Yoga Tutorial for Beginners: Crescent Pose (Alanasana)

Transcript

so to talk about crescent pose or asana in sanskrit we're going to come into the tadasana position noticing that the feet are hip distance apart and it's important for this pose that the feet stay hip distance apart and we'll talk about wine so if we take the right leg back first i'm going to bend that knee reach it back nice big step let the toes come down we want the hips to stay pointed forward this is going to challenge the balance but if you look down at your feet and see that they are hip distance that's really going to help with balance so if they're more on a tight wire here that's really squeezing this in which is not a problem especially if you've been a practitioner for a long time but i kind of feel some pressure in my sacrum so i like to have hip distance it feels more solid and stable to me so this is how we'll practice it especially for these beginner videos this is how i practice it anyways and then the knee is going to stay right over that front ankle and a lot of things can happen for this back leg so when we're really tight we might need to keep this knee bent a little bit that's okay so as this knee is bent we work it towards straight so we reach it back but as that happens you may notice that my waist is tilting forward a little bit so as this leg reaches back it causes an anterior tilt in my pelvis which is going to pull my low back into an arch here so to counteract a little bit of that we're going to lift up from the low belly so now we've got this reaching back with this back leg and this lifting up with the front of the body and then from here we can take the arms up and breathe and this pose is challenging so it's stretching across the front of the body here the front of the leg the hip flexor and it's strengthening this front leg and because it's playing with our balance it's teaching us focus so it's really important that we breathe and then hands to the hips we're going to lean forward and step back to the top of the mat very good now we'll go to the other side so bending that left knee bending the right knee as well shift it back reach it back and this is causing focus in this front leg as well it's causing the muscles of this leg to gain stability and we really want that so as we settle in seeing what needs or wants to happen with that back leg how that affects the pelvis and again lifting up as that leg reaches back and then notice if that heel at that front heel is not pressing into the floor that's going to cause a lack of stability as well so really paying attention to all these things and the arms can come up and then hands to the hips again we're going to shift forward and step to the top of the mat okay now another way that you will see this done in practice is with blocks so you can grab some blocks now and place them on the outer edges of your feet you won't always have black blocks for this you will be coming up from the floor but i want to show you with blocks so if we were to come from here let's inhale and take the arms overhead and as you exhale fold over the legs bring the hands to the blocks we're going to take the right leg back into a nice high lunge and again really important pay attention that the feet are hip distance apart so here we have a lot of things to play with so press the legs down into the floor notice what direction your hips are moving in right we want to kind of bring the legs towards one another that may not make any sense right now that's okay but you'll notice as we come up we're coming up into that crescent pose from right here so push the feet down into the floor inhale come all the way up and you'll see that my hips are staying pointed forward and what happens is when we're here if the legs and the hips are kind of out of whack and we are coming up from there it makes us really again a little shaky a little unstable so really driving down through the heel through the legs and come up with a little bit more stability and then to come back to the top from here we'll take our hands to the hips and step forward we might as well do the other side while we're here so inhale the arms out and up exhale fold down hands to the blocks step the left leg back and again press the feet into the floor i really like to think about that because if i'm trying to push my legs through the ground that i'm engaging the muscles of the legs and then from here we're coming all the way up this can be very shaky at any time so just know that that's part of the practice hands to the hips and step forward very good