Yin Yoga Dragon Pose | Beginners Tutorial | How To Yin Yoga Dragon Pose With Modifications

Transcript

hello i'm rob phillips welcome to my channel where i help people improve their lives with a smart accessible approach to yoga and meditation today we're going to be talking all about dragon pose the most fierce pose in the yin yoga pantheon now dragon pose is essentially the yin yoga version of a low lunge and it's one of the best all-around hip openers that we can do so as we come into it it's going to especially target the hip flexors the thighs quadriceps really everything on the front of the leg but depending on how we approach it or what variation we're going to do we can also target the outer hips hamstrings and all of that so really all around hip pose and one that i include often in my sequences so in terms of props i'm going to say definitely have a blanket for this and if you have access to yoga blocks i'm going to give a few variations that you might consider and finally as always if you have any questions thoughts or comments about something i may have missed here do let me know down in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video consider giving me a like and consider subscribing to my channel for more yin yoga tutorials and more full yin yoga practices as well otherwise let's go ahead and begin here so when you're ready to set up for your dragon pose i'm gonna recommend grabbing a hold of a blanket here and fold it up kind of medium thickness something like this if you don't happen to have a blanket you can use a cushion or really anything the main purpose of this is it's gonna pat our knees i recommend setting it up maybe three quarters from the back of the mat not all the way back not all the way in the middle you want to have a little bit of space with which to work so as i said in the introduction this is a lunging pose so you're going to want to pad the back knee so why don't we start with our right foot forwards so as you step your right foot forward somewhere in between the hands kind of the first thing to consider here is the length of your stride in general the longer your stride is the more you're going to feel the effects of the pose so as you go longer here you'll notice my pelvis starts to drop to the floor as the pelvis drops to the floor that's creating some length onto the front of the left thigh for some bodies and i include myself in this category you might also feel a bit of release happening on your outer right hip onto your right hamstring now i'm demoing this with my hands on the floor you could absolutely do this with blocks so this is kind of your standard dragon my hands are on either side and so once i've regulated my stride i want to notice if i feel sensation in my back kneecap if you happen to feel a little bit of pressure there you might benefit from and appreciate kind of scooting a little bit forward so you're no longer resting that weight there keep in mind you can fold up your blanket thicker if you'd like you can also slide a blanket under the top of that back foot if that feels a little more comfortable feels a little more accessible for you so from this kind of simple classic dragon we might call this once we're in it we let ourselves more or less relax now i say more or less especially when it comes to dragon pose because more so than most yin yoga poses there's a bit of effort required here now the key is you only want to work as much as it's necessary to support the body you still want to emphasize that relaxation just don't want to emphasize letting go here so from this basic dragon let's look at a few simple variations that we might consider so probably the simplest one that we can come into from here is inside dragon to do that all i would do is take my right hand onto the inside edge of my right foot and so with the hands inside this opens up the possibility to drop the chest lower so if you can't get all the way down to the floor i can but this is probably not a place i would like to hang out that can be a place where you might want to use blocks so i'm going to grab my blocks and show what that might look like so if you can't make it all the way down to the floor you can set up on a block or two here and for my body i find that's much more comfortable i could stay here for the full length of the pose if i wanted to now what if the opposite is true maybe you feel like you're too low to the floor with just your hands well blocks can come to your help there too so you can use the blocks to get even more height you can even flip the blocks up taller here and feel a bit of lift in the chest but notice here all the while my pelvis is kind of settling my hips are generally relaxing to the floor again that's kind of the intended effect so there's definitely some other variations we consider i'm going to show those on my other side so they'll be easier to visualize and also give my right leg a bit of a break here so you'll notice i shut that leg out on my way out before we do the second sound it's going to rest here in child's pose take a few breaths just wear a proper clasp i'd probably do a longer pause to integrate but just a few moments let that right leg settle so let's set up for our second half here so again you want to pad the knees this time i'm going to step my left foot up remembering most important point here is the length of your stride so the longer your stride is the more you will feel the general effects of the pose so as i find my edge i allow for the hips to settle you may consider kind of scooting on the blanket here so that you're not crushing that you're not overly compressing your kneecap so kind of moving in the other direction from that low dragon is a high dragon so i kind of demoed that before but i'm going to go a little further here with my blocks so for high dragon you could back the blocks up by the hips and notice now my spine is much more vertical with the spine more vertical that will generally create even more down force it tends to be kind of a stronger pose you could also do this with your hands on the thigh but again the key here is it's not like a normal low crescent lunge where i might take my arms overhead i'm still generally relaxing i'm still genuinely generally settling here so from here i'm going to take my hands down and show you another variation so what about what we call winged dragon so wing dragon is essentially a variation of that low dragon so i'm going to take my left hand inside so for wing dragon you might heel toe that left foot a little bit wider i like to flex the foot so that i don't end up rolling my ankle and then i let that left knee wing off to the side this can really help to target the outer edge of the left hip it becomes almost like kind of a harder or stronger version of like a pigeon pose you can do this with straight arms you can do this on elbows on the floor very much like a lizard pose that you might see in other yoga practices this is true for really all of these variations but especially here you want to be careful that you feel nothing in the knee especially when you're in this kind of like rolled out position you don't want to torque it and so from here i'm going to lift up i'm going to lower the left foot down let it release let it shake out so that's just a few variations those are the ones that i teach most commonly those are the ones you'll see most commonly now um hopefully as you take as you get more familiar with the pose these other options will start to make sense the other variations will kind of show themselves so when a teacher offers it to you or if i offer it to you you'll kind of know what's going on final point i just want to put out there is what if dragon pose is just not in the cards for you what if the sensations are too extreme in that case the full modification would be to lie down on your back and instead of stepping a foot forwards for example if i said step the right foot forwards what you could do to modify is hug the right knee on your back and just notice this is essentially an inverted version of that lung shape still getting some release on the hip flexors on the thighs and so if you ever come into dragon and it doesn't feel right this is where i'd recommend you go so that's my introduction and exploration of dragon pose and of course if there's anything i missed or anything you have a question about absolutely let me know in the comments down below again if you enjoyed this video please be sure to give me a like and consider subscribing to my channel if you want to see more tutorials and more full yin yoga practices each and every week