The lotus is an elegant, figure-eight motion done with the hands. Done correctly, it looks as if your hands are rotating unnaturally around each other, and adds a distinctive exotic flavour to your dance.

This week I’ve set out to learn to perform the lotus hand movement. It’s a pretty confusing move, and I’ve had to go through multiple resources before feeling like my brain had completely grasped what I was even trying to get my body to do. Actually performing it is another thing altogether. But now that I’ve got the concept, I feel like I’m more than halfway there.

So here are the best lotus hands references I was able to summon from the depths of the internet.

Start with a Lotus Hands Visual, so you can clearly visualize the effect you’re going to achieve.

If you’re a words person, Nika Feyrouz has a followup video where she explains a little bit of what she’s doing.

Or try Jasmin Jahal’s written instructions to what she calls the Thousand Petal Lotus.

And lastly, Mahsati Janan’s website has a powerpoint presentation which augments written explanation with some diagrams.

While I recommend starting with the video, so you can visualize where you’re going to end up, I found Mahsati’s  powerpoint presentation to be the best starting point for actual learning. Mahsati tells you to start by moving your hands as one. This is so important — while an expert lotus has hands chasing eachother in counterpoint, they’re performing the same motions together. It took me ages of watching Nika’s video before I even grasped that, “hey, the thumbs should follow eachother” and “where the right hand goes, the left hand follows”.

Ultimately though, you should give all of these resources a try. Whether you’re a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner, the more learning techniques you can pull together, the better you will grasp the concept.

Lotus Photo © tanakawho. Used under a creative commons license.