How to do Ashtanga Yoga’s Janu Sirsasana A | Head to Knee Pose A

Transcript

foreign [Music] Welcome to our tutorial on janusana a Janu is uh me and shirsha is head so it's me head pose but the funny thing is we bring our chin to our Shin so I don't know I guess it used to be done a little differently but that's a different uh tutorial so uh before we get started um just wanted to say uh we're happy to have you here and if you're happy to be here maybe you could like it uh and if you have anything to say let us know if you want to see a certain video and please make sure to okay so this is really actually the secret to gender a because uh let's face it you know all of the practice up to Janus Chesney pretty challenging jumping around you're getting all hot and then you get to John usage how do you feel you're happy right why are you happy because it's easy well if it's easy I don't think you're doing it right okay there's a bunch of uh secret teachings technique inside of General that's going to make it harder but it's also going to make it much more effective yeah so it's really going to Target the hips and uh especially a certain part of your hip that you need to change for deeper postures coming up later on in the pose but if you're like me I actually like the fact that there's work in it because at some point it was kind of a pose that I did and I was like well what am I doing here but the work that's involved is this really nice stretching that's happening uh both inside and outside of your hip and I find it like enjoyable and for a lot of you this is going to be a radically different way of doing this posture and it might even be a little bit different than what you've been shown before but I guarantee you it fits within the coordinates of traditional Ashtanga because that's what we teach okay so the thing that you need to start with the knowledge is of dandasana Staff position this is dundasana you know you just did it a little bit before in the sequence and and your hips are in line obviously your legs are extended your arms are down beside you now every posture and primary Series in a way is built on dandasana and when we're doing Johnny this is what's going to change it a lot for you is I want you to try to hold on to your Dundas and the hips as you bring your leg back into the January a position a the heel is coming as high as you can up the inner thigh of the extended leg eventually right up into the pelvic floor if you can get it there hard to do but when you're pulling it up there don't let it change your hip so don't hike that right hip back as you bring the leg back why are you doing that because it's easier it's easier to bring the hip back to bring the leg back right but if you keep the hip fixed it all comes from the external rotation that's happening in the femur to get the knee back now here's what everyone says when I tell them to do it this way but I've been told that my knee should be out at 90 degrees well 90 degrees measured where that's what I always answer back because are we looking at the outside of the thigh the inside of the shin or are we just looking at the kneecap and if you look at the knee the knee is pointing at 95 degrees relative to the left leg okay so just take that take that piece in because we are following the coordinates here of the tradition 90 degrees for Johnny a but we're getting 90 only through the kneecap pointing out to the side not by pulling the thigh all the way back and this is going to create a very different effect in the hip now okay so as you go forward I want you to slightly engage this right leg by flexing your right foot pressing the outer edge of the foot down into the mat and think about rolling your right hip bone slightly forward you see how Elena just did that by activating the thigh getting a little bit of inward rotation there you can see that the whole hip bone moved forward and here the glute medius and underneath the piriformis are all engaged now and they're shortening as they contract and engage but then they're also being lengthened over the hip as she goes forward and then she's very active on the inside of the hip and she's feeling much more work here in the outside of the hip which is uh piriformis is kind of magic it's an external Rotator but it's also an internal Rotator once the Torso starts to come closer to the legs in in hip flexion I think to keep in mind Ana so notice that your heels are coming together towards the center line of your body they're in line with your pubic bone so when we bring this leg back this leg doesn't change so it's actually tapering in a little bit I'm not trying to have the heel in line with my hip because that would bring my leg out why well because as I start going forward if I'm thinking about bringing my chin on the inside of the shin it's going to make me tip over towards that extended leg and then that's going to add a curve in my back here so really it's the same thing too because if you pulled your hip back when you were pulling the leg out that would also open up the Gap right so watch can you turn around so we can see your back when you're doing it watch when Elena pulls the hip back or like she is saying brings the extended leg out to the side look at the unevenness that we get in the back see the right side of her back is lifted right now there's a curve going this way the left side is shortening and then if we hold the hips in line instead the dandasana line and bring the leg back look at the shape of her back it's even the stretch the work the uh the I guess the tension in the body is evenly distributed okay so it as a teacher it becomes really obvious right if you can see your students doing this if you're a teacher watch watch their back uh in those two different versions okay the important Center point in our body and so the work then feels way more even as opposed to kind of doing this half stretch slight curve curve and it just doesn't feel really balanced nor does it serve any purpose especially if you start to see what's coming up next in your practice and we are going to look at that in another tutorial down the road and you'll see the connection a goes to B okay so give it a try and then comment and let us know how it felt for you to do it maybe this new way like yeah so you don't miss any of the new videos that will be coming up yeah thanks so much for joining us see you soon