How To Do Bird of Paradise Pose - Svarga Dvijasana | Lydia Lim Yoga

Transcript

[Music] [Music] so in today's episode I'm going to be taking you through how we enter and be bird-of-paradise pose bird-of-paradise is a study balance that also requires love external rotation around the hip joint and of course hamstring flexibility I'm hoping that some of these prep poses that should be practice will be helpful and beneficial for you in order to hopefully one day be able to master in the word paradise pose to prepare for bird of paradise we need quite comfortable and external rotation of our hips so always good to come into extended side angle pose to prepare for this place your hand on a block if it's unable to reach the mat bird of paradise of course requires us to be able to bind and so a great way to practice this is to take that bind from our side angle pose by reaching the hand behind your back and in this case sliding the left hand into the crease of the left hip as though you're digging for something in the pocket one way to learn how to bind is to use a strap so make sure that your armpit or the shoulder is as close to the shoulder as you can and make sure you don't do a wedgie bind so it's not underneath the glutes but rather bring the hands as close as you can towards the shoulder blades use a strap for as long as you need and then when you start to feel more comfortable you can then place the hand down to the mat come straight from your side angle pose make sure that the shoulder is as close to the knee as you can and then grab hold of the fingertips maybe the wrist or the forearms over time as you gain flexibility here so not only is the bind important and bird-of-paradise our hamstrings are also of prime importance so any forward fold such as half splits or head to knee pose well simple passion more than Donna is going to be really useful for you fold the chest down onto your thighs bird-of-paradise being a one-legged balance also requires you to have a lot of concentration and so the revolved extended hand to foot posts is going to be really useful for you to work on e twists but also hamstring flexibility as you extend the legs forwards if that's a little bit too tricky start with your tree posts buttocks a sauna in itself requires a lot of concentration and it can be quite meditative for you to just be in this posture take a couple of breaths here and then release the knee down when you've had enough to work on the binds again take a slight bend in the knees and then reach your right hand underneath the right foot and left arm goes behind you then from here start to rotate your chest upwards and gaze up towards the sky keep straightening the legs and working on this forward fold twist the other standing balance pose is the extended hand to big toe pose great way to open your hips because the hips is moving into external rotation here which is effectively what's happening when you're coming into bird-of-paradise so keep practicing this one it's going to be really helpful for you so how do we get into bird-of-paradise you're going to balance on the standing leg grab your bind and then start to point the toes up maybe it's a little difficult to straighten the legs in which case keep working on hamstring lengthening exercises from a different angle we're going to show you how you enter into bird-of-paradise here again soft on the knees take your bind balance on one foot and then start to lift that leg all the way up again keeping the knees bent for the moment and then starting to extend the legs all the way up coming into your beautiful word of paradise any questions feel free to drop them right down in the comment section below and to to my youtube channel for additional tips and weekly yoga classes delivered directly to your inbox in the meantime stay safe keep happy namaste