How to do Dancer's Pose (CORRECTLY — and with stability!)

Transcript

(calming music) - Hi I'm Mari. I'm a teacher trainer and
teacher here at YYOGA, and this short clip we're
just gonna get into a pose called Natarajasana, or Dancer's Pose. And it's a pretty well-known
pose in the yoga world, it's a really sweet front body opener and back body strengthener,
it's also a balancing pose, it's the peak pose in the YHot sequence, so you'll see it in that
class a lot if you go, and it's one that has
a lot of progressions. So whether you're brand new to practice or whether you've been
practicing for a long time, there's somewhere you can start and there's somewhere
you can work towards. So we'll start together
in the middle of your mat. And if you're brand new to practicing and you know that balancing
is challenging for you, you could always have a
wall or a chair nearby just to hold onto so
you have some stability. To start with, especially
if you have stuff going on in the shoulders, or the
shoulders are really tight, you'll bring a little micro
bend into your standing leg and just grab your foot from the outside. All right, noticing that
when you bend the knee, the butt kinda tends to stick out, so try to root down
through your standing foot, move your inner upper thighs back and then root your sitting bones down until you feel your low belly tone and your standing leg gets super strong. Tendency in this one if
you kinda like to sink, so keep thinking about hugging
your standing outer hip in, and then drawing your left
knee in towards the midlines so your pelvis is staying nice
and neutral, nice and square. And from there, right arm can stretch up and this might be plenty. Bring a little bit of energy into the leg, keep rooting the sitting bones, keep lifting the chest, maybe even bring the gaze up a little bit so you're just winding length
through the front body. Right, once you feel stable there as you press into your standing foot, you might start to kick your
left leg back any amount. In the beginning it might be really minor, just bringing some length
into the front body, creating a little bit more space through the front of the thigh, the hip. And if you're feeling pretty stable there, the shoulders are good, you
have no shoulder injuries, you'll start to find a
deeper opening in the chest. The tendency is usually
for people to wanna turn the shoulder in, which
creates this closing off in the shoulder joint, which
isn't what we're looking for, so make sure you're turning your palm up like you're holding something
and keep it facing up as you grab your foot
from the inside this time. Standing leg again strong and stable, so little micro bend to start, especially if you're
super bendy in the joints. Keep a little bend in the
knee and then tone the thigh, root the sitting bones down, and then hug your inner
thighs toward the midline. And again, you might
feel a nice stretch here just lifting the chest. Otherwise, you can start to
kick your left leg back and up. Now again, the knees
tends to want to turn out 'cause we use our glutes so much, so you wanna hug your outer hips in and keep the left knee
tracking straight behind you. Front ribs also drawing them in a bit, low belly toning so the front
of the body is integrated, lift the chest and then start to kick. So kicking your leg back and up. Keep hugging your right
hip in, your left knee in so you're stable. Keep the chest nice and open, and start to create more space between the heel and the
glute, finding your balance, breathing into the front of the body. The wobbles, the shakes, they're good. And then slowly release and
then you'll do the other side. Thanks for joining,
we'll see you guys soon.