Yoga Pearl: Frog Pose

Transcript

i'm dr gail dubinsky orthopedic medicine physician and certified kundalini yoga instructor today our yoga pearl is going to be frog pose this is a great strengthening exercise in the kundalini yoga tradition and not only for the legs and you'll feel exactly what muscles are being strengthened when we do it but also energetically it really tonifies and strengthens the lower energy centers of the body so frog pose is basically done and i'm going to turn sideways because it's more easy to see the movement you're going to turn your feet out sort of like first position ballet if you ever did that and what's very important is to keep the weight even between the big toe and the little toe and keep the knee facing over the center toes don't let your knees go in roll in over the big toe so the legs are out fingertips are on the floor and don't worry i will show you a modification if this is not possible the fingertips are either on the floor or your fists i prefer this for my hands the inhalation is to lift the hips up and bring the body as close as possible to the knees the exhalation is to bring your hips down as close to your heels as you can stretch the chest forward now this is the opposite breath pattern than the usual spinal flex we're going to be arching the chest as we exhale because the inhalation is the butt up exhalation butt down okay now for those of you that cannot squat this low what you're going to do is you can use a chair and you can just simply place your hands on the chair and again you know the heels off the ground is is an important part of the of the pose but if you can't do it you can't do it just do your best the most important thing is that your knees always face over the center toes and that your weight is balanced between the inside and outside of the foot so as you exhale you just come down as far as you can inhale come up try to bring your body as close to the legs as you can so it'd be exhale and inhale like so okay but for the regular so let's begin whatever version you're going to do we begin in the down position and we go ahead and inhale we're going to do 26 with a break in the in the middle one two three four five six seven eight try to keep your heels together nine ten keep your weight back eleven twelve 13. now when you take a break go ahead and take your feet apart put your heels down and just relax wherever you either here here here wherever it's relaxing to you all right ready for the second half bring your heels together off the ground come down and begin 14 inhale exhale 15 16 17. 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 okay heels apart and down relax okay so you can do as many frog poses as you like 26 is kind of a good basic number you can go as high as the magic yoga number of 108 but it is a wonderful way to really strengthen the whole lower body namaste sat nam i hope you enjoyed this video and that practice helps reduce pain and stress and enhance your well-being please check out my other short videos on this channel and my full-length videos at rxyoga.com i welcome your comments likes feedback and suggestions for new videos and namaste