Chandra Namaskar

Chandra Namaskar, the moon salutation, is a fourteen position sequence built on the same frame as the sun salutation, done slowly, in the evening or at night, with two lateral half moon positions inserted into it. Four rounds with a settling at the start and eight minutes of lying down at the end is twenty minutes, and that is the practice on this page.

It is for anybody who wants a moving practice at the end of the day rather than a still one. The sun sequence heats and quickens. The moon sequence uses almost the same shapes at a quarter of the speed, with the back knee down, with a smaller cobra, and with a side stretch that the sun sequence does not have at all. In the hall it is the practice I give to people who say they are too wound up in the evening to sit down and too tired to do anything strenuous, which is most working people who come to me.

The first thing to know is that the internet does not agree on what this sequence is. Search for it and you will be told it has fourteen positions or seventeen, and the two lists barely overlap. That is not a miscount by somebody and it is worth twenty minutes of your attention, so it is dealt with next, before any instructions.

Level: beginner, with one condition. If you have never done the sun salutation, learn the twelve positions of Surya Namaskar first, because twelve of the fourteen here are the same positions and the teaching for them is fuller there. Then this sequence takes one evening to learn.

Here is the honest answer, which no page on the first page of results gives. There are two entirely different sequences in circulation under the name Chandra Namaskar. They are not two counts of the same sequence. One is not a mistake made by the other. They share a name and almost nothing else.

The fourteen position version is the one taught in the Indian hatha lineage and it is the one on this page. It takes the frame of the sun salutation and inserts Ardha Chandrasana, the half moon, immediately after each of the two Ashwa Sanchalanasana lunges. So: prayer, raised arms, forward fold, lunge, half moon, Parvatasana, eight point salute, cobra, Parvatasana, lunge, half moon, forward fold, raised arms, prayer. The fourteen positions are said to correspond to the fourteen lunar phases between one full moon and the next new moon, which is why the count is fourteen and not twelve or sixteen. Published fourteen position lists agree with each other position for position.

The seventeen step version is a modern standing lateral sequence and it is not the sun salutation modified at all. Its published list runs Tadasana, Chandrasana, Utkata Konasana, the five pointed star, Trikonasana, Parsvottanasana, a side lunge, a forward lunge, Malasana, and then back out through the same shapes on the other side, finishing with Tiryaka Tadasana and Tadasana. Nothing in it goes near the floor, there is no cobra and no eight point salute, and Ardha Chandrasana does not appear in it. It moves sideways where the fourteen position version moves forwards and backwards.

Counts of fifteen, sixteen and eighteen appear too, and every one I have checked is one of these two sequences with a starting or finishing position counted differently, or with the two sides counted as one position instead of two.

So the difference between fourteen and seventeen is not where Ardha Chandrasana sits. It is which sequence you are being taught. Both are real practices and both are calming. If somebody tells you the moon salutation has seventeen steps, they are not wrong, they are describing the other one. Ask whether it includes a cobra: if it does, you are in the fourteen position lineage, and if it does not, you are in the seventeen step one.

This page teaches the fourteen because it is the version with a stated traditional basis for its count, because it can be learned in one evening by anybody who already knows the sun salutation, and because it is gentler on the knees than a sequence with two deep lateral squats in every round.

Twelve of these fourteen have a page of their own on this site and are linked. Two do not yet, and both of them are Ardha Chandrasana, so they are described here in full rather than left as a gap. The timed table above lists the twelve linked positions; read positions 5 and 11 from this section.

1. Pranamasana, the prayer position

Tadasana with the palms joined at the chest. Exhale. Stand still until the standing is settled.

2. Hasta Uttanasana, raised arms

Urdhva Hastasana. Inhale the arms overhead and lengthen upwards before any curve backwards. The ribs stay down.

3. Padahastasana, the forward fold

Uttanasana. Exhale and fold from the hips with the knees bent. In the evening version fold half as far and take twice as long about it.

4. Ashwa Sanchalanasana, the low lunge

Ashwa Sanchalanasana. Inhale, step the left leg back, back knee down on a folded blanket. In this sequence the knee stays down, which is a real difference from the sun version and not a modification.

5. Ardha Chandrasana, the half moon

This position has no page of its own yet, so here it is in full. From the low lunge, with the back knee down and the hips settled forward, inhale and sweep both arms overhead, palms together, then lengthen up and allow a gentle curve backwards through the upper back while the hips stay pressing forward. Look up at the thumbs if the neck allows it, and at the wall if it does not. Hold for one breath. This is the position the sequence is named for: the body makes a crescent. Two cautions. The curve is in the upper back and the chest, never in the lower back, and if you feel any pinch in the lower back the answer is to press the hips further forward and lift the chest higher rather than to lean further back. If the shoulders will not come overhead with the palms together, keep the hands apart at shoulder width.

6. Parvatasana, the mountain

Adho Mukha Svanasana, which this lineage calls Parvatasana in the salutation. Exhale, hips back and up, knees bent freely so the spine can be long.

7. Ashtanga Namaskara, the eight point salute

Ashtanga Namaskara. Knees, chest and chin down, hips lifted, elbows tucked beside the ribs.

8. Bhujangasana, the cobra

Bhujangasana. Inhale and slide the chest forward and up, elbows soft. Half of your morning lift is the right size at night.

9. Parvatasana again

Adho Mukha Svanasana. Exhale and press back. One calm breath, and let this be the rest it is.

10. Ashwa Sanchalanasana, the lunge returning

Ashwa Sanchalanasana with the left foot stepping forward between the hands, back knee down again. Use a hand to place the foot.

11. Ardha Chandrasana, the second half moon

The same half moon as position 5, out of the returning lunge, on the same side. Arms overhead, hips pressing forward, chest lifting, one breath. Beginners frequently leave this one out because by now they want to get to the fold, and leaving it out is what turns the moon sequence back into a slow sun sequence.

12. Padahastasana, the fold

Uttanasana. Exhale, feet together, head heavy, jaw loose.

13. Hasta Uttanasana

Urdhva Hastasana. Inhale up with a long spine, slowly, because the room is dim and the practice is meant to make you drowsy.

14. Pranamasana

Tadasana, palms to the chest, exhale, and one whole breath standing still. Then the next round, leading with the right leg.

Half of a round leads with the left leg and half with the right, exactly as in the sun sequence. Four rounds means two led by each leg, and each round takes about two minutes at the pace this practice wants.

Twelve of the fourteen positions are the sun salutation, so a fair question is what the two inserted positions actually buy you. Three things, and I would not teach the sequence without them.

First, the half moon is the only position in either sequence where the hip flexors of the back leg are lengthened while the chest opens. In the low lunge alone, most people stay upright and the front of the back thigh never really gives. Add the arms overhead and the hips pressing forward and it does. For anybody who has been sitting all day, that is the single most useful shape in the round, and it is why this sequence suits an evening better than the morning.

Second, inserting a held position after each lunge changes the rhythm of the whole round. The sun salutation is one breath per position, which makes it a flow. The moon salutation has two positions in every round where you stop and take a full breath in a shape, which makes it a sequence of postures rather than a flow. That single change is what makes the practice calming rather than warming, and it is a structural fact rather than a claim about lunar energy.

Third, the arms overhead in position 5 and again in position 11 mean each round contains four raised arm positions rather than two. In an evening practice, where you are trying to undo a day spent with the arms in front of the body, that is worth having.

The order of the rest follows the sun salutation for a good reason: it alternates a forward bend with a back bend throughout, so nothing accumulates. The one deliberate change is that the back knee stays down in both lunges. That removes almost all of the load from the front thigh and the knee, which is what allows the practice to be done slowly without becoming a strength exercise, and slowly is the point.

Practise it in the evening, two to three hours after eating, in a room with the lights low. Not in bed: this is a standing practice on a mat, and if you want something to do lying down at the end of the day, the bedtime sequence is written for exactly that and is done partly in bed.

The traditional associations are with the moon, with cooling, and with the fourteen lunar phases the fourteen positions are said to represent, and some teachers ask for it to be practised at a full moon or in moonlight. I will not pretend to a view on whether the phase of the moon changes what the sequence does to a body, because I do not know and nobody has measured it. What I can tell you is what I have watched for forty years: the sequence is calming because of how it is performed, slowly, with two held positions per round, ending flat on the floor. Do it on a Tuesday in a dim room in April and it works.

What research exists on evening practices of this kind is about the outcome rather than the sequence. A meta-analysis of nineteen randomised trials in 1,832 women with sleep problems found a significant improvement in sleep quality with yoga, with longer programmes doing better than short ones. In older adults without a specific condition, a meta-analysis of randomised trials found improvements in sleep quality, mood and lower body flexibility against inactive controls. Neither of those studied Chandra Namaskar specifically, and I would be misleading you if I said otherwise.

How often: three to five evenings a week is where I see people settle. Four rounds is the standard. Six rounds is a fuller practice and takes about half an hour with the rest at the end. More than six rounds in the evening starts to warm people up rather than settle them, which defeats the object.

The moon sequence is gentler than the sun sequence but it is not gentle, and it contains one position most people get wrong.

• Do not arch the lower back in the half moon. This is the error, it is nearly universal in the first fortnight, and it is the only way this practice hurts anybody. The instruction is hips pressing forward, chest lifting, curve in the upper back. If you feel a pinch low down, you have leaned back instead of lifting up.
• Do not take the back knee off the floor in the lunges. People who know the sun salutation do this by habit. Keeping it down is what makes the half moon safe, because the pelvis is stable.
• Do not speed up to fit six rounds into the time for four. A fast moon salutation is a slow sun salutation, and you already have one of those.
• Do not do it in bed or on a soft mattress. The lunges need a floor that does not move.
• Do not skip the eight minutes at the end. Four rounds and then straight to brushing your teeth is a waste of eighteen minutes of work.

Leave the sequence alone, or take medical advice first, if you have an acute back injury, a disc problem or sciatica, because there are two forward folds and two back bends in every round. Leave the half moon out and keep the other twelve positions if you have uncontrolled high blood pressure, because arms overhead with the head tipped back is the part that is not helpful. In pregnancy after the first trimester the prone positions do not work and the sequence needs replacing rather than modifying. With a knee problem, put a thick folded blanket under the back knee and if the knee still objects, this is not your sequence.

Sharp pain, pain that travels down a limb, or pain that is worse the next morning all mean stop and be looked at.

Print this and leave it where you change in the evening. Twenty minutes, four rounds.

1. Sit, 3 minutes. Sukhasana, lights low, twenty slow breaths, longer out than in.
2. Round one, leading with the left leg. About two minutes. Prayer, arms up, fold, lunge, half moon, Parvatasana, eight point salute, cobra, Parvatasana, lunge, half moon, fold, arms up, prayer.
3. Round two, leading with the right leg. Two minutes, same fourteen positions.
4. Round three, left leg. Two minutes. Slower than round one, not faster.
5. Round four, right leg. Two minutes. Stand still for three breaths at the end.
6. Rest, 8 minutes. Savasana, covered, counting exhales backwards from forty.

Two ways to change it. If you want a longer evening practice, do six rounds and take the rest to ten minutes, which is about half an hour in total. If you want the calming without the standing, replace rounds three and four with nine rounds of bhramari and then the rest, which many students find does more for a busy head than two more rounds would.

The two half moon positions are marked in bold in the list above because they are the two everybody forgets, and forgetting them turns this back into the sun sequence done slowly.

A printable one page card of the fourteen positions is being prepared as a PDF and will be linked from here. It is not linked yet, and it will be a plain download when it is.

Four or five evenings a week for a month, honestly reported.

Week one. You will be thinking about the order, and the half moon will feel awkward. That is the correct experience and it is why the sequence is only fourteen positions long.

Weeks two and three. The front of the back thigh in the half moon is the thing that changes first and most obviously, and desk workers notice it in the way they stand up rather than in the pose. The second thing is that four rounds stops feeling like exercise. If it still feels like exercise at the end of week three, you are going too fast.

Week four onwards. This is when people start reporting that the evening is different, and I want to be careful about how I put that. What students tell me, consistently, is that they get to bed earlier, not that they sleep more deeply, and my own reading is that a twenty minute practice at nine o'clock is mostly displacing a phone. That is a genuine benefit and it is not a claim about lunar energy.

What does not change: the sequence will not make you flexible enough for anything dramatic, four rounds is not enough movement to change your weight, and if you are lying awake because of something specific in your life, twenty minutes of the moon salutation is a good hour and not a treatment. For persistent sleeplessness, see a doctor, and read the anxiety page for the breath practices that do more of that particular work.