Free Tutorial - Shoulderstand - Salamba Sarvangasana

Transcript

[Music] welcome my name's amanda d today we're going to break down the pose salamba savangasana which in english is a shoulder stand headstand is known as the king of the asana and shoulderstand is known as the queen the reason for this is that they both have many benefits walking around all day we have gravity on our bodies which puts a lot of um pressure and weight on our organs and especially our heart because the heart has to pump the blood all the way down to our feet so when we reverse this you could say that we're reversing the aging process and it allows the legs to drain from blood so that it prevents varicose veins spider veins swollen ankles and it also gives the heart a rest also your face is bathed in blood which is great for the complexion but there's many many many many benefits of shoulder stand so let's begin and what you're going to need is um two blankets you can use two towels like me um and then you'll also need a strap and the strap is not really important this is going to help to keep your shoulders aligned so if you don't have a belt that can tie um because you you want to be able to loop it so it's about armpit distance wide so if you just hold it across the front of the chest now you're gonna extend your legs forward i want you to just use the blankets to sit on just to elevate the seat whether you need that or not slide the flesh back from the sit bones we're just gonna stand start with a hamstring opening and just to prepare the body take your finger tops next to your knees and then inhale into cow spine tilting the pelvis forward lift the heart so this is what you do want exhale pull back around this is cat spine tilting the pelvis back this is what you don't want in your lower back inhale cow exhale cat inhale cow exhale cat spine inhale cow and exhale cat so come back into that cow spine which we do want with the pelvis tilting forward if this is hard for you i want you to bend the knees pass through the heels inhale reach your arms up lengthen through the spine and then exhale hinge at the hip creases and fold forward you can use that strap around your feet if you can't reach to your feet but again try not to round in the lower back and tilt the pelvis a little more forward reach the heart forward so you have that neutral spine pierce through your inner feet draw your outer feet towards you this is called pashimotanasana take three more breaths inhale exhaling one inhale reach your heart forward a little more exhaling two relax your shoulders inhale and exhaling three if your hamstrings are tight stay here a little bit longer and then roll yourself up so now i want you to make sure that when you stack the blankets you want the knee to edge at the back and make sure there's no bumps because that's going to distort the body distort the spine which you don't want take the front of your mat and then you're going to fold it over and you want a little bit of space of the blanket this is for your neck so that it doesn't get the skin of the neck doesn't get pulled on the mat and then this is to keep the elbows from winging out so you've got um something to kind of traction the elbow the elbows in so they don't slide out take your strap you're going to sit on the front edge of your mat now when you lie back you can measure with your fingers so you want about an inch of blanket above your shoulders so as you can see i have much more than that there i have to wiggle up so about an inch so my head is on the floor you don't want any hair tie distorting the head and your shoulders are on the blanket so when you roll up they don't roll off the mat there take one arm through the loop so getting your arms in place can be a little challenging here but again if it doesn't work for you just release the strap bring your knees in and then use your hands to press your feet overhead now this is the tricky part is to get the second arm in you want that strap just above your elbows now from here if you lean over to the side you turn your palm face out to get the shoulder underneath you and then do the same with the other arm so that the shoulder blades come together on the back and the neck spine is lifted then from here take your hands to your lower back this is called halasana plow pose try to reach the sit bones up so you're not rounding your lower back and open your throat take a few breaths and then lift in one leg up and then the other leg up walk your hands up towards your shoulder blades you want the weight between your shoulders and your elbows not in your head so move your feet back and your hips forward keep the throat slightly open press down from your elbows to your shoulders and you'll feel the shoulder blades come more in the back you can flex your feet or you can flint your feet which is and make sure pointing and flexing the toes and they call this the yogi yogi foot it's very toes wide breathing deeply so you can start by holding this pose for about a minute to two minutes and then gradually building up maybe to about 10 minutes well that that should take some time that's quite challenging to hold it for that length of time squeeze your legs in towards each other so you join to the midline maybe walk your hands a little further down towards your shoulder blades feet back hips towards your face press your shoulders to elbows down take five more breaths and slowly bring your feet over your head if your feet don't touch the floor that's fine you can bend your knees here you can also put your feet against the wall or you can put your feet on a block maybe bend your knees around your ears carpenter then taking the strap off you can also have someone help you with that take your hands to the floor behind you use the pressing down of your hands to slowly roll your back to the floor so you don't plunk down using your core steady and slow and then i want you to wiggle up so that your shoulders come off the back of the blanket so if you look the blanket is i'm just behind my heart center shoulders and head on the floor and then bring the soles of your feet together maybe hold on to your elbows above your head which will open the heart and allow you to release from the shoulder stand deep breaths into the armpit area so you breathing sideways okay you can stay here as long as you want we're just going to roll over onto the side so it's a good idea not to come straight up after you invert because you can get a little light-headed and dizzy so that's why it's good to lay there for a moment undo your blanket i mean under your mat take your blankets out of the way and then we're just going to counter that with maxis and a fish pose so take your hands next to your hips bring your elbows down to the floor and then just curl your tail under so your lower back lengthens press down into the elbows lift the heart maybe you have to walk your elbows forward to bring the crown of the head to the floor lift through the heart so you feel like there's less weight in the head now you can either stay here otherwise if you want to come into the full position extend the legs up on a diagonal take your hands to prayer and then reach the prayer overhead so you can reach your arms above your head or another nice variation is to reach the arms in the same direction as the legs so that you can lift through the heart a little more take your hands to the back of the legs slowly lower your legs down press into your elbows and then release yourself down give your legs a little wiggle from side to side now you can hug your knees into your belly and this is a great way to finish the class any um class that you might do and then slowly wrap yourself all the way up so thank you for joining us that pose was salamba savangasana which is shoulder stand namaste