Malasana Yogi Squat Pose Tutorial - Tips & Tricks for Beginners

Transcript

namaste welcome everyone my name is cassandra and in this video i'm going to take you through a quick post tutorial going over malasana your yogi squat so malasana is a deep hip opener there are many different variations of this pose i'll take you through most of them but really this is all about your hips and a little bit about your spine as well so big external hip rotation a big stretch through the inner thighs and inner groin and lots of engagement along your spine i'll also take you through some other poses that can help you be more comfortable and more at ease in your malasana if you find that this one is a bit of a struggle so just showing you what this pose is normally we would start it i like to go feet a little bit wider than my hips heels and toes out so that your feet are turned out at around a 45 degree angle what i like to do normally is to keep my toes in line with my knees so even if i'm in a lunge for example i would want my knee to be going over the second and third toe this is the same for my yogi squat in malasana so i want my knee to be driving and pointing towards that second and third toe so unassisted without props this is usually what a traditional malasana yogi squat pose would look like both feet flat to the floor a little wider than the hips heels and toes out normally hands would be coming anjali mudra prayer at the heart using the elbows to press the knees open a little bit wider and we try to have our hips be heavy so the tailbone is reaching towards the mat and then we're also trying to lengthen rolling the shoulders back and lifting the crown of the head up towards the sky so there's a lot going on in a pose like this and i'll turn to the other side because i want to show what i typically see in students very often if you find yourself struggling in this pose one of a few things might be happening first thing might be that your heels don't quite make it all the way down to the mat this is super normal if you have tightness either in your ankles tightness in your hips or in your lower back you might not be able to get all the way down if this is the case you can always grab a block and put it underneath your seat so that you are able to get your feet flat to the floor another alternative is to use a towel or a blanket and to roll it and put it underneath your heels this is a good option if you're doing malasana in the context of a yin yoga practice where we really want to relax and we're holding the pose for like two three or four minutes if it's a vinyasa class and we're just holding the pose for a few breaths probably not worth it to grab your towel but if you have a block start by working on the pose from here the wider your stance also usually the easier this pose will be for you for those of you where the pose is easy you can practice bringing your feet closer in towards one another so that's the first thing i'll notice in people is the heels don't necessarily touch the floor the other thing that tends to happen if you are able to get your heels on the mat very common is this feeling that we're rolling and falling backwards and you might have even fallen backwards multiple times i know that happened to me in the in the beginning when i was first learning this pose so we are trying to eliminate rounding in our lower back we are looking to cultivate some height normally if you feel like you're rolling backwards and putting too much weight in your heels it's because there's a limited range of motion in your hips a little bit too much tightness that's preventing you from lifting out of your lower back and lengthening your spine up really you just need to work on hip flexibility and i'll show you some other poses that can help you get more comfortable in malasana if you do feel like this is an issue that you're dealing with here and then the other thing is especially if we are in the pose for a while it can be very tempting to relax the legs and relax our thighs and i'll turn back here so you can see but often what will happen if i'm using my elbows to push my knees open and wider although i am using my arms to do most of the work i want to still be able to keep my knees exactly as they are even if i lift my arms up so if you lift your arms up and your knees buckle in you're putting a lot of pressure towards the inner edge of your ankle and a lot of strain on your knees as well you need to activate and strengthen through your glutes in order to externally rotate through your hips so i'm really actively engaging through my lower body and i'm also using the help of my elbows to push the knees open a little bit wider and drawing the shoulders down so for those of you who are struggling amelasana you feel like you're not flexible enough to hold it comfortably you feel like you're rolling and falling backwards when it comes to modifying a pose or finding ways to work towards a certain pose we want to look at the biomechanics so what kind of shape am i trying to do with my body and how else can i replicate this without putting so much pressure on the joints so if you're looking at a pose like this what are some similar shapes similar yoga poses that would help you to externally rotate to stretch through the inner thighs and to lengthen through the spine this is a very similar shape to happy baby and to wide legged child's pose so if you struggle with yogi squat i absolutely recommend doing a lot of wide legged child's pose a lot of happy baby poses and also frog poses so wide like a child's pose big toes usually come together so this is a difference in squat our feet are apart in child's pose usually the toes are together but the wider you're able to get your knees in a child's pose this is very similar to my yogi squat and then as i'm lengthening out i'm trying to find and maintain length through my spine if i were to really connect and hold through this pose i'm able to feel pretty much the same stretch the only difference with this one is that there's not as much of a need for me to contract and engage through my group my glutes and i'm able to relax the muscles in my back a little bit more but if hip flexibility is what's holding you back in malasana definitely start doing more balasana more child's pose as a regular part of your practice another alternative of this one it's more intense but it will work as well is to work on frog pose so frog pose i'm trying to align my ankles with my knees so i'm opening up the feet making that little frog shape with my legs so my knees are around my hips and i'm trying to work and press my way down this is a really hard one especially for me i find this a lot but this will help to stretch through the inner thighs and inner groin and working on your external hip rotation another pose that you can do which is even more accessible and gentle is to work on your happy baby pose a very similar shape so as you lay down on your back you could really do your yogi squat and malasana you could do it lying down if i bring my knees out towards my elbows i can flex my feet and i'm turning so that my knees and my toes are all in the same line working on drawing the knees and the thighs in towards the belly without lifting your tailbone up towards the sky so the rounding i'll just go back here the rounding that many of us experience in our malasana pose is the same kind of tightness and rounding that happens in happy baby where hips lift off the ground you want to try to push your tailbone down into the floor as you draw the knees and the thighs closer in towards your chest and you can just work on the pose from here hands at your heart using your elbows to push the knees a little bit wider and because your spine is flat on the floor it's going to encourage your spine to stay nice and elongated so no curving if this starts to feel pretty good you can also go deeper into the pose by holding onto your feet stacking your ankles over your knees and pushing your elbows to the insides of the thighs to press the knees open wider again i'm not lifting my hips and my seat off the floor i'm pressing my tailbone down so those three poses would be excellent ones to start incorporating on a regular basis if you find that yogi squat malasana is just not quite working out for you and remember you can always use your props to put it underneath your seat so your hips are slightly more elevated it's gonna take some time for some people it's a lot harder than for others because a lot of it just has to do with the alignment you have in your pelvis and how you're naturally built anyway if you wanted to go a little bit deeper into your yogi squat there are quite a few alternatives and options that you can do so sometimes people will add a twist and a bind reaching one arm out and opening i like to do this one because it really reminds me to squeeze into the glutes what we don't want to happen is that as soon as you reach one arm up usually the knee is going to buckle in towards the midline and towards the center you need to squeeze and open it wide so these are wonderful options sometimes people will also add a bind by reaching and clasping the hands back again notice what that left out knee is doing you need to squeeze and open it up as you twist and then the deepest variation that i know of this pose i'm probably not warmed up enough to be able to do it fully but instead of having your feet a little bit wider than hip width distance apart you can work on maybe bringing your heels together toes are still pointing out i'm still getting my knees and my toes pointing out in the same line instead of bringing my elbows to the insides of my thighs i'm kind of bringing my chest forward wrapping around so that i can hold on to the back of my heels and as i widen my knees i'm trying to fold down oh it is working today you never really know with this one seeing if i can touch my forehead down towards the floor this one is a bit of a balancing act it's really hard to maintain your center but that's one way that you can go deeper in malasana so i hope this video helps you a little bit for those of you who've been struggling with malasana your yogi squat play around with it remember it's just a yoga pose it doesn't matter it doesn't mean anything about you if this one just doesn't work for your body so no pressure no stress no judgment this is really about the journey just see how your body feels keep working on it there is no timeline okay all good if you have any other pose recommendations that you would like me to do please leave me a comment down below i already have quite a few post tutorials i'll post the playlist for those right here if you want to check out all the other ones that i've done thank you so much and i'll practice with you very soon namaste