Caterpillar Pose - Yin Yoga Pose Breakdown with Dr. Truth Robinson and LIVING YIN

Transcript

[Music] we're going to look at our caterpillar pose in a little bit more detail now caterpillar pose i'll always put with a dangle because it's kind of the end of the yang it's the other half of the line that we're working with with bladder so if we dangle trying to keep the legs straight we're focusing more on the legs the back of the legs the biceps femoris the hamstring and this one we're going to bend the knees and we're going to access more the back line and the spine so that's what it means the into the yang so always put the caterpillar and the dangle together just so you get that whole line really efficiently now in this position it's quite unique because some people have a lot of external rotation in their femur bone quite naturally and that's a skeletal thing more than anything they may have done some work to try and get there that external rotation but most likely it's going to be more skeletal and so if you relax your feet if you're one of those people and i am one of those people and it rolls out that foot's going to come quite close to the ground so then when you're coming forward you're actually going to get the experience of more being in a butterfly position because you've got external rotation in that femur bone rolling out to the side so this is going to change it and bring it more into the outer hip for those people and so about 50 percent of the class maybe 70 of the class this will affect i get a block place it between the feet like so and then you're going to strap the foot in with the block and so then that means when i come forward i don't have that external rotation anymore and the sensation is more going up through the center of the spine rather than going into the outer hip into the thoracolumbar fascia and then kind of making my way up sideways around that hip and so strapping the block in between the feet and make sure it's really tight and it's more up towards the toes not down towards the ankle and then that way it's really going to stay there and then next stage bend the knees bolster underneath the thighs to keep the knees bent now some people will need a little bit more lift so they're going to have difficulty coming forward so you can place something underneath their bum there as well and now from here they should be quite ready to start to come forward now when i come forward i actually accentuate the flexion so we're not trying to keep the back flat because a flat back will give you a flat back we want to try and get a flexed back so just as we try and get into backward bends and extension we want to try and get flexion in our spine as well so we want to accentuate it so you usually use something so you'll need more props for people with something underneath their bum i use a block for me personally you can also use a bolster as well and you just place it between your thigh and your ribs so you just tuck it in there and then as you come forward it pushes your ribs posteriorly and as you drop the chin down it creates more of this rounding of the spine and then you can see here this is when you're really targeting the back line of the spine much more than what you could have done if you're in your dangle pose earlier so that's what i mean it kind of is the into the yang of your your dangle pose the caterpillar is so dropping yourself forward like so now if people got a little bit more range you can do this with the legs straight so you'll get the bolster and you place it over the thighs you can tuck it in underneath your ribs if you can and you lift your ribs up you pour yourself over the bolster feet relaxed out in front of you and chin to the chest then you start to get this really big juicy sensation all along the back line of the spine which is what you're looking for there compression points you really won't get any compression points in this the only compression point you might notice is that if you've got something underneath your bum and the legs straight and so like this you may notice that what's actually happening is you're getting a little compression at the front part of the knee where the tibia is attaching onto the femur bone and you might get a little bit of pain in your knee if you're sitting here for long periods of time again i don't recommend this i would have bent the knee put something underneath this and that is the way of fixing this anyway you bend bend the knees and just support it a little bit and that stops that compression there but with people with their bum on their ground like so when they're coming forward they won't really get that so much you get people that are really stuck on their way of doing things they want to keep their back flat and they're only really stretching out down at l5 s1 this little space down into here so they're more feeling like a really strong posterior movement of the vertebral disc realistically more than anything as opposed to a full lengthening of the spine so i really would encourage teaching your students how to safely flex their spine so they can get a more mobile spine this position working with the bladder underneath the legs biceps femoris with the legs straight knees bent not so much and then that back line of the spine is going to be the whole bladder channel going up through the back of the neck over through the top of the head and then all the way over into the inner eyebrow and you'll feel it all the way into here as well and that's your caterpillar variation you