. Releasing fully after each draw matters as much as the draw.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Flying Up the Middle Channel · Hatha Yoga Pradipika 3.55
• Next: The Throat Lock · Hatha Yoga Pradipika 3.70
• All of Yoga in Practice · Ask Krishna about it

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