How To - Supported Fish Pose

Transcript

hey guys welcome this is going to be a tutorial on how to do fish pose supported fish pose three ways I'm Kristina Madison and I'm with rolling mill yoga and I'm here to show you three different options for doing supported fish pose which is a wonderful chest opener a wonderful way to stretch all of these muscles up here it's a wonderful way to relax at the end of the day and it's a great counter pose to what we do a lot of the day which is this and this lots of hunched shoulders rounded spine fish pose does exactly the opposite so I think it's a really important pose for you to incorporate in your regular even daily practice so I'm going to show you how to do it without props for this first one and then I'm going to show you how to do it with one block and then with two so to start we are going to extend the legs and come down onto the elbows so what we want to think about here is stacking the elbow underneath the shoulder because now we're supporting ourself with our bone structure rather than our muscles and ligaments if your arms are long enough you can tuck the fingers under your seat we want to make sure the elbows are close together underneath the shoulders if you can and the legs can be bent here or they can be straight and extended the choice is yours it feels safe to do so you can start to release through the neck and this is going to be totally personal here how far you want to release the neck so maybe you have the ability to come all the way back with your neck and let your head kind of hang maybe you can only come halfway maybe it feels safer for you to keep the neck in neutral and that's totally fine so find what works for you and then you'll just hang out here for about five to ten breaths awesome so let me show you how to do the same pose with one block so this is great if you don't have two blacks or maybe if you have a foam roller you can also use the foam roller here you're gonna set it up vertically along your mat around the floor so for this I like to have one block I like to have it the long way you can take it the horizontal way like this if that works for you I like to have my lungs that supports more of my spine so we're gonna adjust the block until it feels right so I like mine to hit me right at about middle of my back top of my lower back and then the top of the block is coming like right toward the bottom of my shoulder blades are and then I'm gonna release my head down to the floor let my chest open let my shoulders relax down towards the floor opening through the chest broadening through the collar bones and relaxing here again the knees can be bent or the legs can be straight your choice now when we add a second block the second block is meant to support the head so the black settings and the block heights here are going to be pretty much up to you and what you prefer you can have both on medium height you can have the one for your back I recommend the one for your back starting off on the lowest height and then having the one that goes up your head either on the same height the medium height or even the highest height if you want more support under your head it really just depends on your neck your body your flexibility your mobility so find what works for you we're going to do it the same way by placing this first block lengthwise along the spine finding the position that feels nice and comfortable and then we're going to release the head down to your block so that maybe on this medium height it may be on the lowest height or it may be on the highest height if you need a lot more support in the neck okay so if I works for you I'm going to take mine to the lowest because I like a little bit of a opening through the front of my neck you'll bring the arms out to the sides palms face up and then just let everything get heavy shoulders hips head letting everything get heavy towards the floor letting your bones feel heavy you know live and steel heavy and really allow yourself to soften through the chest feeling the heart space expand feeling those shoulders soften towards the floor I need to tell you exhale getting a little bit heavier you can stay here for as long as you like I recommend being here for three to five minutes if you can and just enjoy it thanks so much for watching namaste