Reverse Warrior (Viparita Virabhadrasana) - Yoga Pose Guide Tutorial

Transcript

welcome to yoga download my name is alana Cavalia this is a posture breakdown of reverse warrior reverse warrior is really just a simple variation on the warrior two pose so let's start by breaking down what the legs need to be doing in a warrior to separate the feet the distance between the feets will be about the distance of your arms so keep the legs straight for now straighten your leg imagine that there is a plumb line from the wrist down to the ankles and the ankles should be right under the wrists it's about the distance between our feet that we're looking for in most of our standing poses for our warrior to base our hips and our torso will be facing the side of the mat we'll want to make sure that the left toes for her in this case where the front toes are pointed directly forward and that the back foot is pointed slightly in at about a thirty to forty-five degree angle even though the foot is pointing slightly in we want to make sure that the foot looks like it would as if it was in Tadasana the arch is lifted lots of energy towards the outside of the foot toes are soft back leg is straight front leg is bent 90 degree angle at the knee as best you can the knee is directly over the ankle the way that you can check that in your shape is by looking down and seeing the big toe just on the inside of the front knee both thighs are actively externally rotating so even though the legs are in stasis they're not changing at all the thighs are actively externally rotating imagining that you're bringing your tailbone and your sits bones together behind you engage and lift the lower belly in and up to create good structure and support for the lower back in the shape arms are nice and broad reaching away from each other this is our basic warrior two nothing changes from the hips down for our reverse warrior our Veera Bhadra sana variation the only thing that shifts is from the hips up we'll bring our back hand down to our thigh or our knee no pressure or weight in this back hand though and bring our hands our front hand up and over as we extend and lengthen the front side of the chest now we want to make sure we don't turn this into a back bend this is a lateral stretch so keep the tailbone reaching down and the lower belly reaching in and up as you reach the upper hand up and back towards the direction of your back foot as you do so drop the shoulder down away from the ears and keep the nice space keeping a nice base in your shoulder go ahead and come up to stand and bring your feet together now let's illustrate the top half of our reverse warrior without the stress of our legs we'll take that out of the equation just for now so that we can really understand the lateral flexion of the spine in our reverse warrior go ahead and raise both arms straight up over your head as you do so plant the hips and the feet straight down into the earth not shifting or twisting anything in this case reach the arms up and then reach them over to the right side as you do imagine that you're sandwiched between two panes of glass and the tailbone is still reaching down the lower belly is reaching in and up to support the lower back in this lateral stretch you want to keep both sides long so be careful not to collapse the side that you're stretching over to for our reverse warrior shape of course one hand will be down the other hand will be reaching up and over but the side is still not collapsing we're not shifting into any kind of back bend or a forward bend it's merely a lateral stretch so let's do our reverse warrior again and see if we can take these two different pieces and put them together the legs are standing pose distance apart so to check that straighten both legs and make sure that your ankles fall directly below your wrists once you've got that all set point your front toes directly forward your back foot slightly in just a check lift up your toes that will help to soften and engage your feet and then slightly relax your toes down to the floor okay now bend the front knee so that the ankle is directly under the knee check that by having a quick look down just make sure you can see your big toe on the inside of your front knee we've got the bottom half of our torso a bottom half of our body organized now let's do the top half back arm rests on the thigh or the knee no pressure or weight here front arm turns over tall up to the ceiling and then reaches up and back as we do our lateral flexion coming into our reverse warrior shake shoulder stays down away from the ear both sides of the body stay long even though it's just the side that is connected to the front leg that is doing most of the stretching next stay is soft as you turn to gaze toward the ceiling come up first to warrior two straighten the leg bring the feet together try to leave your mat where it is and there you have it for a reverse warrior