Yoga with Marycarmen | Half Way Lift Tutorial. Ardha Uttanasana. Beginner Series.

Transcript

hi friends this is yoga with mary carmen that is my name and in this video i want to show you this pose called arda uttanasana or halfway lift it is a pose that helps us a lot with transitions that take us from poses from standing to the floor and vice versa so hop on that mat and let's begin okay so this pose begins from a mountain position go ahead and separate the legs about the same width as the hips hands to the side arms to the side relax your shoulders and feeling your spine tall now from here i recommend to go into this pose to just go ahead and place the hands on the waist to begin with plug in those thumbs if you want to the back of your hip just to remind you that you need to just tuck the pelvis under and then from here you inhale lengthen through the spine i like to leave my toes off the ground really helps activate my knees and my thighs and as you exhale you start going forward into this by just pressing the back of the heels lifting through the thighs and then with the heart open just start going to the front into a straight back and then slowly notice this transition my tailbone is completely aware of the back right i'm feeling the stretch to the back of my leg and then i'm going to stop to where i feel that my back is uh as flat as it can be as a table and here you can just let the arms just hang down fingers to the floor and this is your halfway lift knees are soft so they're not completely locked they're soft my thighs are active my hands are just weighing down this you can hear use a block by the way if you want to and then really help yourself by lifting through the core engaging through the core all the way up through the chest and breathing this is your halfway lift pose and then from here you can either take it into the next pose uh usually forward bend or slowly just take it up if you want to so go ahead and bring the hands to the waist helping yourself to remind you to tuck that pelvis under and lifting through the heart and that is your halfway lift pose while you're in this pose notice the back of the legs are active you need to throw your thighs in the knees are active i like to lift like to my toes like i told you so that you can feel all of that activation on the legs and not having all of that weight onto our lower spine so we want to protect the lower spine by activating those glutes the legs and all of that so let's try that one more time over here inhale lift that's fine and as you exhale bend at the waist knees are soft we're going forward with an open heart i'm going to let my hands at this point to just weigh me down see if i can touch the ground with my fingers while they are stretched out but without compromising this in my ears right i want to keep my heart open my chest straight so if i need to bend my knees a little bit more to lower these fingers to the ground you can go there and this is your halfway lift and then from here we're going up moving slowly into this back of the legs are active and that my friends is your halfway lift or arda uttanasana great pose for transitioning and also for stretching the back of our legs i hope you liked it practice it we're going to incorporate this into our first flow of our beginner series yoga flow so thank you again remember to and i'll see you in the next one