Beginners Guide to Yoga Blocks - How to Use Yoga Blocks

Transcript

hi I'm Sarah today I'm going to be talking to you about yoga blocks we're going to go over five different yoga poses using the blocks that are going to align deepen and enhance your yoga practice let's get started a couple myths about yoga blocks is that people believe that maybe you are bad at yoga if somebody hands you a yoga block during your practice but that's definitely not the case yoga blocks will help lift you up bringing the ground closer to you helping you open up and expand in different poses so there are three different heights that you can use during your yoga practice to help you in each pose the first level is the lowest level then you can go up to a medium level and then the highest level depending on what you need for each pose so the first pose we're going to talk about is chaturanga there's two different ways you can use a block in this pose the first way is you take a block you stick it in between your thighs and you hug in this engages your core and helps uplift you in the pose the next way we're going to use the block is having it placed underneath your chest to support you in chaturanga so you would come into plank hug everything in rock forward lower down and the block protects my shoulders from lowering too much when you lower too much in a chatarunga you could really injure your shoulders so it's important to have that block there to help train your body not to go too low and to support you so you don't go down to the ground the next pose we're going to talk about is seated forward fold again there are two different ways we're going to use a block in this pose the first way is actually sitting on the Block just like this this will help tilt your pelvis forward creating space in your hips to reach forward so we're going to reach up fold forward hinging from the lower back grab on to wherever you can and relax the next way that we can use a block will actually intensify the pose and you will remove this one from underneath you taking this block Reaching Forward placing it behind your feet hinging forward bending your knees if you need to and relax the next pose we're going to do is Bridge there's two ways we're going to use the block the first way is for a supported bridge this will help uplift us giving us that support we need underneath our lower back so I'm going to come into bridge pose placing my feet as close to my low back as possible taking my block again you can do whatever level you need whether it's low medium or high I like to do a medium so I'm going to stick it underneath my tail bone roll my shoulders under and breathe this creates an uplifting Sensation from my back in a supportive way the next way we're going to use the block is taking it and sticking it in between our thighs doing this helps engage my core my legs and it grounds me down to lift up so I'm squeezing the block hugging everything in skin to bone to muscle lifting up pressing my hands and my feet into the ground while hugging the block [Music] the next pose we're going to talk about is Pigeon pose this is a super super intense pose that is going to feel different for everybody and each side is going to be different so that's where the blocks come in we can use our blocks in various ways wherever we need in this pose the first way that I'm going to use a block coming into pigeon my hips are rocking side to side they don't feel very balanced to so to support my hip going to take the block stick it underneath here to lift me up and balance me out then if I wanted to come into sleeping pigeon I could start to lean forward grabbing another block placing it to support my head creating a little bit more comfort in this pose so the last pose that we're going to talk about is triangle pose this pose also has many misconceptions where people believe that you're trying to reach down to touch your toes but the truth is you want to be lifting up and out as much as you can like you're inside a toaster oven so the block is super helpful in this pose so I'm going to take my block get into triangle stance reach reach forward plant it down on the outer edge of my foot using the block to lift me up and out again we have three different levels of the block so this would be the medium height the lower height I'm not quite tall enough for that opening up and the tallest Lev really helps me to lift up and open out comfortably [Music]