Yoga Pose of the Day - Upavista Konasana, Wide Legged Forward Fold (Dragonfly/Straddle)

Transcript

hi everyone jen holt here at inspired by purpose to bring you your pose of the day so today's co pose is called upavista konasana or wide-legged forward fold in the yen tradition it's also called either straddle or dragonfly and there's lots of options and variations so i'll go over those with you let's start seated this is a seated posture so we're working on flexibility and we're going to come into a seat and extend the legs out front now what you might start to notice here is if you're able to get the legs out straight and keep the shoulders over the hips if not if you find yourself leaning back and you're not able to come here with the shoulder stacked then i recommend having a little bit of something to prop up your hips i'm using a folded blanket you could be using a block you could be using a pillow it could be much bigger or taller than what i'm using the goal here is to be able to tilt the pelvis so when we're going into forward folds we don't want the pelvis tilting back so you don't want to feel as though the top of your pelvis is lifting and you're rolling on the to the tailbone when we go into our forward folds the pelvis should be tilting forward so the tailbone is going back the top of the pelvis is coming forward so our blanket or our prop can help us find that little bit of tilt so that we can come into a little bit of a forward fold so you don't want to be sitting back on your prop then you're just going to be here what you want to do is come forward so think about using your prop to lift your tailbone up and create that little bit of tilt through the pelvis as much as you can find it today now this is a wide legged forward fold so once we've found that we're going to start to open the feet up a little bit wider could be a lot wider you choose the distance between your feet that feels appropriate for you today in this moment so there are several different variations of this pose in our more active practice it's more traditional to strongly flex toes towards the face and that activates the legs toes are pointed up knees are pointed up toes flexing strongly and we're sitting tall then you work on folding forward with that long tall spine so let me show you the side view here so you'll notice as i'm coming in i'm keeping that long spine and walking the hands forward any amount you may not be here you may be here or here or here and maybe enough just to get the pelvis tilted and shoulders over the hips that may be where you land today now if you have very tight hamstrings you might need a little softness a little bend to the knee and you could even prop yourself up a little bit here you can use yoga blocks or at home a great thing to have is a little folded blanket you can roll it up and roll that under the knees and it just helps give you a little bit more support if you're not able to get the leg straight or if when the legs are straight you feel the hamstrings or the backs of the legs really burning here now if we are in our yen practice the pose looks and feels a little bit different so in our yen practice the legs still come out wide but rather than working on strongly fo flexing toes we relax the legs so the toes fall away you allow everything from the hips to the feet to just rest and you might take a few moments here just finding a little bit of ease now in our young practice when we fold forward it's more traditional to round the back and allow the top of the head to dip down you can use support yoga blocks work great yoga blocks and hands whatever you need sometimes having a little bit of support rest under the head can be helpful but i will say for some of us if you have low back stuff going on you will you might want to come in with a flat back even in the yen variation because when we come in with a flat back we tend to use a little bit more core engagement the spine is a little bit more supported when we round there's a little bit more pressure there so if you're having low back pain keep the back pretty straight and support yourself with your hands or props and again variation you can hold for several minutes and you can just soften the body into it and the more active variation because it's stronger we don't hold it as long so you might start with maybe three to five breaths and then if you want to hold for a little bit longer you can choose to do that for yourself so that was our pose today upavista konasana wide legged forward fold also known as straddle and dragonfly in the yen tradition so i hope you enjoyed that if you have any questions please drop us a comment and let us know hope to see you in center or online very soon take care of yourselves