In this Asana Lab David teaches the upright position of Extended Hand To Big Toe pose. READ ESSAY FOR MORE DETAILED INFO ON THIS CHALLENGING POSTURE

This humble posture is extremely important to the overall study of asana because it teaches you to cultivate an active interaction between your limbs in every posture. I advise you to see the pose as a challenging variation of Samasthiti whose real significance is found in the act of lifting one leg up at the same time as attempting to maintain the integrity of the vertical line that runs from your head down the torso, through the straight leg into the foot and earth. Students often miss this most important aspect of this pose because they jump too soon to the phase of attempting to bow the torso forward towards the lifted leg. It is a hidden secret that the real challenge, enjoyment and benefit of the pose are found in the upright position not in bowing forward. Bowing forward plays a very small role in the overall work of the posture, bringing your torso forward is like a finishing touch that you add on at the very end of all your effort to stay upright and strongly lift upwards through your up leg. Deciding to work hard on the upright aspect combined with lifting up your leg can be challenging because there is nothing exotic or fancy about the humble act of standing upright and lifting your leg. But drop your ego and dive into this humble struggle and strength, flexibility, improved balance, and mind control will be your reward.
As you may have noticed the pose is terribly hard to do and thus fortunately you are able to use one hand to help you pull your leg up (in all but the last phase of the posture). Grabbing a hold of your big toe with your middle and index fingers and pulling up gives you the extra oomph you need to skillfully balance in the position and work against the resistance of the stubborn hamstring muscles on the backs of your thighs. The struggle to remain steady standing on one leg while you do your work improves balance and strengthens your feet and legs. Learning to remain accurately internally aware of your vertical stance strengthens your mind and increases your power to concentrate your attention on a chosen focal point-in this case the vertical axis in relationship to the interaction between your limbs.
Another thing that stands out about this pose is the feature of catching the big toe with the fingers. The connection between the big toe and fingers constitutes an important energetic seal called a mudra (energetic seal). You activate mudra’s in order to awaken the play of opposing energetic forces within your body in your postures. In this case you push away through your big toe as you pull back with your fingers. Establishing a clear push and pull opposition between your big toe and fingers helps bring steadiness to an inherently unsteady position. Activating these opposing forces also provides you with extra power to elongate your hamstring muscles. The hamstrings are notoriously stubborn muscles that often strenuously resist your attempts to lengthen them. Therefore actively using your arms and legs through creating an interaction between your fingers/toes, hands/feet, and arms/legs proves to be immensely helpful in creating flexibility and strength.
You also use the physical connection between your big toe and fingers as a meditative device that helps you to keep your mind centered inside your body in your posture immediately in the moment. The big toe makes for an excellent appendage to catch hold of and the act of gripping with your fingers and pulling on your toe as you push away through your toe serves as a catalyst that awakens opposing forces between your fingers and toes. You use the mudra of connecting your fingers and big toe to make a larger connection between your hands and feet and thus you push away through your foot and you pull back with your hand. The same play of opposing forces takes place in the even larger sphere of your arms and legs.
You gesture with your entire leg, the leg that you lift up expresses the posture as dynamic kick that constellates an entire chain of muscular and skeletal activity from pelvis to leg bones to feet and toes. You actively kick out, away and up through your leg at the same time as pulling up and back with your arm in order to provide counter force that resists the strength and thrust of your leg gesture. You begin with the connection between your fingers and big toe and end with the kicking gesture of your leg that combines with the resistance of your arm and when you perceive that each of these various mudra points is interconnected you begin to understand how to awaken your entire body to a position. You know that you have arrived in the elusive single state of internal awareness that you are aiming to experience in each posture when are able to perceive that the activity that takes place at each mudra point is one tiny event that is part of a greater, comprehensive event that is taking place simultaneously throughout your body. This is another way of making the statement that the field of the mind is the field of the body and you are looking to activate the entire mind/body field in each position. Creating positive and active interaction between your limbs in each position is one of most tangible and physical ways to get involved in the process of feeling that a total participation of you takes place when you do your pose. Awakening these various plays of opposing energetic forces through creating interactions between your limbs brings vibratory reverberations that behave like energetic sound waves that travel throughout interior spaces of your body bouncing off organs, tissues, bones, muscles and other aspects of the inner landscape. In this way you use breath and skeletal gestures to energetically sound out your inner contours and depths.
In this pose you endeavor to retain your connection to the central axis while lifting up and extending one leg out in front of you. You push out and away through your big toe/foot/leg while using your fingers/hand/arm to pull back against and resist the efforts to lift and extend your leg. By setting up a predicament where your arms and legs oppose each other you build a posture that works your entire body bringing finger/hand/arm and big toe, foot, leg strength, stability, skill in balance, hamstring flexibility, and mind control. You can transfer what you learn in Uttitha Hasta Padangusthasana to other postures by remembering that your arms and legs are meant to play an important role in the expression of opposing forces in your postures. This is one of the most demanding but also compelling standing postures. Many students love to hate this posture but there’s no denying its extensive list of benefits and the feeling of satisfaction that comes from attempting it each day.