Bakasana Crow Pose Tutorial | 5 Stage Breakdown for Every Level | Jess Mackenzie Yoga

Transcript

hi everyone welcome to class my name is jess and today i'm going to be guiding you through this tutorial on picasana crow pose so this class is designed for every single level whether you're just starting out and learning the basic foundations or if you're advancing on to poses such as flying crow or crane pose this is the class for you make sure you've warmed up your wrists and when you're ready let's meet in downward facing dog i'll see you there [Music] when you arrive in downward facing dog just starting to press through your hands evenly begin to lengthen up through your arms and wrap those triceps towards your face finding this external rotation through the shoulder girdle so as if anyone was beside you they wouldn't be able to see your armpits this is the basic alignment that we'd need in our arm balance let's go ahead and rise the right leg to the sky inhale three leg dog on your exhale bend into the right knee open into your hip really squeezing that right heel towards the left lead parallel the shoulders lengthen out through your arms slowly shift forward stepping the right foot to the outside of your right hand nice gently dip the hips down gaze forward pull the heart through inhale on your exhale take a big step forward with the left foot to the outside of the left hand let the hips sink down bring the hands to the heart using your elbows prop the knees open into malasana breathe in nice long spine here on your exhale plant your hands down shoulder distance apart and you're gonna hop off the feet into downward facing dog landing with bent knees and then straightening out the legs let's go again rising up this time our left leg to the sky inhale three leg dog on your exhale bend the knee open into your hips squeezing left heel to right glute lengthening arms wrapping triceps into the face on your exhalation shift high to the right tip toes hug the left knee to the left tricep step it down outside edge of left hand dip the hip stone don't let the knee touch the ground pull the chest through inhale on your exhale big stretch forward with that right foot and land it to the outside of the hand sink the hips down hands to heart inhale lengthen on your exhale land the hands a little hop back or you're welcoming to step back if you'd rather into downward facing dog let's go again one more each side a little bit quicker if you'd like breathe in rise to the right leg up bend knee open hip exhale right foot outside edge of right hand breathe in dip the hip pull the chest through exhale step the left foot to the outside of left hand breathe in hands to the heart malasana lift tall exhale land the hands down big hop back into downward facing dog go ahead with the left side rise the left leg inhale bend the open hip exhale left foot outside edge of left hand breathe in pull the heart through dip hips down exhale step the right foot to the outside of the hand breathe in for molassena lifting tall lengthening from root to crown of head exhale land your hands big hop back into downward facing dog straighten out the legs give yourself a little bend and stretch the knees take a little sway of the hips side to side amazing now from here we're going to gently step into a malasana at the top of the mat let the hips sink down bring the hands to your heart center we're going to work with our first alignment which is our crow pose but with knees on the triceps so this is the very very start of learning this pose if you feel like you're a little bit more advanced feel free to skip forward until you find the point that is right for you in this practice hands or shoulder distance apart gently open them out slightly so they're facing uh one o'clock and 11 o'clock instead of straight forward give your hands a little flop and land them down from here lift up your hips in line with your knees and squeeze your knees to your triceps so really push your knees into the arms and push the arms back into your knees so we've got this deep compression going on here engage your core a lot and then look forward grip your fingertips into the floor so the middle knuckles start to lift but the palm sucks down to the ground start to push off your toes leaning forward squeeze those knees in squeeze the thighs to the triceps try and lift up one foot and land it down see if you can lift up the other and then maybe you can play around with lifting up both feet so it does require a little bit of strength and flexibility through our wrists but it's primarily a balance of weight a weight transfer okay lovely give your wrist a little roll light if that was a little bit uh too much or you're not ready to move on then feel free to just keep practicing at that level where you are we're gonna land the hands down and now move on to step two which is the full bakasana crow pose where the knees rest on your elbows so if you take a little bend of your elbow right now you'll see that there's one uh little knobble and then there's two in your knees generally for most of us okay just above your elbow there's squishy muscle here this is going to be hard to balance on but if you come right to the very end you can see this nice flat part on your elbow and this is where we want to rest the knee not on the arm but right on the edge of the elbow got it land your hands down lift your hips up we're going to wrap the shoulders in so those triceps are wrapping in this brings us external rotation which brings us stability and strength in our shoulders bend the elbows back about 30 percent and then land your knees onto your elbows you got it if it's not quite locked in place take a little wriggle around until you've got it there again suction cup your palms to the ground let the middle knuckles lift and then grip into your fingertips until they change color look forward and begin to press off your toes gaze past your mat so not to the ground but forward towards the ground nice maybe you can align your belly button or two inches above between your base of support here so the more you come forward the easier it's going to be to then lift one heel into the butt and then try lifting the other heel in if the heels are lifting bring the big toes to touch and squeeze the heels in so the legs are active the more active your body is the lighter it becomes the easier it is to hold all of these balancing poses right have you ever tried to pick someone up when they're sleeping in their dead weight it's really challenging so we want to engage all the muscles so it's easier to lift okay nice so another top tip here i'm just going to give you is where our hands are this is our base of support okay so not just the hands but the area in between and in order to balance the physics of our balance is that we need to have our center of gravity in line with our base of support so our center of gravity is generally for most poses two inches above the belly button so just around here if i keep my belly button way back here and not in line with my base with support i'm never going to be able to lift my feet but as soon as i align my belly button or just above it in line with my base of support right between the thumbs the feet begin to lift okay so have a play around with that see if that helps you in any way whatsoever give your wrists a little roll out if that's where you're working on keep working on it come back another day and move on to the next stage if you're ready for stage three then this time what we're going to do is we're going to learn our baby crow pose so this one's a little bit fun we're going to bring the forearms down to the ground and then come back up onto our tiptoes okay and then we want to bring our knees onto our triceps so squeeze your knees just underneath your armpits grip your fingers into the ground press your palms down and then push off the toes and lean forward begin to protract your shoulders so you're lifting the chest away from the ground you're not collapsing down and most of the weight is up in the core and shoulders we're not pushing too much weight on the arms from there see if you can lift one foot squeeze it to the butt and maybe even lift up the other this is our baby crow pose it's a little bit weird you probably won't do it too much in class but it is a lot of fun to practice gently lower yourself down well done give your wrists a real light okay stage four we're moving on to crane pose where our arms straighten out similar idea but our knees are coming much higher on our arms into our armpits ideally so how i like to start this practice is by hugging my armpits into the knees and landing the hands down with the elbows bent from there i'm going to come up onto my tiptoes really really high bend the arms back a little bit and grip the fingers so see this degree of angle that i'm resting my knees on now this one involves a lot more core than you think and a lot more protraction so slowly come up onto just your big toes lean forward squeeze one heel in towards your butt and then do your best to then lift the other heel in towards the butt from there we want to straighten the arms and protract the shoulders so the chest is pulling as far away from the ground as you can and this one is super intense for the wrists we do need quite a lot of wrist flexibility for our crane pose so you might be at the point where we're just starting to lean into the arms pull one heel in lower it down pull the other heel in lower it down if both heels are lifting push through the hands straighten out through the arms and really think of through the shoulders drawing the chest away from the ground to get that full curvature through the spine and feel um engagement through our shoulders so that is our crane pose little clap there and now we're gonna move on to stage five stage five is flying crows there's a few stages within flying crow that i'm going to break down for you right now so remember you can pause this video at any point and keep practicing over what you have been doing so for our flying crow pose we need to have our basic alignment of pikasana of crow pose so our knees are on the elbows for this one we lean forward and our heels are squeezing in now the first exercise we're going to do before we can move into flying crow which looks like this so this is flying crow pose we're going to do two strengthening exercises that you can add into your daily practice to help you come into this pose so the first one we're going to do is from bokassa we come forward we squeeze the heels in and i want you to push through both hands evenly try not to weight transfer squeeze your left inner thigh hug it to the center and then rest it back on the elbow go again with the right squeeze the knee in and then land it back on the elbow okay so knees drawing in and out i'll see um if there's a better alignment i'll move to this side here so you can see so let's go one more time if you're with me come into picasso in a crow pose squeeze the heels in spree squeeze the big toes up together bring your right knee in towards the center place it on the elbow bring the left knee into center place it on the elbow and then relax give your wrist a roll out so this is stage one of our um practicing for flying crow stage two what we're gonna do is bring one knee onto the elbow or come into this uh bakasana alignment sorry and then keep your left knee on the elbow hug your right knee to the chest you're gonna extend the leg back and then pull it in and we're gonna go for five five and in four so the glutes super fired up with the right side three and the hamstring for two really high and extend it one bring it in land the foot down again give your wrists a roll out well done we're going to do the same with the left leg so when you're ready land the hands down the right knee comes on to the right elbow left knee on left as if you're moving forward into crawl but instead we're going to pull the left knee in when you're ready keeping the arms straight and strong fire the leg out pull it in fire it out and then three more and in four two and then last one for one bring it in land the foot down give yourself a moment to relax maybe reverse prayer with the hands okay and then what we want to do now is piece these two um strengthening movements together to find our flying crow pose so for flying crow i'll give you a quick demo and then i'll give you some time just to practice wherever you are at elbows are on the knees so the knees are on the elbow so we're going to lean forward lift up your toes squeeze the right knee into center fire it up squeeze it in land it on the elbow left knee fire it up bring the knee in land on the elbow you got it okay let's see one more round when you're ready we're pulling the knee in extending it back remember your base of support is your palms and the space around them and we want our center of gravity two inches above the belly button in that line in your base of support right in the center and keep all of that stability all of that strength lower ribs pulling in protraction external rotation and everything put together as well as that engagement through the glutes and the legs you're going to find stability no worries whatsoever nice okay well done guys i hope you enjoyed today's practice if you have any questions on picasana cropos flying crow baby crow or even crane pose drop it in the comments box below and i will be sure to get back to you hope you enjoyed this class if you did please give it a little thumbs up and it's a small small act of kindness that helps me continue to share these classes for free on youtube so thank you so much again namaste [Music] you