Staff pose / Dandasana

step by step instructions:

• Sit with your legs together and stretched out in front of you. If you find it hard to sit with a straight back, sit on a block or folded blanket. Place your hands next to the hips on the floor.
• Your feet are flexed, extending out through the heels. Pull your thighs up in your hips, the top of the thighbone (femur bone) descends to the floor. Actively press your sit bones into the floor and a little to the back, to help you sit straight, your spine lengthens, the lower back arches a little forward towards your belly.
• Open your chest by puling your shoulders back and down along the spine. The bottom of the shoulderblades curl in towards the chest. Keep your front ribs soft. Your neck is long.
• Check that your shoulders are over the hips and your ears in line with the shoulders.
• On an inbreath you can take your arms out and lift them overhead. if you feel your upper back rounding with your arms all the way up, lower your arms a bit so you can see them from the sides of your eyes, so you can maintain the length in the upper back.
• Stay in this position between the 5-15 breaths, you can really feel your core working to maintain this pose.

Click on Dandasana to see the benefits of this pose.

Seated Forward Bend / Paschimottanasana

step by step instructions

• From dandasana, sitting with your legs outstretched in front of you and your feet flexed. If you cannot sit with a straight back it means you have to sit on a block or folded blanket.
• On an inhalation lengthen your spine, gently pressing your sitting bones into the floor (or block) backward. Slightly arch your lower back forward towards your belly. Your hands are next to the hips on the floor, press into your hands to help elongate your spine .
• Pull up the thighs and let the top of the thighs than descend to the floor.
• Keeping the front of the body open and long, on an exhalation you gently begin to fold forward hinging from the hips, not bending in the back.
• Keep length from the pubic bone till the breastbone, moving first your belly, than your ribcage, chest, than your forehead towards the legs.
• Let your arms slide down along the floor, if you can, hold the feet, wrapping your 1st two fingers and thumbs around the big toes, if elbows are bend doing that keep them lifting away from the floor out to the sides and keep your shoulders away from the ears. if you can’t hold your feet, loop a strap around the soles of the feet holding the strap with both hands, keep arms straight.
• To go deeper into this pose, with every inbreath you remind yourself of the length along the front of the torso, lifting your head slightly, on an outbreath you see if you can fold deeper into the pose, still with a long spine hinging from the hips. Keeping your neck in line with your spine. If you hold a strap, just walk your hands slowly in as you go deeper, straight arms.
• In time you may be flat over the legs, spine long and you can maybe stretch your hands out beyond the feet on the floor, maybe even holding the opposite wrist.
• You can hold this pose anywhere between the 5 breaths and 5 minutes.
• to come out, on an inbreath lift head, chest and lengthen out through the front of the body, press into the sittingbones, ground tailbone down, coming up to straight.

Click on paschimottasana to find out about the benefits of this pose.

Upward Facing Dog pose / Urdhva Mukha Svanasana

step by step

• Lie on your stomach, forehead on the floor, your hands next to the ribs, fingers lining up with the lower ribs pointing forward. The top of your feet pressing in the floor and just as in Cobra pose lift the thighs and knees and keep the tailbone pointing towards the heels.
• On an inhalation press into your hands and feet, straighten the arms and lift the chest and also legs of the floor.
• Draw the shoulder blades onto your back and lift your sternum but draw the front lower ribs slightly back, Bring your tailbone towards your pubic bone and draw the navel slightly in and up to keep the lower back long.
• You can look either straight ahead, or look up, taking care to not compress the back of your neck when you look up.
• Open your heart.
• You can hold this pose anywhere between 5-15 breaths.
• To come out you lower yourself down on the floor on an outbreath, or lift yourself into downward facing dog .

Click on Urdhva mukha svanasana to find out about the benefits of this pose.

Baddha Konasana / Bound Angle Pose

Benefits:

• Helps in opening your hips.
• Stretches groins, inner thighs and ankles.
• Uplifts your mood.
• Stimulates abdominal organs.
• Beneficial for menstrual pains.
• Stimulates the circulation in the pelvic area.

Click on Bound angle pose to find out how to perform this pose step by step.

Patanjali is the author of the Yoga Sutras, the most revered to and sacred text written sometime in the third century before Christ, Patanjali describes the yoga philosophy in a series of 196 aphorisms.

Patanjali clearly describes 8 steps that you can follow so you can live in harmony.

All the limbs are connected and will help you to experience the ultimate truth.

The 8 limbs consists of the following:

• Yamas and Niyamas : These are 10 ethical precepts that allow us to be at peace with ourselves, family and community.
• Asanas : These are yoga postures, they help us to keep our body strong, flexible and relaxed.
• Pranayama : breathing practices, they help us to move prana, life force.
• Pratyahara : Drawing of ones attention to silence rather than towards things.
• Dharana : Focussing attention and cultivating inner perceptual awareness.
• Dhyana : Sustaining awareness under all conditions.
• Samadi : return of the mind into original silence.

Soon I’ll describe the Yamas and Niyamas.