Downward Dog Pose
The pose has frequently appeared in Western culture, including in the titles of novels, a painting, and a television series, and it is implied in the commercial name, "YOGΛ", of a foldable computer.
[10] A similar pose, together with a 5-count format and a method of jumps between poses resembling Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga's system, was described in Niels Bukh's early 20th century Danish text Primitive Gymnastics,[13][14] which in turn was derived from a 19th-century Scandinavian tradition of gymnastics; the system had arrived in India by the 1920s.
[13] Swami Kuvalayananda incorporated Downward Dog into his system of exercises in the early 1930s, from where it was taken up by his pupil the influential yoga teacher Tirumalai Krishnamacharya.
For example, the pose can be supported with a strap from a secure waist-level wall anchor around the hips, or with a bolster under the forehead—combined if required with a rolled blanket or towel under the feet.
[28] The pose has sometimes been advised against during pregnancy in popular sources,[a] but that advice has been contested by a 2015 study which found no ill-effects on healthy women between 35 and 37 weeks pregnant from any of the 26 asanas investigated, including Downward Dog.
[7] Mukti Jane Campion, presenter of the BBC programme The Secret History of Yoga, called the pose "iconic".
[34] Downward Dog has been used in advertising for the Lenovo "YOGΛ" device which can be folded (hence its name) to serve as a laptop computer or as a tablet.
[35][36] Downward Dog Pose is mentioned in many artistic and literary contexts: for example, Saatchi Art features an acrylic on canvas painting entitled "Downward Dog" by Steve Palumbo,[37] and the name of the pose was chosen for an American Broadcasting Company television comedy show which ran in 2017,[38] as well as the title of a 2013 novel by Edward Vilga.
[42] The mindful yoga instructor Anne Cushman's 2014 book Moving into Meditation invites the reader to take the "Journey of Downward Dog", a playful exploration of variations of the pose, "with an eye to awakening the flow of aliveness".
