How to do Dragon Pose - Yin Yoga Tutorial

Transcript

hi I'm Taylor a yin yoga teacher and today I'm going to demonstrate how to do dragon pose this fiery pose can really help wake students up and holding it can build so much heat that it can be uncomfortable for people however I'm going to give you a couple different variations so you can choose in your own practice or in your sequencing as a teacher exactly what to do to begin start in a tabletop position now you don't have to use any props here however I most often like to use my bolster a lot of places don't have or Studios don't have bolsters so you can also use blocks underneath your hands and make sure they're a little bit over towards the left I'll also demonstrate with my bolster here as we'll be stepping the right foot forward first this is the intention to have the prop slightly to the left you can also pad your back knee by folding over the mat here or using the one of those squishy pads that they have for knees in some studios you can then take a big step forward with your right foot to the outside of your prop and lunge forward this is the equivalent of lizard Buton Yen called dragon now make sure here that you have a softness in your elbows to avoid locking out your joints and you want your left hip flexor to be melting towards the mat the foot stays the right foot on the mat this is your first variation of dragon for a lot of people myself included I find I have more spaciousness in my hip in this case the right hip if I roll to the outside edge of my foot this is winged dragon and it doesn't matter whichever variation of dragon you're in other than the last one I'll demonstrate you can Wing in any of them you can then come down onto your elbows whether that's on a bolster blocks even your elbows towards the ground into low Dragon notice here if you tend to interlace your fingers and grip here I find a lot of people do this see if you can invite your hands to be soft if you come up back onto your hands press your left hand into your bolster push your right hand into the same leg right leg and you can look back over your shoulder into Twisted dragon and the last option is high Dragon here I recommend having blocks and you're not going to take quite as wide as a stance but you'll want to come all the way up so if you were on your knees to begin with take a big step forward with your right and lunge slightly forward your knee in line with your right hip your blocks can come to their highest settings beside you for your hands to rest on hyd Dr again because your chest is up you're higher as I said before this is a very fiery pose I recommend holding for 3 to six minutes and you will notice maybe yourself maybe your student students fidgeting a lot here hold the pose this is one of the most important Yin principles the only reason you should be moving out is that if there's too much discomfort or pain you want no pain whatsoever little bit of discomfort is good it means you're moving out of your comfort zone it really wakes up the solar plexus and the sacral chakras and if you want even more information on this pose including practicing it in a sequence I have all of that and how to teach it below in the description until next time have a fabulous day