ANATOMY OF THE BANDHAS
What, Where, When, Why, and How
Three Primary Bandhas
Bandhas are techniques for containing and directing the flow of life force (prana) in our bodies. They are practiced within our central channels and find their organizing structures in four of the main diaphragms. Often called energetic seals, they are that and it’s important to distinguish what that means within the pranic — or energetic — body.
What many of us have found is that the actions of the bandhas are multilayered. The layers include their muscular and fascial structures, their glandular relationships and nervous system effects, as well as the consciousness with which they are practiced. In fact, playing with and exploring bandhas can be useful means for training ones awareness to go inward, through more obvious tissues (muscles, fascia, etc.) and to the energetics. We learn to feel life force flowing in all its variations. We follow that to the underlying consciousness and radiance of life that penetrates us. Knowing ourselves and our bodies at these underlying levels of flow and vitality is deeply comfortable in the body and comforting to consciousness.
Learning to practice bandhas with ease and respect for life’s movement can be a major key to the process of going deeper into our embodiment. Bandhas are certainly important in yoga and I can only assume they have correlates in other systems as well.
Mulabandha is the seal at the root and is organized around the perineal body within the pelvic diaphragm.
Udiyana bandha uses the thoracic diaphragm including its full length from coccyx into the mid thorax and the diaphragmatic structure of the peritoneal sac and its mesentery in the back abdominal wall.
Jalandhara bandha involves the vocal diaphragm in the throat in concert with the pharynx, the soft palate and the root of the tongue.
The containment of energy in each of the bandhas is achieved through cultivating a fine balance between attention, sensitivity, and muscular action. It is completely possible to ‘engage our bandhas’ (as we sometimes call it) and actually be simply hardening our musculature. Overly contracting muscles doesn’t do any good at all at the level of the prana. In fact, excessive muscular contraction just inhibits the flow of prana. It does not enhance our sensitivity or our ability to direct life force appropriately within.
Bandhas Contain, Direct, and Enhance
In our admirable desire to do well and succeed at whatever we do, we need to be careful not to over do bandhas. It’s easy to enlist too much effort when approaching these critical and subtle inner actions. So much so that we can miss the finer levels of experience they are designed to offer. Hardening is counter to their purpose. The purpose of bandhas is to enhance, direct, and contain energy in order to assist our inquiry into life. They are not about stopping anything.
Due to their subtle nature, the bandhas need to be practiced and refined through a light and sensitive touch. Given enough time, patience, and skillful inner explorations they may well develop spontaneously. However, it is good to have guidance.
Mulabandha
Mulabandha contains and directs energy flow at the root of the torso. It is organized around the perineal body in the center of the pelvic diaphragm. The perineal body is a thickened connective tissue structure that forms the central point of our pelvic floors. It connects and organizes the pelvic floor muscles there and is the focal point of apana vayu1. Apana vayu is the rooting aspect of our bodies’ overall pranic system. It draws life force down, into the body and toward itself at the perineal body.
Mulabandha is the action that contains and collects this vital force within the body and draws it upward from the perineum into the pit of the deep pelvic belly. Without mulabandha too much of our life force flows down and out of the body through the pelvic floor. Mulabandha’s pulsating and lifting action directs a rebounding of life force at the base. Without it we can feel heavy or congested in the pelvic region. With an alive and mobile mulabandha we are more vital through the whole body. More of our life force is contained and drawn back upward where our bodies can utilize its energetic support.
Sensitivity and skillful use of these deep pelvic tissues, including their obvious and more subtle capacities, encourages life force and the movement of our breathing to rebound off the pelvic floor and billow upward.
For Mulabandha Familiarize Yourself with Your Pelvic Floor
—Learn to differentiate the four quadrants of the pelvic diaphragm and use them in movement.
—Learn the boney landmarks: pubic bones, the pubic disc, sit bones, and coccyx.
—Explore the sensations and positioning of the anal sphincter, perineal body, and vagina or prostate.
—Feel your perineal body at the center of the pelvic floor and notice how it affects the flow of prana in your body. Coalesce the muscles around it and imagine you can draw it ever so slightly upward toward the central lower belly.
—Finally, learn to pulse the muscles toward the perineal body and gently sip the prana upward from there.
The action of mulabandha creates a rising — a lifting of life force — upward from the perineal body into the deep pelvic belly, approximately four finger breadths higher than the pubic bone. Udiyana bandha takes over where mulabandha lets off.
Udiyana Bandha
Udiyana means flying up. This refers to the sensation of lift that the bandha provides in the torso and also to its ability to draw prana upward through the core body. Udiyana is largely an action of the peritoneal sac2, its mesentery, and the thoracic diaphragm. It begins with a complete exhalation. The breath remains suspended outward as the entire navel region involutes drawing the abdominal contents in and up.
The mesentery and the peritoneal sac (including the organs contained within) draw upward and into the back abdominal wall while the diaphragm maintains its fully relaxed and toned state, from coccyx to the mid thorax.
The stem of the breathing diaphragm, called the crura, is a critical part of udiyana bandha. The crura is composed of the same muscular and fascial tissue as the thoracic diaphragm itself. In full use the diaphragm’s stem reaches all the way to the coccyx and roots the breath’s movement into the pelvic diaphragm. It tethers the thoracic diaphragm above into the pelvic diaphragm.
Exhalation sets the conditions for udiyana bandha. Like the strong cord of a kite keeps it from flying away, the thoracic diaphragm’s stem tethers it to our root — our earth — at the coccyx.
Udiyana directs prana from the deep pelvic belly all the way upward to the seat of the heart above. When well done, these inner movements assist the process of bringing the primal energy of survival that we embody at our roots up into the heart. As the prana rises it is transformed and becomes part of the process of filling and opening our hearts. Udiyana bandha sets the conditions for growing into a more and more heart filled vision of life.
Jalandhara Bandha
Jalandhara bandha is a complex convergence of actions that arise through the energy, movement, and tissues of the throat and the cavities behind the mouth and nose —the pharynx3. Jalandhara bandha keeps the head cool and calm while the activity of the other practices do their work in the torso. Jalandhara is settling to the mind and calming to the autonomic nervous system. It has a strong tendency to direct our awareness deep to our cores.
Doing jalandhara bandha involves lifting the manubrium (top of sternum) and arching the jaw joints up and around to take the chin toward the hollow of the neck and the top of the sterunum.
The subtlety comes in the arching action that brings the chin to or toward the chest.
The movement is shaped around the tissues of the esophagus and trachea, the root of the tongue, the oropharynx (the cave of the mouth), and the soft palate. Once you know the shape in there (image below) you can follow it easily into the jalandhara bandha.
The arch of the movement can be initiated quite nicely from the back root of the tongue, up and around the cave of the mouth, supported by space and rising in the jaw joints. (Be sure to look at the images below!)
Unified Diaphragm and the Remnants of the Bandhas
Ultimately the three bandhas are one. The continuity of fascial tissues in the body connects each diaphragm with the other. When one moves, the others also move…and they all breathe! The unified diaphragm coordinates the the unified containment, enhancement, and directionality of life force that involves all three diaphragms.
Our exploration of bandhas introduces us to how to look for and cultivate healthy, resilient, and responsive tone in all body tissues.
Sometimes we refer to the bandhas that remain with us after practice as the ‘remnants of the bandhas’. The remnants are the reverberations and connections that we have made when we practice the ‘full bandhas’. They are the pathways that remain and continue to sculpt and enhance our life force.
As we learn and inquire into easeful and skillful use of the full bandhas we naturally begin to feel these remnants of the bandhas when we are just going about our day, dancing, swimming, walking, working, or any time at all. They are physical, pranic, somatic, and psychic connections that provide ease and comfort in movement and in our sensing of a unified state of living.
Be sure to look at the images below to assist your inquiry! (And don’t forget the footnotes below the images.)
Vayus are the winds, or directional streams of life force in the body. The two primary vayus are: prana and apana. Apana (at the pelvic floor) roots us downward and into our bodies. Prana vayu resides in the heart region and its directional flow is outward and upward. The two are in constant relational play in our bodies.
The Peritoneal sac is the large fluid filled sac that lines the abdominal cavity and contains many of our torso’s organs. It is connected to the back abdomen by its mesentery. The mesentery forms thick weaves of sensitive tissues that tether our small intestines to the back abdominal wall.
The pharynx (throat) is a muscular tube in the middle of your neck that includes the oral and nasal cavities.
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Patty