How To: Extended Hand to Big Toe Pose Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana | Yoga With Tim

Transcript

hi and welcome back to yoga with Tim I'm Tim and today I want to teach you about hand to big toe pose so this pose booty de hast applied and Gustavson can be a really tricky one for people to try to get the flexibility to get into it so I want to show it give you a couple ideas of how you can eventually get the flexibility to stand up with your big toe elevated without straining and tensing over because this is very common so one of the ways that I went to this was starting off with my heel up on just a chair actually at first and when I first started yoga my hamstrings were SuperDuper tight I couldn't touch my toes I think my hands went just a little past my knees so what happens if when we're going to stretch if we're constantly straining like I see people trying to hold it big toe and what you're doing is you're when you strain like that you're just creating more tension for your nervous system is sending the cue to your body to create more tension tens tens tens so you just create more tension for yourself your body never opens up what you're trying to get it to do its counterproductive so if we can create space or feel a feeling of balance or in the pose which is what the Yoga Sutras suggests that there's a balance of effort and surrender then we're doing a yoga pose and we're experiencing all the benefits of what the pose is getting at so let me show you this technique I'm gonna take my heel right up onto here and then instead of trying to reach over and grab my foot I'm gonna get the feeling of what it's like for my spine to be tall so to have good Tadasana posture as I hold my foot and then you can try the different variations from here there's the twisted one where you open up to the side but still looking to be tall your hips balance right up over your ankle your head balance over your hips you can do that one you can do the to the side variation and you can practice like that to help to get this the feeling of being open and then over time as you feel that your body is becoming more open then you start to raise it up you can put a block on to whatever your thing is that you're working and see if you can still get that feeling but if you feel that you start to tuck under and strain to do it it's better that you just stay with the level that you're at okay so I hope that you found this helpful do these little short tutorial videos we've been doing to give you more access into your practice to deepening your practice and understanding your body if you enjoyed it hit the like button leave a comment below if you have any questions about it or let me know what you'd like to see in the future I really appreciate your feedback and also if you haven't already and turn on the notification bellow so you won't miss any future videos and it's the best way to support the channel I really appreciate it if you do have a great day I'll see you next time