wide angle seated forward bend / upavishta konasana

step by step instructions :

• From dandasana / staff pose , bring your legs apart, ninety degrees or wider, up to a point where you feel a good stretch, but can still hold the pose without falling back. Keep your back straight. Sit on a folded blanket if you can’t sit with a straight back.
• Flex your feet, keep your knees and toes pointed up towards the ceiling. Press the legs, sitting bones down again to help raise the spine. Pull up the thighs and descend the top of the thighs.
• When you sit with a straight back you can place the hands between the legs on the floor and slowly as you exhale walk the hands forward. Maintaining the length along the front of the body when you come into the forward bend. To maintain a long spine you have to bend from the hips, and keep lengthening from the pubic bone to the breast bone.
• When you feel you start arching your back you stop, you lengthen again and see if you can go deeper into the pose on an outbreath. when you’ve reached your edge, you will feel a stretch along the back of the legs and your back is still long. You can hold this pose for about a minute or longer.
• To come out you breathe in and come back up with a straight back, pressing the sit bones down.

Dandasana / Staff pose

benefits:

• Strengthens the quads
• Improves core stability
• Strengthens the muscles of the back

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

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.

bound angle pose / baddha konasana

step by step

• Sit with your legs outstretched in front of you, you may want to sit on a blanket or pillow to raise your hips, so you can sit with a straight back.
• pull in your feet and place the soles of the feet together, as close as possible to your pelvis, let the knees fall out to your sides.
• Release your groins, the head of the thigh bones, and allow the knees to relax down as well, don’t push them.
• hold your big toes with the first two fingers and your thumb, or hold the outsides of your feet.
• Keep your pelvis level, sit with a straight back.
• Firm your shoulderblades into your upper back, to help open your heart.
• You can stay in this pose anywhere between 1-5 minutes.
• To come out you lift your knees and straighten your legs again.

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

Hero Pose

Hero pose / Virasana

step by step

• You can fold a blanket to pad your ankles, knees or legs if needed.
• you can either sit on your heels, for some people that is no option. You might need padding under your ankles if the ankles are stiff, or place a pillow between the knees if the knees are stiff.
• Another way is to keep the knees together, bring the feet a little to the sides and sit between the feet. You could place a folded blanket underneath the buttocks, to raise the hips a little.
• Just sit and breathe, you can use this pose to meditate in or to do breathing exercises.
• In the pose keep the side body long, firm your shoulderblades into your back and keep your neck long.
• Build up the duration that you stay in this pose.

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

Locust pose - Salambhasana

Step by step:

• Lie on your stomach, arms by your side, palms facing your legs, your chin is on the floor, the part you can see when you look in the mirror.
• Fix your lower back on the floor by gently pressing your pubic bone into the floor, and by keeping your tailbone moving towards the pubic bone.
• Than exhale, pull your navel in towards the spine, inhale lift your head, chest and arms off the floor, firming your shoulderblades into your back, and so opening your heart. You can imagine someone someone holding your hands and pulling you back, to come up higher.
• In the first stage you can keep your legs on the floor. You could repeat this pose 3 times and the third time in the final pose, also raising your legs. You reach back through the balls of the feet, as much as reaching forward through the heart. Hold for about 40 seconds and build up from there.
• To come out on the exhalation release the body down.

Shoulderstand / Salamba Sarvangasana

step by step

Its called the queen of the yoga postures because of the many many benefits!

• Lie on your back with your upper back on a sturdy folded blanket, your head is resting on the mat. so the blanket ends in the hollow of the neck. Function of the blanket is to decrease the stretch in the back of the neck, and to keep the back of the neck from flattening too much.
• Legs are outstretched, or if your stomach muscles are a bit weak you can have your knees bend. arms are next to your body with the palms down.
• On an outbreath you push your lower back into the floor and on an in breath you lift your legs up, while you press your arms and palms in the floor. (more…)
  
  
  
  

Tree pose / Vrksasana

step by step

• From Mountain pose, shift your weight on to the left leg. Ground your left foot down into the floor, pull up your knee cap and thigh.
• Gaze at a point on eye level, to help you balance.
• Bend your right knee, reach down with your right hand and clasp your ankle.
• With help of the hand, place your right foot on the inside of the left leg, if its available to you on the inner thigh, with your heel up high. Lengthen your tailbone toward the floor
• If that is not available to you, place the inside of the foot on the inside of the ankle or calf, not on the inside of the knee though.
• Turn the knee out to the side, press your foot against the inner thigh, and the inner thigh back into the foot.
• Bring your hands in front of your heart in prayer position, or you can lift your arms up to the ceiling.
• With arms lifted, lift from the back body.
• Stay in this pose for about 30 sec or 1 min.
• On an outbreath lower the leg and arms down and stand in Tadasana, repeat on the other side.

click on Vrksasana to learn about the benefits of this pose.

Adho mukha svanasana / Downward facing dog pose

Benefits:

• Strengthens the upper body, arms, shoulders, chest and legs.
• Stretches chest, shoulders.
• Stretches the whole back of the body,  ankles, calves, hamstrings, spine.
• Calms the mind.
• Overall energizes the body.
• Improves digestion.
• Relieves fatigue, backpain, headaches.

Click on Downward facing dog to learn how to perform this pose step by step.

Sirsasana / Headstand

Benefits:

Sirsasana is also called the king of the yoga poses. Its called that because of the many benefits this pose can bring you.

• Draws fresh blood into the upper body while stimulating drainage and circulation to the legs.
• When properly practiced it effectively counters upper back and neck problems.
• It quiets the mind and so prepares you for meditation.
• It strengthens the arms, legs and back.
• It strengthens the core.
• It heats up the upper back, so you can do headstand as a preparation for back bends.
• Relieves mild depression.

click on Headstand to find out how to perform this pose.

Wide Legged Forward Bend / Prasarita Padottanasana

Step by step:

• From Tadasana, step the feet wide apart, about your legs length. Your feet are parallel to each other. Lift inner arches, by drawing inner ankles up, firm outer edge of feet and big toes into floor. Engage your thighs by drawing them up. Place your hands on your hips.
• Inhale lengthen the front of the body, exhale fold forward from the hips, keeping the back straight and the chest open, and keeping the hips over the heels, don’t let the hips move back in the space behind you. Go half way down with a straight back and place your hands underneath your shoulders onto the floor, keeping your arms straight. Maintain the length along the front of the body, neck long and gaze in front of you without compressing the back of the neck. Take a few breaths here.
• If you feel you can still go further with a straight back, on the next exhale you can walk the hands back, as you fold deeper from the hips, keeping your hands underneath your elbows, elbows point to the back, with the forearms perpendicular to the floor and the upper arms parallel to the floor.
• In the full forward bend you release the head down, and with a long neck, you can place the crown of the head on the floor.
• Stay in this pose anywhere between 5 and 10 breaths.
• Important is to keep the back straight, concaved a little perhaps, and the front of the body long and open. So if you feel at any time you start rounding the back to go further down, go back a little to the point where you can do this with a straight back. Integrity and respect for your body’s boundaries are more important than how far you come into the pose. Be careful not to overstretch your hamstrings.
• To come out of this pose, inhale and walk your hands forward to position them under the shoulders again with straight arms and back.
• exhale placing the hands on your hips, Inhale to come back up straight as you press into your feet.
• Come back into Mountain Pose.

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