How to: Vrischikasana (Scorpion Pose) | Yoga with Katrina

Transcript

hi friends for today's asana breakdown i will be taking you through the foundational requirements for vrishki kasana otherwise known as the scorpion pose so go ahead and grab your yoga block we're going to be needing this today and the reason why we're going to be practicing with the yoga block is it's going to remind us to recruit strength from the biceps as we invert ourselves into the deep back band and inversion so let's get started on the mat and like all of my asana breakdowns make sure your body is warmed up this pose requires a level of core strength a posterior strength which is the back and in order to work on building your back strength the best pose would be to practice your locus pose by being heavy in the hips here and reaching back with your fingertips and through the toes lift up through the chest and practice locust pose practice any of the back bands to develop that posterior strength that we'll be recruiting from and you also want to make sure that you are confident and comfortable being upside down i know it can be scary especially for people who are first approaching and starting their inversion practice but you want to make sure you are confident in your pincha mayurasana the forearm stand before attempting scorpion pose so that's just a little caveat there anyway let's get started so assuming that your body is warmed up and you're ready to go you're going to take your block and place it in front of you and a great pose will also develop this shoulder strength is through dolphin pose it is a great strengthening inversion to develop that shoulder strength that shoulder mobility that we need to take us upside down we also need a level of spinal mobility because this is really about the spine and less about i'd say it's less about flexibility it really is about spinal mobility creating stabilized shoulders and pushing off with the biceps and the shoulders so in other words this is really about your capacity for pushing the ground away from you and what the block is going to teach us about is it's going to tell us where our strength is we don't usually practice with our palms when i say we i mean awakening yoga with the palms flat down because when you feel your biceps here you feel that there's no activation going on so what ends up happening is our chest really sinks in through our arms and we want to avoid that so my recommendation is to practice thumbs pointing up towards the ceiling and just see how that feels like first as you can see my biceps are activating as i push my knuckles into the block so again you really want to develop your core work your core strength i do have core strengthening classes on this channel it's called magnetic core series look it up develop that core strength develop that confidence to get yourself upside down into pinch of my eraser so as always we start off in dolphin pose remember to press your knuckles into the block walk your feet closer towards your body keep your gaze in between the area of your elbows and the block push the ground away from you with your shoulder blades remember shoulder protraction separate the shoulder blades and when you're ready to kick up push the ground away from you find your pinching mayarasana and then when you're ready shift the gaze slowly over to the front as you bend the legs toes are touching protract through the shoulders push the ground away push your head up towards your feet try to look up towards your feet here and exhale slowly release so as you can see that is a very deep back pen but once you get yourself up there it feels incredible and i'm gonna demo it without the blocks just so you can see and again this is all about your capacity to push the ground away and rounding out through the upper thoracic spine separating the shoulder blades from one another which is called shoulder protraction again bring the hands to meet each other thumbs pointing up towards the sky and if you want to check on the distance of when you're not using the block if you could grab on to your elbows you have reached your destination that is a proper arm alignment in your inversion so you want to just check if you could push the ground away separate through the shoulder blades put your hands together recruit that strength and when you're ready go ahead and step into your dolphin pose walk the feet closer towards your body as close as you can go you want to avoid using too much momentum push the ground away from you separate through the shoulder blades press up push the ground away find your balance bring the legs together toes touching shift your gaze forward lift your head up squeeze the glutes and then slowly release so again this is going to be all about your capacity to push and resist the ground away from you i know that it could be scary to practice inversions so it's really important to be confident in your pinch of mairasana and of course check in with your healthcare provider if you can do an inversion practice you always want to prioritize your safety first but again focus on shoulder stability focus on powering up that posterior chain your back and have fun with it i know that it can take a few attempts but don't give up just keep on going for it and if you're scared of falling over you could always practice in front of a wall so ideally you would be facing the wall as you practice your pinch of maya rasana into scorpion pose so that your feet can slowly glide down the wall to enter into that deep backbend but always practice without the wall as well because you're training your body to recruit strength from the biceps from the shoulders and from your posterior chain i hope that this tutorial has helped you if you managed to snap a photo of yourself in scorpion please tag me and share it away on instagram i would love to see you in this beautiful back vending pose it's a beautiful pose it's one of my favorite poses it's certainly my favorite inversion and i hope you have a wonderful time exploring your body and your connection to your breath in this asana i hope that something magical and unexpected happens to you this week i bow down to you and all of your efforts namaste