Yin Yoga Shoelace Pose Tutorial | Modifications, Variations & Alternatives

Transcript

[Music] hello I'm April Walker from the yoga Ranger's studio and today we're looking at a tutorial for how to do you know poses so I realized that lots of people have tutorials out there for how to do vinyasa and haunt the poses but there aren't a lot of young tutorials on all the variations that you can do if one does not work for you or you would like to try alternatives so today we're going to take a look at shoelace toes certainly opposed I have struggled with throughout my experience this is cow face pose for those of you or gomukhasana for those of you who are not familiar with the in terms we change the name slightly this pose is a lot of hip opening a lot of internal and external rotation just a lot going on in the hips and thighs and legs so just a couple of practice tips we have here and some some variations that you can add on to your practice as well as when you practice with me you can add these variations as well I don't suggest them if you like them I always like to have a couple of props with me for this pose in particular but most poses a blanket underneath because my ankles the outside of my foot get a little bit sore so I always recommend a blanket or a towel underneath and a second blanket to sit on so if you don't feel comfortable with that you can always use a block underneath your hips or a bolster to give you a higher support and I can kind of show you what that looks like what's a blanket folded up as well so coming into this pose has some kind of fun effects some people are really comfortable just taking that left foot back when I start with the left and crossing that right over and tucking it in this doesn't work for me but if it does for you just cross those legs over sit back in between your heels or on a blanket or a prop to give you a little bit of height okay I like to come into this pose a little bit differently I like to come onto hands and knees cross that left over right turn myself around here so it makes sense and come back now because of the rotation and just how my hips work this pose does not look like what a lot of people assume is supposed to like now I want you to completely blank out everything you've ever noticed about how this post is supposed to look because then again we just don't care actually in all of my classes I don't care what the post look like what is more important is that you are comfortable in the pose and that you are getting the stretch that you need without injuring yourself so if you are not someone like myself who can take those feet out to the sides and they stick out you know each foot to each side and you can sit in between your heels you are not alone there are lots of us out there in fact every client I have cannot sit all the way down to the floor and take the feet out so that's okay so what I like to do is I like to take a blanket or a block and tuck it back behind me and I sit back just a little bit on my heel so my foot is not out to the side because the rotation of my leg on the left side will not allow my hip to do that but that's okay I'm still getting all the benefits of this pose so the benefits here would be to look at what you feel so I feel this in my hips my thighs my legs if you feel anything at all anywhere you are doing the pose right and you are good you can sit up straight in this post and just hang out here and this is a really happy place for many people including myself it's very grounding very stabilizing this pose affects a large number of Radiance it affects the liver and kidney meridians and also affects the gallbladder Meridian you do get a little bit of stomach and spleen Meridian on the top of the thighs so a lot of your lower body meridians will have some effect here if you'd like to have some of the upper body ingredients included in this pose we can add on to this a little bit you can take the traditional cow face pose by taking one arm or the other up and behind and grabbing hold of them and staying here you can take hands behind you or roll the shoulders back and just hang out here a little bit of chest opening shoulder opening you can take your hand off to the left or right or both and either roll the shoulder back behind you and drop your ear to your shoulder which will stretch this of your neck really nicely and kind of open the shoulder space here or you can take that arm up and over and let it hold your head this is going to stretch basically from the arm all the way down the side body and get into the obliques and side waist remember you can curve as much as you want if you have mobility you can come down a little further or not always if you want to you can take both sides it's gonna feel very different depending on which leg gets crossed on top I always feel just a little bit differently on each way can always just take that arm behind you once again and drop that ear over this is a great stretch for the side of the neck and the top of the shoulder these are your upright positions now you can kind of play with other positions where you fold forward I'm gonna take the other twist like this I'm losing feeling in my leg so once again you're gonna take that left in front of right this time and it turn myself round so if you can see from the angle of the camera I cannot come all the way back I end up sitting on this foot which is okay once again I will actually keep it there I sit myself down and I start to sort of angle my top foot out a little bit more if you have a lot of mobility in your hips you can begin to take those feet out further and further so if your foot is tucked in and you have that opening you can take those feet out further and further and further until they reach more out at an angle away from you sitting back on it on whatever you want a bolster a blanket block or on the floor depending on your hips so for things that you want to do in a forward fold you can take a very traditional forward fold and just walk your hands out and fold forward here if you can and want to you can come all the way down to the floor this is about as far as I can go today you can take some variations take the arm so you can also do this seated here just take the Eagle arms or version of Eagle arms palms out to the side as well this opens the back side of the shoulders and you can start to fold forward in either a full Inglot arms or a variation thereof you can drop those elbows down onto your knees or you can drop it onto some blocks or a prop out in front of you we're all the way down to the floor great shoulder opener feels really good across the back side of the shoulders in the upper side of the heart this would start to when you start looking at upper body you're looking at the heart and lung meridians the sanjaya meridian pericardium Rhydian opening up these spaces around the arms and shoulders you can also take a version of that and come even further so you could take your arms out wide come down and open the heart if you were a little bit closer you can even take your traditional cow face and fold forward you're going to feel this a lot in the shoulders and upper back and hip now upright you can even take some little funky twists you can twist to the close side close I would beat the leg that's on top twist and hold you don't want to leverage you just want to rest that hand there and twist naturally because you're gonna hold this for a little while you can also twist to the open side resting your hand on the top same hand same knee and twisting to the other side these are a lot of really great variations that you can take for this pose and kind of find your happy place but if the double cross is just not your friend you can do all of those variations using a half version of this which I for years truly loved and still really enjoy taking one leg out in front you kind of slide off the edge of the blanket that's gonna give you a little bit of pelvic tilt take that leg on top and whatever angle you can do and try to kind of get the knees sort of stacked on top of each other if you can get them stacked perfectly great if you can't that's fine too this is going to be a great stretch not only for your hip and all those same meridians but it's also going to stretch the back of your hamstring and as someone who has a hamstring hamstrings that are not very loose and flexible this is a great variation you can sit up tall or you can start to fold forward or you can take any of those variations that you had before right any of those will work propping yourself up or you can just hang out here on your knee gonna get a nice stretch and lower back you're gonna get a nice stretch down the entire calf and hamstring as well as your hip so if you were someone who has always done the double crossing for the cow face pose or shoelace pose try doing the single version it was a really different feeling for you and you might find that you want to vary that every once in a while and use the outstretched leg version as well lots of great suggestions for you to try in your practice please if you have any more questions about these or would like to know any more variations for your situation specifically you can always like and comment send me a message via YouTube Facebook email any of the above I answer them rather quickly please like and comment down below and if you would like to see more videos like this I upload several times a week now with practices as well as tutorials I will continue adding more of these yen tutorials for each one of the poses offering some suggestions on alternatives for different poses that might make it easier for you to do stuff I do want to include one more thing in the double cross version get back in that if you find that it is not comfortable between here and here you can also tuck a blanket or something that a block if you feel like a lot of that strain is on the knee you can always lift something up and this will take some of that rotation out and give you a little bit of relief so those are for my knee people or for anyone who wants a little bit of a different comfort zone here so I hope you enjoy this and look for four more of these yen tutorials on each one of these poses have a great day [Music] you