Child’s Pose is so named because it mimics the spinal curvature of a newborn baby. It can be a restful pose that is used in between more challenging sequences and any time you need to take a rest.

Kneel down on the floor with the feet together and the knees slightly apart (you can also take a wide legged variation if you prefer). Keeping the hips pressed back to the heels, lean forward and lay the upper body down on the thighs with the forehead released to the mat. Take the hands by the heels with the palms facing up. As the tops of the shoulders release to gravity, the shoulder blades will naturally broaden across the back and the lats will drape over the thighs. Try to broaden the sacrum and bring the hip bones together (this is a very subtle movement but will allow for more release). For those who have not yet developed the hip or spinal flexibility to feel comfortable here, you can place a blanket between the thighs and calves to lift the hips and release some of the forward flexion. If you are not able to comfortably rest your forehead on the mat, you can also place a block or blanket underneath the head.

Relax into a gentle elongation of the spine and try to breath easily. You can hold this pose for as long as you like and feel comfortable.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!

There are a number of ways to get into Navasana. This is my preferred method here.

Start in Dandasana. Bend the knees, taking the backs of the thighs in your hands and lifting the chest. Keeping the heart lifted and the core engaged to keep the front of the torso long, lean back until the legs lift and you balance on the sitbones. You can keep the knees bent so that the shins are parallel to the floor, or extend the legs so the legs and upper body form a V shape. If you find that your back rounds when you extend the legs, keep the knees bent and work on stabilizing the core to build up the necessary strength. Extend the arms so they are parallel to the floor. The shoulder blades should stay wide across the back and lightly drawn down away from the head. The head will tilt slightly forward relative to the torso, but keep the neck relaxed and the breath steady and even.

The most important part of this pose is to stabilize the core, so take modifications as needed. At first, you can keep the feet on the floor, trying to get lighter and lighter on the toes as you get stronger in the pose. One you are able to lift the feet, you might keep the hands on the back of the thighs to help steady the torso until you feel solid here. If at any stage, you feel you can’t keep the heart lifted and the front of the torso long, you’ve gone too far. Be patient and keep at it!

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!

Purvottanasana is a great pose that opens the front of the chest and shoulders, works the hamstrings and back, and provides a great counter to Chaturanga by strengthening the opposing muscles and providing balance in the shoulders. (you can read more about the importance of balancing strength work in the shoulders here).

Sit on the floor in Dandasana with the legs stretched out in front. Point the toes and place the hands about 6 inches behind the sitbones with the fingers pointing forward. As you inhale, widen the front of the shoulders, lift the heart, and draw the shoulder blades lightly down the back. Press the hands and the heels into the floor and lift the hips. Both the glutes and the hamstrings will engage as you lift, but try and use primarily the hamstrings. If the hamstrings are not sufficiently developed, the glutes will take more of the work and can place strain on the lower back, so be careful to release the glutes once you are up and keep the thighs internally rotated. Tabletop (with the knees bent) can be an excellent preparation pose to develop the strength in the legs for purvottanasana.

Once you have the hips lifted, try and press evenly across the entire width of the palm and continue to lift the heart, opening across the front of the chest and shoulders. Try to press the toes to the floor. If it feels safe for your neck, you can finally release the head back, lengthening the front of the throat. The arms should be perpendicular to the floor. To come out, let the head come forward again, bend the elbows, and gently lower the hips to the floor.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!

Shoulderstand is a great rejuvinating pose that helps boost your immune system, increases circulation, and helps tone the muscles of the body. If you experience high blood pressure, proceed with caution in shoulderstand (and in all inversions) or skip it entirely. There are a number of ways to get into the pose, we will just explore one here.

Start by laying down on your back. You can put some blankets underneath so that the shoulders line up with the edges of the blankets and the head rests on the floor. This helps to relieve some of the neck flexion in the pose and will allow most people to find a more upright final position. With the arms down by your side, bend the knees and curl the back up off the floor. Some people prefer to keep their legs straight and come in to plow pose here. Either way is just fine though bent knees can make it a bit easier. As you come up, keep the abdominals engaged to prevent the back from rounding too much. You want the spine to stay as straight as possible.

Roll the shoulder underneath one at a time and draw the elbows in toward each other. Place the hands on the back with the fingers pointing up toward the sacrum. As you continue to lift the hips over the shoulders, move the hands up the back (closer to the floor) and open the chest and front of the shoulders. Be careful here, as the more vertical you are able to become in the torso, the more flexion occurs at the neck. The cervical spine (the neck) should not touch the floor and weight should be over the shoulders, not the neck.

Extend the legs up toward the ceiling so that they are in line with the torso. Tuck the tailbone and roll the thighs lightly inward. The legs and core should be active here to maintain alignment. Gently press the upper arms into the floor and try to find a feeling of lightness in the torso and legs. You might imagine that there is a rope around your ankles, gently pulling you up toward the ceiling. Press the back of the arms into the mat and bring the sternum toward the chin. Try and hold for at least 30 seconds, increasing the amount of time as you become more comfortable in the pose. To come down, bend the knees and bring them in toward the chest, then extend the arms on the mat and gently roll your way back onto your spine. Spend a few rounds of breath in Fish as a counter pose.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!

At the end of each week, I post the sequence that I’ve been teaching that week during my classes in Seattle. For more sequences from other weeks, click here. And if you would like to see these sequences in action, come join me for a class!

Grouding and Warm Up

Flow 1 – 3x (Half Sun Salutation)

Flow 2 – 2x

Flow 3 – 2x

Standing Poses

Seated Poses and Inversion

One of my loves (and something I’ve been spending a lot of my free time on this last year) is the art of hand balancing. Ever since I was first introduced to the circus arts, I’ve been totally inspired by the acts I’ve seen. It is a beautiful art and requires an insane amount of control and flexibility. I thought I’d share some of my favorite acts here on the blog (at least the ones that are on Youtube). I hope you find these as inspiring as I do.

Anatoly Zalievsky – Amazing act. His style is so graceful. Just beautiful to watch.

Jarek and Derek – Hand to Hand. I saw these guys when Cirque de la Symphonie came through town. The rest of the show was a little underwhelming, but these guys blew me away. Even better in real life.

Dima Bulkin – Umm, wow. That spine!

Andrey Katkov – Cheesy act, but his skills are incredible and his form is just perfect.

Artur – The opposite of above. Imperfect form, amazing act.

Ricardo Sosa – Another cheesy act, but he is one of the masters.

Marco and Paulo Lorador - Another Hand to Hand act. It’s a little old and slightly dated at this point, but these guys are amazing. Muscles anyone?

Bakasana, or Crane Pose (also often called Crow) is an arm balance that works to develop core and arm strength. It is said to resemble a crane wading into water.

To begin, find a squat with the feet relatively close together and the knees a little wider than shoulder width apart. Place the hands on the floor in front of you, spreading the fingers wide and pressing evenly across the entire palm. Lift the hips up away from the floor and with bent elbows, place the knees to the outside of the upper arms with the shins resting lightly on the triceps. Looking forward about a foot in front of your hands, begin to lean slightly forward, bringing more weight into your hands. Keep the shoulder blades wide across the back. Both the chest and the abdominals will be engaged to create a rounded and wide back. If you feel ready and stable here, come forward a little bit more, lifting either one or both feet off the floor, keeping weight pressed into the inner edges of the palms. The arms can stay bent here, or for those with sufficient strength and stability, you can straighten the arms at the elbows.

Stay really connected to the core when you lift the feet. As you engage the abdominals, the knees stay either pressing into the outer triceps or (as a variation) resting on the back of the arms as close to the armpits as possible. See if you can get a little bit lighter with the arms on the legs. Eventually you might imagine that the knees hover right above the upper arms. In the beginning, you may only be able to hold this pose for a second or two, but as you keep working at it, you will develop the strength to stay here for longer and longer periods of time. Taking one leg off the floor at a time is a great way to safely build the strength in the core before you bring all the weight onto the hands.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!

Upavista Konasana is a seated forward bend which, depending upon your hamstring and adductor flexibility, can either be deeply gratifying or deeply frustrating. Sit on height (a bolster or blanket), take modifications, and have patience as needed.

Start in Dandasana, then extend the legs out to the sides as far as they will go while still allowing you to grab the big toes or feet (no more than about 90 or 100 degrees). Check to make sure the thighs are rotated neither too far externally or too far internally. The kneecaps should point straight up as should the toes. If you can’t keep the knees from rolling in, bend the knees here to take some of the pressure off. Keeping the spine straight, extend forward from the hips, keeping the spine straight as you come forward. Once you have found your edge at the hips, you can relax at the waist a bit. For those with really open inner thighs, make sure to maintain some weight in the sit bones as you come forward. You can either keep the hands extended out in front or reach out to grab the feet or big toes. Once you have found a stretch deep in the belly of the hamstring (and inner thighs for most people), stay here and breath in to the pose.

For people with sufficient flexibility, extending the legs out to the sides gets the thighs out of the way of the pelvis, allowing it to (potentially) drop all the way to the floor between them. It also takes some of the pressure off the hamstrings by moving their insertion points out to the side slightly. This can incredibly satisfying if flexibility allows. If, on the other hand, the adductors and hamstrings are tight, you won’t be able to extend the legs out to the sides far enough or tilt forward enough to get either of these benefits and beginners can struggle a bit here. If you find that you can’t bring the pelvis forward enough to prevent strain in the lower back, finding the standing variation of the pose (Prasarita Padottanasana) can help you find the same opening without the same struggle.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!

Standing in Tadasana bring your weight over to your right foot. There are several variations for the left foot here. You can just come to the tiptoes for support in the balance, you can place the foot on the calf, or you can take the left ankle in the left hand and place the left foot on the inner right thigh. Placing the foot at the knee can put pressure on the joint so make sure the foot is either below or above. Press the lifted foot lightly into the standing leg and press the inner leg back into the foot. This opposition can help bring stability to the pose. Spread weight evenly across the right (standing) foot and firm the thigh, pulling the kneecap gently up toward the hips.

The pelvis should be centered directly over the standing foot and should be level. Don’t worry about getting the knee of the lifted leg out to 90 degrees. Usually this simply results in twisting the hip out to the side compromising alignment in the rest of the pose. Instead, keep the hips square to the front of the mat and open the knee until you feel a gentle stretch on the inner thigh. Tuck the tailbone slightly to lengthen the low back.

There are several variations for the hands here as well. They can be at the waist, palms pressed together in Anjali Mudra at the heart, or lifted overhead with the palms either facing each other or together. Keep the shoulder blades wide and gently drawn down away from the ears. You gaze can rest (in order of difficulty) on the floor in front of you, on the wall opposite, or up between the palms toward the ceiling. When you are done with one side of the pose, repeat for the same amount of time on the second.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!

Bound Angle Pose is a hip opener that can be very rewarding for both beginners as well as more advanced students. To begin, find a comfortable seat (you might begin in Dandasana) and bring the soles of the feet together with the thighs opening out to the sides. If you are tight in the inner hips or groins, sit on a blanket or a bolster to lift the pelvis up a bit. Traditionally, the feet are pulled in as close to the pelvis as possible, but since different distances between feet and pelvis will lengthen different adductors, feel free to experiment with this distance and play around if you like.

Grab on to the big toes, feet, or shins, making sure to keep the outer edges of the feet pressed into the floor. If the hips aren’t very mobile, this pose can put strain on the knees. One way to counter that is to actively rotate the inner edges of the feet away from each-other like opening a book. Also, as you open the legs, try to think about pressing the femur down to the floor and not the knees.

On an exhale, you might fold forward over the legs. You can pull gently on the feet if you like, though make sure to keep the shoulder blades wide and the muscles of the back soft – don’t strain to come forward. Keep the back relatively straight and chest open as you reach the belly button forward over the feet. If the intention is to get the head down as opposed to the belly button forward (and this is true for all forward bends), the result is more spinal than pelvic. Keeping the spine somewhat straight also helps to keep breathing as unobstructed as possible. As long as it doesn’t put any strain on the knees, you might press lightly into the legs with the elbows as you fold forward to deepen the stretch. Hold for as long as feels comfortable. As you increase your flexibility, the forward bend is aided more and more by gravity, allowing you to release deeply into the pose and really surrender to the breath, which can be very rewarding.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you or see you at one of my classes!